HRchat Podcast

Welcome to a landmark episode of HRchat . As we celebrate Episode 900 and a decade of conversations with the world's leading HR thinkers, host Bill Banham is joined by longtime friend, strategic HR leader, and DisruptHR co-organizer Steve Foulger . Bill and Steve reflect on how the HR profession has evolved over the past ten years, separating genuine progress from recycled ideas wrapped in ne...

For years, HR leaders have relied on dashboards to guide workforce decisions. But what happens when AI agents can analyse data, surface insights, and even recommend actions faster than any human? In this episode of the HRchat Podcast, Bill Banham is joined by Ankita Poddar , speaker, blogger, and Senior Human Resources Business Partner at Amazon Web Services (AWS), to explore why the future of HR...

In this episode of the HRchat Podcast, host Bill Banham talks with Chris Locke, Executive Director for Work + Family at Bright Horizons, about how employee benefits are evolving to meet the realities of modern life and work. Traditional benefits packages were once built around a handful of standard offerings. Today, employers are being asked to support employees through a much wider range of life...

What does it take to modernize HR systems in a complex, highly operational organization without damaging trust, culture, or employee engagement along the way? In this episode of the HRchat Podcast, host Bill Banham sits down with John Kennedy , HR leader at Irish Rail, to explore the realities of HR transformation in organizations where legacy systems, long-standing processes, and deeply embedded...

Margins are under siege. Between tariffs, retail media costs, markdown pressure, and the explosion of e-commerce complexity, suppliers are juggling more P&L lines than ever—and the fallout doesn’t stop with finance. We sit down with Dallas Counts, COO at Vendormint and former Walmart/Sam’s Club leader, to explore how operational strain shows up in culture, talent decisions, and the day-to-day...

The fastest way to lose trust as a leader is to pretend you’re fine when you’re not. Bill Bannham sits down with leadership strategist and emotional intelligence practitioner Russell Robinson to unpack a deceptively simple idea: leadership has to be “selfish” first. Not selfish in the ego sense, but selfish in the disciplined sense of knowing your values, naming your non-negotiables, protecting yo...

AI is moving faster than most workplaces can rewrite their playbooks, and that raises a blunt question: if machines can handle more tasks, what should people leaders double down on? We sit down with chartered psychologist and leadership coach Dr. Mary Collins to make the case that emotional intelligence, empathy, and relationship building are not “nice to have” anymore. They are the skills that ke...

Workplace bullying isn’t rare — it’s a persistent, under-recognised business risk that quietly erodes culture, trust, and retention. In this episode of the HRchat Podcast, host Bill Banham speaks with Mary Cullen , Founder and Managing Director at Insight HR and host of The HR Room, to unpack the findings from the Insight HR Irish Workplace Bullying Report 2026 . Together, they explore what workpl...

A candidate can look perfect on paper and still become the person who damages your culture, erodes trust, or puts your employer brand at risk with a single post. In this episode of the HRchat Podcast, host Bill Banham speaks with Ben Mones , founder and CEO of Fama , about how “people risk” has evolved in a world where work and behaviour increasingly play out online. With up to six generations now...

AI is forcing a question many leaders would rather avoid: are we improving work — or quietly deleting it? In this episode of the HRchat Podcast, Bill Banham is joined by Kevin Oakes , CEO and co-founder of the Institute for Corporate Productivity and author of Culture Renovation , to cut through the hype and explore what’s actually changing inside organisations right now. Together, they compare th...

“I think I’m resigning.” Jennifer Outlaw still remembers blurting those words out in a meeting, and the clarity that followed. That single moment opens a bigger conversation about career reinvention, values-based leadership, and what it really means to be successful when the job looks great on paper but feels wrong in your body. Pauline James is joined by Jennifer Outlaw , a values-rooted leadersh...

Workplace wellbeing is everywhere, yet too many programs still feel like duct tape on a deeper problem. Bill Banham sits down with Professor Jo Yarker, Professor of Occupational Psychology at Birkbeck University of London and managing partner at Affinity Health at Work, to get practical about what actually drives healthy performance and what HR leaders can do when quick fixes fail. We dig into why...

Your HR tech stack can feel like a living creature: new tools arrive, contracts renew, integrations sprawl, and suddenly you are paying multiple vendors for the same capability. We wanted a grounded conversation on how to regain control, so Bill Banham brought back Matthew Hamilton , VP of People Analytics and HRIS at Protective Life, to talk about building a guiding HR tech strategy that actually...

For decades, careers have been framed as a linear path, one that builds, peaks, and then winds down. But what if that model no longer reflects how we live and work today? In this episode of The Next Chapter , Pauline James , CEO of Anchor HR, speaks with Dr. Suzanne Cook , a Canadian social gerontologist and adult educator whose research is reshaping how we understand later-life careers. At the he...

In this episode of the HRchat Podcast, host Bill Banham is joined by Ingo Piroth, Chief Revenue Officer at Emapta Global , a leader in building high-performing global teams for some of the world’s fastest-growing companies.  Listen as they explore how outsourcing and offshore teams are evolving into a strategic lever for workforce transformation. With over 30 years of experience across global tech...

Hiring used to be about looking shinier than the competition. Now that AI can polish any resume to perfection, the real work is separating signal from noise—and telling the truth about what it takes to thrive. In this episode, Bill Banham sits down with Bryan Adams , CEO and founder of Happydance , to unpack why employer branding is key to business strategy, why “friction by design” beats mindless...

AI is no longer a future concept—it’s embedded in day-to-day HR operations. But with adoption comes pressure: to prove ROI, manage new risks, and rethink workforce strategies. In this episode of the HRchat Podcast, Bill Banham speaks with Craig McCoy, Chair of the HR Connection Group and a trusted advisor to boards and C-suite leaders across the UK. With leadership experience at Sky, BT, BUPA, and...

The future of work isn’t about trends - it’s about design. From the Cpl studio in Dublin, Bill Banham sits down with Barry Winkless, Head of the Future of Work Institute at Cpl and author of Future Work World , to explore what’s really changing in work, HR, and leadership - and what organizations need to do next. Barry shares a practical framework for understanding the future of work through three...

What does it take to scale technology without leaving your people behind? Bill Banham sits down with Valerie Capers Workman - CHRO at Empower Pharmacy and author of Quantum Progression - to unpack the real playbook for building an AI-enabled workforce that is faster, fairer, and future-ready. Valerie makes a clear case: human AI collaboration works when employees know exactly what to use and why i...

The ground keeps shifting under every org chart, and AI is speeding up the tempo. We sit down with Tom McCarty , CEO of OrgChart , to map a practical path to an AI-ready organization that doesn’t lose sight of people. Tom has helped thousands of companies redesign during M&A, hypergrowth, and downturns, and he shares why most reorgs fail before they start: leaders don’t have a single, live vie...

Your brain doesn’t “age out” of growth. With Dr. David Rock of the Neuroleadership Institute, Pauline James unpacks the science showing why learning capacity stays strong well into our later years and how motivation, novelty, and meaningful challenge keep cognition sharp. We share the practical moves that help senior talent thrive: mentoring that activates reward networks, reverse mentoring that s...

What if most workplace well-being initiatives miss the real issue—not how people feel at work, but how the job itself is designed? In this episode of the HRchat Podcast, host Bill Banham is joined by Carol Atkinson , Professor of Human Resource Management at Manchester Metropolitan University, to rethink what “good work” actually looks like in practice. Beyond pay and benefits, Carol argues that d...

In this episode of the HRchat Podcast , host Bill Banham is joined by Perry Timms , author of Transformational HR and founder of PTHR, to explore how HR leaders can design for constant change rather than react to it. Together, they unpack Perry’s updated HR operating model — one built on product thinking, systems design, and behavioural science . You’ll hear how HR teams can treat services as evol...

Careers don’t peak and fade—they evolve. In this episode of the HRchat Podcast , host Pauline James is joined by Dr. Ben Zweig , economist, data scientist, and CEO of Revelio Labs , to unpack what AI, remote work, and risk-off hiring really mean for later-career professionals. The data-driven headline may surprise you: while AI exposure is dampening demand for junior roles, experienced roles remai...

In this episode of the HRchat Podcast, Bill Banham is joined by future of work strategist Danny Stacy to unpack the growing disconnect between what employees now expect from work - flexibility, trust, and purpose — and the legacy systems many organisations still rely on. The result of that gap? Disengagement, burnout, and quiet opting out. Danny argues that the fix doesn’t start with perks or plat...