The Modern People Leader: Forward-Thinking HR

Libby Fiumara, Talent Program Manager at Expel, joined us on The Modern People Leader. We talked about how Expel is turning performance management upside down. Timestamps : when she realized she wanted to hone in on one facet of HR (5:54), why Expel rebranded performance management to performance enablement (7:18), turning performance management upside down (11:57), training managers to be more hu...

Hallie Bregman, Global Head of People Analytics at PTC, joined us on The Modern People Leader. This episode is filled with nuggets of gold: Why the future Chief People Officer will have an analytics background (8:41), how COVID has elevated people analytics (10:09), the evolution of people analytics (11:40), the nuance between reporting & analytics (14:15), using analytics to tell stories (18:...

Michelle Wax, the founder of the American Happiness Project, joined us on The Modern People Leader. We talked about her journey across the USA to learn what brings everyday Americans happiness and fulfillment and much more. Timestamps: why Michelle started the American Happiness Project (3:34), the 500 people that she interviewed on happiness (12:18), “you’re protected on this earth until you’ve s...

Rhiana Barr, Chief People Officer at KushCo, joined us on The Modern People Leader. We talked about why HR needs to be involved early in the M&A process, how to ensure a successful cultural integration, and much more. Timestamps: why working in a wide range of industries has been so critical to her career growth (3:38), strategic workforce planning based on legislation (10:22), the changing pe...

Today we talked about the ups and downs of employee engagement scores over the past 13 months. If you have any feedback for the MPL podcast or would like to connect, don't hesitate to reach out on LinkedIn: Daniel Huerta  and  Stephen Huerta

Adrienne Barnard, SVP People Operations & Experience at AdmitHub, joined us on The Modern People Leader. We covered all things manager-related: the secret sauce to becoming a great manager, rookie mistakes to avoid, how to run effective 1x1s, and much more. Timestamps: the secret sauce for becoming a great manager (9:12), the biggest rookie mistakes for new managers (13:42), people ops is impo...

Emma Brudner, Head of People at Reggora, joined us on The Modern People Leader. We talked about what it has been like building out Reggora's people processes from scratch, going fully distributed, and what they’re measuring on their first-ever pulse survey. Timestamps: how Emma made the jump from being a journalist to Head of People (3:52), prioritizing people processes being put into place (13:17...

Jaclyn Jussif, Director of Talent Acquisition at EnterpriseDB, joined us on The Modern People Leader. We talked about hiring, onboarding, and how to create custom ramp plans for new hires. Timestamps: biggest differences hiring internationally (12:29), using the WHO method for behavioral interviewing (16:22), calling out the elephant in the room (COVID) in interviews (22:04), front-loading informa...

Gillian Godfrey, Chief People Officer at Storable, joined us on The Modern People Leader. Gillian shared how Storable is creating Psychological Safety across the entire employee experience. We also dove into the recent work that they did with their Employee Value Proposition. Timestamps: why Psychological Safety is front and center right now (12:31), how their leadership team is “wrapping their ar...

Sarah Salbu Young, Talent Experience Partner at Pegasystems, joined us on The Modern People Leader recently. At Pegasystems, Sarah’s role is fully dedicated to building recognition programs for their 6,000 people worldwide. We talked about “the lost art of saying thank you”, how companies can incorporate traditions and rituals to build a stronger culture, and lastly, she broke down the 3 core pill...

Dena Upton, Chief People Officer at Drift, joined us on The Modern People Leader the other day. Drift is a hyper-growth startup (440 employees) that has been named to Deloitte's Fast 500 List, Forbes' AI 50 List, and Inc.'s of the Best Workplaces of 2020. Dena shared the details around Drift's recent decision to go Digital First: Defining Digital First, how it’s different than a hybrid approach, a...

Our guest today was Lyndsay Lord, CHRO at Team Car Care, dba Jiffy Lube, the largest Jiffy Lube franchisee in the US. For all of the HR practitioners that work in multi-unit businesses, this episode is for you! And for everyone else, listen to Lyndsay on why working in HR for a blue-collar company is so rewarding. What we covered: focusing on their 5,000 teammates to deliver an amazing guest exper...

Our guest today was Jennifer Paxton, VP of People + Talent at Privy.  We covered quite a bit: the craziest thing she's experienced in her career (0:49), why she loves her job (3:30), the monthly HR/Talent breakfast that she hosts (8:26), the employee preference for a quarterly performance review vs. the manager pushback for a less frequent cadence (13:48), how she built Privy's performance re...

Today we talked about the importance of anonymous feedback and the new “gray area” that has emerged: challenges companies are having taking action on employee feedback (1:32), skepticism from employees on survey anonymity (5:35), “confidential” surveys that aren’t truly anonymous (10:48), the argument for pseudo-anonymous feedback (12:56), what a world of fully-attributed surveys would look like (...

Our guest today was Chris Walker, CEO of Refine Labs. Chris has grown his business from 1 person to 20 in the past 16-18 months, and he plans on being at 100 by the end of 2022. 100% of their growth (on both the customer and people side) has come from the employer brand that they've been able to build on LinkedIn. He gives a full breakdown of how they do it. We then talk about how he vets 900+ can...

Our guest today was Al Polizzi, Chief People Officer at VetCor. We talk about her love for dogs (0:48), how she transitioned from an English professor to HR (3:27), how VetCor is finding ways for employees to connect (16:42), their virtual onboarding “buddy system” (20:51), how they implemented their first-ever virtual career fair (25:36), why companies should stop selling an inauthentic version o...

For our first expert session, we spoke with Gloria Chan Packer, the Principal Advisor at Recalibrate. She shares her personal mental wellness journey (2:26), her thoughts on being in the midst of a mental health crisis (12:33), the obligation from organizations to support mental wellness in the workplace (18:25), what a modern mental wellness program looks like (35:23), why giant corporate subscri...

Today we discuss what a "quarterly pulse engagement survey" is and how much time in HR is being spent on manual work. For more content, subscribe to The Modern People Leader on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

In this episode, we talk with Dilshan Ratnayake, EVP & Chief People Officer at Securonix. This was a fun one. The topics covered range from: How his daughter thinks of his job as “superhero” like, Seeking his mom’s counsel when making career changes, Meeting your organization where they’re at as a new CPO & not coming in and making immediate changes, Discipline & execution beat bells a...

Today we discuss 3 hard truths in HR: 1) HR as a whole needs to collaborate better, 2) The underutilization of HR Tech, and 3) HR's inability to take advantage of the data that they have.  For more content, subscribe to The Modern People Leader on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

In this episode, we talk with April Galda Joyce, Chief Culture Officer at Global Atlantic Financial Group. We cover a lot: the role of the Chief Culture Officer, her non-traditional path into HR, career advice for women, how to create new opportunities for employees within your org, a complete breakdown of how she looks at diversity & inclusion, and more. For more content, subscribe to The Mod...

In this episode, we talk with Debbie Shotwell, Chief People Officer at Stack Overflow, about her career and her new role at Stack. We dive into what her agenda will look like in her first 90 days, prioritizing mental health and wellbeing during these difficult times, the importance of employer branding, the secret sauce for engaging employees, and much more. For more content, subscribe to The Mode...

In today’s episode, we discuss the biggest HR trends from 2020. Then, we jump into what we see coming in 2021. For more content, subscribe to The Modern People Leader on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

Today, we talked about what having true BI capabilities with your employee engagement data looks like: What does it even mean to have true business intelligence How to create a common data model across your feedback channels How to pick a set of critical numbers or KPIs The promise of AI/ML in HR Tech Real BI vs. sexy static reporting For more content, subscribe to The Modern People Leader on Spot...

Welcome to The Modern People Leader Podcast. Today we're leaning into our "Top of Mind" format, where we discuss topics that are relevant, timely, and probably on the minds of a lot of people out there in HR.  For our inaugural episode, we discussed the following: who should own action planning, what a modern employee feedback approach looks like, how to get to the crux of what your data is t...