The Workspan Podcast

Eden Higgins, VP Practice Leader with the Duffy Group, Inc., a global recruitment firm, on ghosting: why more job candidates are “disappearing,” signs recruiters should look out for, and how to prevent being ghosted. 

In his fourth appearance on the pod, tech analyst David Foote joins us to discuss the future of work: what it means, what’s driving it, the implications for how we build and manage workforces going forward. David is Chief Analyst & Chief Research Officer for the eponymous Foote Partners. He is an innovator of advanced techniques for benchmarking enterprise tech jobs, skills supply/demand, and...

 The rate of people quitting jobs in private educational services rose more than in any other industry in 2021. We’re joined by Kathleen Schulz, Gallagher’s Global Innovation Leader for Organizational Wellbeing to discuss teachers why more teachers are leaving the classroom and going to work for companies, and why companies are eager to enlist their translatable skills and experience. Bonus: we re...

Tarin Calmeyer joins us on our maiden #evolve podcast. Tarin is a virtual events specialist and the founder of Remote Team Wellness, a corporate wellness company that facilities comprehensive wellness classes and activities virtually for teams across the world. She discusses what event organizers can do to make their virtual events more engaging and effective, as well as how companies can implemen...

Mark McGraw, Managing Editor of both Workspan and #evolve, joins us to kick off the first Workspan Podcast -  what was once Work in Progress will now be divided into this and the #evolve podcast, each aligned with its respective namesake publication. Mark gives us a typically lively tour sneak peak of what's in the next several issues of Workspan: spoiler alert, lots of insightful articles on pay...

Our guest is Carol Leaman, President and CEO of Axonify, providers of learning solutions for frontline employees. Carol discusses her “open door” approach to exec management, the benefits of delivering personalized, bite-sized bursts of training in the flow of work, and how equity is a critical factor in attracting and retaining frontline talent. Bonus chat on the most popular day of the week for...

Lorna Hagen is Chief People Officer with Guild Education, a pioneer in helping companies transform traditional tuition reimbursement programs from a cost center into a recruitment and retention tool. Lorna has worked in multiple sectors: hospitality, sports, media, retail and fintech…we will be talking about this and an article she recently wrote for Workspan, Trends for 2022: Putting the human el...

Dr. Jonathan Canger, an Industrial-Organizational Psychologist and founder of Zennia Research, has worked in senior leadership roles with companies such as Verizon, Monster, Motorola and, most recently,  Marriott International where he was Senior Vice President of Global Talent Management. Jonathan joins our elite roster of two-time WIP guests to discuss engagement from multiple angles: how you kn...

Adam Zuckerman leads Willis Towers Watson’s Employee Engagement Software global product team, whose goal is to help companies improve performance by enhancing the employee experience. Adam discusses everything from feedback (he’s not a fan, but not for reasons you think!), how and why leadership is sometimes disconnected from their workforce, his thoughts on stay interviews…and, in a surprise twis...

We’re joined by Chris Michalak, CEO of Virgin Pulse, providers of employee well-being solutions.  He previously worked for Towers, McKinsey and Aon - a murderer’s row of top consulting organizations – and tells us how his consulting work informs his “operational” role as CEO. Chris discusses how Virgin Pulse promotes more “habit-building” interactions per member than other programs and fosters a c...

Greg Slamowitz is an entrepreneur, investor, professor, speaker and  author of Flip the Pyramid: How Any Organization Can Create a Workforce That Is Engaged, Aligned, Empowered and On Fire (https://zurl.co/uGh8). We talk about his journey as an entrepreneur, how business leaders can avoid micromanaging their staff and create a culture of collaboration. He also discusses what he looks for in compan...

We close out a banner year of podcasts with Justin Hampton, the founder, and president of Compensation Tool (www.compensationtool.com) and a self-proclaimed “compensation nerd” who recently wrote a very interesting WorldatWork article on “Determining Compensation for a Distributed Workforce.” A timely and fascinating conversation,  with a look forward to what’s ahead on WIP in 2022. Here’s wishing...

Dr. Jasleen Chhatwal a board-certified psychiatrist and chief medical officer for the mental health treatment center Sierra Tucson, discusses the results of a survey they did titled “Self-Medication Nation: The Numbing of America.” You’d expect an increase in drug and alcohol use during the pandemic as people are isolated, stressed, etc - but some of their findings are eye-opening. A must-listen a...

Darcy Gruttadaro, Director, Center for Workplace Mental Health at the American Psychiatric Association Foundation, has been singularly focused on mental health from just about every angle: litigation, policy, and advocacy. She joins us to discuss promoting the business case for workplace mental health and turnkey programs for employees and their families, dealing with burnout, how the association...

We are joined by Amelia Dunlop, the author of Elevating the Human Experience: Three Paths to Love and Worth at Work – the second best-selling author who has visited with us. Her book is in large part about her personal journey in deriving love and worth from her work, the challenges of bringing our “authentic selves” to the workplace, and much more. A stimulating, insightful conversation about an...

A provocative conversation with Ernst & Young’s Tamra Chandler and Laura Grealish on performance management, feedback, and rewards: why flawed models, methodologies, and mindsets persist (hint: organizational inertia and the CYA reflex), and what can be done to revolutionize performance management. Also, why feedback has such a bad rep and what needs to be done to “redeem” it.

A timely conversation during the season of gift-giving and receiving with Todd Horton, founder/CEO of KangoGift, whose mission is to help organizations improve their corporate cultures, and increase employee engagement, retention, and manager effectiveness. We discuss what inspired him to found the company, the business value of recognition, the difference between AI and machine learning, and Kang...

A conversation with Steven Brink, President and Chief Revenue Officer of uFlexReward, an HR Tech start-up whose platform aggregates data from an organization’s disparate systems to enhance the organization’s global understanding of their total reward spend – while improving their ability to communicate the value of rewards to the workforce. By facilitating the delivery of personalized rewards that...

Grant Thornton’s Eric Gonzaga (National practice leader for their Human Capital Services Practice) and Tim Glowa (Principal, Employee Listening) on how HR should think like marketers and leverage data to retain flight-risk talent. They discuss a four-stage approach to improving employee retention, maximizing the perceived value of benefits, and using AI to predict/pre-empt turnover.  

Mark McGraw, managing editor of both Workspan and #evolve, and WorldatWork’s resident Stones fan (short for fanatic), gives us a sneak preview of Workspan’s Global Advisory issue (out this November) and the challenges facing comp and rewards leaders around the world:  companies across Latin America developing female talent, the effect of employee recognition on employee engagement in Asia, initiat...

We're joined by Kris McGuigan, Founder & CEO of Professional Courage,  a career services firm that empowers professionals to achieve career excellence through on-site interactive workshops, on-demand, and remote learning opportunities, and executive coaching. Kris discusses what she means by professional courage, the definition of “career wellness,” and how to stem the tide of the “great resig...

We’re joined by Donald Delves, Managing Director, North American practice leader, Executive Compensation at Willis Towers Watson, a leading expert on corporate governance and executive pay and performance. We discuss linking #ESG to executive incentive plans, focusing on environmental-based compensation: why boards and companies ought to take ESG measures seriously and how they need to “earn” thei...

We’re joined by Dr. Deryk Van Brunt, CEO of CredibleMind, and professor at U.C. Berkeley’s School of Public Health, to discuss the state of healthcare informatics, the mental health/wellbeing app space, and his company, which he calls the Yelp of Healthcare. Add a star if you’re a Keith Jarrett fan. 

David Foote, chief analyst and co-founder of the eponymous Foote Partners, an IT analyst firm, discusses how COVID proved to be a boon for forward-thinking, agile leaders, important technologies that will evolve in the coming years, in-demand tech skills, and what policies and technologies conservative companies can implement to move the needle on productivity, talent retention, innovation. 

Brian Levine, Mercer’s Global Pay Equity Leader and a Partner in Mercer’s Workforce Strategy & Analytics Practice on their pay equity process, the major changes driving the evolution in pay equity assessments...and insights into the impact their work has on just about every major business process, function and goal, from retaining talent to promoting a high-performance culture to managing toda...