HR Happy Hour Network

HR Happy Hour 209 - Castlight and Enterprise Healthcare Management Recorded LIVE from the Health & Benefits Leadership Conference April 9, 2015 Hosts: Steve Boese, Trish McFarlane Guest: Maeve O'Meara, VP Products Castlight Health US organizations spend about $620B annually on employee health and benefits programs and up to 30% of this enormous spend is wasted according to some estimates. For most employers, health and benefits is a Top 3 cost, but most have also only managed these as costs, i.e., as needing to be controlled, managed down, and to be shifted more to employees in the form of greater employee contributions towards care and benefits. But for many organizations, employee benefits have moved from a cost to be managed towards an important asset to be leveraged for employee well-being and organizational success. Today on the show, Steve was joined by Maeve O'Meara, VP Products from Castlight Health, an HR technology solution provider that has created a platform for what is becoming known as 'Enterprise Healthcare Management'.The Castlight platform helps employees access and utilize benefits and health programs and provides them better information, educational resources, and transparency to guide them in actively managing their care. For employers, the platform provides rich analytics about employee use of benefits, trends that are impacting and indicative of workplace challenges and tools to better predict what will happen next with employee benefits utilization. This leads to better experiences for employeesm and better outcomes for employers. Thanks to Maeve and Castlight for joining us!

HR Happy Hour 208 - LIVE From Ultimate Connections 2015 Recorded Wednesday March 25, 2015 Hosts: Steve Boese, Trish McFarlane Guest : Cecile Alper-Leroux, Vice President of Product Strategy and Product Management, Ultimate Software This week on the HR Happy Hour Show, Steve and Trish recorded LIVE from the Ultimate Software Connections 2015 Customer Conference in Las Vegas. Our guest was Cecile Alper-Leroux from Ultimate, one of the most interesting, influential, and engaging leaders in the HR Technology industry. And quite frankly, Cecile is one of the HR Happy Hour Show's favorite guests too. On the show, Cecile talked with Steve and Trish about designing HR technologies from a person-centric viewpoint, the importance of creating technologies that are simple to use while still providing the depth of functionality that most organizations need, and finally around some really interesting and innovative concepts like thinking about the organization's health more holistically and 'culture as a service.' Additionally, Steve talked about a $175 million journal entry, Ben Eubanks makes a cameo appearance, and Trish shared some 90s music memories. This was a fun and engaging show - many thanks to Cecile and to everyone at Ultimate Software for hosting the Happy Hour once again! And make sure to subscribe to the HR Happy Hour on iTunes or your favorite podcast app - just search for 'HR Happy Hour' and you will be sure to never miss a show.

HR Happy Hour 207 - CHRO Corner with Laurie Zaucha, Paychex Recorded Friday March 20, 2015 Hosts: Steve Boese, Trish McFarlane Guest: Laurie Zaucha, Paychex This week on the show, the HR Happy Hour launched a new series, the CHRO Corner, that will feature the most interesting and influential leaders in Human Resources today. Our first guest in this new series is Laurie Zaucha, VP of HR and Organizational Development at Paychex, a leading provider of HR software solutions and services having over 500K customers and upwards of 13,000 employees. On the show, Laurie shared her insights on the role of technology in the modern HR organization, what HR leaders should be considering when evaluating technology, how Paychex has adopted several innovative and collaborative programs for candidate attraction as well as internal employee engagement, and finally some thoughts on what are some of the most important focus areas for the HR leaders of the future. Laurie is one of the most progressive HR leaders in the industry, and she shared some amazing insights on leading HR in the modern organization. Additionally, Laurie talked about moving and shaping the culture of an organization, Steve tried to sound (reasonably) intelligent interviewing his former boss Laurie, and we all realized once again the benefits of post-production editing. This was a fun and interesting show with one of the most innovative HR leaders in the technology industry.  Thanks to Laurie and everyone at Paychex for being part of the HR Happy Hour fun,

HR Happy Hour 206 - Live from Benefitfocus OnePlace 2015 Recorded Wednesday March 11, 2015 Hosts: Trish McFarlane, Steve Boese Guests: Shawn Jenkins,  Shan Fowler This week on the HR Happy Hour Show, Steve did a live show from the Benefitfocus OnePlace 2015 event in Orlando, Florida, (Trish was on assignment this week at the Peoplefluent event in Miami). On the show Steve was joined by Shawn Jenkins, President, CEO, and Co-founder of Benefitfocus and Shan Fowler, Benefitfocus' Director of Marketplaces. Benefitfocus provides robust, modern, and powerful technologies for the management, communication, and the employee experience with their benefits programs -both for employers as well as carriers and exchange providers. On the show, Shawn and Shan shared some of the history of Benefitfocus, and how Benefitfocus' offerings help employers and providers to meet their goals of engaging, educating, and providing the most effective benefits programs for their employees and enrollees. One of the most important ways that average employees interact with workplace technologies is how they interact with their employer's benefits technology. These employee experiences are critically important ones, impacting employee's engagement, well-being, and helping them to take care of themselves and the welfare of their families, and modern tech can help organizations in numerous ways. This was a great show, and many thanks to Shawn and Shan for being a part of the fun.

HR Happy Hour 205 - The Health & Benefits Leadership Conference Preview Recorded Thursday March 5, 2015 Hosts: Trish McFarlane, Steve Boese Guest: Jennifer Benz This week on the HR Happy Hour Show, Trish and Steve were joined by Jennifer Benz, Founder and CEO of Benz Communications, and Program Chair for Human Resource Executive's Health & Benefits Leadership Conference, to be held April 8 - 10, 2015 at the Aria in Las Vegas. On the show, Jennifer shared some of the most important themes and challenges facing Benefits and HR leaders today - health care plan design and reform, employee and financial wellness, and the importance of educating and effectively communicating with employees on important benefits, wellness, and welfare issues. On the show, Jen shared a preview of how the Conference can and will help you as a leader in making these critically important benefits-related organizational decisions that impact employee engagement, reputation, and retention. We also lamented again (well, mostly Steve), about the terrible winter weather, Steve shared a slightly disturbing tale of a former neighbor and his snowblower, and Trish offered to talk about Benefits plan design with anyone at any time. We also talked about how cool the word 'formulary' is.  Also, listeners of the show who attend the Health & Benefits Leadership Conference can use the registration discount code BOESE15 (all caps), to receive $75 off the current registration rate. Thanks to Jen for such a fun and interesting show!

HR Happy Hour 204 - Customer Success and Advocacy Recorded Tuesday March 3, 2015 Hosts: Trish McFarlane, Steve Boese Guest: Howard Tarnoff This week on the HR Happy Hour Show, Trish and Steve were joined by Howard Tarnoff, Senior Vice President for Ceridian HCM, and the person responsible for launching and overseeing the Ceridian's award winning Customer Success Program "XOXO". On the show, Howard shared some of the pretty unique approaches to Customer Success and Advocacy that Ceridian has put in place - creating ways for customers to connect and share information and best practices, highlighting success stories for both organizations and individuals, and engaging customer advocates at numerous points along the HR buying journey. Everything has changed about how organizations and individuals conduct product and market research, how they find and engage with trusted advisors and colleagues, and how they expect the relationship between solution provider and customer to evolve. Innovative approaches like Ceridian's "XOXO" customer success program represent how modern, empowered, and mutually beneficial provider/customer relationships have adapted to meet these changes. We also lamented (yes, again), about the terrible winter weather, we previewed some upcoming events on Steve and Trish's calendars, and dropped the first hint about an exciting HR Happy Hour announcement that is coming soon. This was a great show, and many thanks to Howard for being a part of the fun.

HR Happy Hour 203 - The HR Happy Hour Oscars Preview Recorded Thursday February 19, 2015 Hosts: Trish McFarlane, Steve Boese I know what you are thinking - what in the hell are Steve and Trish thinking doing an Oscars preview show? For a second we thought the same thing ourselves, but once we sort of 'found' the topic on the show, (the Oscars stuff starts in after about five minutes or so after Steve had to talk NBA trades for a few moments), we had a fanstastic time talking movies, actors, and of course making some Oscars predictions. Since Steve (admittedly), actually saw an amazingly low number of Oscar nominated movies and performances, we ended up having to get a little more creative in devising new ways to evaluate the contenders. Without giving away too much, let's just say the movie Mr. Mom plays a big role in the assessments, as well as which actor did a better job playing The Incredible Hulk. Luckily, Trish was much more prepared to talk movies and actors or else this could have been a disaster. This was a really fun show, I hope the HR Happy Hour fans that are also movie fans or just plan to watch the Oscars on Sunday night will enjoy the show. Once the show goes live, we will post it to the HR Happy Hour page on Facebook, (yes, we have one of those, I always forget to mention it), where we hope you will leave your Oscar predictions as well. Remeber to subscribe to the show in podcast form on iTunes, or for Android devices using Stitcher Radio (or your favorite podcast app). Just search the iTunes store or your podcast app for 'HR Happy Hour' to add the show to your subscriptions.

HR Happy Hour 202 - Zenefits and Disrupting HR Tech Recorded Tuesday February 17, 2015 Hosts: Steve Boese , Trish McFarlane Guests: Parker Conrad,  Co-founder and CEO, Zenefits In the latest HR Happy Hour Show, we were joined by Parker Conrad, Co-founder and CEO of emerging HR technology solution provider Zenefits. Zenefits has a innovative and unique approach to how it provides technology solutions to their customers - the HR and Benefits administration software is completely free for companies to use, Zenefits earns its revenue from commissions from insurance providers when customers elect to use Zenefits as their broker. It is a disruptive model on many levels. But beyond that model, Parker shared Zenefits approach to building, supporting, and helping customers succeed with HR technology. One interesting concept Parker shared was the idea of how solutions should only gradually expose complexity to customers, i.e., the most common and generally simplest approaches should be on the surface, and only when more complex options are absolutely needed they should be revealed. This was a fascinating conversation with the CEO of one of the fastest growing enterprise technology companies in any domain - not just HR. As always, you can listen to the current and all the past on our HR Happy Hour website, and by subscribing to the show in podcast form on iTunes, or for Android devices using your favorite podcast app. Just search for 'HR Happy Hour' to add the show to your subscriptions.

HR Happy Hour 201 - Putting the Fun into Analytics Recorded Thursday January 29, 2015 Hosts: Steve Boese, Trish McFarlance Guests, Mike Psenka, Ed Pertwee, Jennifer Payne In the latest HR Happy Hour Show, Trish and Steve recorded a live HR Happy Hour show from the recent Brandon Hall Excellence conference, where Mike, Ed, Steve and Trish conducted a panel discussion on how to leverage data and analytics for HR and organizational success. Mike and Ed both shared some excellent examples, (both in the panel and in the HR Happy Hour podcast), of how, where, and to what effect data and analytics are making an impact in workforce planning, compliance, and to improve business results. There are some amazingly powerful applications for using data in a wide variety of contexts - where to locate company facilities, the effect of demographic shifts on performance, and how long commute times impact engagement and satisfaction. Additionally, Steve defended Carmelo Anthony of the Knicks, Trish let us know that the number '201' should not be said as 'two hundred and one', and we learned that a husband should never question the strength and intensity of his wife's labor contractions. As always, you can listen to the current and all the past shows from the archive on the show page here, on our HR Happy Hour website, and by subscribing to the show in podcast form on iTunes, or for Android devices using Stitcher Radio (or your favorite podcast app). Just search the iTunes store or your podcast app for 'HR Happy Hour' to add the show to your subscriptions. This was a really fun show with some fantastic guests and we hope you enjoy listening!

HR Happy Hour 200 - Celebrating the Final Conversation on Employee Engagement? Broadcast LIVE Thursday January 22, 2015 - 8PM ET Hosts: Steve Boese, Trish McFarlane Guest: Paul Hebert Call in 646-378-1086 For the celebratory 200th Episode of the HR Happy Hour Show, Steve and Trish will broadcast LIVE just like in the old school HR Happy Hour Show days, this Thursday at 8:00PM ET. Long time friend of the showm and frequent guest Paul Hebert will be along for the ride as we talk employee engagement, hopefully for the last time ever on the show. We have beaten this subject TO DEATH and still we are no closer to 'solving' engagement, or even deciding if it can be solved. So this week on the show we will beat the topic around one last time, see if there really is a solution to engagement, and maybe and finally move on to more interesting subjects. Like robots. And the Internet of Things. And basketball. Additionally, we will have some fun looking back at the history of the HR Happy Hour and have some laughs at Steve's expense. This will be a really fun show, especially since we will be back LIVE this Thursday at 8:00PM ET. Hope you can join us and jump in to the conversation on the Twitter backchannel - use hashtag #HRHappyHour to join the fun.