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Explore every episode of the podcast Workplace Stories by RedThread Research
Dive into the complete episode list for Workplace Stories by RedThread Research. Each episode is cataloged with detailed descriptions, making it easy to find and explore specific topics. Keep track of all episodes from your favorite podcast and never miss a moment of insightful content.
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| HR, Workforce Automation, and GenAI at Merck: Jeremy Shapiro & Chris Shultz | 11 Sep 2024 | 00:42:31 | |
Jeremy Shapiro, AVP of Human Resources and Workforce Analytics, and Chris Shultz, Director of HR Intelligent Automation and Gen AI at Merck join us in this forward-thinking conversation. Learn how (and why) Merck is embracing AI to streamline HR processes, support innovation, and maintain ethical considerations. This was hugely educational for us and we hope you get a glimpse into the future of HR tech. You will want to hear this episode if you are interested in...
Resources & People Mentioned
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| The Critical Role Data Plays in Skills Development: MetLife’s Emily Hacker and Dan Weiss | 28 Aug 2024 | 00:46:24 | |
Skills data can be used to raise the bar in talent acquisition, implement data-driven learning, make strategic workforce planning decisions, help employees reach career aspirations, and much more. Too many organizations are so glued to the idea of perfection that they won’t implement imperfect programs to gather skills data. Dan Weiss and Emily Hacker believe that this mindset is useless.Your skills data won’t be perfect—but it can still be useful and helpful to employees. They share exactly why in this episode of Workplace Stories. You will want to hear this episode if you are interested in...
Resources & People MentionedConnect with Emily Hacker and Dan Weiss
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| When Digital Transformation Drives Skills Transformation: Booking.com’s Oliver Drury | 21 Feb 2024 | 00:51:40 | |
When Oliver (Ollie) Drury joined Booking.com, they dove into digital transformation by simplifying their tech stack—and reducing variables—using a middleware to stitch everything together. That enabled them to have a simpler set of variables from which to create their skills ecosystem. Their driving goal was to solve skills for the entire organization. In this conversation, Ollie shares how they’re working to accomplish a skills-based transformation by first focusing on digital transformation. You will want to hear this episode if you are interested in...
Resources & People Mentioned
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| Company Culture is the Foundation for Skills Readiness: Executive Networks’ Gina Jeneroux | 07 Feb 2024 | 00:53:46 | |
According to Gina Jeneroux, company culture sets the foundation for skills readiness. If a company culture isn’t supportive of innovation and creativity, is it ready to support an initiative to focus on skills? Skills should be infused into everything you do in your organization and supported from the top down. Gina has spent almost 40 years in the financial services and learning industries. She spent the last few years running BMO’s corporate university and serving as Chief Learning Officer. In this conversation, she shares why a focus on skills is necessary, why company culture plays an important role, and how to get buy-in from company leadership.You will want to hear this episode if you are interested in... Connect With Red Thread Research
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| The Skills Odyssey IV: Opening Arguments | 06 Feb 2024 | 00:10:45 | |
Welcome to the newest season of Workplace Stories. It will come as no surprise that we’re devoting season 11 to continuing our conversation around skills. Why? Because there are still questions to be answered. In these opening arguments, we’ll share the questions we’re being asked, what we’re looking forward to, and we’ll give you a sneak-peak of some of the amazing guests we’ll be having conversations with. Connect With Red Thread Research
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| A Skills Approach for the Present and Future: IEEE’s Jennifer Rogers | 06 Dec 2023 | 00:56:06 | |
Jennifer Rogers is the Executive Officer in the Learning Technology Standards Committee at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), which has 427,000+ members in over 190 countries. The IEEE is the world’s largest trade organization and the professional home for engineering and technology communities worldwide. Jennifer is an unrelenting advocate for the potential that exists in others, which is why she’s a perfect fit at IEEE. IEEE is working together to figure out skills across an industry. They’re also focused on skills development and education at all levels through college and a professional career. In this conversation, Jennifer shares what a skills-based organization looks like, how they organize and validate skills, and how their approach focuses on both the present and future. | |||
| Leveraging Generative AI to Efficiently Utilize Skills Data: McKinsey & Company’s Yelena Mammadova, Ed.D | 22 Nov 2023 | 00:48:59 | |
According to Yelena Mammadova, Ed.D—the Associate Director of Learning, Skills Transformation Initiative at McKinsey—McKinsey seeks to bring impact to clients and create an organization where they attract, excite, and retain exceptional people. The primary goal of her department is to accelerate talent development. Yelena strives to connect human development and technology in her role. She is one our first guests who’s talked about generative AI and how it’s embedded into their skills effort. They’re using AI to connect and map skills information. Secondly, they’re integrating skills with their people analytics teams. They’re starting small and experimenting. Most organizations build skills models around the job architecture currently in place. McKinsey is taking a different approach. They’re developing assessments for skills so they know how to organize the people around the work they have. Learn more about their unique approach and their utilization of generative AI to father and efficiently utilize skills data in this conversation. | |||
| Narrowing Scope & Purpose to Ease the Transition to a Skills-Based Organization: HPE's Kaye Slay and Vandana Bhagtani | 08 Nov 2023 | 00:49:58 | |
Transitioning a large company like Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) to a skills-based organization could be a daunting task. That’s why focusing on scope and purpose was an important place to start for Vandana Bhagtani and Kaye Slay. In this conversation, Vandana—The Director of Technical Talent Management—and Kaye—The User Experience and Adoption Lead for Talent and Learning Systems—share how they’ve worked together to develop a strategy for transitioning HPE to a skills-based organization. They also share why they chose to focus on a particular group and narrowed their scope further to talent acquisition and people development (all the while leveraging technology and AI). They’re at the start of their journey and will evolve and develop as they transition to a skills-based organization. Subscribe to WORKPLACE STORIES | |||
| Partnerships Focused on Learning Equity: Ingka Group’s Shannon Custard | 25 Oct 2023 | 00:48:36 | |
Shannon Custard—the Global Competence Development Manager at Ingka Group—is responsible for leading their global learning organization consisting of over 177,000 workers across 30+ countries globally. As they began the transition from a competence-based to a skills-based organization, Shannon wanted to focus first and foremost on frontline populations. They believe that frontline population learning equity is important and often neglected. So they focused on solving the skills problems for the frontline employees to then extrapolate to the corporate population. Through the process, they almost completely scrapped and redesigned their onboarding process to make sure the frontline team members had the skills necessary to be successful. When you help people reach success soon, it makes an impact. In this conversation, Shannon shares more about the process of transitioning to a skills-based organization, why the Ingka Group believes it’s important, and the impact it’s making on their frontline population. Resources & People Mentioned Connect with Shannon Custard
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| Creating a Job Architecture from Scratch: Megan Bickle | 11 Oct 2023 | 00:49:35 | |
Megan Bickle is the Director of Culture, Employee Engagement and Employee Listening at Western Digital. In Megan’s experience, roles can be viewed as a collection of skills. Viewing roles this way allows organizations to be more responsive to the evolving needs of the business in terms of the skills needed for development and hiring. Megan believes that job architecture is essential to becoming a skills-based organization. Skills were a part of their overall integrated talent management strategy, infused throughout the organization. Capability models and job structures were built in tandem. In this conversation, Megan shares her experience building a skills-based organization as the Global Talent Management and Organizational Development Leader at GE Digital. You will want to hear this episode if you are interested in...
Resources & People Mentioned
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| The Skills Odyssey III: Opening Arguments | 27 Sep 2023 | 00:16:28 | |
The world of skills is evolving rapidly thanks to technology and data which is why we are devoting yet another season to the skills odyssey. In these opening arguments, you’ll hear how we’ll shape the season, why we’re focusing on skills again, who you can expect to listen to, and what we are most looking forward to. Press play to start a new season of Workplace Stories. Connect With Red Thread Research
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| Developing Skills to Reach Business Outcomes: Learning Forum’s Brian Hackett and Richardson Consulting’s Brian Richardson | 27 Sep 2023 | 00:52:50 | |
The importance of creating skills-based organizations is no longer a theoretical discussion: it’s now a practical reality. To ensure that businesses reach their desired outcomes, it is necessary to ensure that their workforce has the skills needed to get the job done. Brian Richardson and Brian Hackett are deeply entrenched in helping business leaders discuss and develop the skills initiatives needed to improve their organizations’ metrics. In this in-the-weeds discussion, we learn from both Brians’ breadth of experience to hear what it takes for businesses to bring skill building to the forefront. Connect with Brian Hackett and Brian Richardson https://thelearningforum.org/ Connect With Red Thread Research
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| Operationalizing AI Experimentation: Harvard Business Publishing’s Angela Cheng-Cimini | 14 Aug 2024 | 00:43:51 | |
Generative AI is taking the world by storm, and the realm of HR is no exception. The use of AI will change a business and it will impact teams. That’s why Angela Cheng-Cimini seeks to answer the question, “How do you make sure your teams are positively impacted by AI?”A lot of the conversation starts with mitigating the fear that surrounds AI. Angela believes one of the ways you can get people to run toward generative AI is to create a safe environment where they can play with it and be amazed by its capabilities. Then, they’ll want to integrate it into their work. In this conversation, Angela shares how—as the CHRO—she’s operationalizing AI experimentation at Harvard Business Publishing. Because, ultimately, “AI is not going to replace humans. But humans will be replaced by humans who use AI.” You will want to hear this episode if you are interested in...
Resources & People MentionedConnect with Angela Cheng-Cimini
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| Transitioning from a Training Culture to a Learning Culture: Sobeys’ Peter Tulumello | 23 Aug 2023 | 00:47:29 | |
Peter Tulumello is changing the culture at one of Canada’s largest grocery retailers. As a grocery chain, Sobeys has a large segment of frontline workers and with it, their own unique pain points. To understand the problems that the frontline faces, Peter recognized that he needed to get into the stores to understand frontline workers’ day-to-day roles. Listen to this interview to hear how Peter identified major problems and came up with valuable solutions. Connect with Peter Tulumello Connect With Red Thread Research
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| Developing the Frontline: General Mills’ Valerie Digman | 09 Aug 2023 | 00:45:59 | |
What happens when a mechanical engineer tackles an L&D problem? A completely redesigned learning environment. On this episode of Workplace Stories, we interview General Mills’ Valerie Digman. Valerie describes how she helped solve a frontline training problem and improved efficiency by 5%. If you’re interested in improving efficiency and rethinking traditional training methods, you won’t want to miss this interview. Press play to learn from Valerie’s experience at General Mills. You will want to hear this episode if you are interested in...
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| Listening to Frontliners Through Business and Cultural Change: Acuity Brands John Brothers | 26 Jul 2023 | 00:38:57 | |
We’re all humans, so the needs of workers are similar across the board. John Brothers has learned this from his time as VP of Talent at Acuity. On today’s episode of Workplace Stories, John recounts his experience working through Acuity’s cultural and business mindset shift and how that has affected the frontline workforce and beyond. Connect with John Brothers Connect With Red Thread Research
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| Improving the Employee Experience with Different Types of Frontline Workers: Rotana’s Andrew Wolhuter | 12 Jul 2023 | 00:53:10 | |
Improving the employee experience starts with data. Rotana’s Andrew Wolhunter understands that and uses Rotana’s qualitative data to retain frontline workers in a competitive market. Andrew has an enthusiasm and infectious energy that he not only shares with his coworkers at Rotana, but he also shares this excitement with us on today’s episode. Listen in to learn how Andrew is using data to lead the change in the employee experience at Rotana. Connect with Andrew Wolhunter Connect With Red Thread Research
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| Gaining Insightful Feedback from Frontline Workers: Cargill’s Tabatha Cronin | 28 Jun 2023 | 00:48:37 | |
Frontline workers face unique challenges so organizations are making changes to empower them. On this season of Workplace Stories, we’re exploring the unique challenges and positive situations happening on the frontline. On this episode, we chat with Tabatha Cronin to learn how Cargill is supporting its massive frontline labor force. Listen in to learn how Cargill dug in to understand the motivations driving their employees. You won’t want to miss how this changed the way the company approached its solutions. Resources & People Mentioned
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| Creating Purposeful, Collaborative, Tactical Work on the Frontline: SAP’s Steve Hunt | 14 Jun 2023 | 00:50:04 | |
Frontline workers can have an outsized influence on the success of an organization. They are often the only interface our customers have with a brand. At RedThread Research, we have been diving into how to support frontline workers more holistically which is why this season we are focusing on the unique challenges that frontline workers face. We’ll also explore the changes organizations are making to empower them, as well as the good things happening on the frontline and how organizations can adapt those practices more broadly.In this episode, we welcome Steve Hunt from SAP. Steve has a unique perspective based on his work as an organizational psychologist in the technology space. This discussion was a fantastic way to open the conversation and sets the bar high for the rest of the season. Don’t miss it; press play now to listen. Connect with Steve Hunt
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| The Frontline: Opening Arguments | 14 Jun 2023 | 00:17:58 | |
Welcome back to our ninth season! We are excited about these upcoming episodes. In this season, Stacia and I focus on the frontline by discussing frontline workers with thought leaders from many organizations across various industries. Frontline workers have typically been a part of the workforce that has been swept under the rug, but during the pandemic, they were thrust to the forefront of people’s minds. In this season, we’ll discuss how to define a frontline worker, how to lead them, how to engage with them, and how to help them plan their career path. You will want to hear this episode if you are interested in...
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| Creating Intentional Leadership: AAFP’s Paula Matthews | 11 Apr 2023 | 00:44:45 | |
A lot has changed for managers and organizations over the last three years. So, what can be done to successfully navigate those changes so that managers can be successful and organizations can continue to thrive? The American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) is designing a new framework for their managers to help them better understand what they can be doing to intentionally lead their staff. This inspiring conversation with Paula Matthews from AAFP is a fantastic way to wrap up our Making Managing Manageable series. If you are just wrapping up season eight, now is a great time to subscribe to the podcast. You can get even more RedThread content by joining our membership community. Try it out for free for seven days to see what we’re all about!You will want to hear this episode if you are interested in...
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| Questioning Convention in the Workplace: Moderna’s Noah Rabinowitz and Nkiruka Ogbuchiekwe | 28 Mar 2023 | 00:53:40 | |
In this episode of Workplace Stories we talked to Moderna’s Noah Rabinowitz and Nkiruka Ogbuchiekwe. We explore ways that managers and other leaders can question conventionality by recognizing and thinking through false dichotomies. Listen in to hear how Moderna is building its systems by putting its company culture first and by constantly questioning traditional ways of doing things. https://redthreadresearch.com/podcast/questioning-convention-in-the-workplace-modernas-noah-rabinowitz-and-nkiruka-ogbuchiekwe/ End-of-Season Webinar Don't miss our season recap, where we will summarize key themes, share critical insights and anecdotes, and identify our questions on how to make managing more manageable. Register today Resources & People Mentioned
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Want full access to the episode's transcript? Try our RTR membership with a 7-day trial. Listen to our top episodes, explore cutting-edge research, attend exclusive member-only events, and share with a top-notch cohort community of industry leaders and peers. Take it for a spin! | |||
| How Organizations Can Make Data-Driven Changes that Benefit Everyone: Affirm’s Kaitlyn Mathews | 14 Mar 2023 | 00:54:27 | |
On this episode of Workplace Stories, Affirm’s Feedback and Development Lead, Kaitlyn Mathews, describes how her organization uses its data to drive changes within the company. Kaitlyn also touches on their delivery systems, the HR relationship with managers, using tech to strategize, and how she uses her role to help others realize their capabilities. https://redthreadresearch.com/podcast/how-organizations-can-make-data-driven-changes-that-benefit-everyone-affirms-kaitlyn-mathews/ End-of-Season Webinar Don't miss our season recap, where we will summarize key themes, share critical insights and anecdotes, and identify our questions on how to make managing more manageable. Register today Resources & People Mentioned
Connect With Red Thread Research
Want full access to the episode's transcript? Try our RTR membership with a 7-day trial. Listen to our top episodes, explore cutting-edge research, attend exclusive member-only events, and share with a top-notch cohort community of industry leaders and peers. Take it for a spin! | |||
| Debunking the Proposed Half-Life of a Skill: Guild Education’s Matthew Daniel | 31 Jul 2024 | 00:45:19 | |
Matthew Daniel—the Senior Principal for Talent Strategy and Mobility at Guild Education—believes that, in a workplace context, skills are the things we know, can do, and the ways of thinking that help us deliver on business strategy. They are rich, deep, complex, and meaningful.Matthew believes that the “Half-life” statistic that’s been perpetuated about workplace skills is garbage. In this conversation, he details exactly why the half-life of a skill being 2 ½ to 5 years is faulty logic and how we should view skills differently. You will want to hear this episode if you are interested in...
Resources & People Mentioned
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| Building Connection and Community Through Leadership: WGU’s Sara Reed | 28 Feb 2023 | 00:47:53 | |
In this conversation, we speak to Sara Reed, Vice President of People and Talent at Western Governors University. We discuss what struck her about what senior leadership is doing to support managers within her organization, how building connections and community actually helps to support accountability, and why it is important to analyze the reasons that people choose to lead. https://redthreadresearch.com/podcast/building-connection-and-community-through-leadership-wgus-sara-reed/ End-of-Season Webinar Don't miss our season recap, where we will summarize key themes, share critical insights and anecdotes, and identify our questions on how to make managing more manageable. Register today Resources & People Mentioned
Connect With Red Thread Research
Want full access to the episode's transcript? Try our RTR membership with a 7-day trial. Listen to our top episodes, explore cutting-edge research, attend exclusive member-only events, and share with a top-notch cohort community of industry leaders and peers. Take it for a spin! | |||
| How to Build Systems to Enhance the Manager Experience: Morningstar’s Mary Slaughter | 14 Feb 2023 | 00:44:20 | |
Mary brings years of experience to Morningstar and on this episode of Workplace Stories, she explains how the manager and employee experiences are tied together. As you listen, you’ll be fascinated by the way that Morningstar conducted research to identify and define concrete sentiments that would improve the employee experience. https://redthreadresearch.com/podcast/how-to-build-systems-to-enhance-the-manager-experience-morningstars-mary-slaughter/ End-of-Season Webinar Don't miss our season recap, where we will summarize key themes, share critical insights and anecdotes, and identify our questions on how to make managing more manageable. Register today Connect with Mary Slaughter Connect With Red Thread Research
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| Innovative Ways to Support Managers So They Can Lead Effectively: NVA's Clint Kofford | 31 Jan 2023 | 00:51:54 | |
Clint Kofford, the Vice President of Talent with National Veterinary Associates, has a unique perspective on what it means to be a leader in today’s changing landscape. With extensive experience in numerous multinational companies, Clint is a thought leader in this space. His fascinating viewpoints caused us both to stop and think and even changed our minds about certain issues. Press play to hear what they are and to see if his views might broaden your perspective. https://redthreadresearch.com/podcast/innovative-ways-to-support-managers-so-they-can-lead-effectively-nvas-clint-kofford/ End-of-Season Webinar Don't miss our season recap, where we will summarize key themes, share critical insights and anecdotes, and identify our questions on how to make managing more manageable. Register today Connect with Clint Kofford
Want full access to the episode's transcript? Try our RTR membership with a 7-day trial. Listen to our top episodes, explore cutting-edge research, attend exclusive member-only events, and share with a top-notch cohort community of industry leaders and peers. Take it for a spin! | |||
| Making Managing Manageable: Opening Arguments | 31 Jan 2023 | 00:13:08 | |
A scene-setter for our latest set of Workplace Stories—listen as we focus on what it actually means to be a manager in 2023. https://redthreadresearch.com/podcast/making-managing-manageable-opening-arguments/ End-of-Season Webinar Don't miss our season recap, where we will summarize key themes, share critical insights and anecdotes, and identify our questions on how to make managing more manageable. Register today Resources & People Mentioned
Connect With Red Thread Research
Want full access to the episode's transcript? Try our RTR membership with a 7-day trial. Listen to our top episodes, explore cutting-edge research, attend exclusive member-only events, and share with a top-notch cohort community of industry leaders and peers. Take it for a spin! | |||
| If You Don’t Have The Data, You Can’t Do The EX: Workday’s Phil Willburn | 27 Dec 2022 | 00:59:17 | |
Phil Willburn—our Season Sponsor Workday’s Vice President, People Analytics—makes a very welcome second appearance on ‘Workplace Stories,’ where he shares genuinely useful EX best practice. Does he have the definitive answer to our question, Evolution or Revolution? Listen to decide. | |||
| Yes, Even EX Has To Be Systematized: Marriott International's Jessica Lee | 13 Dec 2022 | 01:05:03 | |
Jessica Lee, SVP of Global Talent Development at Marriott International & The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center, shares her insights into how to create a consistent and supportive EX across the hotel giant’s 30-plus brands. | |||
| Why We Need to Rip Out and Replace the Employee Experience: Meta’s Kelly Monahan | 29 Nov 2022 | 00:53:12 | |
If Meta wants us all to work at least some of the time in a Metaverse, it probably wants to figure out what the right Employee Experience is to get there. Kelly Monahan's making sure that happens. | |||
| Why Both Little ‘E’ and Big ‘E’ Employee Experience Count: Eskalera’s Dane Holmes | 15 Nov 2022 | 00:52:40 | |
Former Goldman CPO Dane Holmes wants to remind us all of a huge truth: processes may end—but people don’t (you don’t stop learning once you’ve completed your module). So why don’t we look at Employee Experience that way? | |||
| Why Learning Is the Engine of Employee Experience: Walmart’s Brandon Carson | 01 Nov 2022 | 00:42:31 | |
For Vice President of Learning and Leadership at Walmart Brandon Carson, the systems we put in place ARE the employee experience. And if we want to change that, we need to help not just the cognitive worker, but that often-neglected other constituency in the EX debate—their physical worker equivalents. | |||
| You Can't Change EX Without Understanding People: Author Ashley Goodall | 18 Oct 2022 | 00:54:49 | |
For leadership expert and author Ashley Goodall, we get the employee experience consistently wrong because we just don’t want to look at the way humans really are out-of-the-box. Is he right? | |||
| The Problem with Change: Author Ashley Goodall | 17 Jul 2024 | 00:55:39 | |
Ashley Goodall has spent 20 years in various roles in HR, covering everything from performance management to leadership. He spent six years at Cisco as the SVP of HR. He left Cisco to write his book, “The Problem with Change,” which was just released. In it, he addresses the problems that accompany change. To write his book, Ashley interviewed people around the world, asking them to tell their stories of organizational change. Many people told miserable stories, stories of unending change propelled by mergers, new leadership, new strategies, and much more—much of it unnecessary. What was the result? People were struggling to do their jobs because of the constant change. Yet organizations are rewarding leaders to do things that make it hard for their employees to do their work! That’s a problem, right? So, what should we do instead? We have to understand the conditions of human performance to understand how we can “do” change better. Ashley begins to dissect that complicated yet fascinating topic in this episode of Workplace Stories. You will want to hear this episode if you are interested in...
Ashley addresses five core problem areas that accompany change:
Teammates complement each other so together they can meet a goal that couldn’t be achieved alone. When reorganization happens, all of the social groups at work are upended. In his book, Ashley also dove into the science of “place attachment.” People get attached to places. Place is a thing strongly tied to work. But there’s also a connection between ritual and place. Our habits are a mechanism by which we grow attached to a place. Habits and rituals tied to place have people saying “It’s where I do this” or “It’s where we do this.” When offices are changed or people are moved, you disrupt the rituals attached to that place. Those places are a source of stability. And for people to do their best work, they need stability. All of these facets of a human—certainty, control, social groups, sense of place, ritual—are the foundation of showing up at work and being useful. Everyone wants to be useful. How we design the workplace hinges on these things. Ashley is clear: “Sooner or later you have to ask people what they want and listen to what they tell you.” How Ashley looks at meaning differently Ashley points out that the world around us must make sense. You can’t be uplifted by the mission of an organization if you can’t figure out what the mission is. Science tells us that the coherence of our world is so important that when it’s taken away in one place, we find it in another. There are two ingredients to meaning:
We need to stop treating humans like “SKUmans” What characteristics of humans do we capture in our technology at work? How does that inform how we think about people at work? We track the “cogs in a machine” stuff. We record names, date of birth, someone’s role, their certifications and experience, etc. but we don’t record what amuses someone, what makes them smile, and the weird things they love to do. Maybe they’re always late for meetings, love to bake, or love creating spreadsheets. If you think humans are interchangeable and emotionless beings, how would you describe them? As a “SKU” number. SKUs are stock-keeping units. They track what something costs, where it is in the store, what the margin is, etc. We’ve been doing the same to humans. And that’s massively inhuman. We can’t capture human work this way. How might we capture a human at work? Ashley argues for getting better at understanding what people are like at work. It’s about asking questions like, “How are you offering your best to other humans? Why did you show up today?” Now that we’ve covered the problems with change, how do we address them? Ashley shares how stability management just might be the key (and how to navigate it) in this episode. Resources & People Mentioned
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| The Employee Experience (R)evolution: Opening Arguments | 18 Oct 2022 | 00:15:05 | |
A scene-setter for our latest set of Workplace Stories—a deep dive into where we really are with EX right now. | |||
| If We Don’t Connect, The Work Will Get Done—But It'll Never Be Great: Pretaa's Michael Madon | 27 Sep 2022 | 00:50:43 | |
With a unique combination of experience across the worlds of the military, non-profit, government and commercial sector, mobile health entrepreneur Michael Madon shares what years of trying to make connection happen in organizations has taught him. | |||
| Using Connection To Build Successful Cultures: Udemy’s Melissa Daimler | 27 Sep 2022 | 00:54:11 | |
In this episode, CLO at online education leader Udemy Melissa Daimler—who recently published a new book on making workplace reconnection work, ‘ReCulturing’—sits down with Chris and Stacia to detail practical steps on making our new complex workplaces human once again. | |||
| The Power of Connection: Thinker, Professor Dave Ulrich | 13 Sep 2022 | 00:59:20 | |
It’s our special pleasure to share a conversation with renowned HR strategist Dave Ulrich around the importance of Connection and the practical steps leaders need to be making now to make it happen. | |||
| Firing Up Connection From Pre-Hire: Service Express's Gretchen Murphy | 30 Aug 2022 | 00:50:06 | |
This week we sat down with Gretchen Murphy, CHRO of data center services specialist Service Express, to hear how only ever adding people who fit your culture but then constantly supporting them through conscious Reconnecting techniques really delivers. | |||
| Unsucking The Workplace Through Connection: Airtable’s Jessica Amortegui | 16 Aug 2022 | 00:52:02 | |
Based out of San Francisco, Airtable is a fast-growing software product company with a mission to democratize software creation. It says it’s doing that by enabling anyone to build the tools that meet their needs, but is that focus on openness and collaboration talk or walk? In this next debate on how to make reconnecting real, we find out from a great conversation with the company’s Global Talent Development Leader, Jessica Amortegui, who has a lot to say about walking the walk—from the way her company is really taking on the problem of connection at the individual, human level, but also how to better facilitate connecting with others on a one-on-one, team, and entire organizational level. Even more interestingly; that happens on both the virtual (90% of her fellow ‘Airtablets’ joined during the pandemic) but also on the physical level—and as you’ll also hear, gets instantiated with well-thought-out and battle-tested role tools and exercises, which we’re delighted to say some of which Jess has shared with listeners. She also has some very useful things to say about the demonstrable value of all this even the most results-focused managers and connection ‘skeptics’ find persuasive. Finally, we loved her persuading us about the importance of connection in the flow of one's day-to-day work—making connecting not some special thing that you do in parallel but can be structured to be part of any meeting if you want it to be. All in all, so many great soundbites—but if you want just one, how about, “The thing I would love to switch about our workplaces is how many of us end the day exhausted and feeling de-energized. Why does it have to be that way?” Abso-tootle! | |||
| Reconnecting Via Purpose And Continual Career Conversations: UCHealth’s Matt Gosney | 02 Aug 2022 | 00:48:26 | |
For our second conversation about The Great Reconnection, we sat down with Matt Gosney, Vice President, Organizational Development at UCHealth, a major Denver-based healthcare provider that’s grown rapidly in the past few years. To make that growth work, the organization has been consciously doing as much as it can to enable connection and growth. We wanted to know more, so got Matt on to hear why connection and growth are now seen as critical to UC Health's employment value proposition, and also a significantly contributor to recruiting and retention. We also talk about how some of UC Health's previous talent processes, especially performance management, weren’t really helping on the connection part, and what Matt and his team did about it. A powerful new concept that’s proving really helpful is supporting managers to have what UCHealth calls ‘career conversations’ with every single employee has unleashed a tidal wave of connection, engagement, and contribution. An unintended but very welcome consequences of that work have been a dramatic improvement in talent pipeline diversity and a more organic (and thus, successful) approach to DEIB. We conclude with a story about lifetime-long transferrable skills that nearly wraps one of our most fun yet also thoughtful conversations for a while. The one key quote? “Connection is a baseline antecedent to progress and delivery of results.” Sounds bang on to us. | |||
| Reconnecting Without Being Bad-Bossy: HR Thinker Liz Wiseman | 19 Jul 2022 | 01:14:36 | |
We start our new S6 of Workplace Stories with an overview of the theme of the Season, how it links to the previous five, then talk to Liz Wiseman, CEO of the Wiseman Group and author of New York Times bestseller about how leaders can build connections to and between people, and more broadly to the organization, 'Multipliers.' As we hear, Liz’s purpose is to make work better for everyone by creating organizations where great leaders multiply intelligence, rather than draining it from the organization. What inspires Liz is working with and watching senior leaders to learn what good leadership looks like, and how anyone can be a smart leader that doesn’t shut down smarts of others. We then hear her views on how at present, many organizations are in the process of trying to recover from a period of enormous disconnection. Now, in a world of Hybrid and Remote Working, what must leaders do to build and facilitate connection? This is essential in creating a sense of purpose and community, both in and out of the organization, and to help leaders need to provide context for people’s work. For Liz, this has to be about explaining what the impact of work is, and how it connects with wider purpose, as without this, people can’t feel a sense of fulfilment in their work. She also shares her view on how people don’t want to be managed in general, they want to be led. Rather than doing a job, leaders are people who see what needs to be done. This is important in the context of the Great Resignation – employees must feel connected and a sense of purpose even if removed from their workplace and work friends. Finally, she offers practical ways to start The Great Reconnection. | |||
| Forget Balanced Work-Life And Think More Integrated: Panasonic's Lydia Wu | 28 Jun 2022 | 00:50:28 | |
In this, our final episode for the Adventures in Hybrid Work Season, we end strong with a great sit-down with people analytics innovator and Head of Talent Analytics & Transformation at Panasonic USA, Lydia Wu. It’s the right last conversation for now on this important topic, we think, as Lydia gives us so much frontline reporting on the key issues we’ve identified in our conversations, like the importance of data and really listening to what your workforce actually wants in terms of return to office instead of what you think they want, which we’ve heard from others—but also topics we maybe didn’t get so much on, like the importance of the DEIB factor in Hybrid, and what we should be doing for managers in all this, not just the main employee base. The fact that Panasonic—which really isn’t just ‘the microwave people’—has such a wide spread of job roles, both desked and deskless, is also really important to think about. It all matters—and as Dani says in the episode, maybe it’s time to stop saying ‘Hybrid Work,’ because now it’s all now just… what Work is? | |||
| Is Mentoring The Key To Hybrid? WM’s Phil Rhodes | 14 Jun 2022 | 00:53:11 | |
In February last year, this week’s guest, Phil Rhodes, Head of Learning & Leadership Development at WM--which you may now better as Waste Management, and who are the very helpful people who handled your garbage all the way through Lockdown—was not long in post when his suggestion of a coaching program was met with the observation, ‘Phil, trash companies don’t do coaching.’ Well, maybe they should all start, as the first rollout got a 96% approval rating with either ‘life-changing’ or ‘valuable’ level ratings. And as you’ll discover on this episode, mentoring and coaching, at multiple levels, for both truck driver and regional manager, emerged as a transformational tool for the company. Was it just a way to get through the pandemic, or perhaps the key way Hybrid can be made to land for everyone? We’ll make you listen to the episode to get the answer—but you’ll not hate us for that, as along the way you’ll get so much great insight on everything from the history of Southern Africa to new ways of thinking about effective frontline worker support. Warning: no, they didn’t train new folks how to drive the big vehicles online. At least… tune in to find out more! | |||
| Using a Skills Framework to Empower Employees: Microsoft’s Shweta Srivastava and John Mighell | 29 May 2024 | 00:52:55 | |
The mission of Microsoft is to empower every person in every organization to achieve more. An enterprise-wide skills focus is one way they’re fulfilling their mission. It’s about moving beyond job titles and fixed roles to give freedom and flexibility to apply skills and expertise where they matter the most. And it’s all in service of creating an environment where growing one’s career is the top reason to join and stay at Microsoft. They’re using human verification to give the individual control over the data that’s included, who it’s shared with, and how it’s shared. Shweta Srivastava and John Mighell share how Microsoft is implementing skills on a large scale in this fascinating conversation. https://twitter.com/redthreadre | |||
| From Human To Social Capital: formerly AWS & GM's Michael Arena | 31 May 2022 | 00:54:31 | |
This week’s guest is Michael Arena, who brings the unique perspective of leading talent development and management for not just major New Economy global brands like Amazon Web Services, but also stalwart Old Economy blue chips like General Motors and Bank of America. Along the way, he’s also done serious research and training in network analysis and the power of social science to truly understand what’s happening with today’s corporations. That combination of frontline management and crisis response and a lens for viewing all our recent challenges in people practices, gives him, we’d argue, the right to be heard on what he thinks is really happening out there for both individuals (and especially a voice often left out of the Future of Work conversation, the leader) and teams as we progress through what he jokes is both, Dickens-wise, ‘the best and the worst’ times to be in work right now. If you’re still sceptical, a few minutes on his evidence of bridging and bonding social capital and its impact on the Hybrid Workspace we’re seeing evolve around us will change your mind: and we say that as Data ‘Til I Die! converts. Social capital is a tool, we predict, that you’ll soon be using as much as Michael is in his new role in Connected Commons. | |||
| Doubling Down On Trust: Uber's RJ Milnor | 17 May 2022 | 00:53:11 | |
If there’s one word that sums up this week’s episode, it’s conscious listening. Yes, that’s two. But it’s actually the on-ramp to the real word we mean, and which is fast emerging as the theme of this Season 5 of Workplace Stories as it evolves: intentionality. That’s because our guest--RJ Milnor, Global Head of People Analytics and Chief People Data Officer at Uber--says it was conscious listening and thinking by he and his team about the WHY of his company was asking people to work for them, as opposed to where, that helped him craft a working Hybrid Work policy that works. Which, of course, is also another way of describing being intentional about RTO. We love RJ’s deep-thinking approach to these big questions--his commitment to listening to the people he’s trying to help, his rigor around tools and data, his willingness to experiment and flex. And we think you will too--plus get some clues about how to start the road to unlocking the Hybrid Work puzzle box from today. Hint: get conscious listening… and then get intentional. | |||
| Restoring Work-Life Balance Through Hybrid: Microsoft's Dawn Klinghoffer | 03 May 2022 | 00:56:25 | |
Today, we hear from an HR leader at the absolute heart of the Hybrid evolution, Dawn Klinghoffer, Vice President of the HR Business Insights team at Microsoft. Dawn’s really helping set the agenda of what gets called in the show the ‘Pandora’s Box’ of workplace change the pandemic is sparking--which she sees, not as a source of trouble and confusion, as in the Greek myth, but as a way to get energy, meaning and empowerment placed at the center of every employee’s experience. Pandora-like, though, the changes Dawn wants to see can spark fear and disruption--fears which she discusses frankly and openly, and which she also so brilliantly encapsulated in a recent landmark HBR piece. We also hear about her fresh thinking on people analytics, data, and the employee-manager relationship, as well as practical tips on making Hybrid start working in your environment. To us—and, we think, by the end of this 56-plus minutes—Dawn's work here is a great example of HR is really for: to help us all be the best humans we can be. Worth your time. | |||
| A New Work Operating System: Thinker John Boudreau | 19 Apr 2022 | 01:00:18 | |
Is it time to retire the concept of a job? Is it holding us all back—especially if we really want to make Hybrid Work a success? That’s a new, and we think highly useful, concept from today’s guest, author, academic and futurist John Boudreau. In the episode, John tells us how we want to move away from thinking about work as one job and job holder at a time and one degree at a time, to a system that allows the parts to freely connect, so tasks and projects can connect to atomized or deconstructed worker capabilities like Skills, which can be gained through an atomized set of things like experiences, partial degrees or credentials. John—a well-known HR scholar who’s Professor Emeritus of Management and Organization and a Senior Research Scientist with the Center for Effective Organizations at the Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California—says his thinking here is that we’ve been using the wrong unit of analysis in ‘the job,’ and that a new operating system of work is needed that should be instead be based on deconstructed elements of a role in terms of tasks rather than being based primarily on the job as the atomic unit of HR analysis. As you’re about to find, this is all set forth in his new book with fellow researcher Ravin Jesuthasan, Work Without Jobs, whose top concepts we try and explore, like what it might be like to ‘melt’ a job down to see what it’s made of and who could do bits of it instead, as well as a very new way of thinking about ice cubes. We’re so honored John agreed to be our lead-off guest for the Season, as we think it identifies many key themes and frees up some real opportunities for fresh Hybrid Work thinking we’ll all find useful. Just be careful you don’t melt while listening. | |||
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