We're Only Human

"One day he challenged me and he said, 'Listen, I want you to help our 477 store directors be great. But listen, I don't want you to go and teach them about engagement. They don't need like a history lesson. But I want you to teach them how to be engaging.' As I've navigated through various organizations, what I realized is that most organizations have the same challenges around manager performanc...

"What I've seen over the last six to 12 months is that companies are literally craving this information to understand: are they still competitive? Because they've made so many moves, whether it was with pay or benefits, they want to understand where they stack as it relates to their competition."  Terry Terhark, Founder and CEO, NXTThing RPO We're Only Human -- Episode 149 If you want to be an Oly...

And so we experimented and said, let's have a trial run at being a manager. We took about 25 people that wanted to be a manager as a cohort.  We said, okay, for a period of six to nine months, we would give you a small team you'd be responsible to learn how to interview and make hiring decisions. Then you get to decide whether or not you want to continue the manager path or not. Pat Wadors, Chief...

"I guarantee there is a direct correlation between a fantastic culture to business success.  They are always together. I would say that the strong culture is the insurance policy of every business." Ronni Zehavi, CEO, HiBob We're Only Human -- Episode 147 What if we had a way to shield our businesses from unnecessary turnover, disinterested staff, and other similar challenges? It turns out that we...

"When we select leaders, what we have found is leaders may have great, innovative ideas. They may be very driven to achieve. But if they're not inspiring people, if they're not demonstrating those interpersonal qualities that people see them as servant leaders, we've noticed that people are not willing to follow them. So we really emphasize that [serving] is exactly the quality that we want to see...

"The first thing is 100% look for difference [when mentoring]. If you are only looking for more of the same, you are hurting yourself. Cloning was bad in Star Wars, and cloning is bad in real life. The second one is related: get away from the rock stars and the duds when you are mentoring." Lt. Col. Chaveso "Chevy" Cook, PhD, Executive Director, MilitaryMentors.org   We're Only Human -- Episode 14...

"The more that we could be pushing that on the business side to say beyond revenue and profitability, what is the quality metric? What is the wellbeing metric? Obviously, employee engagement many companies measure. Are we measuring the investments in learning that we're putting out there for our people, even if they are people that end up leaving, if we're improving the future employability of a w...

"I think the danger that we tend to run as people analytics teams is that we're not willing to take slightly bolder stances and say, "Hey, we have a better collective picture of the labor market. We have a better collective picture of what enterprise trends and behaviors are like." We need to give strategic guidance and not just be turning over data products." Zach Frank, Senior Manager of People...

"Oftentimes they're looking for a quick fix. But what I will say is those that are doing [hiring] well and really moving the needle are those that are looking at this issue holistically. What is our employment brand in the market? Who are we competing with in our market? How does our total compensation package compete? Do we know how to sell to candidates?" Pam Verhoff, President, Advanced RPO We'...

"How can you build things that are as small as they can be so that you can plug and play and you can pivot and change? The way that I think about manifesting that in talent programs is thinking about more of a skills culture. If we have the skill of adapting and coping, for example, and we know that's a critical element in a lot of areas of our organization. Let's go ahead and build programs aroun...

"I think the the one stat that came out of this research, that nine out of 10 employees would be more likely to stay with their employer if they had this benefit, I was just kind of blown away." Rob Whalen, CEO, PTOExchange We're Only Human -- Episode 140 One of the most common employee benefits is paid leave. Employers offer a variety of options, from more standard accrued leave during every pay...

"Stay interviews are highly under-rated, but yet can provide , so much insight to your employees and so much data. It's almost like a secret weapon or secret tool that  companies just don't take advantage of." Amanda Turbeville, Global Head of Human Resources, Montway Auto Transport We're Only Human -- Episode 139   In today's challenging hiring environment, employers need a way to connect with th...

"In 2021, our employees asked about 27,000 questions from the chatbot and completed about 16,000 transactions. So this year our focus is really on reinforcing awareness and adoption while we're working to continue to improve our processes, our content, and our support structure." Nicole Sloan, Employee Experience Leader, Kimberly Clark We're Only Human -- Episode 138 For many workers at large comp...

"We're talking ISO 45003 that I highly recommend people look at . Or you can talk to people like me who can break it down into regular language. Those three components of psychological health and safety, which are the structure, the environment and the expectations of behavior." Dr. Allessandria Polizzi We're Only Human -- Episode 137 In the workplace today, one of the common phrases that gets thr...

If we want to transform and do things differently, we always have a big "why." We have a purpose we are going after.  When I think about transformation, I say, how would you make a preferred way of working which will create delightful experiences for people at the center of that change? Shalu Manan, HR Transformation Strategist We're Only Human -- Episode 136 Change is inevitable, but there is a r...

The first advice I would say is be extremely clear about what your purpose is. When I came into this role, we were extremely clear about what not only my goal, but my purpose as a leader in what I was here to do. I think is important for all HR professionals to understand really the critical business needs for the organization that you're a part of, and what is your role in your purpose within tha...

"According to their Director of DEI and Mental Health, they've reduced short-term disability claims related to mental health by 20%, and they've reduced relapse and recurrence by more than 50%."  Doug Berkowitz - SVP Operations - LifeSpeak We're Only Human -- Episode 134 In the last few years, employee mental health has become a priority for more employers than ever before. And yet the data indica...

The days of a recruiter having to really remember or jot down different iterations, skills, synonyms, acronyms... Those days are gone. We are constantly learning based off of the resumes that we're parsing.  Terry Bustamante, DaXtra Technologies   We're Only Human -- Episode 133   Back in December, Ben and over 100 other business leaders and technology providers attended the HR Tech Connect Summit...

"Many employees these days may feel disconnected from their jobs or the company culture as a whole." Ralf Hofmann, Managing Partner & Co-Founder, Drake Star   We're Only Human -- Episode 132   One of the things that makes us all better is hearing from people outside of our bubble. In this episode, Ben talks with Ralf Hofmann, an investor and business leader that helps with funding and business dea...

"We all want to be seen, heard, and recognized." Abby Hamilton, Chief People Officer, LiveIntent   We're Only Human -- Episode 131   When it comes to performance processes at most companies, the expected outcomes are compliance and completion. But in this episode, Ben talks with Shane Metcalf of 15Five and Abby Hamilton of LiveIntent to understand what it takes to create not just a process, but a...

"We collect three to 4 billion talent signals in the platform. That number is so large that if you were to spread it out over each second, it's 30 years of data. It's a crazy large number, but machine learning can look at that and in a millisecond find the patterns that you're looking for and apply it to what you want in a heartbeat."  Cliff Jurkiewicz, VP Global Strategy at Phenom   We're Only Hu...

"And as I have these conversations with hiring managers and my peer executives, I often ask them things like, 'Who is the best person that works with you that comes from a non-traditional background--would you take more of them?' And of course the answer is always yes. You can! You can do that. And why not risk the possibility of getting somebody amazing?" Peter Sursi, Talent Executive, Federal Bu...

"No one likes leaving the comfort zone, but change forces you to leave your comfort zone, your known area. That is also an aspect of why it's important to start early because you also need to transport the vision for why you change, why you transform things, because if people don't understand why things are changing and what is the greater strategy, they will find it even harder to change themselv...

As we provide, billions and billions of data points of pay, job descriptions, skills, information about the organization, information about people... We have all this data and talent intelligence is an emerging super category. Kent Plunkett, CEO, Salary.com   We're Only Human -- Episode 127   Today, more than ever, compensation is a priority for business leaders in fast-moving organizations. Not s...

"That's step one is you have to build that partnership. And hopefully now that the iron is hot,  strike it. If you have been supporting your business and organization through this pandemic,  how do you take advantage of that and make sure that now your voice is in the room. Make sure that now you're using your voice and you're saying some of these things. I think HR has a unique perspective to you...