HR Happy Hour Network

What Signals is Your Culture Sending Out into the World?Hosts: Steve Boese and Trish SteedGuest: Saima Rashid, Chief Marketing Officer at Workhuman SummaryIt’s easy to point to a careers page, recruiting campaign, company values, or social media presence. But ultimately, an employer brand is shaped by something much harder to manufacture: what employees actually experience inside the organization.In this episode of the HR Happy Hour, Steve Boese and Trish Steed welcome Saima Rashid, Chief Marketing Officer at Workhuman, for a conversation about the evolving role of employer brand and how recognition data can provide a much more authentic view of workplace culture. Saima describes employer brand as the external expression of the internal employee experience. That means organizations need real examples that demonstrate how people collaborate, contribute, support one another, and live company values every day - and recognition data can help uncover those stories.Because recognition happens in the flow of work and comes from employees across teams, roles, and functions, it can provide leaders with real-time insight into the behaviors, skills, relationships, and contributions shaping the organization. It can also reveal where recognition is missing - giving leaders an earlier indication of potential disconnects before they appear in traditional measures such as engagement, retention, or employee referrals.Steve, Trish, and Saima also explore how recognition can help new leaders understand their teams, bring greater context into performance conversations, strengthen employee advocacy, and give organizations authentic stories that employees actually want to share. And with AI making it possible to analyze large amounts of unstructured recognition data, organizations have an opportunity to uncover even deeper insights about skills, leadership, culture, and whether business values are truly showing up in the way work gets done. Topics include:Why employer brand is ultimately shaped by the lived employee experienceThe difference between promoting company values and demonstrating themHow recognition data provides real-time, human insight into how work gets doneWhy specific employee stories can be more powerful than traditional employer-brand messagingHow recognition can help leaders uncover skills, contributions, and relationships they may not otherwise seeWhy authentic employee advocacy must be earned rather than orchestratedHow organizations can compare their stated values with the behaviors employees actually recognizeHow AI can help uncover new insights from recognition dataThank you for joining the show today! Remember to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts! Workhuman is a proud supporter of the HR Happy Hour Network. Nearly every HR leader knows the feeling: Teams are stretched thin, priorities keep shifting, and it's getting harder to see what's really going on beneath the surface. That's the subject of Workhuman's new documentary, Spotlight: The Leadership Reset, an investigation into why managers are losing visibility into their teams, and what it takes to see clearly again. Featuring Harvard’s Professor Amy Edmondson, crisis leadership expert Dr. Syra Madad, and bakery-owner-turned-business-leader Joanne Chang. The Leadership Reset premieres September 29th. Register for free today at workhuman.com/spotlight. 

Rebuilding Pathways to Work: Removing Barriers for Overlooked TalentHosts: Steve Boese and Trish SteedGuest: Dr. Lee Bowes, CEO of America Works SummaryIn this episode of At Work in America, Steve and Trish speak with Dr. Lee Bowes, CEO of America Works, about what it takes to reconnect people with meaningful employment - and why employers may be overlooking individuals who have the ability and desire to contribute.Dr. Bowes shares lessons from decades of helping people navigate challenges including disabilities, employment gaps, limited transportation, justice involvement, outdated skills, and complex public-benefit systems. The conversation also examines the role employers and HR leaders can play in creating more accessible hiring processes, supporting frontline managers, and helping new employees remain successful once they are hired. Sustainable employment often requires individualized support, stronger employer partnerships, practical problem-solving, and a willingness to recognize potential that may not appear on a traditional résumé. Topics include:Why employment provides connection, dignity, and purpose in addition to incomeThe practical barriers that prevent willing people from returning to workTransportation challenges facing workers in suburban and rural communitiesHow complicated online applications and limited digital skills can restrict accessWhy employers and frontline managers also need support when hiring overlooked talentThe importance of coaching, communication, and early intervention in employee retentionWhat HR leaders can do to create more sustainable pathways into employment Thank you for joining the show today! Remember to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts! Workhuman is a proud supporter of the HR Happy Hour Network. Nearly every HR leader knows the feeling: Teams are stretched thin, priorities keep shifting, and it's getting harder to see what's really going on beneath the surface. That's the subject of Workhuman's new documentary, Spotlight: The Leadership Reset, an investigation into why managers are losing visibility into their teams, and what it takes to see clearly again. Featuring Harvard’s Professor Amy Edmondson, crisis leadership expert Dr. Syra Madad, and bakery-owner-turned-business-leader Joanne Chang. The Leadership Reset premieres September 29th. Register for free today at workhuman.com/spotlight.

How Work Gets Done Now, and the Signals for How to Measure ItHosts: Steve Boese and Trish SteedGuest: KeyAnna Schmeidl, Chief Human Experience Officer at Workhuman SummaryWork has outgrown the org chart. Today, work moves across teams, projects, functions, technologies, and informal networks that traditional workforce metrics were never designed to capture. Headcount, turnover, productivity, and performance data still matter - but they rarely tell the full story of how work gets done or who is making it possible.In this episode of the HR Happy Hour, Steve and Trish welcome KeyAnna Schmeidl, Chief Human Experience Officer at Workhuman, for a conversation about what leaders can learn when they look beyond traditional reporting and start paying attention to the human signals inside everyday work. She explains why reporting relationships and job descriptions often reveal far less than the connections, contributions, expertise, and informal influence that move work forward. The conversation explores how organizations can move from backward-looking dashboards toward more dynamic workforce intelligence that helps leaders understand what is happening now, and make better decisions about what should happen next.One of the richest sources of that insight may already exist inside the organization: recognition data. Because recognition captures what people notice and value in one another's work, it can reveal contributors who remove roadblocks, share expertise, mentor teammates, strengthen collaboration, and influence outcomes in ways that may never appear in a traditional performance metric. Topics include:Where traditional HR and productivity metrics fall shortThe shift from reporting what happened to understanding what is happeningWhy simply replacing a departing employee with the same role may no longer make senseHow recognition data can uncover hidden contributors, connectors, mentors, and emerging leadersThe role recognition can play in succession planning, internal mobility, and identifying future leadership potentialWhat "dark spots" in recognition can reveal about culture and employee visibilityHow leaders can build workforce dashboards that combine historical, real-time, and forward-looking information  Thank you for joining the show today! Remember to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts!Workhuman is a proud supporter of the HR Happy Hour Network. Nearly every HR leader knows the feeling: Teams are stretched thin, priorities keep shifting, and it's getting harder to see what's really going on beneath the surface. That's the subject of Workhuman's new documentary, Spotlight: The Leadership Reset, an investigation into why managers are losing visibility into their teams, and what it takes to see clearly again. Featuring Harvard’s Professor Amy Edmondson, crisis leadership expert Dr. Syra Madad, and bakery-owner-turned-business-leader Joanne Chang. The Leadership Reset premieres September 29th. Register for free today at workhuman.com/spotlight. 

Workplace Movie Hall of Fame - America's Sweethearts 2026Hosts: Steve Boese and Trish Steed SummaryIn this episode of At Work in America, Steve and Trish return to Netflix’s America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders to unpack the workplace lessons found throughout Season 3.Following significant changes to DCC compensation, the conversation moves beyond whether these highly visible performers are being paid fairly and into deeper questions about the employee experience. Steve and Trish explore the tension between longtime leaders and a largely Gen Z workforce, the importance of meaningful feedback and recognition, and what happens when leaders listen to employee input without truly changing how they lead. They also examine the DCC selection process, the emotional weight of hiring and termination decisions, the role experienced employees play in supporting newer team members, and the “invisible work” that often holds teams together but goes unnoticed by leadership.Along the way, Steve and Trish don’t always agree - particularly when it comes to how much credit DCC leadership deserves for adapting. But their debate raises an important question for every organization: Is changing a process enough if the underlying leadership behaviors and culture haven’t changed with it? Topics include:Why listening to employees is only meaningful when leaders are willing to act on what they hearThe growing expectations Gen Z employees have around feedback, recognition, connection, and leadershipCan longtime leaders successfully adapt as workplace expectations changeThe danger of asking employees for input when the final decision consistently ignores their perspectiveWhat the DCC audition and selection process can teach employers about recruiting, evaluation, rejection, and candidate experienceHow peer leaders and experienced team members often perform critical coaching, encouragement, and culture-building workWhy some of the most valuable contributions employees make may be invisible to traditional performance measures Thank you for joining the show today! Remember to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts! The HR Happy Hour Network is sponsored by Workhuman.Nearly 9 in 10 HR leaders say they don't have a strong leadership bench. Workhuman's Future Leaders gives organizations a smarter way to build one. Future Leaders is the first talent intelligence solution to identify high-potential VP+ talent already within your workforce—up to four years before promotion. Using proprietary AI and real-time recognition data, it uncovers the leadership signals hidden in everyday work long before traditional succession planning can. It's a smarter, data-driven approach to building tomorrow's leaders. Learn more at Workhuman.com. Thanks for joining us.

Are You Feeding AI the Wrong Data? The Leadership Signals You're MissingHosts: Steve Boese and Trish SteedGuest: Tom Libretto, President at Workhuman SummaryAI is only as powerful as the data behind it. As organizations race to deploy new AI tools, they may be overlooking one of the richest sources of workforce intelligence already available to them: the everyday moments that reveal how work actually gets done.In this HR Happy Hour episode, Steve and Trish welcome Tom Libretto, President of Workhuman, to explore why traditional HR data often tells only part of the story, and how recognition data can provide a more human, contextual view of skills, collaboration, influence, leadership potential, and organizational impact.Tom explains the value of zero-party data: information employees voluntarily share in their own words about the contributions they see happening around them. When recognition is specific and meaningful, those messages can become a powerful source of intelligence about the workforce—capturing signals that transactional HR systems were never designed to see. The conversation also explores how AI can turn those signals into actionable workforce insights. Tom shares how Workhuman is using recognition data to identify potential future leaders years before promotion, surface “talent magnets” who consistently develop others, and help organizations better understand whether employees' work is actually aligned with strategic business priorities. Topics include:Why organizations need to think as carefully about what they feed AI as they do about the AI technology itselfThe limitations of transactional and declarative HR dataWhat zero-party data is and why recognition can provide an unusually rich source of human intelligenceHow recognition reveals skills in action, collaboration patterns, influence, values, and contributionWhy the quality and specificity of recognition messages matter when using the data with AIHow AI and recognition data can help identify future leaders years earlier than traditional succession planningWhat HR leaders should consider as they build a richer, more trustworthy data foundation for AI-powered workforce decisions Thank you for joining the show today! Remember to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts!The HR Happy Hour Network is sponsored by Workhuman.Nearly 9 in 10 HR leaders say they don't have a strong leadership bench. Workhuman's Future Leaders gives organizations a smarter way to build one. Future Leaders is the first talent intelligence solution to identify high-potential VP+ talent already within your workforce—up to four years before promotion. Using proprietary AI and real-time recognition data, it uncovers the leadership signals hidden in everyday work long before traditional succession planning can. It's a smarter, data-driven approach to building tomorrow's leaders. Learn more at Workhuman.com. Thanks for joining us.