The HR Hub

There's an intersection between tactics and strategy in HR. As we want our work to matter more and as we move through our careers, we need to understand the transition. The guest for this episode was Brittany Eisenman, the founding principal of Stokefire. With her unique career path from social work to advising CEOs, Brittany brought a fresh perspective to this! Some of that perspective includes:...

Why is it so hard to find someone to talk about HR strategy? It's been something I've been trying to do for a long time now... and apparently it's complicated! Len Nanjad, however, was up to the task! He thinks deeply about HR strategy including how to deliver an HR strategy that balances the complexity of people with business strategy. He is also the guest on one of my most popular episodes! He s...

In HR we have to navigate the boundaries between us and leadership. We want to provide good service, but we can't enable leaders to avoid their responsibilities. This week's guest was Pam Schmidt. Pam, a leadership and organization development consultant, shared her experiences and insights on a common challenge in HR and offered some practical advice (and a little bit of spine!) Pam discussed: 2️...

In the world of HR, conflict resolution is an everyday thing. Employees frequently seek us out to help them resolve their conflict. Incorporating mediation for HR can help. Mediation skills are made of skills we already have. The thing that gets in our way is usually fear or discomfort around conflict. So you need to practice. Unfortunately. I actually went looking for someone to talk to about alt...

Curious about how AI is changing the game for HR? Or maybe you've been waiting for the hype to die down and the real story to come out. This discussion is super informative either way! I found a fantastic guest to talk to about AI for HR! Megan Marie Butler is doing her PhD on the topic and, since she is not affiliated with any software company, we get a fairly unfiltered point of view! And Megan...

Business strategy is not the strategic plan. And the business strategy has considerable implications for HR strategy. In this episode with Len Nanjad, we talk about the impact of business strategy on HR. Len is a guy who thinks deeply about HR, is the guest in one of my most popular videos, and doesn't accept the easy explanations that many of us have come to accept as truth. Some of his insights...

People do dumb, mean, or even evil things at work and so we have to do investigations in HR. And the following is pretty common: "He did this terrible thing to me!" 😭 "I did no such thing. She's lying!" 😡 It's 'he said she said'. Who do you believe???? While it would be tempting to stop there, that's the wrong thing to do. You need to do a CREDIBILITY ASSESSMENT. Credibility assessments were the...

It's a bit shocking how few workplaces have mentoring programs when we all know how powerful it is for ourselves personally. Look at the learning and development model that says 70% of learning is on the job, 20% is through relationships and 10% is in training. We work pretty hard at on the job opportunities and formal training... what happened the relationship piece??? Why not formalize mentoring...

Success at work isn't solely determined by your skills or qualifications. Your mindset also plays a pivotal role in shaping your professional journey and achieving your career goals. Mindset has quite a few facets: growth mindset and attitude are a couple. It has an enormous impact on your resilience and mental health. It's the mental health connection that I focused on a bit more in this episode...

There's a sexual harassment complaint and it ends up front page news. It's our worst nightmare, but it's absolutely avoidable by doing the right thing. By *managing risk*. We rarely think of HR situations in risk management terms i.e. probability and consequence, but that's the expertise of this week's guest. Bob Stenhouse of Veritas Solutions is a former undercover police officer who understands...

Instead of telling you how to do DEI better, this week's guest tells us how SHE learned to do DEI better and ended up adding the B (belonging)! I had a great conversation with Carla Yudhishthu . Carla is humble and sincere in the DEIB journey she has been on as the Chief People Officer with Mineral. While she tells her (their) story, she also share some great ideas! Like: 📈We may not see the evid...

Have you had a great mentor? It was really helpful right? And if it was helpful to you, wouldn't it be powerful for organizations? So, finally, I have covered mentoring - and with a global leader in mentoring! It's been on my list for quite a while and so I was delighted to talk to Dr. Laura Lunsford. She wrote the book "Handbook for Managing Mentoring Programs" and she was a pleasure to talk to!...

Hi HR. Are you tired of making presentations, only to feel like you did everything right but it still fell flat? And you don't know what you did! Ugh! This is part of what I went to find when I did this interview. In our discussion, we dive deep into the key pieces that truly elevate your presentation game. Brenden Kumarasamy was my partner in this discussion. He has his own youtube channel called...

Ever wondered how to get promoted? 🤔 Don't wait for someone else to do something about it! You will have to put yourself 'out there' and advocate for yourself! This week's guest, Laura Terrell is a coach and advises her clients on how to make partner or get promoted. Before this her promotions include a trip as special advisor to the President in the White House so she knows a thing or two! 🌟 He...

I did an episode on ROI in HR!!! That's return on investment. I found someone who knows a lot about it and it was a good opportunity to understand how we might do this in HR! Even HR can leverage standard financial techniques to analyze our projects and make our case. This was the conversation I had with Evelyn McMullen from Nucleus research. She is NOT a finance, business or economics major and m...

So don't do an HR audit if you think anything less than an A+ is failure. We don't assign grades, but an absence of suggestions leave no opportunity for growth. I suppose you might want an A+ for the purposes of a certification, but that's not what I explored this week with Elissa Lok. Elissa has one of the most diverse skillsets of any HR person I know. She is an HR Consultant with HR Wests, a fa...

Let's talk about handling those "difficult" employees we encounter at work. You know, the ones who seem to make our lives a bit more 'interesting'? 😅 We're supposed to be giving advice in HR, but sometimes it's hard for us to know! I spoke with Emily Lord, Senior HR Consultant with HR West. She is a master of reframing (not spinning) and handling people with decency. She recognizes these are toug...

The cliche (probably true) is that most of us are terrified of public speaking. This is likely true in HR too and yet the skill will increase our effectiveness, improve support for our work and help us advance. But how? And how can we avoid the same tired tips we were taught inhighschool? Enter Brenden Kumarasamy. He has a his own YT channel called MasterTalk and, at a relatively young age, is a p...

I am a bit tired of how HR uses retention to justify everything from benefits and employee relations to our budget and training. And... I might be somewhat out-of-line. :/ This is why I went looking for someone to talk to about turnover and retention and found Cara Silletto, Chief Retention Officer at Magnet Culture. She is a retention expert and speaker, and wrote a book on it. She says: 🥱"Peopl...

Workplace culture is crucial for high performance and a big part of that is psychological safety: can your employees express themselves without fear of negative consequences? Stephan Weidner, coach and CEO of Zarango and Noomii, took me to task when I asked (on behalf of my husband) if this means we have to talk about feelings a lot more. The answer is yes. Yes: we need to talk about feelings, but...

Improving the employee experience can be done in 5 steps. I didn't say easy - but it also isn't that hard considering that step 1 is simply to CARE. I interviewed Prem Bhatia from Cooleaf this week. He's the cofounder of a platform designed around improving the employee experience (EX) and they live and breathe it. He said: 1️⃣ Recognition has an outsized impact on employee engagement. So don't fo...

I have been to sooooo many presentations where the presenter says "and this will increase retention!!!" as a selling feature for their product or initiative. But will it? Actually, it might if it improves management quality. This was the main point of my conversation with Cara Silletto, Chief Retention Officer of Magnet Culture. She wrote a book called "Staying Power" and helps companies address r...

In this video, I dive into a topic that is often discussed but not always fully understood: executive presence. You might want to get promoted! And As gatekeepers of talent and culture, HR plays a pivotal role in identifying and developing leaders who have this quality. We can also help others develop it because it's a competency (or a collection of competencies). This was the focus of my conversa...

No. Agile HR is not agile project management OR piloting by another name. But what exactly is it, and how can it help you? During my discussion with Elissa Lok, HR Consultant, she says that, at its core, Agile HR is all about flexibility, collaboration, and continuous improvement. Rather than relying on rigid, slow, top-down management, agile HR empowers employees to take ownership and collaborate...

As an HR person, you may find yourself in a difficult situation where you need to coach a leader who is not performing well in all parts of their role. Usually we, in HR, hear about the people parts. And we are often tempted to label them as a "problem," it would be better to provide help and support. I was asked to do this episode and I invited Heather Dranitsaris-Hilliard and her mother, Dr. Ann...