HR Mixtape

Most leaders who lose their edge still work hard. They log 60-hour weeks and sit through back-to-back meetings, and somewhere in there the judgment their job depends on starts wearing down.

Jared Quoyeser, co-founder and managing partner of the Louisiana Impact Fund, spent more than 20 years at Intel and is chair of Louisiana's largest private employer. His book, The Flow Multiplier, lays out the system he built after two decades of making calls where a bad one cost real money.

In this episode, he covers:

• How to find your own deep-work hours (his run from 4 to 11 a.m.) and tell your team exactly when and how you're reachable
• Why HR gets further with executives by pitching peak performance, and why the wellness pitch gets waved off
• What the "above the line" split means as AI takes over the messy middle of work, and why HR has to connect senior judgment to entry-level hires

Timestamps

[00:01:20] Why Jared calls himself a builder, not a babysitter, and how that thread runs from Intel to private equity

[00:03:23] The flow multiplier idea: high performers have plenty of discipline, and their work habits wear down their thinking

[00:06:23] Up at 4 a.m. and guarding 7 to 11 a.m. for critical strategy calls, plus how to find a window that fits you

[00:08:48] Shari's no-meeting Fridays and why she had to start blocking them three months out

[00:10:05] Why Jared dropped Friday afternoon meetings after shortchanging his one-on-ones 60 to 70 hours into the week

[00:11:31] Getting your boss on board: start the conversation, then come back with qualitative and quantitative results

[00:13:23] How HR should raise slipping decision quality with executives: lead with peak performance and skip the wellness framing

[00:15:55] The badge of honor of 16 back-to-back meetings a day, and the daily 1A, 1B, 1C priority list that replaces it

[00:21:28] Above-the-line and below-the-line leaders, and the careers built on "the biggest sand pile in the sandbox"

[00:24:07] HR as the connective tissue between senior leaders, middle managers, and entry-level employees working with AI

Guest Bio: Jared Quoyeser is a private equity leader, operator, and builder who has spent more than two decades leading in high-pressure environments where decisions carry real consequences. He is Co-Founder of the Louisiana Impact Fund, an operator-led lower-middle-market private equity platform, and Chair of Louisiana's largest private employer. He is the author of The Flow Multiplier (Entrepreneur Press, 2026), which introduces the PEAK Performance Framework — a structured system for how senior leaders sustain focus, judgment, and decision quality when the stakes are highest. Jared's central observation, formed across two decades of operating at scale: high-performing leaders do not fall short because they lack discipline. They struggle when the way they work degrades their ability to think clearly, focus, and make decisions. The Flow Multiplier is the system he built to solve that problem — and the system he now applies across LIF, its portfolio companies, and the LIF CxO Leadership Program.

Brought to You by Paylocity: Paylocity is the fastest growing unified platform for HR, Finance, and IT. Paylocity brings your people, processes, and data together in one place so HR leaders can spend less time managing systems and more time doing the work that actually moves their organizations forward. Learn more at https://www.paylocity.com/

Keywords: flow multiplier, peak performance, decision quality, deep work, leadership burnout, executive productivity, no-meeting Fridays, priority setting, OKRs, Andy Grove, AI in the workforce, above-the-line leaders, entry-level talent development, knowledge transfer, HR strategy, private equity leadership, focus time, calendar management

Plenty of managers think leadership means carrying everything. They answer every question and fix every problem, then wonder why nobody on the team grows.

Zach Arend, founder and leadership coach at Create Purpose, is a two-time state champion saddle bronc rider who spent nine years rising to VP of sales at a $300 million logistics company. Then he got demoted at 34, and that demotion is where his coaching philosophy started.

In this episode, he breaks down:

• How carrying 20 direct reports for four years made Zach a "good soldier" instead of a leader, and why too much ownership strips it from your team
• What the LIFT practice (listen, identify, focus, transform) looks like for a middle manager caught between the team and the executive suite
• Why "are you running away from something, or toward something?" is the question to ask before you quit a job that isn't working

Timestamps

[00:02:23] Zach's rodeo coach tells an 11-year-old to saddle his own horse, then walks away

[00:04:39] Getting demoted from VP of sales at a $300 million logistics company at age 34

[00:05:19] A new boss hears about Zach's 20 direct reports and tells him a good soldier isn't the same as a leader

[00:06:09] How too much ownership takes the weight of responsibility away from your people

[00:08:32] The fearful rider, the rogue cowboy, and why Zach coaches leaders to become the horseman

[00:12:12] The LIFT practice, built from a rodeo lesson about lifting on the rein of a 1,200-pound bronc

[00:14:23] A billion-dollar CEO admits nobody in leadership knows what they're doing, and why that's what growth feels like

[00:17:46] The question that stopped Zach from quitting: are you running away from something, or toward something?

[00:22:08] Why true servant leadership means letting people work through their own discomfort

[00:24:19] Zach's first step for anyone stuck as a good soldier: a journal and a Friday afternoon at a coffee shop

Guest Bio

Zach's journey from the rodeo arena to the boardroom is packed with grit, growth, and the kind of no BS leadership wisdom we all need more of. He’s spent the last 20 years helping entrepreneurs, executives, and sales pros "Saddle Their Own Horse" a modern leadership mindset built on clarity, confidence, and purpose. If you’re ready for fresh ideas, real connection, and the kind of energy that’ll fuel your next big move, you’re going to love Zach!

Brought to You by Paylocity

Paylocity is the fastest growing unified platform for HR, Finance, and IT. Paylocity brings your people, processes, and data together in one place so HR leaders can spend less time managing systems and more time doing the work that actually moves their organizations forward. Learn more at https://www.paylocity.com/

Keywords: saddle your own horse, good soldier, empowered leadership, servant leadership, fear-based leadership, extreme ownership, delegation, middle management, LIFT practice, imposter syndrome, demotion, career change, executive coaching, leadership coaching, journaling for leaders, manager development, employee ownership, rodeo leadership lessons

Most companies know turnover is expensive. Plenty of them still answer it with a pizza party on Friday and call that culture.

Dr. Sharon Grossman, Retention Strategist at Turnkey Retention Solutions, spent years as a psychologist coaching people out of burnout before she turned to the problem companies would pay to fix. She wrote Don't Buy Their Lunch, Buy Their Loyalty and has taken the idea to the TEDx stage.

In this episode, she breaks down:

• Why one-off perks and three-day retreats fade, and what a daily "slow drip" of leader behavior does in their place
• How her HABIT system (huddle, appreciation, barometer, improvement, and tracking) fits into 10 to 15 minutes at the start of every shift
• What happens when you plug salary and turnover rate into a simple cost formula, and why the result wakes leadership teams up

Timestamps

[00:02:40] Why companies wouldn't pay for burnout prevention but will pay to stop turnover

[00:03:59] The pizza party problem: one-off perks that get mistaken for culture

[00:05:11] Why a three-day leadership retreat fades unless people apply what they learned within 24 hours

[00:09:05] Promoting top performers into management with no training, and the turnover it causes above and below them

[00:12:20] The daily huddle: 10 to 15 minutes at the start of each shift, mostly spent on people

[00:13:22] The anonymous smiley-face mood check that leaders say they value most

[00:15:28] Asking "what do you need in order to do an even better job?" and coming back the next day with an answer

[00:17:02] HABIT spelled out: huddle, appreciation, barometer, improvement, and tracking as one daily system

[00:21:40] The workshop formula that turns your turnover rate into a dollar figure leadership can't ignore

[00:24:30] Why AI will probably double managers' workloads instead of freeing up their time

Guest Bio: Sharon Grossman, PhD, is a psychologist and industry expert dedicated to solving the employee retention crisis. With over 20 years of experience and a Doctorate from Fordham University, Dr. Grossman moves beyond surface-level perks—a philosophy captured in her book, Don’t Buy Their Lunch, Buy Their Loyalty and shared on the global TEDx stage. She specializes in translating complex psychological research into high-impact strategies that stabilize workforces and sharpen leadership decision-making. From the stage, Dr. Grossman empowers organizations to transform their culture before disengagement turns into attrition, ensuring that top talent doesn't just stay, but thrives.

Brought to You by Paylocity: Paylocity is the fastest growing unified platform for HR, Finance, and IT. Paylocity brings your people, processes, and data together in one place so HR leaders can spend less time managing systems and more time doing the work that actually moves their organizations forward. Learn more at https://www.paylocity.com/

Keywords: employee retention, turnover cost, employee engagement, disengagement, leadership habits, daily huddles, employee recognition, peer recognition, manager training, new manager development, burnout, workplace culture, culture consistency, pulse surveys, HABIT system, performance habit system, Sharon Grossman, Don't Buy Their Lunch Buy Their Loyalty, AI and workload, HR Mixtape

Every HR leader is being told to adopt AI faster than they can evaluate it. The harder question isn't whether to use it. It's whether the company behind it can be trusted with the most sensitive data your organization has.

Toby Williams, president and CEO of Paylocity, joined the company as CFO in 2017 and has led it through the busiest product launch stretch in company history, culminating in the release of Ignite AI.

In this episode, he covers:

• Why Paylocity built Ignite Hub to give HR teams visibility and control over every AI agent running on the platform
• How client feedback on high volume recruiting led Paylocity to acquire the Grayscale application
• What happens to client data once AI enters the picture, and why it never trains outside models

Timestamps

[00:01:36] How a career spanning product and finance shaped Toby's focus on usability and integrated data

[00:03:23] The one question every leader is asking right now about using AI productively

[00:05:13] Inside Paylocity's busiest launch stretch in nine years, from Elevate and retirement to recruiting AI

[00:06:00] Why Ignite Hub gives HR teams visibility into, and control over, every AI agent on the platform

[00:07:22] Ignite AI utilization has doubled every quarter since launch, and what that signals about adoption

[00:08:10] Why direct client conversations, not internal guesses, drive Paylocity's product roadmap

[00:09:25] The recruiting pain point that led Paylocity to acquire the Grayscale application

[00:11:41] Paylocity's direct answer to whether client data is ever used to train AI models

[00:12:42] Why a great HCM platform still isn't enough without the service to back it up

[00:14:22] The simple standard Toby uses to decide whether a new feature is worth shipping

Guest Bio: As President and CEO at Paylocity, Toby is responsible for articulating Paylocity's vision, driving the company's go-to-market strategy, and ensuring operational excellence across the company. Key areas of focus include serving our clients, supporting our people and teams, capitalizing on our growth opportunities, and delivering our vision of a modern HCM platform. He joined Paylocity in 2017 as Chief Financial Officer before being promoted to President and Co-CEO in 2022. Most recently, he was named sole CEO in August 2024.

Toby came to Paylocity with a breadth of software operating experience, most recently serving as Chief Product and Strategy Officer at global higher education software leader Ellucian. He also brings significant payroll and HCM industry experience, having led mergers, acquisitions and corporate development at Paychex from 2006 to 2011. He started his career as a securities and M&A lawyer in D.C. and New York and worked as an investment banker at Citigroup in New York. Toby earned a B.A. from Houghton College and an M.B.A and J.D. from Ohio State University.

Brought to You by Paylocity: Paylocity is the fastest growing unified platform for HR, Finance, and IT. Paylocity brings your people, processes, and data together in one place so HR leaders can spend less time managing systems and more time doing the work that actually moves their organizations forward. Learn more at https://www.paylocity.com/

Keywords: AI in HR, Ignite AI, Paylocity, HCM technology, AI trust, data privacy, AI governance, HR technology leadership, recruiting AI, Grayscale acquisition, product roadmap, co-creation, AI adoption, client feedback, HR innovation, workforce technology, AI agents, data security, unified HCM platform, CEO leadership

Pay used to decide who took the job. Now the first question most candidates ask is whether they can work from home, and companies still writing postings around salary alone are losing candidates before anyone even applies.

Myla Ramos, co-founder and CEO of SearchPros, built the company from a local Sacramento staffing firm into a nearly $175 million global managed service provider. She cut her company's time to hire by 45% using AI while keeping retention above 70%.

In this episode, she covers:

• Why flexible job postings pull in 10 times more applicants than office-only roles, and why candidates will take 30% less pay to get it
• How SearchPros cut time to hire by 45% by pointing AI at candidates it already had, instead of chasing new ones
• What determines whether a new hire survives the first 90 days, and why Ramos calls it a two way responsibility

Timestamps

[00:01:10] Myla's early years making 200 calls a day, and the shift required to stop doing the job yourself so the company can scale

[00:03:45] The origin of "Change the World Tuesday," SearchPros' internal term for rebuilding a broken process by the start of the next week

[00:05:04] The widest gap between what employers say they want and what candidates actually bring to the table right now

[00:08:41] What leaders get wrong about hiring and keeping Gen Z, beyond the usual complaints

[00:09:21] Why SearchPros dropped its call and placement quotas in favor of measuring results

[00:13:08] Why flexible postings draw 10 times more applicants than office-only roles, and why candidates will take 30% less pay for remote work

[00:15:43] The real hiccups of adopting AI in recruiting, and why there's no single tool that does all of it

[00:17:48] How SearchPros uses AI to mine a database of millions of existing resumes instead of chasing new candidate sources

[00:19:44] Why an estimated 85% of applicants inflate their information, and the in-person interview SearchPros added to catch it

[00:24:10] What actually determines whether a new hire survives the first 90 days, and why Ramos treats retention as a two way responsibility

Guest Bio

Myla Ramos is the CEO and Co-Founder of SearchPros, a full service provider of human capital and workforce solutions. A member of the 2024 SIA Global Power 150, Ramos has earned numerous leadership awards, including the Business Journals Most Admired CEO, Power 100, and Women Who Mean Business; and the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) Outstanding Women Leader of the Year. She is a finalist for the EY Entrepreneur of the Year award. Ramos is proudest of SearchPros' "Best Place to Work" recognition from numerous organizations, including Inc., the Sacramento Business Journal, and SIA.

Brought to You by Paylocity

Paylocity is the fastest growing unified platform for HR, Finance, and IT. Paylocity brings your people, processes, and data together in one place so HR leaders can spend less time managing systems and more time doing the work that actually moves their organizations forward. Learn more at https://www.paylocity.com/

Keywords: AI in recruiting, staffing industry, talent acquisition, Gen Z hiring, employee retention, flexible work, remote work, managed service provider, recruiter productivity, candidate experience, resume fraud, pay transparency, onboarding, contingent workforce, HR technology, time to hire, work from home, new hire retention

HR asks for a new system, more headcount, a bigger training budget. Finance says no. The instinct is to assume the idea wasn't good enough.

John Sansoucie, Founder and CEO at CogNet, spent years as a CFO inside HR service companies and PEOs before he built his own business process outsourcing company, so he has sat on both sides of that budget table.

In this episode, he covers:

• Why HR requests get denied even when they're worth funding, and what a CFO is actually listening for before approving a budget line
• How to turn a list of 28,000 possible metrics into the three numbers a CFO will remember
• What cost to serve measures and how to calculate it for any HR function

Timestamps

[00:01:05] John's path from CFO inside an HR outsourcing company to founding CogNet with his own former team

[00:02:20] Why finance treats HR as a cost center, and the shift in language that changes that perception

[00:03:18] What cost to serve actually measures and how to calculate cost per unit for HR work

[00:04:04] Why John sent his newly promoted CPO 28,000 metrics, and how they got that down to three

[00:05:14] The five-year cost of ownership question that ends most new software pitches

[00:08:23] How John used to pitch the true cost of turnover to justify outsourcing deals

[00:12:06] Why John cares more about losing star performers than his overall turnover rate

[00:16:23] How to find a bestie in finance, and why that person is often junior

[00:17:47] Why payroll gets scrutinized while performance management and open enrollment go unmeasured

[00:22:41] Why HR doesn't have to choose between process discipline and automation

Guest Bio: John Sansoucie is the Founder & CEO of CogNet, a global business process management company that helps HR service firms, staffing companies, and payroll providers scale their operations through specialized offshore teams and process automation. With more than 30 years of experience across payroll, HR technology, PEOs, and operational leadership, John brings a practical operator's perspective to conversations around HR operations, AI, and the future of work.

Brought to You by Paylocity: Paylocity is the fastest growing unified platform for HR, Finance, and IT. Paylocity brings your people, processes, and data together in one place so HR leaders can spend less time managing systems and more time doing the work that actually moves their organizations forward. Learn more at https://www.paylocity.com/

Keywords: cost to serve, HR metrics, CFO relationship, finance and HR, business process outsourcing, HR outsourcing, turnover cost, cost per hire, regrettable turnover, HR budget, AI in HR, HR technology, process automation, Six Sigma, ISO 9001, offshore teams, PEO, payroll, workforce metrics, HR leadership

Leave of absence looks like paperwork until you're the one holding it. A request lands, and you're reading federal, state, local, and company policy against each other while an employee waits on an answer during the worst week of their year.

Rachel Wyngaard, Senior Product Manager at Mitratech, worked in HR, talent acquisition, and recruiting before moving into product. She now leads the build and launch of Mitratech Leave, an AI-powered leave of absence intelligence platform.

In this episode, she breaks down:

• Why leave requests keep climbing while HR headcount stays flat, and what that gap does to case quality
• How the tactical thing HR asks a vendor for differs from the root need sitting underneath it
• What changes when you design HR software for the worst day of the quarter instead of the ideal one

Timestamps

[00:00:16] Rachel's path from recruiting and talent acquisition into product leadership at Mitratech

[00:01:01] The three problems running at once inside every leave case, and why only one of them is paperwork

[00:01:41] The employee at the center of a leave case is living through surgery or a family emergency, not filing a request

[00:02:14] Leave volume climbed for more than half of employers last year and staffing never followed

[00:02:35] New and updated laws add qualifying reasons, stacking questions, and complexity to every single case

[00:03:40] The gap between what HR asks a product team to build and what HR needs it to solve

[00:04:11] What goes wrong when teams hand leave to an outside administrator, and why the liability stays home

[00:05:29] Rachel's product rule: design for the most stressful version of the interaction

[00:06:42] The one change small teams can make this quarter without buying anything

[00:07:00] Headcount thresholds, new states, and a remote workforce that moves all change your leave obligations

Guest Bio

Rachel Wyngaard is a Senior Product Manager at Mitratech with a focus on building HR technology to solve real workforce problems. With deep roots in HR and talent acquisition, she brings both practitioner perspective and product expertise to the Leave of Absence space, and is currently leading the build and launch of Mitratech Leave, an AI-powered leave of absence intelligence platform.

Brought to You by Paylocity

Paylocity is the fastest growing unified platform for HR, Finance, and IT. Paylocity brings your people, processes, and data together in one place so HR leaders can spend less time managing systems and more time doing the work that actually moves their organizations forward. Learn more at https://www.paylocity.com/

Keywords: leave of absence, leave management, HR compliance, FMLA, state leave laws, absence management, leave administration, employee experience, HR technology, product management, talent acquisition, case management, compliance risk, small HR teams, remote workforce, multi-state employers, HR operations, AI in HR

Retention sits near the top of almost every HR priority list. The main tool most organizations use to understand it is a conversation with someone who has already quit.

Jim Link is the Chief Human Resources Officer at SHRM, the largest HR professional association in the world with more than 340,000 members. Before SHRM, he spent three decades in HR at GE, Porsche, and Randstad, where he held full HR accountability for a $5.2 billion business with up to 100,000 employees.

In this episode, he covers:

• Why the reasons your best performers stay are usually a different list from the reasons other people leave, and what that does to a retention plan built on exit data

• How a written performance review becomes a static record that can work against the organization later, especially when the rating feeds a compensation formula

• What SHRM's 2026 State of the Workplace report found about employee experience, including a 91% to 44% split in reported job satisfaction

Timestamps

[00:01:17] Turning the exit interview into a stay interview, and asking the people you want to keep what's keeping them there

[00:01:38] Why leaders wrongly assume stay interviews will produce the mirror image of exit interview answers

[00:02:22] Knowing one personal fact about every person on your team, and why that single connection changes how you manage

[00:03:39] Separating performance ratings from compensation, and what happens when a 2.3 out of 5 turns into a .06% raise

[00:05:39] How an overly glowing written review becomes a bad fact if the employee later exits under performance or restructuring

[00:07:32] Employees and employers both know today's skills won't carry forward five years, which makes the gap solvable

[00:09:10] The risk of cutting headcount before anyone in the organization understands what AI can actually do

[00:12:02] What separates organizations moving the needle on manager development from the ones running the same programs every year

[00:13:48] SHRM research showing 91% job satisfaction where workplace needs get addressed, against 44% where they don't

[00:15:29] Treating stress and burnout as an organizational liability a CHRO is expected to manage

Guest Bio

Jim Link is the Chief Human Resources Officer for SHRM. With more than 340,000 members around the world, SHRM is the largest HR professional association in the world and the leading voice for matters related to workers and the workplace.

Prior to joining SHRM, Link's career included roles of increasing responsibility across a variety of industries and companies including General Electric, the Pillsbury Company, Porsche Cars, and Randstad. While at Randstad North America, he led a global team of 150 HR professionals who were instrumental in transforming the company into an award-winning, inclusive, and sustainable global leader.

Link consistently demonstrates dynamic and visionary thought leadership with a variety of presentations focusing on the interconnection between effective human capital management and business results.

Brought to You by Paylocity

Paylocity is the fastest growing unified platform for HR, Finance, and IT. Paylocity brings your people, processes, and data together in one place so HR leaders can spend less time managing systems and more time doing the work that actually moves their organizations forward. Learn more at https://www.paylocity.com/

Keywords: stay interviews, exit interviews, employee retention, performance management, continuous feedback, compensation strategy, internal mobility, upskilling, AI in the workplace, critical thinking skills, manager development, middle managers, employee experience, State of the Workplace, burnout, workplace stress, SHRM, CHRO, HR leadership, talent strategy

A little less than half of workers now use AI regularly on the job. Of that group, 44% admit the output looks finished on the surface and holds nothing underneath. SHRM has a name for it: work slop.

Dr. James Atkinson is VP of Thought Leadership at SHRM, where he leads the research teams behind that finding. He spent nine years at Gartner, finishing as Managing Vice President of Data Products for its HR research practice, and ran data products at Payscale before joining SHRM.

James walks through SHRM's Skills Revolution research in this conversation. Read the full report here: https://www.shrm.org/topics-tools/research/skills-revolution-preparing-employees-tomorrows-jobs

In this episode, he covers:

• Why CFOs approve people investments framed as productivity gained and cost avoided, and why SHRM's navigating the C-suite research found finance leaders want that case backed by workforce data

• How 44% of AI users admit to producing work slop, and where HR can step in to define what good output looks like

• What SHRM's Skills Revolution research says about learning and development systems that can't track how fast skills are changing

Timestamps

[00:01:01] Why the labor market is uneven rather than hot or cold, and why the last two months shouldn't set your expectations

[00:01:51] Healthcare keeps adding jobs as the population ages while federal employment declines and local government picks back up

[00:03:13] Framing a people investment as a business opportunity with a productivity number and a cost number attached

[00:04:49] SHRM's navigating the C-suite research: CFOs want the ROI spelled out and backed by workforce data

[00:05:34] Turnover as the metric finance already understands, because a role sitting empty is a day of lost productivity

[00:06:11] Ask your executives how they want to be presented to before you build the deck

[00:06:48] Just under half of workers use AI regularly, and 44% of them admit to producing work slop

[00:07:28] Why AI needs guardrails and how managers become the people who say what good looks like

[00:09:12] The Skills Revolution research: skills are changing faster than learning and development systems can follow

[00:11:10] Why skills inventories still haven't replaced job descriptions, and what might finally move that

Guest Bio

James Atkinson is the VP, Thought Leadership at SHRM, where he leads research teams uncovering key insights on the challenges and trends affecting HR and the workplace. James joined SHRM with more than 15 years of research, data, and product experience, having spent a decade in various leadership roles within the HR industry. Prior to SHRM, James was the Vice President of Data Products at Payscale, where he was responsible for the overall strategy, development, and delivery of data products for compensation professionals. He also spent 9 years at Gartner, finishing his tenure there as the Managing Vice President of Data Products for the HR research and advisory practice. Across his career, his teams have created award-winning research and data products for HR executives and their teams on topics including learning and development, total rewards, recruiting, talent management, HR strategy, HR technology, and diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. This work has been featured in top business journals and media outlets such as Harvard Business Review, Wall Street Journal, and Forbes. James holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Michigan and an MBA from Ohio State University.

Brought to You by Paylocity

Paylocity is the fastest growing unified platform for HR, Finance, and IT. Paylocity brings your people, processes, and data together in one place so HR leaders can spend less time managing systems and more time doing the work that actually moves their organizations forward. Learn more at https://www.paylocity.com/

Keywords: SHRM research, labor market outlook, work slop, AI guardrails, HR ROI, CFO conversations, workforce data, skills revolution, learning and development, career development, employee attrition, talent retention, healthcare hiring, HR strategy, skills inventory, job descriptions, people analytics, workforce planning, HR Mixtape

Most HR teams have already run their AI experiments. A pilot here, a policy draft there. Turning that scattered activity into something people actually use on a Tuesday is a completely different problem.

In this episode:

• Why the biggest available gains from AI now come from teams working with it together, not individuals getting better at prompting
• How to pick a first project by finding the rock in your shoe instead of announcing a sweeping overhaul nobody asked forWhat the three Cs (crisis, commitment, and conflict) tell you about where AI should never touch an employee interaction

Timestamps

[00:01:52] What an AI catalyst actually does inside an HR function, and why the job changed from building fluency to driving adoption

[00:02:49] Why HR teams that feel behind on AI are not, and what the range across SHRM's membership really looks like

[00:03:53] Finding the rock in your shoe, and why the most annoying problem beats the most sophisticated one as a starting point

[00:07:29] Nichol's dictation method for getting a model to write her prompts, including asking for a McKinsey-style or Fast Company-style prompt

[00:08:15] How vibe teaming works, including the AI wrangler role, the facilitator role, and the transcript loop that feeds the group's corrections back in

[00:10:08] The loneliness problem created by heavy individual AI use, and the 70-page proposal exchange that illustrates it

[00:11:22] Over 44% of people use AI daily and nearly as many run into work slop daily, and what a biweekly team session does about it

[00:12:44] Eight executive assistants who used vibe teaming remotely to redesign how their C-suite works together

[00:15:09] The three Cs guardrail: crisis, commitment, and conflict are the moments to keep AI out of entirely

[00:17:19] Why people can always tell whether a real human was on the other side, even when they can't identify AI-generated text

Guest Bio

Nichol Bradford is a futurist, investor, and executive with more than 20 years across technology and human potential. Her mission is to strengthen humanity's mental, emotional, and social health (MESH) as the foundation for innovation and progress. She reaches over 100,000 people annually through thought leadership and public speaking, including TEDx.

As SHRM's AI + HI Executive-in-Residence, Bradford shapes global strategies that reach 362 million workers and their families through 340,000 HR professionals in 180 countries. In June 2025 she founded and launched Human Tech Week, which drew 250 speakers and more than 1,200 attendees in its first year. That event grew out of TransformativeTech.org, the global community she co-founded and built to members in 72 countries. She also co-founded Niremia Collective, a venture fund backing the future of human potential.

Bradford works at the seam between advanced technology and deep human need, with a focus on human-centered AI adoption. Before this, she operated World of Warcraft in China. Today she runs the largest network for human potential technology.

Brought to You by Paylocity

Paylocity is the fastest growing unified platform for HR, Finance, and IT. Paylocity brings your people, processes, and data together in one place so HR leaders can spend less time managing systems and more time doing the work that actually moves their organizations forward. Learn more at https://www.paylocity.com/

Keywords: AI adoption in HR, responsible AI, vibe teaming, collective intelligence, work slop, AI guardrails, human potential, SHRM, AI catalyst, HR technology, team productivity, prompting, talent acquisition AI, performance management, employee experience, change management, workforce wellbeing, human-centered AI, Nichol Bradford, HR Mixtape

Most HR professionals treat the annual retirement plan review like a status update. The advisor presents, the team nods, and everyone gets back to the work they actually understand. The plan keeps running. Probably.

Andrew Farrell, Retirement Plan Advisor at North County Wealth, has spent 20 years working with businesses on plan design, compliance, and the advisor relationship. He's watched the same dynamic play out across organizations of every size: HR teams that know everything about their company but defer entirely on the plan.

In this episode, he breaks down:

• Why HR is already a subject matter expert in the room, and how to use that expertise to get more out of every advisor meeting
• How to draw a clear line between what HR should own and what should get handed off the moment it leaves the building
• Why missed payroll contributions are the most common retirement plan compliance failure, and the simple calendar habit that catches them before they become a problem

Timestamps

[00:00:39] Where HR's ownership starts in the retirement plan decision chain, from matching rates to enrollment

[00:02:00] Why getting employees enrolled early is HR's most impactful retirement plan move, and why starting late is the primary headwind in savings

[00:03:32] When auto-enrollment creates more administrative burden than it's worth, and the specific scenario where high turnover changes the math

[00:05:08] The "excess deference" dynamic: why HR professionals hand over authority in advisor meetings they should be keeping

[00:06:17] Why your plan advisor needs your company knowledge as much as you need their 401(k) expertise, and what a conversation of equals actually looks like

[00:07:00] Asking your advisor to teach you something, and why using their availability is part of what you're paying for

[00:08:18] The front door rule: what HR should own in plan administration and what to hand off the moment it leaves the building

[00:11:19] Why missed payroll contributions are the most common compliance failure, and how to build the redundancy and calendar checks that catch them

[00:15:38] Why "no" is a valid answer when your advisor pitches new plan features, and the ongoing operational cost of adding any bell or whistle

[00:18:40] What "fiduciary" actually means, how to know if you're a named one, and the four primary duties that come with it

Brought to You by Paylocity

Paylocity is the fastest growing unified platform for HR, Finance, and IT. Paylocity brings your people, processes, and data together in one place so HR leaders can spend less time managing systems and more time doing the work that actually moves their organizations forward. Learn more at https://www.paylocity.com/

Keywords: 401k, 403b, retirement plan, fiduciary responsibility, HR compliance, auto-enrollment, plan advisor, payroll contributions, benefit design, retirement savings, plan document, financial wellness, employee benefits, retirement readiness, plan sponsor, benefits administration, excess deference, contribution timing, investment liability, HR strategy

Most founders treat culture as a launch-phase item: define the values, hire people who believe in the mission, and trust that early momentum carries it forward. It does, for a while. But as the team grows, the distance between the CEO and the day-to-day experience of employees widens quietly, and the gap between what's on the website and what employees actually live starts to show.

Jeannie Kidera, CEO of Kidera Culture Consulting, uses Gallup-backed research methods to help mission-driven companies turn employee listening data into concrete leadership action. Her practice is built on one argument she's made dozens of times: culture isn't a morale issue, it's a revenue line.

In this episode, she covers:

• Why the disengaged employee who stays costs up to 34% of their annual salary every year, a figure that outweighs the turnover number most HR leaders already track
• How to translate an engagement argument into a money argument, and why that reframe is the most important skill an HR leader can bring to a C-suite conversation
• What a 90-day culture improvement plan actually looks like: the Gallup 12, one focused pain point, a pulse survey, and an action plan communicated back to employees so change is visible

Timestamps

[00:01:19] How teaching literature, and specifically asking "what's the subtext," directly maps to the skills needed for employee listening and interpreting between employees and leaders

[00:03:33] The four Gallup stats every HR leader should have ready: 23% higher profitability, 20% higher sales, 17% greater productivity, and 10% higher customer loyalty in top-quartile engagement companies

[00:05:01] The most common culture mistake founders make without realizing it: assuming that hiring mission-aligned people is enough to sustain and build culture as the company scales

[00:06:00] Why rapid growth forces founders to look outward, creating a belief that culture is a soft part of business strategy rather than a direct revenue driver

[00:06:42] The Gallup stat that rarely makes it into culture conversations: a disengaged employee who stays costs up to 34% of their annual salary every year, and that number compounds across teams

[00:08:16] Why responding to employee survey data matters far more than collecting it, and why ignoring results is actually worse for engagement than not asking at all

[00:11:28] How internal communication functions as a core component of employee experience, including why word choice, "subordinates" versus "team members," alters both morale and culture

[00:12:15] How to turn an empathy-based engagement argument into a money argument, and the Gallup stat that should anchor every culture conversation with leadership

[00:15:39] What it actually takes to live your company values: leadership modeling, public acknowledgment, values alignment assessments, and policies that match what you say you believe

[00:18:31] Jeannie's 90-day culture improvement plan: start with the Gallup 12, identify one pain point, run a focused pulse survey, build an action plan with named owners and deadlines, and communicate it back to employees

Brought to You by Paylocity

Paylocity is the fastest growing unified platform for HR, Finance, and IT. Paylocity brings your people, processes, and data together in one place so HR leaders can spend less time managing systems and more time doing the work that actually moves their organizations forward. Learn more at https://www.paylocity.com/

Keywords: employee engagement, Gallup research, culture consulting, employee experience, mission-driven companies, startup culture, culture as revenue driver, disengagement cost, values alignment, internal communications, employee listening, 90-day culture plan, action planning, pulse surveys, people analytics, retention, people-first culture, culture ROI, HR leadership, founder culture

Revenue growth is the metric every business celebrates. Record quarters become press releases, and the top line becomes a proxy for health. But when the revenue line on a P&L keeps climbing while the profit line doesn't, growth stops being a sign of success and starts functioning as a cover story.

Ben Hansen, CEO of Profit Doctor and founder of an 8-figure staffing firm, built a team of over 100 employees in eight years while maintaining profitable growth. He now works with companies earning between $2 and $50 million in annual revenue, and most see meaningful profit improvements within 12 weeks.

In this episode, he covers:

• Why growth often hides profit problems rather than solving them, and the P&L signals that reveal the gap before it gets painful
• How to align middle management incentives around profitability rather than revenue alone, including real-world examples that work at the rank-and-file level
• What HR leaders should do before entering cost-cutting conversations, and how to frame the employee value trade-off in a way that gets real buy-in

Timestamps

[00:00:37] Defining profititis: when top-line revenue is strong but net profitability is weak, declining, or sick

[00:01:25] Why growth often hides profit problems rather than solving them, and what owners typically deprioritize in the process

[00:03:14] The most common root cause of profititis: serving customers and offering products outside your core sweet spot

[00:04:37] A cyclical approach to balancing innovation with staying in your profitable lane

[00:05:42] Why people spend hurts profitability at two levels: payroll growth rate and the quality and fit of talent

[00:08:28] Why HR should do the cost-benefit analysis on every program before walking into the cost-cutting meeting

[00:09:35] Ben's approach with his own 100-person team: asking employees whether they'd rather have higher salary or richer benefits

[00:12:19] Why incentivizing managers on revenue while hoping they'll protect profit guarantees misaligned behavior

[00:14:05] Translating a financial target into a metric the whole team can act on: the revenue-per-labor-hour example

[00:19:27] The construction company that went from break-even for 20 years to 20%+ net profit in nine months by communicating labor budgets

Brought to You by Paylocity

Paylocity is the fastest growing unified platform for HR, Finance, and IT. Paylocity brings your people, processes, and data together in one place so HR leaders can spend less time managing systems and more time doing the work that actually moves their organizations forward. Learn more at https://www.paylocity.com/

Keywords: Ben Hansen, Profit Doctor, profititis, profit margins, revenue growth, cost-benefit analysis, HR cost-cutting, employee compensation, talent quality, incentive alignment, middle management, nonprofit finance, mission-driven organizations, payroll efficiency, P&L management, contribution margin, labor productivity, cost reduction, business profitability, workforce metrics

Most CHROs have a fraud problem they didn't sign up for. Deepfakes in video interviews. Synthetic IDs at the application stage. AI-generated credentials that pass every automated screen. Only 31% of CHROs say they're confident in their ability to prevent hiring fraud, and the technology making it easier gets more sophisticated every quarter.

Nik Daruwala, Vice President of Sales at Checkr, has spent 21 years in B2B technology sales, including thousands of direct conversations with HR leaders trying to protect their hiring funnels without losing speed. Checkr powers background verification for Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, and Instacart, and was the first API in the background check industry.

In this episode, he covers:

• Why hiring fraud appears at every stage of the funnel, from the initial application through post-hire monitoring, and what a continuous identity verification strategy actually looks like in practice

• How CHROs should be thinking about partnering with their CISO to address a risk that's moved from the cyber stack into the talent pipeline

•

https://thehrmixtape.com/episodes/trust-at-speed-hiring-fraud-deepfakes-and-the-identity-risks-chros-cant-ignore-with-nik-daruwala

• Why the speed-versus-safety trade-off in hiring is a false choice, and what good looks like when both coexist in the same program

Timestamps

[00:00:39] Context: this conversation was recorded live at the Checkr booth at SHRM 2026

[00:01:01] How enterprise hiring changed over 24 years: global sourcing, the normalization of remote hiring, and why the explosion of application volume made quality screening harder

[00:02:50] The CHRO anxiety most people aren't talking about: making sure candidates throughout the funnel are actually who they claim to be

[00:04:13] Only 31% of CHROs have confidence in their ability to prevent hiring fraud, and why the AI tools now available to candidates are changing that threat surface fast

[00:04:39] The three identity threats CHROs weren't trained for: deepfakes in interviews, synthetic IDs at the application stage, and AI-generated credentials that pass automated screens

[00:06:44] Why most organizations are reactive on hiring fraud, and the parallel to the early days of cybersecurity: you don't prioritize it until you have your first incident

[00:08:42] Where fraud actually shows up across the hiring funnel: application, interview, background check, and continuously post-hire

[00:09:41] The speed-versus-compliance trade-off is a false choice, and why the best hiring programs don't ask their teams to make it

[00:13:27] Nik on what it actually means for trust to be a competitive advantage, and why that should be the north star for every hiring program

[00:16:00] The two-to-three year horizon: AI automating talent sourcing and administrative tasks, continuous monitoring as table stakes, and why the hiring decision stays human

Brought to You by Paylocity

Paylocity is the fastest growing unified platform for HR, Finance, and IT. Paylocity brings your people, processes, and data together in one place so HR leaders can spend less time managing systems and more time doing the work that actually moves their organizations forward. Learn more at https://www.paylocity.com/

Keywords: hiring fraud, background checks, identity verification, deepfakes, synthetic IDs, AI-generated credentials, CHRO priorities, talent pipeline security, hiring at scale, continuous monitoring, background screening, hiring compliance, HR technology, Checkr, credential fraud, HR risk management, fraud prevention, remote hiring risk, AI in hiring, talent operations

When performance problems show up at work, most organizations respond by adding something: a new policy, more training, another initiative. But those problems usually aren't what they look like. What gets logged as a performance issue is often a nervous system response to culture, and no policy fixes a nervous system.

Shenandoah Chefalo, Trauma Informed Systems Change Consultant at Chefalo Consulting and author of Garbage Bag Suitcase, has spent 20+ years helping organizations apply what we know about trauma to how they lead, drawing on both rigorous research in adverse childhood experiences and her own experience aging out of foster care at 18.

In this episode, she covers:

• Why what looks like a performance problem is usually a nervous system problem caused by culture, and why that changes the intervention entirely
• How the community meeting practice from Dr. Sandra Bloom creates felt safety through ritualized behavior, so hard conversations stop feeling like surprises
• Why the first move in any culture change effort should be asking what you can stop doing before adding anything new

Timestamps

[00:01:40] Shenandoah's personal story: 50 moves, 35 schools, and self-reporting into foster care at 13 with the hope of an Annie ending

[00:04:00] Aging out at 18 mid-senior year, hiding her foster care background, and taking eight years to finish her undergrad degree

[00:05:22] How 20+ years of organizational culture change work grew out of lived experience and timing with the adverse childhood experience research

[00:07:37] A corrections officer's observation that reframed everything: "It's hard to know who the bars are holding in"

[00:08:05] Every organization says it wants emotionally intelligent employees, but almost no organization wants to talk about feelings at work

[00:10:20] What looks like a performance problem is usually a nervous system problem caused by the culture, not the individual

[00:11:31] Why modeling repair work is the most powerful thing a leader can do to maintain trust and keep small things from becoming big ones

[00:13:19] The transparency framework for building felt safety: share what you know, what you don't, what's decided today, and what needs to come back

[00:15:11] The critical difference between feeling unsafe ("if I say this I might get fired") and feeling uncomfortable ("I have something hard to say")

[00:19:01] The community meeting practice from Dr. Sandra Bloom: three questions that normalize emotional check-ins so hard conversations stop being exceptional

Brought to You by Paylocity

Paylocity is the fastest growing unified platform for HR, Finance, and IT. Paylocity brings your people, processes, and data together in one place so HR leaders can spend less time managing systems and more time doing the work that actually moves their organizations forward. Learn more at https://www.paylocity.com/

Keywords: trauma-informed leadership, felt safety, psychological safety, repair work, culture change, nervous system regulation, community meeting practice, adverse childhood experiences, burnout prevention, employee retention, middle manager development, mental health at work, transparency in leadership, workplace wellbeing, accountability, HR leadership, Shenandoah Chefalo, Chefalo Consulting, Garbage Bag

Most change initiatives fail not because the strategy was wrong but because the communication didn't move anyone. HR leaders deliver their message, check the box, and wonder why nothing shifted. The problem almost never lives in the data. It lives in the absence of story.

Mary Czarnecki, Brand Messaging Consultant at Mary Czarnecki LLC, spent more than two decades in marketing and strategy at Johnson & Johnson, WebMD, and Accenture before building a practice that trains leaders at Fortune 500 companies to use story as a practical tool for influence and organizational change.

In this episode, she covers:

• Why more information alone can't produce behavior change, and what story does that information can't
• How to identify where people are getting stuck before looking for a story, so the narrative actually closes the right gap
• The three ingredients in any story that actually lands: a specific moment, sensory details, and a clear arc from before to after

Timestamps

[00:00:16] What it means to help leaders turn ideas into influence, and why storytelling is the vehicle

[00:01:49] Why change initiatives fail because of communication, not strategy, and how story closes that gap

[00:02:31] The first step in storytelling most leaders skip: identifying what someone isn't getting before finding a story

[00:04:11] What the HR Story Advantage actually means, and why knowing the facts about a habit doesn't create the habit

[00:07:47] How to find the right story when you're the messenger, not the creator of the message

[00:09:43] Balancing transparency and oversharing: the audience-centric gut check that keeps stories from backfiring

[00:12:47] The bad perm story: a client example of how a personal, humble story got an entire sales team to bring their own stories

[00:16:42] Where AI helps with storytelling and the one trap to avoid when using it

[00:18:10] The most common communication mistake leaders make today: building a message without putting yourself in the audience's shoes first

[00:19:29] The treasure trove habit: why the best communicators don't find stories on demand, they collect them over time

Brought to You by Paylocity

Paylocity is the fastest growing unified platform for HR, Finance, and IT. Paylocity brings your people, processes, and data together in one place so HR leaders can spend less time managing systems and more time doing the work that actually moves their organizations forward. Learn more at paylocity.com

Keywords: storytelling, leadership communication, change management, HR strategy, influence without authority, organizational change, internal communication, narrative, employee engagement, communication skills, HR leadership, people strategy, trust building, audience-centric communication, Mary Czarnecki, behavior change, change communication, HR story advantage, story structure, workplace storytelling

Most organizations assume they have resilient teams. What they actually have, in a lot of cases, are teams that have gotten good at tolerating hard things. The two aren't the same, and the gap becomes visible the moment something real changes.

Aaron Golub, founder of Aaron Golub Consulting, made history as the first legally blind Division I athlete to play in a Division I game, serving as team captain at Tulane University before signing with the NFL as a free agent. He's been translating that lived experience into leadership development work since the age of 17.

In this episode, he covers:

• Why acceptance is the prerequisite to any real change, and how skipping it is the reason most leadership development doesn't stick

• How to read what each person on your team actually needs, and why applying the same leadership approach to everyone is the core mistake

• Why the next generation of leaders is too comfortable, and what that costs organizations when pressure finally arrives

Timestamps

[00:00:16] Aaron Golub's origin story: how becoming the first legally blind Division I athlete became a leadership framework, not just a personal victory

[00:01:10] Why the football story is the vehicle, not the point, and how Aaron translates a personal resilience model into organizational change

[00:02:16] The acceptance principle: why you can't form new perspectives around a challenge you haven't first acknowledged as real

[00:03:57] What leading a Division I football team taught Aaron about the danger of applying one leadership style to every person

[00:06:48] Why every engagement starts with a needs assessment, and why skipping it makes the work ineffective regardless of how good the content is

[00:08:18] Gratitude-based leadership: why positivity and negativity both spread through an organization, and the four-step framework that gets you there

[00:11:00] Why inclusion starts with asking, not assuming, and the airport wheelchair story that shows what happens when you don't

[00:13:10] Aaron's case against automatic visual descriptions in meetings, and why well-intentioned practices can create the tension they're meant to prevent

[00:17:14] Why the next generation of leaders is too comfortable, and what organizations lose because of it

[00:20:42] Aaron's final takeaway: reframing "I can't" to "I haven't been able to yet," and why the language shift is the strategy

Guest Bio

Aaron Golub is a professional speaker, entrepreneur, and consultant who specializes in helping to shatter perceived limitations. He made history as the first legally blind Division I athlete to play in a game, serving as a team captain at Tulane University before moving on to the NFL as a free agent. After his story captured the national spotlight on Good Morning America, Aaron realized his journey wasn't just about football, it was a blueprint for resilience. Since the age of 17, he has traveled the globe delivering high-impact strategies that challenge teams to rethink their "impossible" and take immediate action. Aaron doesn't just deliver a keynote and leave; he is a dedicated partner who works alongside leadership to implement lasting change and ensure insights turn into results.

Brought to You by Paylocity

Paylocity is the fastest growing unified platform for HR, Finance, and IT. Paylocity brings your people, processes, and data together in one place so HR leaders can spend less time managing systems and more time doing the work that actually moves their organizations forward. Learn more at paylocity.com

paylocity.com

Keywords

resilience, limiting beliefs, leadership development, gratitude-based leadership, inclusion, disability in the workplace, people management, team building, change management, performance management, employee engagement, psychological safety, workplace culture, HR strategy, personal development, adversity, blind athlete, resilient teams, organizational change, discomfort

Most organizations solve the wrong problem when they go global. They get the infrastructure right, find the talent, and figure out the cost model. Then the offshore team quietly drifts from the core org, and nobody quite knows why.

Ingo Piroth, Chief Revenue Officer at Emapta, has spent 30 years in global delivery and workforce transformation working with enterprise clients across multiple continents. His framework for what actually makes offshore teams succeed goes well beyond the basics.

In this episode, he covers:

• Why connection, context, and commitment are the real performance drivers in distributed teams, and how cultural integration design makes each one possible from day one
• How to structure the first 30 days of a global team integration so you build momentum and confidence rather than confusion and attrition
• Why the most common myth about offshore talent, that geography limits capability, is the belief that costs organizations access to some of their strongest people

Timestamps

[00:00:54] Why culture is now the key differentiator in outsourcing, after infrastructure, talent, and cost barriers have largely been solved

[00:02:05] How to design cultural integration from scratch using shared rituals, communication channels, and recognition of local cultural moments

[00:03:04] Real examples of shared identity: embracing Philippine Christmas in September and Colombian Semana Santa alongside US holidays

[00:04:05] The biggest planning mistake leaders make when setting up offshore teams, and why treating it as cost arbitrage guarantees trouble

[00:06:02] Why "treat offshore like it's your core business" is the philosophy that makes the mechanics of distributed work actually function

[00:08:26] Time zones as a design challenge, not a barrier: intentional overlap by function, async communication, and protecting personal time

[00:09:28] Why recognition has to be personal, not procedural, and why global employee-of-the-month programs fall flat

[00:13:08] The first-30-day playbook for global teams: why speed of clarity determines speed of performance

[00:15:05] Why global talent wants careers, not just roles, and what succession planning actually looks like in an offshore environment

[00:19:58] The biggest myth about offshore talent, and why companies that treat offshore as strategic consistently outperform those that don't

Brought to You by Paylocity

Paylocity is the fastest growing unified platform for HR, Finance, and IT. Paylocity brings your people, processes, and data together in one place so HR leaders can spend less time managing systems and more time doing the work that actually moves their organizations forward. Learn more at https://www.paylocity.com/

Keywords: global workforce, outsourcing, offshoring, distributed teams, workforce transformation, cultural integration, global talent, HR leadership, people strategy, recognition, succession planning, offshore teams, cross-cultural management, employee engagement, retention, global delivery, talent management, culture design, time zone management, Emapta

In most industries, culture lives in your annual engagement survey. In hospitality, it walks out to the dining room every single night. It shows up in how your server handles a difficult table, in the energy at the host stand, and in whether your team feels taken care of or just managed.

Donna Giarratana, Director of Human Resources at Baldi Management Group and founder of MoxeeHR, LLC, has built people-first HR systems across some of the country's most demanding hospitality environments, including the three-Michelin-star Inn at Little Washington and the José Andrés Group.

In this episode, she shares what actually moves the needle:

• Why the parallel between how guests want to feel and how employees want to feel is a management strategy, not a metaphor
• How to build attendance policies that are fair, equitable, documentable, and still genuinely human
• What engagement actually looks like across very different worker populations, from career hospitality professionals to first-job team members

Timestamps

[00:01:03] Donna's origin story: from hostess to HR leader in hospitality

[00:01:24] Why culture shows up differently in hospitality than in knowledge work environments

[00:01:53] The parallel between what guests and employees both want: to feel seen, acknowledged, and cared for

[00:03:41] Debunking myths about leading restaurant teams across multiple generations

[00:06:05] What "pouring into your people" actually looks like in daily restaurant operations

[00:08:10] Building attendance policies that balance compliance requirements with human compassion

[00:12:41] How to develop managers on the spot when desk-based training isn't realistic

[00:15:57] Early burnout signals to watch before turnover becomes a problem, including the "clopen" pattern

[00:19:11] How engagement needs differ significantly between lifers and newer team members

[00:22:11] Donna's single takeaway for every hospitality leader today

Brought to You by Paylocity

Paylocity is the fastest growing unified platform for HR, Finance, and IT. Paylocity brings your people, processes, and data together in one place so HR leaders can spend less time managing systems and more time doing the work that actually moves their organizations forward. Learn more at https://www.paylocity.com/

Keywords: hospitality HR, high-turnover workforce, people-first culture, restaurant management, attendance policy, progressive discipline, manager development, employee engagement, generational workforce, lifers, onboarding, retention, burnout prevention, clopens, EAP resources, compliance, workforce planning, cultural transformation

Most organizations treat meetings as the default answer to everything, but that's costing you more than you think. Rebecca Hinds, Head of the Work AI Institute at Glean, researcher, and author of YOUR BEST MEETING EVER, brings a product design mindset to the most expensive form of collaboration in your org. She shares how to spot meeting dysfunction, use AI to audit your calendar, and make intentional changes that actually stick.

In this episode:

• Why meetings have become the 'junk drawer' of organizational communication, and how visibility bias keeps the habit alive.

• How to use return on time investment (ROTI) scoring, meeting minimalism, and shared language to redesign your meeting culture.

• The role AI and data play in building the business case for calendar reform, especially with a skeptical C-suite.

Timestamps

[00:01:10] Why Rebecca went all-in on meeting research and the psychology of visibility bias.

[00:02:19] The meeting junk drawer: why meetings become the default for everything.

[00:04:39] Treating meetings like a product, including the concept of meeting debt.

[00:06:26] Return on time investment (ROTI): a data-driven way to rate your meetings.

[00:08:16] How leadership buy-in determines how boldly you can reform your calendar.

[00:08:56] Using AI to build meeting calculators and get C-suite buy-in.

[00:10:52] Making the business case by anchoring on what the most powerful person cares about.

[00:13:54] Building psychological safety so people feel empowered to flag bad meetings.

[00:16:36] Shared language for meeting dysfunction, including Meeting Doomsday and meeting minimalism.

[00:21:05] The one thing every leader can do this week: intentional design across four meeting dimensions.

Guest Bio

Rebecca Hinds is the author of YOUR BEST MEETING EVER, a leading expert on organizational behavior and the future of work, founder of the Work Innovation Lab at Asana and the Work AI Institute at Glean. She holds a BS, MS, and PhD from Stanford University. Her research is consistently featured in top-tier publications like Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Wired, and more. She is a trusted advisor to companies navigating the challenges of modern work, from meeting overload and hybrid dysfunction to the messy realities of AI adoption and organizational change.

Brought to You by Paylocity

Paylocity is the fastest growing unified platform for HR, Finance, and IT. Paylocity brings your people, processes, and data together in one place so HR leaders can spend less time managing systems and more time doing the work that actually moves their organizations forward. Learn more at https://www.paylocity.com/

Keywords: meetings, meeting culture, organizational behavior, future of work, meeting debt, return on time investment, psychological safety, AI, calendar reform, Meeting Doomsday, meeting minimalism, collaboration, HR leadership, Rebecca Hinds, HR Mixtape