Podcasts about chro

Dean Carter (Best-Selling Author, 4x CHRO, & CEO of Instill)  joined us on The Modern People Leader. We talked about the career pivots that shaped his life, what Patagonia taught him about purpose and play, and why trusting your gut, taking big swings, and doing the right thing can lead you somewhere better than the plan you originally had.----  Sponsor Links:

The fastest way to learn AI may be to stop learning about it and start building with it.In the most recent HR Leaders Podcast episode, I had an inspiring conversation with Simon Brown Global Learning & Development Leader, Partner, Talent at EY.He explains why organisations need to move beyond simply teaching people what AI is and create learning experiences that help employees build confidence by using AI in the context of their actual work.By combining protected learning time, hands-on agent building, responsible AI principles and a stronger focus on human judgement, EY is exploring what it takes to build AI capability at scale while keeping learning relevant as the technology continues to evolve.5 things you'll learn from this episode:How EY is moving employees from learning about AI to actually building with itThe capability Simon believes people need before they can delegate meaningful work to AI agentsWhy making AI learning part of everyday work can change how quickly new skills are adoptedThe reason stronger AI tools may actually make human expertise and judgement more valuableHow learning leaders may need to redesign their approach when AI capabilities change faster than traditional training cycles

Retention sits near the top of almost every HR priority list. The main tool most organizations use to understand it is a conversation with someone who has already quit. Jim Link is the Chief Human Resources Officer at SHRM, the largest HR professional association in the world with more than 340,000 members. Before SHRM, he spent three decades in HR at GE, Porsche, and Randstad, where he held full HR accountability for a $5.2 billion business with up to 100,000 employees. In this episode, he covers: • Why the reasons your best performers stay are usually a different list from the reasons other people leave, and what that does to a retention plan built on exit data • How a written performance review becomes a static record that can work against the organization later, especially when the rating feeds a compensation formula • What SHRM's 2026 State of the Workplace report found about employee experience, including a 91% to 44% split in reported job satisfaction Timestamps [00:01:17] Turning the exit interview into a stay interview, and asking the people you want to keep what's keeping them there [00:01:38] Why leaders wrongly assume stay interviews will produce the mirror image of exit interview answers [00:02:22] Knowing one personal fact about every person on your team, and why that single connection changes how you manage [00:03:39] Separating performance ratings from compensation, and what happens when a 2.3 out of 5 turns into a .06% raise [00:05:39] How an overly glowing written review becomes a bad fact if the employee later exits under performance or restructuring [00:07:32] Employees and employers both know today's skills won't carry forward five years, which makes the gap solvable [00:09:10] The risk of cutting headcount before anyone in the organization understands what AI can actually do [00:12:02] What separates organizations moving the needle on manager development from the ones running the same programs every year [00:13:48] SHRM research showing 91% job satisfaction where workplace needs get addressed, against 44% where they don't [00:15:29] Treating stress and burnout as an organizational liability a CHRO is expected to manage Guest Bio Jim Link is the Chief Human Resources Officer for SHRM. With more than 340,000 members around the world, SHRM is the largest HR professional association in the world and the leading voice for matters related to workers and the workplace. Prior to joining SHRM, Link's career included roles of increasing responsibility across a variety of industries and companies including General Electric, the Pillsbury Company, Porsche Cars, and Randstad. While at Randstad North America, he led a global team of 150 HR professionals who were instrumental in transforming the company into an award-winning, inclusive, and sustainable global leader. Link consistently demonstrates dynamic and visionary thought leadership with a variety of presentations focusing on the interconnection between effective human capital management and business results. Brought to You by Paylocity Paylocity is the fastest growing unified platform for HR, Finance, and IT. Paylocity brings your people, processes, and data together in one place so HR leaders can spend less time managing systems and more time doing the work that actually moves their organizations forward. Learn more at paylocity.com Keywords: stay interviews, exit interviews, employee retention, performance management, continuous feedback, compensation strategy, internal mobility, upskilling, AI in the workplace, critical thinking skills, manager development, middle managers, employee experience, State of the Workplace, burnout, workplace stress, SHRM, CHRO, HR leadership, talent strategy

Conversations that Keep Family Businesses StrongFamily businesses face a challenge that other companies don't: business disagreements can quickly become family conflicts - and family conflicts can threaten the business.Succession, sibling rivalry, different visions for the company's future, unclear roles and power imbalances can create friction. Sometimes the conflict is obvious. Other times, family members avoid difficult conversations until resentment has been building for years.So how can family businesses resolve disagreements without damaging either the company or their relationships?In this episode of A Seat at the Table, host Jane Singer speaks with Michael Kern, former CHRO and conflict and culture consultant, about practical ways family-owned businesses can prevent and resolve conflict.Michael explains why the best time to address family business conflict is before there's a crisis—and how open conversations about individual goals, roles and expectations can prevent misunderstandings from becoming major disputes.Why Conflict Develops in Family BusinessesEvery family business is different, but many conflicts begin when family members have different interests that haven't been openly discussed.One person may expect to eventually run the company. Another may want to leave. Someone else may want greater influence without becoming CEO.The problem is that families frequently make assumptions about what other family members want.Michael recommends starting these conversations early and revisiting them regularly because people's goals change.Important questions include:Where does each person see the business going? What role does each family member want? What does success look like for them personally?Getting those expectations into the open can expose differences while they're still manageable.How Do You Resolve Family Business Conflict?When conflict has already developed, Michael uses principles from mediation.The first step isn't deciding who's right.It's understanding what each person actually wants.That requires listening without immediately making judgments. Family members often create their own stories about why another person behaves a certain way. Those assumptions can become barriers to resolving the real problem.Michael recommends reflective listening - demonstrating that you understand what another person's position means to them - and asking questions with genuine curiosity.The objective is to move away from competing positions and uncover the interests underneath them.Someone saying “I want to be president” may actually be looking for respect, security, greater involvement in decisions or recognition of their contribution.Once those underlying interests are understood, families have more options for finding solutions.Give Everyone a VoicePower dynamics can make family business disagreements particularly difficult.Founders, senior family members or more aggressive personalities may dominate conversations. Quieter family members may accommodate them simply to preserve the relationship.That doesn't mean they agree.A neutral facilitator can create space for every family member to speak and ensure that nobody's interests disappear simply because someone else has a stronger personality or more organizational power.Michael also asks participants what they respect about each other.That can shift the conversation away from everything that's wrong and remind people that they usually share something fundamental: an interest in maintaining important relationships and, often, protecting the business.How Do You Make an Agreement Last?Getting everyone to agree in a meeting isn't enough.Michael recommends what he calls “navigating the future.”Before considering a conflict resolved, ask what could realistically derail the agreement six months or a year from now.What happens if circumstances change? What obstacles could emerge? Can everyone actually deliver what they've agreed to?The agreement should also be documented.Without a written understanding, two people can leave the same meeting believing they agreed to very different things.Regular check-ins are equally important. Family members' goals evolve, businesses change and outside circumstances can alter what is practical.A six-month review can determine whether the agreement still reflects everyone's expectations.The Best Strategy: Don't Wait for a CrisisPerhaps the most important lesson is prevention.Family businesses should discuss roles, expectations, succession and individual ambitions before disagreements become entrenched.Family members entering the company may also need clearer conversations about where they fit. Being part of the family doesn't automatically mean someone wants—or is ready—to eventually lead the company.The goal is to replace assumptions with conversations.Because when family members understand what everyone wants, they have a much better chance of protecting both the relationships and the business.In This Episode00:00 – Why family business conflicts become so complicated02:46 – Why difficult conversations need to start early06:00 – Common causes of family business conflict09:56 – How mediation can resolve serious disagreements12:37 – Reflective listening and removing judgment15:29 – Positions versus underlying interests17:46 – Using respect to rebuild common ground20:28 – How to make agreements last22:56 – “Navigating the future” and anticipating problems24:58 – Why regular follow-ups matter25:56 – Why family business agreements should be documented29:16 – Making sure quieter family members are heard30:53 – Managing power dynamics within the family33:11 – Why prevention is better than crisis intervention35:15 – Helping the next generation find the right roleAbout Michael KernMichael Kern is a former Chief Human Resources Officer and a conflict and culture consultant with experience working with family businesses, organizational culture and mediation. He helps organizations navigate difficult conversations, understand competing interests and build agreements designed to work in the real world.Website:  www.mediatormindset.comLinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelwkern/SEND US A MESSAGEStop starting over again each month. We'll work one-on-one build a tailor-made system you can repeat each quarter.  Marketing gets done - on easy mode.  Learn more about the Consistent Marketing System.Visit A Seat at The Table's website at https://seat.fm

Neste episódio de O Futuro Vem do Futuro, Leandro Costa conversa com Bruno Junqueira, da Petlove, sobre uma trajetória que começa numa cidade de doze mil habitantes no sul de Minas, passa pela publicidade, pelo Banco Real e por cinco anos de Natura, atravessa uma formação de três anos em psicanálise e chega à cadeira de CHRO de uma empresa brasileira de tecnologia com três mil colaboradores. É esse repertório misturado que explica a forma como ele está conduzindo a adoção de inteligência artificial na Petlove. A conversa organiza o debate porque não começa pela ferramenta. Começa pelo contexto. Bruno descreve o projeto Janus, batizado em homenagem ao deus romano das transições, que tem uma face olhando para trás e outra para a frente, e cuja primeira fase é o trabalho pouco glamouroso de mapear cem por cento dos processos, das etapas e das ferramentas da operação, inclusive aquilo que só existe de forma tácita na cabeça das pessoas. A partir daí vem a priorização, que escolhe deliberadamente o processo mais desgastado, e não o mais fácil, para que a iniciativa não seja a primeira a cair quando o orçamento aperta. O ângulo de liderança aparece quando Bruno explica por que a área de People assumiu essa frente antes da área de tecnologia, conta o episódio em que construiu sozinho, num fim de semana, uma aplicação que vinha pedindo ao time havia seis meses, e defende que o papel do líder migra de gestor de pessoas para orquestrador de geração de valor, num arranjo que passa a misturar agentes, processos e gente. No caminho, ele cunha uma expressão que dá o tom da conversa: desautomatizar o humano. Ao longo do episódio, você vai ouvir reflexões sobre:- A decisão de colocar a área de People à frente da agenda de inteligência artificial- O mapeamento de processos como pré-condição de qualquer ganho com agentes- O conhecimento tácito como limitador silencioso de contexto- A priorização por dor real em vez de projeto periférico- O comportamento do payback em investimentos de curva exponencial- A passagem do líder de gestor de pessoas a orquestrador de valor Um episódio para líderes de pessoas, tecnologia e transformação que precisam sair do discurso de adoção e chegar a um critério de decisão defensável.

In deze aflevering is Heleen Cocu-Wassink opnieuw te gast. Zij is CHRO bij Alliander en houdt zich al jaren bezig met organisatieontwikkeling, leiderschap en cultuurverandering. Waar we in de vorige aflevering spraken over verbinding en jezelf als leider inzetten, kijken we nu naar leiderschap in de praktijk. Wat doe je als dingen anders lopen dan verwacht? En hoe zorg je ervoor dat mensen verantwoordelijkheid nemen en blijven leren? Heleen vertelt over leidinggeven met een koel hoofd en een warm hart. We praten over nieuwsgierig blijven in plaats van direct oordelen en over leren van situaties die anders lopen dan gepland. Ook bespreken we ‘lerend presteren': samen onderzoeken wat er gebeurde, duidelijke afspraken maken en de leerlus afmaken. Daarbij gaat het ook over verantwoordelijkheid nemen, hulp durven vragen en elkaar aanspreken. Veel luisterplezier!

What if the future of executive leadership is less about specialisation and more about range?For years, senior leaders have been encouraged to go deeper into a single function.But in this episode of the HR Leaders Podcast, I sit down with Joshua Horenstein, Senior Vice President, Administrative Office & Corporate Secretary at Innophos, to explore a different model: the dual executive.Joshua started his career as a lawyer before moving into a broader cross-functional leadership role spanning legal, HR, facilities, regulatory and other operational responsibilities. He argues that this breadth has made him a stronger executive because it forces leaders to understand the business beyond their original area of expertise.And as AI makes specialist knowledge easier to access, that ability to operate across functions may become even more valuable.5 things you'll learn from this episode:Why Joshua believes the traditional single-function executive model may be starting to break down, and what could replace itThe career move that took Joshua from law into HR and broader business leadership, and what it taught him about stepping outside your expertiseWhy AI could make it easier for executives to lead functions they were never formally trained in, and what still cannot be outsourced to technologyThe three leadership qualities Joshua believes will become far more important as AI changes how executives workHow taking responsibility for multiple functions can actually strengthen succession planning rather than create a leadership risk

The CHRO's real test isn't getting a seat at the table, it's whether the CEO would make the decision without them.In this special episode, Lewis Brown, Jr. - MA and Josh Klein of From Here Collective join Rich Jennings, Executive Advisor to Comcast, to explore what it means for the CHRO to become the CEO's trusted consigliere.Using The Godfather as an intentionally provocative analogy, they unpack the skills, behaviours and experiences that make an HR leader genuinely valuable at the highest level. From business fluency and fearlessness to asking better questions, building trust across the organisation and knowing how to influence decisions without needing to dominate the room, the conversation challenges the traditional boundaries of the CHRO role.For HR leaders, the biggest question is not whether you have a seat at the table. It is whether you are inside the decision-making circle before the decision is made. The episode offers a practical way to assess whether HR is operating as a functional expert, a business partner, or the strategic adviser the CEO cannot afford to make decisions without.5 things you'll learn from this episode:The surprising reason CHROs may have more strategic access than almost any other executive, but still struggle to turn it into influenceThe characteristics that can move an HR leader from trusted functional expert to indispensable strategic adviserWhy the strongest CHROs are increasingly expected to understand far more than HR, and what that changes about the roleThe tension HR leaders must learn to hold when the CEO, the workforce and the wider business do not all want the same thingThe question that can reveal whether you are truly inside the CEO's decision-making circle, or simply being informed after the fact

O mercado exige velocidade: metodologias ágeis, Inteligência Artificial e novos formatos de trabalho entram na rotina das empresas da noite para o dia. Mas como injetar inovação em um negócio sem destruir os valores e a cultura que o tornaram bem-sucedido?Neste episódio do Mereo Talks, Alejandra Nadruz, CHRO da Starian, compartilha sua bagagem de mais de 20 anos liderando transformações organizacionais. Em um papo pragmático e sem romantizações, ela discute o papel da liderança como guardiã da cultura, os limites entre digitalizar e desumanizar os processos de RH e como o uso estratégico de dados ajuda a desenhar o futuro do trabalho sem abrir mão do legado da marca.

In deze aflevering is Heleen Cocu-Wassink te gast. Zij is CHRO bij Alliander en houdt zich al jaren bezig met organisatieontwikkeling, leiderschap en cultuurverandering. In haar werk staat de menselijke kant van organiseren centraal: hoe zorg je ervoor dat mensen hun talenten kunnen inzetten, verantwoordelijkheid durven nemen en zich kunnen ontwikkelen? Tegen de achtergrond van de energietransitie praten we over wat dit vraagt van leiders en organisaties. Heleen vertelt hoe haar eigen ervaringen haar kijk op leiderschap hebben gevormd. Voor haar begint leiderschap bij de gedachte: ‘ik ben oké en jij bent oké'. We praten over aandacht hebben voor de ander, talenten herkennen en aanwezig zijn zonder direct te oordelen. Ook bespreken we hoe je jezelf als leider kunt inzetten om beweging te creëren. Want welk effect heeft jouw gedrag op anderen? En wat kun je zelf anders doen? Tot slot kijken we naar wat leiders vandaag nodig hebben om onder druk verbinding te houden, besluiten te nemen en hun vak goed uit te oefenen. Veel luisterplezier!

AI is moving faster than most organisations can redesign themselves, so how do you stop transformation becoming a series of disconnected technology fixes?Every leader says they want a high-performing team. But what happens when poor performance, missed standards and a lack of ownership are tolerated for too long?In the most recent HR Leaders Podcast episode, I had a fascinating conversation with Paul D. Brubaker, Vice President Human Resources at KARL STORZ North America.Paul shares what decades of leadership have taught him about building teams around trust, accountability and continuous improvement. From knowing when coaching is no longer enough to preparing HR teams for AI-driven change, he explains why great cultures are shaped by the behaviours leaders consistently reward, challenge and refuse to tolerate.5 things you'll learn from this episode:The overlooked “trust dividend” that can remove unnecessary checking, duplication and friction from your teamThe warning sign that tells leaders they may have held onto an underperformer for too longWhy the standards you quietly tolerate can become the culture your entire team starts to acceptThe AI opportunity Paul believes could remove huge amounts of transactional HR work, and the barrier still slowing many organisations downWhy staying relevant in HR will increasingly depend on your ability to learn, adapt and build new capabilities faster than your role changes

In this episode of the IDEAS+LEADERS Podcast, I'm joined by Kristine Frost, former CHRO, founder, board director, and attorney by training, with 25 years of leadership experience across the automotive and industrial sectors.Having spent much of her career as one of the only women in the room, Kristine learned how communication, credibility, and influence really operate in demanding environments - from the plant floor to the C-suite. We explore what decades of navigating difficult conversations taught her about leadership, why high performance doesn't automatically translate into influence, and why one of her biggest communication challenges has been learning to talk about her own achievements.In this episode, we discuss:What 25 years of high-stakes leadership taught Kristine about difficult conversationsHow to communicate when what leaders say and what employees hear are very differentHow being one of the only women in the room shaped her communication styleHow to advocate for yourself without feeling that you are braggingTune in for a thought-provoking conversation about leadership, communication, influence, visibility, and finding the confidence to own the value you bring.You can connect with Kristine here:LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/kfroesqWebsite: https://shatteredglassadvisory.com/Email: kristine@shatteredglassadvisory.com Thank you for joining me on this episode of IDEAS+LEADERS. If you enjoyed this episode, please share, subscribe and review so that more people can enjoy the podcast on Apple https://apple.co/3fKv9IH or Spotify https://sptfy.com/Nrtq.

In this episode, host David Turetsky speaks with Denise Triba, CHRO at Ingenovis Health, about how her HR team is using workflow mapping, ticketing data, and AI to improve service for clinicians and internal teams. The conversation centers on a practical, human-in-the-loop approach to AI, with Freddie, their internal AI tool, trained to handle repetitive HR questions faster and more accurately. We discuss how a workforce solutions company thinks beyond recruiting, why understanding the work before applying technology matters, and how better HR operations can improve clinician experience, response speed, and career development.  Key topics  David introduces Denise Triba, CHRO at Ingenovis Health, and frames the episode around operational data and AI in HR.  Denise explains that Ingenovis Health is a workforce solutions company supporting healthcare providers and life sciences organizations with the right workforce mix.  The discussion distinguishes Ingenovis from a traditional recruiting function, emphasizing a consultative model that optimizes client workforce needs.  Denise shares how the pandemic increased healthcare organizations' need for more precise staffing and stronger workforce partners.  The HR team started with workflow mapping to understand exactly how work was being done before adding technology.  A ticketing system was introduced to validate assumptions and quantify the most common HR requests.  The team identified high-volume issues such as benefits enrollment and leave requests, then began training Freddie to handle those questions.  Denise describes Freddie as an internal AI tool still in beta, used between HR and IT before external release.  The conversation covers human review, validation, and hallucination prevention, with subject matter experts writing and checking training articles.  Denise explains that AI is helping reduce repetitive work, improve first-response accuracy, and free HR coordinators for more valuable work and career growth.  The episode closes with advice for HR teams: start with the process and the people doing the work, then apply technology to enhance it.  Timestamps  00:00 - Opening and introduction to the episode 00:32 - David introduces Denise Triba and Ingenovis Health 01:01 - What Ingenovis Health does as a workforce solutions company 01:47 - The kinds of healthcare roles Ingenovis supports 02:38 - Denise's background and early interest in medicine 03:48 - Why the episode focuses on operational data and AI in HR 04:24 - Employee and clinician experience as a top priority 05:21 - Why Ingenovis is more than a recruiting team 06:33 - The mix of W-2 employees and 1099 contractors 07:34 - Why facilities choose workforce solutions over direct hiring 08:33 - How healthcare organizations changed after the pandemic 09:04 - Starting with workflow mapping before introducing AI 10:03 - Using ticketing data to validate top HR call categories 10:29 - Tracking 3,000 calls and training Freddie with real data 11:33 - How workflow data shows friction and points to automation 12:10 - Faster, more accurate information for clinicians and HR coordinators 12:55 - Benefits enrollment as the most common question 13:22 - Other repeat requests like leave support 14:34 - Writing articles to train Freddie on core answers 15:04 - Subject matter experts validating Freddie's responses 15:48 - Avoiding misinformation and limiting scope during early rollout 16:34 - How Freddie is used internally in beta 17:22 - Better capture rates and fewer repeat follow-up emails 18:44 - Extending clinician satisfaction through better service 20:15 - When Freddie needs human support and escalation 20:40 - Employment verification as an example of a hybrid workflow 21:43 - Using AI across client-facing and sales-side operations 22:59 - What surprised the team most about implementing AI 23:56 - How the project is expanding into other HR workflows 24:27 - Addressing fears that AI would take jobs away 26:05 - Cost considerations and working within budget 27:21 - The value of strong HR and IT partnership 28:37 - Advice for HR teams considering AI adoption 29:28 - Closing reflections on the scientific, process-first approach 29:54 - Looking ahead to future updates on Freddie and beyond  Notable quotes  “You really need to understand the what before you start to apply the how.”  “If you have to teach someone, you learn it.”  “This isn't about a workforce change internally. This is about how do we get better."

Send us Fan MailA people performance partner who is passionate about effective HR teams – that's our guest today, the best-selling author, Tom Emery in his own words. Founder and CEO of HEX, and a strategic partner to CEOs, CPOs, and other c-suite leaders, Tom is the Amazon bestselling author of ‘People People: Reach Your Full Potential as a CHRO', which has been shortlisted for the 2026 Business Book Awards. Having spent several years on the C-suite as a Chief People Officer in both UK PLC and a PE backed businesses, Tom brings in a detailed knowledge of what it looks like when executive teams are firing on all cylinders, and when they're not. He brings these insights to his work today, partnering with CEOs to build, align, and strengthen the leadership teams and wider organisations around them. He helps CEOs make sense of their roles, have the conversations that others avoid, and close the gap between how they behave and what their businesses actually need from them. Hit play for the lowdown on his journey.  [4:38s] Tom's origin story – journey into HR [08:28s] Top evolutionary shifts in HR [16:51s] On his book ‘People People', the ‘four-leaf clover' framework for CHROs and more[26:41s] Content versus context, AI versus NI (natural intelligence) [34:44s] Top challenges HR leaders facing today [46:35s] RWL READ: ‘Atomic Habits'by James Clear; books by Adam Grant; ‘Dare to Lead' by Brené Brown; ‘Luck Factor' by Dr. Richard Wiseman    More on Tom's work at www.hex-development.com Connect with Tom on LinkedInConnect with Vinay on LinkedIn What did you think about this episode? What would you like to hear more about? Or simply, write in and say hello! podcast@c2cod.comSubscribe to us on your favorite platforms – Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Tune In Alexa, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn + Alexa, Stitcher, Jio Saavn and more.  This podcast is sponsored by C2C-OD, your Organizational Development consulting partner ‘Bringing People and Strategy Together'. Follow @c2cod on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook 

September 2, 2026: I share key lessons from my CHRO session with iFood CEO Diego Barreto, including why he is investing in AI even with negative ROI, how he built a digital twin, and how iFood is rethinking reviews, meetings, and change management. Then I get into the Wall Street Journal's report on employers using new interview rituals to fight AI-enabled candidate fraud. Finally, I unpack Uber cutting 10% of its workforce and why the real story may be work redesign, bureaucracy, and coordination, not AI replacing jobs.

AI is moving faster than most organisations can redesign themselves, so how do you stop transformation becoming a series of disconnected technology fixes?In the most recent HR Leaders Podcast episode, I had an insightful conversation with Judith Wiese, Chief People and Sustainability Officer (CPSO) of Siemens AG.She explains how Siemens is rethinking its operating model, skills infrastructure and approach to AI as it becomes a more connected technology company. From simplifying the foundations underneath HR to embedding learning into everyday work, Judith shares how Siemens is preparing its people and organisation for a world where transformation never really stops.5 things you'll learn from this episode:The three-part AI model Siemens uses to separate everyday adoption from the much harder challenge of redesigning business processesWhy one of the biggest barriers to scaling AI has nothing to do with the technology itselfThe unglamorous HR foundations Siemens believes need to be in place before personalised learning and skills strategies can really workHow Siemens is using skills data to uncover far more internal career opportunities than traditional CV matching could revealWhy Judith believes the ability to keep learning may become more valuable than much of the knowledge employees already have today

Not sure what you should be doing with your life? Are you where you're supposed to be? Have you hit a career speedbump and not sure what's next? In this episode, executive coach and former CHRO and military pilot Jim Reid is in The Legal Department to help you chart your next move. Jim contributed to Jim Collins new bestselling book, "What to Make of a Life." He advises that to move forward past a career cliff, we should get clear about what we are "genetically encoded to do." By anchoring to what's important to you and what you deeply enjoy, you can have the life (and career) you really want.

HR has been told for years to “speak the language of the business,” usually as code for proving it deserves to be in the room. But Dr. Shindale Seale makes a stronger case: this isn't about self-defense. It's about leadership. If disengagement, poor management, weak culture, and badly handled transformation all carry measurable financial costs, HR needs to connect the human consequences to the numbers executives use to make decisions.In this episode, host David Rice and Dr. Seale unpack the “disengagement tax,” why engagement metrics without business impact can become little more than dashboard theater, and what it actually means for HR to become bilingual. They also explore the impossible job organizations have created for managers, why AI tends to amplify the culture it lands in, and whether the CHRO role is big enough for the human side of the transformation ahead.Related Links:Join the People Managing People CommunitySubscribe to the newsletter to get our latest articles and podcastsConnect with Dr. Shindale on LinkedInCheck out SEADE Coaching & ConsultingSupport the show

For a lot of people, work feels especially chaotic right now.. Projects start and don't finish. Layoffs happen, then reorgs, then new strategies, and through all of it, managers are expected to have the answers. Caroline Webb spent 25 years coaching leaders through exactly this kind of turbulence. She's a behavioral scientist, a former economist and the author of the new book Leadership Intelligence: Science-Backed Strategies for Mastering 21 Everyday Management Challenges. This week she joins Jessi to talk about what the science of the human brain tells us about leading through uncertainty. In this episode, Jessi and Caroline discuss: Why the current moment hits a stress trifecta — demanding, uncontrollable and unpleasant — and what that does to your team's brains The "know-be-do" framework: how to lead people through uncertainty when facts are in short supply Why naming how you feel is one of the most powerful things a leader can do and what affect labeling actually does in the brain What "measured authenticity" means, and why "terrified" is not a word you want your manager to use How to be honest with your team when you know more than you can say Why letting projects die quietly is one of the most demoralizing things a manager can do, and what to do instead What Astro (Google X's moonshot factory) does when it kills a project, and why it works The "when-then" method for taking the sting out of worst-case scenarios before they happen "Compassionate clarity": what it means in practice when layoff season arrives Why walking people out of the building immediately is almost never necessary and what a seasoned CHRO said about it Follow Caroline Webb and Jessi Hempel on LinkedIn Join us for Hello Monday Office Hours, Wednesday at 3pm EST Listen to Caroline's previous Hello Monday episode on how to have a good day at a bad job

This week we talk to Suzanne from Galway about her baby's diagnosis of T21 and high drops. Suzanne had to have additional scans during her pregnancy because medical professionals ‘hoped' her baby would die naturally, to prevent her from travelling to England for a termination for medical reasons. This was not the case & the day before she was due to fly, the hospital cancelled her appointment because a lift was broken and then, when she arrived in Liverpool, she was told that they didn't have a surgeon and would need to be transferred to Middlesborough. All this while trying to navigate the devastation of knowing that she wouldn't be bringing home her baby. During the transfer, she was asked to take a box with her and later discovered that inside the box were the instruments that were needed to carry out her termination. This is a devastating story and a clear demonstration of the pain caused by current abortion laws. Taboo exists, and Suzanne highlights this bravely and articulately. During the episode we speak about a support group that Suzanne has found huge comfort in, "Let Me Choose" or Leanbh mo Chroí - they can be found at https://lmcsupport.ie/aboutWe are The Worst Girl Gang Ever Foundation. We're all about bringing people together who are going through the tough stuff — baby loss, infertility, and everything in between — and making sure no one has to face it alone. Our community is full of honesty, compassion, and real talk, offering support, understanding, and hope when it's needed most. You can find out more and connect with us over at www.theworstgirlgangever.co.uk

TALK WITH A COACH How can I go from junior military officer to the C-suite? In interviews, JMOs often get asked where they see themselves in ten or twenty years. The honest answer, the one most people keep to themselves, is often: running the place. Matt Beliveau actually did it. He got there by learning a new function from the ground up, staying long enough to build real depth, and understanding the difference between a mentor and a sponsor. Twenty-five years ago, Matt left the Army and started as an Associate Human Resources Manager at General Mills. Not a VP. Not on a fast track. Learning a brand new function from the ground up. He stayed at General Mills for 13 years. Then came CHRO roles at Morton Salt, Sara Lee Frozen Bakery, and Del Monte Foods. Today he is Chief Human Resources Officer at TreeHouse Foods. We’re bringing this conversation back because the lessons in it held up. What makes the JMO transition so hard? Matt is direct about this. It isn’t just finding a job in the right city with a good paycheck. Three things change at the same time. Your identity shifts from military officer to civilian. You learn an entirely new functional role. And you have to read a company culture nobody hands you a manual for. That’s a lot to carry in year one. How did he reach the C-suite? He managed his career on purpose. He found mentors. He also found sponsors, which is a different thing, and he explains why the difference matters more than most people realize. Matt talks about leading through the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021. He compared it to being on deployment. Success came down to staying agile, caring about people, and following through on commitments. Things good JMOs already know how to do. He also predicted, back then, that work was headed toward more flexibility and hybrid schedules for office roles. Five years later, he called it. Then Matt shares his leadership lessons, some of the best we’ve had on the show. Those are worth hearing in his own words. More from this episode: – Matt’s LinkedIn post on his first 20 years in Corporate America (worth three minutes of your time) – What makes Cameron-Brooks different from other transition options This episode was recorded while Matt was CHRO at Sara Lee Frozen Bakery. He has since led HR at Del Monte Foods and is now CHRO at TreeHouse Foods. At Cameron-Brooks, we help junior military officers transition from the military into rewarding business careers. Want to explore your options? See what career fields our candidates move into. Curious about your marketability? Let’s talk.  

Host Jaime Klein sits down with Lorna Hagen, CHRO of Revecore, to unpack how AI is changing everything from planning and brainstorming to coaching and employee communication. They explore what's working, what requires a human touch, and how leaders can navigate AI-driven change without losing clarity or connection.

The gap between claiming to be strategic and actually operating strategically has real consequences, and nowhere are they clearer than at the top of HR. CHRO turnover is unusually high at the moment, and it also spikes sharply in the first year under a new CEO. A change at the top usually brings a new thesis about what the business needs, and what the CEO needs from HR shifts with it. Many CHROs find themselves running a system built for the previous mandate, and by the time the gap becomes visible, trust has already eroded. The problem is structural rather than personal, which means it can be fixed. So what separates the HR leaders who thrive in the role from those who don't? My guest this week is Jackson O. Lynch, founder of Talent Sherpa and a former CHRO who works with CEOs, CHROs, and boards on connecting talent systems to business strategy. In our conversation, Jackson shares why mandate misalignment drives so much churn at the top of HR, what operating at the top level means in practice, and why AI is making the redesign of work urgent. In the interview, we discuss: Why is CHRO turnover so high? Mandate misalignment and the conversation that rarely happens What does strategic HR look like in practice? Systems for transformation versus systems for stability Looking at business strategy through the talent lens Business logic versus compliance logic in the C-suite The trust issue Why AI is forcing a rethink of how work is designed Can HR take this opportunity for reinvention, and what does the future look like? https://www.linkedin.com/in/jxnlynch/ Follow this podcast on Apple Podcasts. Follow this podcast on Spotify.

What if AI isn't replacing jobs, but quietly redesigning the tasks inside them?In the most recent HR Leaders Podcast episode, I had an important conversation with Sultan Murad Saidov, Former CEO / Founder and Investor at Beamery. He explains why task intelligence could become critical to workforce planning, how AI is changing the work inside existing roles, and why deciding what gets automated should become an HR question, not just a technology question.Drawing on more than a decade of building Beamery and working at the intersection of AI, skills and workforce data, Sultan explains why skills alone are no longer enough to understand where work is heading.5 things you'll learn from this episode:Why looking at tasks instead of job titles changes how leaders understand AI's impact on workThe research Sultan references suggesting 75% of jobs may need redesign because of AI augmentationHow digital twin teams could help leaders model workforce decisions before making themWhy reducing junior roles may create a long-term talent and career pipeline problemWhy Sultan believes HR and technology teams should jointly lead the redesign of work

A company's true value isn't locked in a spreadsheet; it is built or destroyed at the intersection of strategy, leadership, and execution. On this episode of Behind the Numbers, host Dave Bookbinder sits down with Jay Weiser, founder of Jay Weiser Consulting, to unpack what it truly means to build a future fit organization. Together, they examine how hidden structural drag and subtle misalignments between strategy, organizational capability, and operations quietly erode enterprise worth long before the damage hits the balance sheet. Jay shares actionable insights for navigating market disruption, detailing his Five Leadership Superpowers framework: present futurist, experienced learner, accountable collaborator, prepared risk-taker, and strategic executor. He highlights why human capital must be treated as a core business driver, emphasizing the strategic alignment needed between the Board, CEO, and CHRO, while offering private equity investors tools to stress-test assumptions in a non-linear world. Listeners walk away with practical strategies to sense market signals early, make faster decisions under uncertainty, and eliminate executive friction. Jay also outlines three diagnostic questions leaders can use immediately to uncover hidden capability gaps, align team execution with long-term strategy, and safeguard enterprise value. Equip your leadership team with the vision and execution capabilities required to build an organization that thrives through disruption. About Our Guest: Jay R. Weiser is the Chief Catalyst & Navigator of Jay Weiser Consulting and a strategy and leadership advisor with more than 30 years of experience guiding and enabling boards and executive teams improve performance, navigate uncertainty and translate strategic potential into realized enterprise value. His work focuses on what lies behind business results: the capabilities and organizational conditions through which governance, leadership, culture and the external environment strengthen - or erode - adaptability, performance and long-term value. A LinkedIn Top Voice, Jay has advised organizations across multiple industries from financial services to luxury retail and life sciences ranging. They have ranged from Global Fortune 500 to PE-backed companies and midsize family-owned businesses. His articles and insights have appeared in Chief Learning Officer, Corporate Board Member, Reworked, The National CIO Review and CIGRE's Electra. He has spoken to international business, governance, and leadership audiences through organizations including the Good Governance Academy, the Private Directors Association, and the Virtual Advisory Board as well as industry and functional conferences. Jay holds a degree from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Emory University's Goizueta Business School. Jay is the creator of the Multiplicative Value Model™ and The Five Leadership Superpowers®. His current work examines why organizations with strong strategies, talented people and substantial resources still fail to convert their potential into realized enterprise value—and what capabilities make an organization genuinely future-ready. Connect with Jay at https://linkedin.com/in/jayrweiser. Email him at jay@jayweiser.com Learn more about Jay Weiser Consulting at https://www.jayweiser.com. About the Host: Dave Bookbinder is known as a trusted provider for independent business valuations, corporate asset appraisals, and exit planning advisory and he is the person that business owners and their advisors reach out to when they need to know what their most important assets are worth. Known as a collaborative adviser, Dave has served thousands of client companies of all sizes and industries.  Dave is the author of two #1 best-selling books about the impact of human capital (PEOPLE!) on the valuation of a business enterprise called The NEW ROI: Return On Individuals & The NEW ROI: Going Behind The Numbers.  He's on a mission to change the conversation about how the accounting world recognizes the value of people's contributions to a business enterprise, and to quantify what every CEO on the planet claims: “Our people are this company's most valuable asset.” Dave's book, A Valuation Toolbox for Business Owners and Their Advisors: Things Every Business Owner Should Know, was recognized as a top new release in Business and Valuation and is designed to provide practical insights and tools to help understand what really drives business value, how to prepare for an exit, and just make better decisions. He's also the host of the highly rated Behind The Numbers With Dave Bookbinder business podcast which is enjoyed in more than 100 countries.  

Katy Redmond, MCR is Senior Managing Director, Integrated Portfolio Services (IPS) Lead, Americas East at JLL where she is passionate about corporate real estate, innovation and leadership while also serving as a Global Board Member at CoreNet. Mike Petrusky welcomes Katy back to the show to hear her latest insights and perspectives on FM, CRE and expectations for upcoming industry events like the CoreNet Global Summit and IFMA's World Workplace. Katy says that speed and efficiency are now critical demands in the real estate industry, with clients seeking faster execution, streamlined processes, and better uses of technology. So, she and Mike explore how AI and worktech tools are reshaping CRE, offering new insights into decision-making and efficiency while also requiring careful governance and strategic implementation. Katy predicts that the industry is experiencing an elevation of the real estate function, with greater organizational visibility and potential pathways to C-suite roles such as CFO, COO, or CHRO and she encourages mentorship and exposure to diverse experiences for developing well-rounded future leaders. Tune in as Mike and Katy offer practical advice and the inspiration you will need to be a Workplace Innovator in your organization! Connect with Katy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katy-redmond-mcr-045a302/ Learn more about JLL: https://www.jll.com/en-us/ Find out about CoreNet Global North America Summit: https://www.corenetglobal.org/attend-summits-events/2026-corenet-global---north-america-summit Watch the podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSkmmkVFvM4H3pwnlU2AuqynuRDpvnh4J Discover free resources and explore past interviews at: https://eptura.com/discover-more/podcasts/workplace-innovator/ Learn more about Eptura™: https://eptura.com/ Connect with Mike on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikepetrusky/  

For decades, the standard HR playbook has been attract, retain, develop. Jason Desentz thinks the order is wrong.As Chief Human Resources Officer of Toshiba America, Desentz starts with the people already inside the business. In technical fields where experienced employees can take a year or more to train, retention is not simply an HR metric. It affects how quickly a company can grow, respond to new demand and capitalize on emerging markets. That equation is becoming even more important as AI infrastructure drives investment in energy and advanced technology while manufacturers compete for a limited pool of skilled technical talent. Desentz brings an unusually business-first perspective to HR. He evaluates people decisions against ROI, challenges his team to experiment with AI, and argues that HR leaders need to understand the technology, operations and economics of the companies they serve. At the same time, his approach is deeply human: listen to employees, get creative about the employee experience, invest in development and give people opportunities to try something new. From rebuilding pathways into manufacturing to preparing 6,000 Toshiba employees across the Americas for AI, this conversation explores what changes when people strategy becomes business strategy. In this episode:Why the return of U.S. manufacturing is colliding with a technical talent pipeline weakened by decades of offshoringHow AI-driven data centers are creating new workforce demand across energy, infrastructure and field serviceWhy Desentz puts retention before attraction when thinking about talent strategyHow Toshiba evaluates the ROI of retaining highly specialized employees who can take more than a year to trainWhy CHROs need to understand the CEO, operations, technology and business economics, not just HRHow high-school co-ops, technical education and experiential learning can rebuild pathways into manufacturing careers3 Big Takeaways1. Your workforce strategy is part of your growth strategy. Toshiba sees significant opportunity as AI and data-center investment drives demand for energy generation, storage and infrastructure. But capturing that opportunity requires having specialized technical talent available when demand arrives. For a CHRO, workforce capacity becomes a strategic constraint that has to be planned alongside growth.2. Calculate the business value of retaining technical expertise. Some Toshiba field-service employees require more than a year of training to service complex equipment. Desentz estimates losing one could cost roughly $100,000, before accounting for the time required to rebuild that expertise. That changes the economics of retention: spending creatively to improve an employee's experience can be far less expensive than replacing specialized capability.3. Build AI capability by giving employees real problems to solve. Toshiba launched a six-course AI-readiness curriculum through Toshiba University, but Desentz didn't stop at instruction. His HR organization formed teams to build AI agents around actual business needs, including payroll, attendance and recruiting. Employees learned the technology by applying it, while Toshiba surfaced tools it could potentially deploy in the business.We want to hear from you! Send us a text.Instagram - Facebook - YouTube - TikTok - Twitter - LinkedIn

Constant tech shifts and viral noise are quietly exhausting your workforce and killing critical thinking.In the latest HR Leaders Podcast episode, I spoke with Laura Maffucci, Head of HR at Globalization Partners. She explains why HR cannot rely on corporate spin, unvetted AI add-ons, or forced office returns during times of rapid change.Most organizations do not lack technology tools. They lack transparent communication, psychological safety, and a clear process for building learning agility. And even when tools are enabled, a harder question remains:Are you actually solving an operational problem, or just adding tool overload?5 things you'll learn from this episode:The unconventional quarterly award designed to celebrate smart operational failuresThe quiet credibility trap behind performative return-to-office mandatesThe hidden data flaw causing 70–80% of enterprise AI bots to give bad adviceThe three core human traits rendering static technical skills obsoleteA simple peer-led initiative driving AI adoption far better than formal trainingSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Most companies say talent is their greatest asset. Then they spend more time managing low performers than accelerating the people with the highest potential.In this candid conversation, AJ sits down with Marc Effron, President of The Talent Strategy Group, to challenge how organizations hire, develop, and manage talent—and why HR must become far more fluent in the business to earn real influence.They explore the dishonesty baked into the traditional interview process, why high performers are often neglected, how leaders can automate or eliminate the work holding them back, and what it takes for a CHRO to become a true strategic counterpart to the CFO and CEO.The central message is blunt: HR cannot claim to be a business partner without understanding how the business actually makes money. Curiosity, commercial fluency, and proximity to the real work are no longer optional.Developing people isn't about fixing what is broken. It is about recognizing potential early—and building the conditions for it to become undeniable.Employee 1st. Business 2nd. Open heart, always. ♡Episode Description

On this episode of the Insurance Coffee House, Nick Hoadley is joined by Kirk Southern, Group Chief People Officer at Howden, a global insurance group with around 26,000 employees across 57 countries.Kirk shares his career journey from recruitment into HR, beginning with an administrative role during the financial crisis before moving into HR at Royal Bank of Canada. He reflects on the importance of early sponsorship, the value of learning directly from the business, and how roles at Citadel, Barclays and Arrow Global helped him build experience across business partnering, commercial management and reward before joining Howden in 2022.The conversation explores Kirk's transition from Global Head of Reward, Benefits and Wellbeing into the Group Chief People Officer role, and what it means to lead the people function within a rapidly growing, founder-led insurance business. Kirk explains why one of his biggest priorities is protecting Howden's culture while continuing to bring in talent that is comfortable with autonomy, ambiguity and taking responsibility for building and growing the business.Nick and Kirk discuss how the role of the Chief People Officer is changing. Kirk argues that CPOs and CHROs are increasingly expected to operate as commercial advisers to CEOs, boards and investors, with a clear understanding of how people decisions connect to growth, revenue, profitability and long-term value creation. He reflects on why commercial acumen, data and organisational design are becoming increasingly important capabilities within the profession.The discussion also looks at Kirk's relationship with Howden founder and CEO David Howden. Kirk shares what he has learned from working closely with a founder-led leadership team and why having a genuine voice in strategic conversations matters. He discusses some of the questions senior leadership teams are considering around workforce planning, culture, organisational design and how businesses remain flexible as technology and the world of work continue to develop.Nick and Kirk also explore how Howden is approaching technology across a large and growing organisation. Kirk explains how curiosity and experimentation are already part of the culture, making the challenge less about encouraging adoption and more about prioritising the opportunities that can create meaningful value. He discusses the importance of balancing experimentation with governance, understanding the implications for organisational design and skills, and keeping people at the centre of those decisions.The conversation then turns to the relationship between the people function and the board. Kirk explains why HR leaders need to move beyond professional terminology and understand how the business actually makes money. For him, combining strong people expertise with commercial understanding is one of the clearest differences between being an HR specialist and operating effectively at CPO or CHRO level.Kirk closes with advice for HR professionals who aspire to reach senior leadership. He emphasises patience, humility and the importance of building experience over time. He encourages people to remain ambitious while recognising that judgment develops through experience, mistakes and exposure to different business situations.Connect with Kirk Southern on LinkedIn to follow his work across people leadership, organisational strategy, culture and talent at Howden.The Insurance Coffee House Podcast is brought to you by Insurance Search.We are a global Insurance Executive Search Consultancy, supporting Insurance and Insurtech businesses to attract and retain the very best insurance talent.Find out more about showcasing your employer brand as a guest on the Insurance Coffee House Podcast or sign up to our News and Insights.Or follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter or Instagram.Insurance Executive Search Consultants in USA, London and Bermuda.Copyright Insurance Search 2025 - All Rights Reserved.

Having a seat at the table doesn't automatically mean your voice shapes the conversation. So how do HR professionals become trusted advisors whose insights genuinely influence business decisions?In this episode of the HRchat Podcast, Bill Banham is joined by Jennifer McClure, longtime HR executive, keynote speaker, founder of DisruptHR, and self-described "student of the future of work." Jennifer shares practical lessons from decades of leadership, explaining why influence—not title or attendance—is the true measure of HR's impact.Jennifer reflects on a pivotal piece of career advice that transformed her approach to leadership: stop being the person who immediately says "no" and instead begin with curiosity. By asking, "Tell me more about what you're trying to accomplish," HR professionals can uncover better solutions, build stronger relationships with leaders, and protect both people and the business.The conversation explores how HR can navigate difficult workplace decisions with integrity, including performance management, layoffs, bias concerns, and termination requests. Jennifer explains why empathy and accountability aren't opposing forces and how HR can advocate for respectful, evidence-based decision-making, even when conversations become uncomfortable.Bill and Jennifer also discuss the evolving role of HR in shaping organizational culture, why some leadership challenges can't be solved with policies alone, and how workforce data—from turnover patterns to exit interviews and candidate feedback—can strengthen HR's strategic influence.Whether you're an HR business partner, people leader, CHRO, or someone looking to expand your influence within your organization, this episode offers practical advice on becoming the trusted voice leaders turn to when the stakes are highest.In this episode, you'll learn: Why having a "seat at the table" isn't the same as having influence  How curiosity helps HR become a more strategic business partner  Practical ways to build trust with senior leaders  How to navigate difficult employee relations decisions with integrity  Why empathy and accountability can—and should—coexist  How HR can use workforce data to influence business decisions  The importance of moving beyond compliance toward strategic partnership  Why HR has a unique opportunity to shape organizational culture and performance Connect with Jennifer McClure: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifermcclure/Support the showFeature Your Brand on the HRchat PodcastThe HRchat show has had 100,000s of downloads and is frequently listed as one of the most popular global podcasts for HR pros, Talent execs and leaders. It is ranked in the top ten in the world based on traffic, social media followers, domain authority & freshness. The podcast is also ranked as the Best Canadian HR Podcast by FeedSpot and one of the top 10% most popular shows by Listen Score. Want to share the story of how your business is helping to shape the world of work? We offer sponsored episodes, audio adverts, email campaigns, and a host of other options. Check out packages here.Follow us on LinkedInSubscribe to our newsletterCheck out our in-person events

Boards are making decisions about AI, transformation, succession, culture and growth. But how often does the person with the deepest understanding of the workforce have a seat at the table?In this episode of foHRsight, Naomi is joined by former CHROs Suzan Morno-Wade and Harriet Harty to explore why HR leaders remain significantly underrepresented on corporate boards, and why that gap matters more as organizations navigate increasingly complex workforce decisions. The conversation challenges some persistent assumptions about what CHROs bring to the boardroom. Strong HR leaders aren't simply experts in people programs. They understand organizational performance, leadership capability, succession, culture and enterprise risk. They know how to influence without owning the decision, ask discerning questions and connect talent decisions back to business strategy. And as AI reshapes work, that perspective becomes even more important. Technology decisions are also workforce decisions. Suzan and Harriet make the case for HR leaders to position those conversations in the language of strategy, risk, opportunity, financial analysis and measurable business outcomes. For CHROs who see board service in their future, there's also a practical message: don't wait until you leave the operating role to start preparing. Building board experience, relationships and a board-ready profile takes time. About Our guestsSuzan Morno-Wade is a former CHRO of Xerox whose career has spanned finance, human resources and enterprise leadership. Today, she advises organizations, serves on boards and supports greater representation in the C-suite and boardroom. Harriet Harty has held multiple executive HR roles, most recently serving as Chief Administrative Officer at ADT. She now works across advisory, board and executive coaching roles, bringing extensive experience in business transformation, talent and leadership. Stay Connected with foHRsightTo sign up for our monthly newsletter, foHRsight, click HERE Follow us on LinkedIn:Mark EdgarNaomi Titleman Collafuture foHRward Follow us on InstagramIf you are looking for more foHRsight, sign up for our monthly foHRsight newsletter. It's free and includes access to our quarterly white paper. This quarter's white paper is about Rethinking Entry-Level work in the Age of AI, produced with Dr. Miranda Rodak from Indiana University's Kelley school of business - an important topic for HR, Leadership and parents, students and society as a whole! https://www.futurefohrward.com/subscribeSupport the show

Send us Fan MailGuest: Jason HenneberryLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonhenneberry/Website: dependencydesign.comYour Business Shouldn't Depend on You: How to Scale Without Becoming the BottleneckGrowth is supposed to make your business stronger—but what happens when every new client, employee, decision, and problem makes the business feel heavier?In this episode of Scaling with People, Gwenevere Crary sits down with Jason Henneberry, entrepreneur and author of Dependency Design, to unpack one of the most common—and often invisible—problems facing growing businesses:Founder dependency.You may think you're leading by stepping in to solve problems. But every time you become the person who fixes what goes wrong, your business can learn that it can't operate without you.Jason shares how to recognize that pattern, why it can damage both your business and your culture, and what founders and leaders can do to build organizations that don't depend on heroic intervention.In this episode, you'll learn:Why successful growth can actually make a business feel heavierThe difference between handing off tasks and handing off responsibilityHow founders accidentally become the "system" their business depends onWhy stepping in to save the day can undermine employee confidence, innovation, and moraleThe four areas where dependency commonly appears: revenue, fulfillment, operations/process, and decision-makingThe different types of dependency that can exist within each areaHow to recognize accidental dependency versus intentionally designed dependencyWhy frustration is one of the best signals that a dependency problem existsHow to identify where a problem belongs within your businessWhy SOPs and processes matter before you hireThe difference between progress and transition—and why true accountability is harder to delegateHow leaders can stop solving every problem and instead help their teams develop judgmentHow AI can help founders think through problems, ask better questions, and identify hidden dependenciesThe biggest belief about scaling that Jason thinks founders have completely wrongA powerful question for foundersWhen something lands on your desk and your first reaction is:"Why is this back on me?"Don't just solve it.Look at it.That frustration may be a signal that your business has developed a dependency on you.The goal isn't to eliminate dependency. Every business depends on people, processes, systems, and outside relationships.The goal is to make those dependencies intentional by design rather than accidental by default.About Jason HenneberryJason Henneberry is an entrepreneur in the residential real estate finance industry who has experienced the journey from solo operator to building a substantial organization supporting approximately 600 mortgage agents and teams across Canada.His book, Dependency Design, explores how businesses can identify and intentionally design the dependencies that allow them to scale without becoming overly reliant on their founder or individual leaders.Learn more and download the book at dependencydesign.com.About Scaling with PeopleScaling with People is your weekly playbook for turning chaos into compounding growth.Host Gwenevere Crary, executive advisor and fractional CHRO at Guide to HR, goes under the hood with founders and battle-tested experts across people, leadership, sales, marketing, operations, finance, product, and technology.No fluff. Just practical strategies, systems, and lessons you can put to work as you scale.Scale isn't just about speed. It's about people.Learn more at guide2hr.com.Support the show

What if the self-doubt holding you back isn't proof of failure, but evidence of growth?In the most recent HR Leaders Podcast episode, I had an important conversation with Maharukh Dalal, founder of The Career Accelerator for Women by Maharukh Dalal. She explains how senior leaders can overcome imposter syndrome by closing the internal identity gap, reframing self-doubt into a signal of growth, and shifting self-perception to drive executive execution.Drawing on two decades of corporate leadership across finance and hospitality, Dalal explains how mindset precedes execution. This conversation offers senior HR and business leaders a clear playbook for mastering the mental side of executive performance.5 things you'll learn from this episode:The psychological gap that stops capable leaders from taking actionA simple two-word shift that instantly turns daily dread into agency What a 1980 university experiment reveals about how people actually perceive you The advice Rafael Nadal's coach gave him during his worst slump that applies to executives Why relying purely on willpower and discipline eventually fails even top performers

How can you build business acumen without owning a P&L? Why is developing your business acumen within your control?My guest on this episode is Rose Velez-Smith, CHRO, DoubleVerifyDuring our conversation Rose and I discuss:Why stepping out of HR to be in the business can be the single best thing you do for your career. How to start every executive conversation with business priorities first, then ask what talent outcomes are needed to enable them.Why talent doesn't exist separate from business strategy.How to choose your next role by evaluating who you'll become because of it.Why AI reshapes work rather than replacing it, and why in the future we will design jobs around judgment, creativity, and relationships.Connecting with Rose Velez-Smith Connect with Rose Velez-Smith on LinkedInEpisode Sponsor: Next-Gen HR Accelerator - Learn more about this best-in-class leadership development program for next-gen HR leadersHR Leader's Blueprint - 18 pages of real-world advice from 100+ HR thought leaders. Simple, actionable, and proven strategies to advance your career.Succession Planning Playbook: In this focused 1-page resource, I cut through the noise to give you the vital elements that define what “great” succession planning looks like.

AI could influence 90% of jobs. David Lloyd says AI literacy is still only around 38%.That gap is where many enterprise AI strategies begin to break.In the latest HR Leaders Podcast episode, I spoke with David Lloyd, SVP Platform Engineering & Chief AI Officer at Dayforce. He explains why HR cannot wait until the end of an AI transformation to address skills, trust and organisational change.Most organisations do not lack AI ideas. They lack trusted data, safe environments and a clear process for deciding which ideas deserve to scale.And even when an experiment works, a harder question remains:Can it scale from one employee to 5,000?5 things you'll learn from this episode:Why three to six months is too long to judge an AI pilotThe three questions that decide whether an AI idea moves forwardWhat is really driving the rise of shadow AIWhy adding AI across a fragmented HR stack creates more chaosHow a three-person governance team can approve ideas in under five days

L'intelligence artificielle bouscule les équilibres internes et impose une transformation du management à grande échelle. L'automatisation des tâches pose une urgence immédiate. Il faut réinventer les compétences avant la disparition des emplois.Dans cet épisode, Delphine Zanelli reçoit Maryjo Charbonnier, Chief Human Resource Officer de Kyndryl.L'introduction de nouvelles technologies génère systématiquement de l'anxiété au sein des équipes. Chez Kyndryl, l'automatisation transforme radicalement les emplois puisque, comme l'explique la dirigeante, "nous avons déjà libéré 15 000 personnes à cause de l'utilisation de l'IA". Cette transformation du management exige une réponse organisationnelle précise pour maintenir la confiance. La fonction ressources humaines se retrouve en première ligne pour anticiper les suppressions de tâches, inventorier les expertises existantes et redéployer les individus vers des missions à plus forte valeur ajoutée.Ce défi management repose sur une anticipation minutieuse. Face aux ruptures, l'entreprise intervient en amont. Maryjo Charbonnier précise cette méthode en affirmant que "nous pouvons commencer à vous reskiller avant que votre travail de client s'arrête". La transformation du management s'opère par des outils de mesure continue et une acculturation globale. Les encadrants intègrent l'intelligence artificielle dans leurs objectifs avec la responsabilité de guider leurs collaborateurs vers de nouveaux apprentissages.L'organisation s'appuie également sur des mécanismes transparents d'évaluation. L'entreprise déploie des plateformes numériques qui génèrent automatiquement les questions d'évaluation pour libérer les managers de la charge cognitive. La pratique managériale évolue pour systématiser les retours constructifs à tous les niveaux car "le feedback est le moteur de notre progrès", rappelle la dirigeante. En parallèle, la reconnaissance devient un processus social et visible par tous pour nourrir l'engagement des collaborateurs.Membre du board du SHRM et rodée aux scissions d'entreprises mondiales, Maryjo Charbonnier conçoit son métier de manager depuis le terrain des crises. Elle aborde la transformation DRH avec un prisme ultra pragmatique en encourageant les équipes à se positionner là où l'entreprise souffre, car "les exécutifs tendent disproportionnellement à passer leur temps sur des choses qui ne fonctionnent pas". Face à l'incertitude technologique, elle rappelle une vérité individuelle. "La seule chose qui est dans votre contrôle, c'est votre rythme d'apprentissage".Cet épisode donne des éléments concrets pour anticiper l'impact de l'intelligence artificielle sur les compétences, déployer une culture du retour d'information continu et structurer la requalification des collaborateurs.CHAPITRAGE :(00:00) Le grand spin-off d'IBM et l'ère de l'IA (02:26) La méthode pour anticiper et inventorier (07:22) Auto-évaluation et confiance des équipes (12:13) Les quatre nouvelles missions du manager (19:16) Rendre le feedback simple et social (31:52) Pourquoi chercher la chaleur et la crise

Why do enterprise skills programs always look great on paper, but break down the moment real work happens?In the most recent HR Leaders Podcast episode, I had an inspiring conversation with Josh Newman, VP of Skills and Talent Readiness at ServiceNow.He explains why organisations must shift away from perfectionist data collection and embrace good-enough skills capture paired with real-world talent readiness.By moving training out of LMS silos and leveraging ambient data signals alongside AI simulation playgrounds, ServiceNow tracks true human capabilities in real time while keeping human judgment at the centre of workforce strategy.5 things you'll learn from this episode:Why traditional skills-based models fail and how to move past perfectionist data gatheringHow Talent Signature captures ambient data signals from daily work to track capability growthHow SimStudio simulation playgrounds replace course completion certificates with real-time practiceThe key difference between basic AI adoption and true behaviour absorption that drives business ROIHow building psychological safety around AI tools directly boosts employee performance and sales quota attainmentSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Every company wants to become AI-native. But who is preparing the workforce for what comes next?In the most recent HR Leaders Podcast episode, I had an important conversation with Bijal Shah, CEO & Board Director at Guild.She explains why becoming AI-native is not simply a technology upgrade. It requires employers, governments and learning institutions to rethink how people gain skills, build careers and participate in the future economy.5 things you'll learn from this episode:How organisations can make the AI-native transition without leaving their workforce behindWhy Bijal believes 95% of companies still need to make this leapWhat makes workforce transformation a collective action problemHow critical thinking, judgement and curiosity separate useful AI from “slop”Where automation creates an advantage, and where human connection must remainSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Send us Fan MailTheresita Richard is Chief People and Culture Officer at Patagonia, where she is approaching her third anniversary with the company. Before Patagonia, she built her career across some of the most recognized names in retail, including Home Depot, Target, Starbucks, and Nordstrom, after starting out as an industrial engineer leading a two-year project on how new technology was reshaping manufacturing work.At Patagonia, Theresita carries the responsibility of stewarding a culture built around a single, deceptively simple mission: to be in business to save the home planet. That means holding the tension between profit and purpose in every decision, and now, figuring out where AI fits into a company that has always insisted on doing things the harder, more human way.In this episode, Theresita draws on a career that began in manufacturing automation and has led her to guard the soul of one of the most purpose-driven companies in the world, to argue that AI will not fix a broken culture. It will only reveal it, and the responsibility to get that right has never been more real.In this conversation, we discuss:Why Patagonia evaluates potential hires based on purpose alignment rather than culture fit, and how the company builds an environment where people stay for a reason, a season, or a lifetime.How Patagonia's "pair clarity with choice" principle lets culture self-select who belongs, without anyone having to enforce it.Why AI does not create new problems inside a company, and why AI will always amplify the cracks and biases already present in our foundations.Why enlightened leadership in a rapidly shifting technological landscape requires extreme vulnerability, community building, and the courage to sit with difficult questions.How the conversation around AI in the workplace must shift from driving pure efficiency to genuinely nourishing the human soul and promoting human flourishing.How a grandfather with a third-grade education taught the one skill that no shift in technology has ever made irrelevant.Explore this conversation:00:00 Introducing Theresita Richard: From Industrial Engineer to Patagonia CHRO03:25 Inside Patagonia's Culture: Life at the Anti-Corporate Corporation04:35 The Company Has a Soul: Stewarding Patagonia's Legacy and Its Future Stories06:49 Made or Born Patagonian: Why Alignment Matters More Than Culture Fit09:36 In Business to Save Our Home Planet: Why Profit and Purpose Are Not a Trade-Off11:03 Pair Clarity With Choice: How Culture Self-Selects Without Enforcement13:26 Beyond HR as Compliance: Nourishing the Human Soul at Work15:48 The Ground Is Shaking: Why AI Cannot Be a Conversation About Efficiency Alone19:52 Ally or Adversary: Honest Conversations About What Gets Automated and Augmented22:23 Two Approaches to Leadership: Vulnerability, Community, and Sitting With the Questions25:47 Measuring AI: Why It Reveals the Cracks in Your Foundation28:27 Not What AI Can Do but What It Should: Bias, Guardrails, and Safe-to-Fail Experiments33:04 The Racist Soap Dispenser: What Meredith Broussard's Work Reveals About AI Bias36:37 Willie and Pearl: The Origin Story Behind Following the Question Resources:Subscribe to the AI & The Future of Work NewsletterConnect with Theresita on LinkedInOther episodes mentioned:Meredith Broussard, NYU professor, AI ethics authority, and featured expert in Coded Bias, discusses the social implications of AILooking for a faster, more intelligent way to manage your inbox? Try Superhuman Mail and connect your favorite AI tools to email and calendar workflows—all from one place. Get started here: https://superhuman.com/mail/signup 

Let's talk about the single most important metric for your organization's long-term financial health: your leadership bench. We often get caught up in the constant cycle of external talent acquisition —scouring job boards and competitors' org charts —but the research is consistent: building from within is the highest-return move you can make. When you develop leaders at all levels, you aren't just filling roles; you're hitting top-decile financial performance over 50% of the time. It's time to stop looking outside and start seeing, developing, and preparing the talent already in your building. But here's the kicker: this isn't just an HR statistic; it's a shareholder return statistic, and it requires a true partnership between the CEO and the CHRO. In this episode, we're cutting through the noise to connect those dots. I'm also addressing how to use AI to spot high-potential talent without forgetting that machines only point—humans do the actual work of mentoring and belief. If you're tired of saying you "should" work on succession planning and want to move to actual execution, I've got a one-page, five-question guide ready for you. Reach out, send me the word "BENCH" on LinkedIn, and let's turn those good intentions into a real, actionable plan. Stacie For more episodes, visit StacieBaird.com.

For decades, HR has been asked to administer the business.Now it's being asked to transform it.In this episode of The Business of Alignment, AJ Vaughan sits down with Enrique Rubio, Founder of Hacking HR, for one of the most important conversations shaping the future of work.They unpack why most HR organizations are still operating with mindsets built for the last century, why AI is exposing leadership gaps rather than creating them, and what separates the next generation of CHROs from those who will struggle to stay relevant. This isn't a conversation about prompts or AI tools.It's about identity.It's about business acumen.It's about finance, transformation, governance, leadership, and why HR's greatest opportunity has nothing to do with becoming better at HR.If you're a CHRO, CFO, CEO, founder, HR technology leader, or someone responsible for building organizations that will thrive over the next decade, this episode is essential listening.Why HR is facing its biggest identity shift in 100 yearsThe mindset holding thousands of HR leaders backWhy AI isn't the biggest disruption—leadership isThe future relationship between the CFO and CHROHow HR leaders earn strategic influence inside the businessWhy business literacy is becoming HR's greatest competitive advantageThe skills every executive must develop to remain relevant in the AI eraWhat separates organizations that will adapt from those that won'tThe future of work won't be built by people protecting yesterday.It will be built by leaders willing to reinvent themselves before they're forced to.https://hackinghrlab.io/about

We spend all our time fixing business workflows, so why is HRs own workflow still broken?In the most recent HR Leaders Podcast episode, I had an inspiring conversation with Jeffrey Schmitz, Former Chief People Officer at Zebra Technologies.He explains how his team successfully restructured their entire HR operating model by separating daily tactical operations from long-term talent strategy. By replacing fragmented, manual support with a centralised service hub and self-service workflows, Zebra built a scalable foundation for digital transformation while keeping culture at the centre.5 things you'll learn from this episode:The structural model shift that allowed Zebra to transition from 60 HR Business Partners down to 8 The simple "start at the centre" rule that turned daily support tickets into an operational data goldmine The non-negotiable tech stack foundation HR teams must build before attempting to deploy AI tools The single candidate trait Zebra looks for that matters far more than rare technical AI expertise The culture stewardship strategy Zebra used to navigate a massive M&A carve-out and hybrid work shift

On this episode of the Live Greatly podcast, Kristel Bauer sits down with Denise Bober, Chief Human Resources Officer at The Breakers Palm Beach, for an inspiring conversation about leadership, workplace culture, employee well-being, and what it takes to build a culture of excellence. Denise shares the leadership philosophies and people-first strategies that have helped cultivate an exceptional workplace culture and remarkable employee retention. Kristel and Denise explore the power of servant leadership, how to create an environment where people feel valued and supported, the role of well-being in organizational success, and the behind-the-scenes approach that has helped make The Breakers a destination not only for guests, but also for employees. Tune in now! Key Takeaways From This Episode: A behind-the-scenes look at how The Breakers Palm Beach has built a culture of excellence The power of servant leadership and its impact on organizational success Strategies for creating a thriving workplace culture How leaders can foster employee well-being and engagement Leadership insights that organizations of any size can apply The importance of investing in people to create long-term success Disclosure: Kristel Bauer and her husband received a complimentary hosted media stay at The Breakers Palm Beach prior to this interview. The stay included accommodations and resort experiences. All opinions expressed in this episode are Kristel's own. ABOUT DENISE BOBER: Denise Bober serves as Senior Vice President & Chief Human Resources Officer at The Breakers Palm Beach, one of America's most iconic, luxury resorts. In this role, she has established an inspired, continually evolving workplace that prioritizes the fulfillment and well-being of more than 2,500 team members. Since 1988, she has cultivated talent and achieved best-in-class retention rates, recognizing that a satisfied and engaged workforce is crucial for the long-term success of this 130-year-old, family-owned organization.  Connect with Denise and The Breakers:  Website: https://www.thebreakers.com/    Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thebreakers    Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/denise-bober-88486b108/  About the Host of the Live Greatly podcast, Kristel Bauer: Kristel Bauer is a corporate wellness and performance expert, keynote speaker and TEDx speaker supporting organizations and individuals on their journeys for more happiness and success. She is the award-winning author of Work-Life Tango: Finding Happiness, Harmony, and Peak Performance Wherever You Work (John Murray Business November 19, 2024). With Kristel's healthcare background, she provides data driven actionable strategies to leverage happiness and high-power habits to drive growth mindsets, peak performance, profitability, well-being and a culture of excellence. Kristel's keynotes provide insights to "Live Greatly" while promoting leadership development and team building. Kristel is the creator and host of her global top self-improvement podcast, Live Greatly. She is a contributing writer for Entrepreneur, and she is an influencer in the business and wellness space having been recognized as a Top 10 Social Media Influencer of 2021 in Forbes. As an Integrative Medicine Fellow & Physician Assistant having practiced clinically in Integrative Psychiatry, Kristel has a unique perspective into attaining a mindset for more happiness and success. Kristel has presented to groups from the American Gas Association, Bank of America, bp, Commercial Metals Company, General Mills, Northwestern University, Santander Bank and many more. Kristel's work has been featured in Forbes and she has had multiple TV appearances including NBC News Daily, ABC News Live, FOX Weather, ABC 7 Chicago, WGN Daytime Chicago and more. Kristel lives in the Chicago, IL area and she can be booked for speaking engagements worldwide. To Book Kristel as a speaker for your next event, click here. Website: www.livegreatly.co  Follow Kristel Bauer on: Instagram: @livegreatly_co  LinkedIn: Kristel Bauer Twitter: @livegreatly_co Facebook: @livegreatly.co Youtube: Live Greatly, Kristel Bauer To Watch Kristel Bauer's TEDx talk of Redefining Work/Life Balance in a COVID-19 World click here. Click HERE to check out Kristel's corporate wellness and leadership blog Click HERE to check out Kristel's Travel and Wellness Blog Disclaimer: The contents of this podcast are intended for informational and educational purposes only. Always seek the guidance of your physician for any recommendations specific to you or for any questions regarding your specific health, your sleep patterns changes to diet and exercise, or any medical conditions.  Always consult your physician before starting any supplements or new lifestyle programs. All information, views and statements shared on the Live Greatly podcast are purely the opinions of the authors, and are not medical advice or treatment recommendations.  They have not been evaluated by the food and drug administration.  Opinions of guests are their own and Kristel Bauer & this podcast does not endorse or accept responsibility for statements made by guests.  Neither Kristel Bauer nor this podcast takes responsibility for possible health consequences of a person or persons following the information in this educational content.  Always consult your physician for recommendations specific to you.

Most CHROs have a fraud problem they didn't sign up for. Deepfakes in video interviews. Synthetic IDs at the application stage. AI-generated credentials that pass every automated screen. Only 31% of CHROs say they're confident in their ability to prevent hiring fraud, and the technology making it easier gets more sophisticated every quarter. Nik Daruwala, Vice President of Sales at Checkr, has spent 21 years in B2B technology sales, including thousands of direct conversations with HR leaders trying to protect their hiring funnels without losing speed. Checkr powers background verification for Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, and Instacart, and was the first API in the background check industry. In this episode, he covers: Why hiring fraud appears at every stage of the funnel, from the initial application through post-hire monitoring, and what a continuous identity verification strategy actually looks like in practice How CHROs should be thinking about partnering with their CISO to address a risk that's moved from the cyber stack into the talent pipeline https://thehrmixtape.com/episodes/trust-at-speed-hiring-fraud-deepfakes-and-the-identity-risks-chros-cant-ignore-with-nik-daruwala Why the speed-versus-safety trade-off in hiring is a false choice, and what good looks like when both coexist in the same program Timestamps [00:00:39] Context: this conversation was recorded live at the Checkr booth at SHRM 2026 [00:01:01] How enterprise hiring changed over 24 years: global sourcing, the normalization of remote hiring, and why the explosion of application volume made quality screening harder [00:02:50] The CHRO anxiety most people aren't talking about: making sure candidates throughout the funnel are actually who they claim to be [00:04:13] Only 31% of CHROs have confidence in their ability to prevent hiring fraud, and why the AI tools now available to candidates are changing that threat surface fast [00:04:39] The three identity threats CHROs weren't trained for: deepfakes in interviews, synthetic IDs at the application stage, and AI-generated credentials that pass automated screens [00:06:44] Why most organizations are reactive on hiring fraud, and the parallel to the early days of cybersecurity: you don't prioritize it until you have your first incident [00:08:42] Where fraud actually shows up across the hiring funnel: application, interview, background check, and continuously post-hire [00:09:41] The speed-versus-compliance trade-off is a false choice, and why the best hiring programs don't ask their teams to make it [00:13:27] Nik on what it actually means for trust to be a competitive advantage, and why that should be the north star for every hiring program [00:16:00] The two-to-three year horizon: AI automating talent sourcing and administrative tasks, continuous monitoring as table stakes, and why the hiring decision stays human Brought to You by Paylocity Paylocity is the fastest growing unified platform for HR, Finance, and IT. Paylocity brings your people, processes, and data together in one place so HR leaders can spend less time managing systems and more time doing the work that actually moves their organizations forward. Learn more at paylocity.com Keywords: hiring fraud, background checks, identity verification, deepfakes, synthetic IDs, AI-generated credentials, CHRO priorities, talent pipeline security, hiring at scale, continuous monitoring, background screening, hiring compliance, HR technology, Checkr, credential fraud, HR risk management, fraud prevention, remote hiring risk, AI in hiring, talent operations

We just walked through the CHRO Paradox series, and I know how this usually goes: you nodded along, felt aligned, and then your calendar immediately ate the follow-through. We don't need more data or another complex framework; we need the moves. This episode is about stripping back the noise and giving you three actionable steps—one for defining your role, one for aligning your partnership, and one for building your bench—that you can actually execute before Monday hits. You don't need a massive transformation to see results; you need one clear conversation about ownership, one dimension of partnership to sharpen, and three rising leaders to stretch. I've built a one-page People Leadership Alignment Guide to help you have those exact conversations without the heavy lifting. It's the easiest way to turn your strategy into an honest, shared plan with your CEO. Comment "ALIGN" below and I'll send the guide straight to you—no cost, no catch, just the work. Clarify the Role: Have one conversation this week that defines what the CHRO role owns, advises on, and observes. Align the Partnership: Pick one of the five dimensions discussed (budget, org design, AI strategy, board engagement, or succession) and get shared clarity on that single dimension this month. Build the Bench: Look two levels down, identify three rising leaders, and give each of them one stretch experience this year. Stacie For more episodes, visit StacieBaird.com.

Laura Fuentes, CHRO at Hilton, joined us on The Modern People Leader. We talked about Hilton's hospitality mindset, why great leaders should operate like great hosts, and how Hilton scales culture, listening, recognition, and purpose across more than 500,000 team members.----  Sponsor Links:

https://youtu.be/KUPg9BuYSaM David B. Jones, CEO and Partner of Mercer Assessments, is helping organizations attract the right A-Players by making labor markets more efficient through defensible human capital insights. By combining psychometric science, workforce analytics, and AI-enabled technology, David helps employers identify, develop, and retain the right talent while empowering people to discover careers where they can thrive and make meaningful contributions.  In this conversation, David introduces The R.E.A.P.E.R. Framework—Review the Situation, Explore Alternatives, Agree a Course of Action, Execute the Plan, and Refine the Approach. He explains why organizations should begin every challenge with a thorough situation review, how collaborative decision-making creates alignment before execution, and why continuous refinement drives long-term organizational success. David also discusses how AI is reshaping talent management, why organizations need real-time workforce insights instead of static reports, and how Mercer Assessments leverages technology while preserving the integrity and defensibility of human capital assessments. — Attract the Right A-Players with David B. Jones  Good day. Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint Podcast. Today, my guest is David Jones, the CEO and partner of Mercer Assessments, focused on providing defensible human capital insights and foresight in the fields of talent acquisition, leadership development, and organizational productivity. David, welcome to the show.  Thank you, Steve. Great to be here.  Well, I’m excited to have you here, especially because you are the first guest—maybe not completely from the Middle East because we had a couple of guests from Israel—but definitely from Dubai, where you are. Maybe that is also impacting the answer that you’re going to give to my question. So here is my first question. What’s your personal ‘Why’, and how are you manifesting it in your business, Mercer Assessments?  Yeah. Well, I mean, I think obviously a lot of skills around resilience and being able to think about how you maintain your own personal well-being, but also the well-being of the workforce, is something which has come to the fore in the last couple of weeks, for sure, living in Dubai. But I think very much of my North Star—by educational background, I’m a labor market economist. Although I’ve worked in HR and talent management for pretty much all of my career, I think I’m always thinking about how to make markets more efficient.  I think the labor market, in some ways, and what it takes to become efficient, is very similar to a fish market, a stock market, or any other market that you can think of. What you need to be able to make the best decisions is really good data, really good up-to-date information, both on the supply side and on the demand side.Share on X I think a lot of what we do at Mercer Assessments, and a lot of what we do in talent management more generally, is really about trying to do that. Trying to help individuals understand what their strengths are.  Trying to match them to specific careers that will be more fulfilling for them in the long term and also help them be more productive for their employers. As well as helping employers understand what the important skills are for today and tomorrow, and how they can predict how people will perform in certain environments. So really trying to bring the supply side and demand side together. I think, notoriously, labor markets have very bad information.  Typically, most people get their career guidance from their parents or their grandparents, which can be great for aspiration but doesn’t always necessarily keep them up-to-date in terms of what’s happening in today’s workplace. So I think this is really my anchor, if you like, where a lot of what we do in our innovation, our technology, or our engagements with clients typically comes back to this point. Fundamentally, how do we make labor markets more efficient and more functional for all of the stakeholders?  Yeah, that’s fascinating. So would you say that if you are doing this well, then more people will feel fulfilled in the roles that they work in?  I mean, I think that’s definitely the aspiration, right? That’s definitely what you would hope to do. I think, as individuals, I’m sure we can all think of those really, really great days where you think that you nailed it at work, and you think that this is something where you can make a really specific contribution. It just feels good, and all those people around you have the benefit of that. It becomes something which is infectious for those around you.  I think it’s important for the economy on a macro level, right? I think if we are able to provide opportunities, provide career paths, and help people understand what their unique strengths are, then this is something which helps to promote productivity and positivity more generally, right? At the individual, team, family, and societal level, it affects all sorts of dimensions.  So maybe this is kind of a side question, but I’m really wondering, is this AI revolution, as we’re going through it, influencing your work, and is it changing the requirements of employers?  Yeah. I think we’re in a very interesting time. I mean, I’m not a futurologist. I’m not a prophet. I’m not somebody who makes these sorts of big predictions about the future. But I think the case for AI, to some extent, is still unproven in terms of what it’s actually delivered to date. I mean, I think there’s obviously a lot of investment. There’s a big impact on the environment. But I don’t think we’ve had something really groundbreaking discovered by AI at this point that’s new.  It seems to be quite backward-looking in many ways, based on ingesting data from all the novels that you have on your shelf and that I have on my shelf. Maybe they’re going to ingest this podcast in the future. I don’t know. It doesn’t seem that there’s been a unique breakthrough that humanity has not been able to, or would not be able to, achieve by itself. And yet, I think the promise and the anticipation of what AI can do is quite compelling, right?  I think the way that it is impacting the labor market especially… Ironically, it’s impacting probably software developers the most today. It’s interesting that a lot of people in white-collar fields, professionals maybe, are also feeling like it’s changing the way they’re working. So there’s a big debate, I think, about whether it’s going to be an augmentation or whether it’s going to be a replacement of some sorts of tasks. I think one thing you can say with certainty is that the concept of a job is definitely going to change. If you look at the roots of the word—the etymological roots of the word “job” in the English language—it literally means “a task” rather than a role as such. Yeah. So I think we’re going to get this greater atomization of people’s roles. What used to be bundled together as one job is now going to be much more atomized into specific skills, specific tasks.  The opportunity there is that we all get to do more of the things that we find more fulfilling and less of the repetitive, dangerous, or dull types of things that we have to do in our jobs sometimes.Share on X But I think it has some second-order impacts in terms of how people develop their careers and the competence and confidence that people, particularly when they’re junior in their jobs, need time to build—the ability to operate at a higher level. So I think we’re all going to have to be leaders in lots of ways, even leaders in our own work.  Yeah, I agree with you. That’s fascinating. So, David, let’s talk about the framework. What would be a framework? Think of something that allows you to be more effective in your job—something maybe that you personally discovered or that you and your colleagues developed. Something that helps you be more effective in creating those labor market matches, finding the right candidates, and assessing them. Something that you can describe in three, four, or five steps, or maybe three or four ways of looking at things. Anything that comes to mind?  So there are a few things. I did miss a few things because I think—I don’t know if you’ve heard the news. We’re recording this, and I think the British prime minister has just resigned today. This is, I think, our seventh prime minister in 10 years. I’m sure each one of those prime ministers had their own framework in terms of what they wanted from their political leadership and how they were going to operate in government.  So I think we’re definitely operating in a much more VUCA world, right? This mnemonic is about being volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. I think, to some extent, that means that having a framework has to be something that is constantly being amended, reviewed, and updated in many ways. A lot of what we do in assessment—we have very clear statistical frameworks where we look at particular behaviors or particular characteristics, and we try to make sure we measure them. But I thought maybe that was too detailed and too comprehensive.  So one of the things we do when engaging with our clients is that we have a sort of consulting approach. It’s like a cycle. We start by reviewing the situation, so it’s like a situation appraisal, if you like. We use this internally as well in Mercer Assessments. So we try to understand what’s happening, what’s going well, and what we’re concerned about—just trying to get any data or information that we can.  Then it's important, particularly with a team or with a client, to explore what the priorities are, what's important, and what is causing them the most thought or requiring the most energy to address.Share on X So reviewing, exploring, and then agreeing on a course of action. Making sure that there’s consensus or, if you’re in an organization, making sure you’ve got the budget and the endorsement from headquarters or senior management. Then I think you can go into a planning stage. Making sure you’ve got a focus on execution and that you know what has to happen and when.  Then I think you can go into the ability to have that as a cycle and review or evaluate the plan itself. Is it on track? Is it on time? Is it on budget? Is it achieving its objectives? You can continue on this sort of reflexive cycle. So if you were to do that, it becomes quite sinister. The mnemonic becomes R.E.A.P.E.R., like the Grim Reaper or like “reap what you sow,” because you review, explore, agree, plan, execute, and then review again.Share on X So it can become, hopefully, a virtuous cycle, but it can also become an ongoing process.  I love it. So Yeah. So if you refine, maybe the last one is refined, and then you avoid repeat— Yes. Yeah.  Yeah. Oh, great.  That’s good. Yeah, I like it. Yeah, love it. So basically, what you’re looking for is helping your customers with an initial problem and then helping them generally improve their organization by continuing to refine and add to it, making it better over time.  Yes, correct. Yeah.  So it turns into a recurring engagement.  Yes, that’s the hope. Well, yeah. I mean, hopefully, if you have that relationship with the client and also with your team, you have this ability to recognize what you’ve achieved together, but you can also plan what you want to do differently next time.  So you’re the CEO of Mercer Assessments, which is the Dubai operation. Is this just a geographic branch of the Mercer Group, or is it a separate business that operates in multiple geographies?  Yeah. So actually, it’s a new venture for Mercer globally. My background is that I was one of the founders of a company called The Talent Enterprise, which was acquired by Mercer just over two years ago. It had also made an acquisition of another company before that called Mettl. So we were more of a talent assessment type of company.  We would do talent acquisition, talent development, leadership development, things like high-potential identification, succession planning, and these types of applications. Employee engagement as well, things like employee well-being assessments and stuff like this. The psychometric assessment field. So if you or your listeners are good at Greek, you would know that “psychometric” means “measurement of the mind.”  Yeah, right. So this is really what we’re trying to do. We’re accredited by the British Psychological Society to say that the tools we have, use, or develop have validity, reliability, and are statistically stable within the sorts of bounds that you would expect when measuring human beings.  It can never be perfect, but it’s considered to be predictive. Mettl was more focused on skills assessment. That was one of their big areas of focus, along with educational assessment. So coming together as Mercer Assessments, we’re now part of this big global organization. Although we’re based in the Middle East, we’re now working in Asia, Europe, North America—we’re just starting to do more work in North America—and Australasia. So this is the sort of big, hairy, audacious plan that we have.  That must be pretty intense if you’re working around the clock, essentially working around the globe. Then Mercer is… It can be.  Yeah, it can be. Even working in the Middle East, you have different working weeks. Some of our clients work on Sundays. But we have a good team. We have a big team. We have great technology. So we have scalable ways of doing it.  So what drives growth in this business?  I think it is changing. If you were to ask me that question even two years ago, I would say it’s to do with the change, the transformation, or the aspiration of the client, of the organization. If they’ve got a new operation, or they’re expanding, or they need to develop new skills, or they need to make sure their productivity and positivity are enabling them to keep up with their competitors, then these things would often trigger the sorts of interventions that we help our clients with.  That’s still true to a large extent, but what's changing a lot is what you were talking about earlier—to do with AI and expectations from technology. So I think what we're doing a lot more of now is real-time decision support.Share on X It used to be that our deliverables would look like a PDF report. They would say, “Okay, this is Steve. We’ve assessed Steve. These are Steve’s strengths. These are his areas for development. This is the sort of team or the certain type of colleague that he would thrive working with.  These are the people or the situations that he might struggle with.” That type of static report. Then either we or the client—sometimes if you’re looking at large numbers of people—you’d have to do a lot of spreadsheet work or a lot of PowerPoint work and say, “Okay, now we need to match that with your strategic objectives.” So I think what’s happening now is we’re focusing a lot more on the data.  Our technology is providing much more of a dashboard report, so Steve can access his results straight away because that’s actually when Steve is most interested in them and they’re most relevant—not two weeks later when you schedule a coach or someone to give him feedback. You’re interested as soon as you finish the last question. You want to know, “Okay, what does this say about me?” We can add lots of AI layers to that to help you implement it or understand it. Then for the organization, we now provide much more of a dynamic dashboard-type report.  So if, I don’t know, the CFO leaves this afternoon and the CEO calls the CHRO and says, “Okay, who are the internal candidates for this role?” You can come up with an answer. It doesn’t have to be something where you say, “Let me check my filing cabinet,” or, “Let me put a PowerPoint together for you and get back to you later this week or next week.” You can actually do that type of matching within the platform that we have. We have our own platform called Lighthouse, and it really helps you match individuals or teams to certain tasks or to certain ventures or aspirations that the organization might have.Share on X  Yeah. So instead of providing individual reports for individuals, you now operate this platform for your clients, and then they can look up the people involved in changes. So how is it different to scale the business with this type of approach? What makes it more complex?  Yeah. So on the one hand, it can help us a lot as our own organization because we can be much more pervasive 24 hours a day across the different time zones that we operate in. If you’re our client, you don’t always have to rely on having a meeting or a call with us in person. You can go and find that answer yourself. It’s quite an intuitive process and platform. You can access it and get value from your own data. I think that’s the key thing that I’m trying to emphasize that’s changed.  Clients are now impatient with SaaS platforms in particular when they’re not able to access their own data directly. So there’s a little bit of disintermediation going on in the enterprise software business as a whole. That’s the key trend that I’m trying to highlight here. But it also helps us to be more scalable. Just to take a step back to the previous discussion about AI, I think when it comes to using AI in your business, the key strategic choice is what you’re not going to use AI for.  For us, we made the choice actually three or four years ago that we’re not going to use AI in the assessments themselves. Not today. Maybe in five years’ time or ten years’ time we might change our mind, and we’re constantly reviewing that. But we need these defensible assessments. We need to be able to say, “This is fair and objective, and we’re coming with an external point of view that is transparent and defensible in every sense of that word.”  Yeah. You don’t want to hallucinate assessments for clients or even run the risk of that happening, right?  Yeah, absolutely. And there are some companies that have done that, right? I mean, there are lots of cases you can find where companies have said, “Hey, we just need a five-minute video, and I can tell you everything you need to know about this person, and you can make decisions about their career and all sorts of stuff,” right? I’m not saying we won’t get there in the future, but I just don’t think that’s good enough at the moment.  And I think with a lot of things that you do with chatbots now, if you’re judicious about it, you might be able to say, “Well, actually, that’s interesting, but it’s not good enough,” right? It’s not a finished product. It’s not something that I can execute on. What we can do is add a lot of value around the assessment. So we can do things like AI-based development planning, right?  When someone wants to see their results—and people normally want to see their results almost immediately after they’ve finished their assessments—you can start to say, in the flow of work, in the client’s environment, whatever their learning partners or learning architecture may be, “Okay, here’s a development plan for you,” customized and curated within that environment for your strengths, how to emphasize them, and also for any development areas or new learnings that you want to address.  We can also do things like AI-based proctoring, right? We can give the client a risk report on an application and say, you know, how genuine is this? What other software does Steve have open on his laptop? Is there a shadow in the room? Where are his eyes going? Is he looking at someone else? Is he getting help from someone else? Is this really Steve? All these sorts of things, right? We can do that. We can also develop customized case studies for the organization around its specific tasks and challenges that the organization has.  So you can come up with very specific, job-related assessments. AI can add a lot of value to all of these things. It can provide greater scale and a greater ability to sustain our growth. But with the core of what we do today, we’re saying, “Look, you need to be able to trust us.” And we want to be able to show you the answer. If you have a question about any of our assessments, we can check. There’s an audit trail, and we can show you the answer. It’s not just, “The computer came up with this idea. We don’t know.” But that’s intellectual property, and you know that it works, and you’re sticking with it. You don’t allow AI to bastardize it, basically, yeah, which makes sort of sense. So, David, what is one thing that you’re actively trying to figure out in your business right now? That’s a great question. I mean, there’s lots of things. I think a lot of them come around, you know, what is this threshold between what we do as humans and what we use AI or other technology to help us do? And I think that threshold is constantly being reviewed. A lot of it is to do with how do you make growth sustainable. We have had massive growth in the last five or six years, and that’s a great thing.  But I think it means you have to make sure the foundations of your organization are strong so that you can move from one to another. I mentioned earlier that we’re just starting to focus on North America as one of our new markets, and I was very keen that we didn’t do that until this point or even next year because we’re not the organizational equivalent of The Beatles, right? Like, we can’t just expect to turn up in a big, sophisticated, very strong, highly cultured market and be able to expect that we’re going to do things like we’ve done them everywhere else, or that we don’t need to think about how we communicate with those prospects and those clients.  So that’s a really big step for us. And how we manage data, I think, is probably the key thing. Fundamentally, if I was to come back to answer your question, I think it’s how we manage data because I think clients are becoming much more sophisticated, much more impatient with people who curate their data. They say, “Look, you know, we know we’re generating lots of data inside the organization,” right? Which is typically what we do, right? It’s people data.  Normally in most work environments, you can tell when somebody opens their laptop, or you can tell when they walk in the office door, or you can tell sometimes even what they’re doing inside the working space, right? Their ID has got an RFID in it or something like that. So there’s lots of data that’s constantly being generated inside the organization, and clients want to get value from that data. And having a sort of third-party proxy come in and say, “Hey, we can do your payroll for you,” or “We can send a questionnaire to people once a year, and that can let you know whether they understand health and safety or they’re engaged in their workplace,” it’s not really satisfactory anymore, right?  The clients are saying, “Okay. I want to be able to get value from my data, and I want to be able to see that. I want the analytics. I want to ask questions that are not able to be prescribed at the beginning.” “And I want to be able to do these queries in real time.”  So essentially, would that require you to get integrated with your clients to some degree so that you can process the data in real time as it emerges? It’s really interesting because I think what I’m hearing from my clients is they’re actually frustrated with that. In the sort of classic SaaS world, which we’ve had in organizations now for 20, 30, maybe even 40 years, you integrate the big internal ERP systems or CRM systems, and you integrate them, and then you have to sort of work within their framework, right? And you might see a report that’s already pre-programmed, but you don’t necessarily see the data, right? If you wanted to say, “Okay, what’s the trend today over the 24-hour clock?” or “How is it changing in June compared to May?” or “How does it relate to the temperature?” or whatever, right?  You can come up with all these questions that you might not be able to predict and then plan and have a sort of pull-down standard report. So to do that, you need access to the data. And I think clients are saying, “This is our data.” This data belongs to us. We want to be able to see that directly, and we want to be able to use that as a decision-support tool, and not necessarily just have a report.”  Yeah. So they’d rather own the data and apply your tools to their data without you necessarily having access to the data or something like that?  Yeah. It’s also a source of differentiation for them, right? Because they know that if… I’m not going to mention these companies. I’m sure you and all your viewers know the big brands. It’s interesting what’s happening with their share prices recently, right? They’re all maybe suffering a little bit from a decline in their share prices, on average. It’s basically a standardized way of doing things, right?  There’s pretty much the same way that any corporation in any part of the world is going to do it because that’s the way you get efficiency through that software. But if an organization says, “Actually, we’ve got an insight into something that we think is unique and differentiated, and we want to make decisions in a slightly different way, or make them faster,” that’s a point of competitive advantage.  Does that mean they wouldn’t want you to apply their idea to other customers because it’s their unique property? They’d just want your tools to help them process their data. They don’t want to share it with you.  Yeah. There are clients like that. We do deal with very sensitive industries, and sometimes government departments, where we have to be able to certify that type of approach. I think that’s likely to become more common in the future as people become more sensitive and more aware of the value, the opportunity, and the threat of what can happen with their data.  Yeah. I mean, some people say that information is now ubiquitous. It’s the questions that are really important because that’s how you communicate with AI. Maybe the question itself can be proprietary know-how—knowing how to ask the right kind of question. They don’t want…  No. I mean… Yeah, I agree. Completely. Yeah. You’re absolutely right. Again, to go back to assessments, we’ve recently released a whole bunch of assessments that measure skills in AI as a domain. We’ve got all sorts of technical and non-technical AI assessments. Obviously, one of the skills that we look at is prompt engineering. If you’ve used some of the generative AI platforms, you’ll always get an answer.  They’re pre-programmed to give you an answer, and most of them are also pretty polite. They fluff up your ego a little bit and say, “Hey, great question.” “That was really interesting.” Then they’ll give you an answer. You need to be aware of that. You need to probe and make sure you’ve not just got an answer—you’ve got the answer. Or at least the best answer that makes sense for you. Then you’ve quality-checked it.  You’ve taken it from one platform, put it into another platform, and then into a third platform. Whatever you’ve done, you need to have that awareness and those specific skills to get the most value out of it. It’s very dangerous, and I think we can all see it. I’m sure your inbox is like my inbox. You get emails from people and think, “Okay, well, that’s not an email from a person.” It’s a bulleted email. It’s not personal. It’s not directed at you. Sometimes it’s hard to understand what it even means.  Yeah. You’re right. So David, who is the ideal customer for you that can most benefit from your solution?  That’s a good question. Personally and professionally, I like clients who challenge us. I like clients who ask questions that make us think in a different way, so we can hopefully give them value and really answer those questions. I think that’s important for us to develop. Clients who are looking for new insights or different foresights that help them in their business—those are the kinds of clients we’re looking for. Definitely the ones who are pushing the envelope and helping take us forward in terms of quality.  So if those types of people are listening to this show and would like to learn more about what you do and how you might be able to help them, where should they go? Where can they find out more?  Yeah, absolutely. You can find me on LinkedIn. I’m David B. Jones on LinkedIn. There are a lot of David Joneses. I think David Jones is the most common name for a British man—even more common than John Smith—so there are a lot of us around. But you’ll be able to find me as David B. Jones. You can also find Mercer Assessments. You can find out more about us through those channels. I’ll be happy to answer any questions or provide more information.  Is there a website people should check out? Do you have a separate website for Mercer Assessments?  We do. Mercer Assessments is part of the mercer.com website. That’s where you’ll find more information. There are also a number of books we’ve published on particular subjects to do with assessment, talent, and leadership development more generally. Those are all available on Amazon as well.  Okay. So if you’re out there and you’re looking to have a more sophisticated view of your people and their aspirations and how they fit the type of work that you want them to do, and you’d like to understand more deeply, then check out Mercer Assessments, David B. Jones. Actually, it’s easy to just put in “David Jones Mercer,” and David will pop up that way.  Check out the books that David and his colleagues have published. And if you enjoyed this conversation, then make sure you follow us on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts. And David, thanks for coming to the show and sharing your experience and insights. I mean, it seems to me that you have a much more nuanced approach than most talent assessment or performance assessment organizations, and you have a lot more tools at your disposal. It’s a combination of technology and professional expertise. So that’s fascinating. Thanks for coming on the show. And if you enjoyed this conversation, make sure you follow us because we come out every week with exciting entrepreneurs like David. I will. I will. Thank you, Steve. Important Links: Davidi's LinkedIn David's  website