The Modern People Leader: Forward-Thinking HR

Erica Keswin, author of three WSJ best-sellers, workplace strategist, and podcast host, joined us on The Modern People Leader. This episode was recorded at O.C. Tanner's Influence Greatness. She shared why we should be elevating and celebrating managers, examples of companies that are nailing onboarding, how to connect new hires to purpose as quickly as possible, and why talent mobility is so important. ---- This episode was brought to you by Pyn. Get access to their FREE Employee Journey Designer ⁠here⁠. ---- (0:40) Good news stories (3:43) Where the idea for Retention Revolution came from (6:23) Erica’s writing process (10:19) The science and stories of connection at work (12:43) Managers are having a moment so we need to elevate and celebrate them (14:55) Onboarding, onboarding, onboarding: start as you mean to go on (19:56) Managers are overburdened and undertrained (23:47) Being a human professional is not an oxymoron (27:34) Examples of how to connect new hires to purpose as quickly as possible (29:39) Talent Mobility: from ladders to lily pads (35:09) Higher “Churnover” is good (37:06) Smart companies know how to get positive return out of employee churn (40:20) Say goodbye to the lifestyles of the rich and flexible and hello to the flex for all (42:55) The single biggest challenge Modern People Leaders are facing today (43:30) Finding the sweet spot between tech and connect ---- 📬 Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get key learnings & career advice from Modern People Leaders 💡 Follow The Modern People Leader on LinkedIn 😊 Follow Daniel Huerta on LinkedIn 😊 Follow Stephen Huerta on LinkedIn

Johanna Söderström, EVP & Chief People Officer at Tyson Foods, joined us on The Modern People Leader.   We talked about how she’s gotten a better understanding of the EX across Tyson’s 140k employees, how they've trained up the executive team on digitalization and building a learning organization, and how her non HR experience has shaped her approach as an HR leader. ---- This episode was brought to you by Pyn. Get access to their FREE Employee Journey Designer here. ---- (3:33) Good news stories (9:45) Johanna’s story: Born in Helsinki —> having “Sisu” —> handball champion —> Ericsson —> finance & marketing experience —> pivot to HR —> moving to Germany for Dow Chemical —> using the internet for recruiting —> Today (22:20) 90k of Tyson Food’s 140k employees are frontline employees (24:45) Why we should be jealous she gets to work at Tyson Foods (27:31) Understanding the different cohorts of employees that work at Tyson  (31:08) Running Tyson Food’s first ever engagement survey (35:05) More firsts at Tyson Foods (38:38) Johanna loves to create, build, & transform (40:20) The momentum that has built since beginning their transformation (43:00) HR needs to be hungrier for new skills (49:17) Her thoughts on what’s to come with AI (51:13) Tyson brought in an external expert to train the executive team on Digitalization and becoming a Learning Organization (54:13) How her non HR experience has helped shape her approach as an HR leader (58:00) Where future people leaders should be investing time to develop themselves (1:01:37) The level of stress in society (1:04:24) Rapid Fire Questions ---- 📬 Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get key learnings & career advice from Modern People Leaders 💡 Follow The Modern People Leader on LinkedIn 😊 Follow Daniel Huerta on LinkedIn 😊 Follow Stephen Huerta on LinkedIn

Joris Luijke, CEO at Pyn, joined us on The Modern People Leader.   We talked about why “Employee Experience Design” has been getting more attention this last decade, how hard it is to be a Chief People Officer right now, and two ways information management is becoming easier to handle. ---- This episode was brought to you by Pyn. Get access to their FREE Employee Journey Designer here. ---- (2:11) Good news stories (6:56) Joris is a Chief People Officer turned HR Tech CEO (9:37) He didn’t intend on being an entrepreneur (12:39) One of his ideas as an HR leader that totally flopped (14:43) What Pyn does (17:21) Why we should be jealous he gets to work at Pyn (20:55) The focus on “Employee Experience Design” is getting way more serious (25:34) The advancements of AI in the workplace (36:09) How hard it is to be a Chief People Officer right now (39:31) The information management is a big challenge for People Leaders (42:47) Targeted communications is about sending less communications and not more (46:56) Two ways information management is getting a little bit easier (50:56) How to selling something like Pyn to your CFO (55:33) The Employee Journey Mapper (58:46) Rapid Fire Questions (1:04:53) A message from Pyn ---- 📬 Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get key learnings & career advice from Modern People Leaders 💡 Follow The Modern People Leader on LinkedIn 😊 Follow Daniel Huerta on LinkedIn 😊 Follow Stephen Huerta on LinkedIn

Pat Wadors, Chief People Officer at UKG, talks about coining the term 'DIBs', her personal scorecard, the state of HR, and the importance of being an 'Agile Leader'.

Vanesa Cotlar, VP of People & Culture at PolicyMe, discusses getting executive buy-in on people team hires, building culture in a remote-first environment, and building trust remotely. Other topics include experimenting with ChatGPT, the importance of collecting feedback regularly, and advice for one-person HR teams.

Melanie Naranjo, VP of People at Ethena, discusses handling no’s from CEOs, questions to ask when interviewing for top HR roles, and reminding executives about people optimization. Topics include agile approach for manager training, power dynamics for women of color in HR, and removing assumptions. Hosts explore difficulties faced by HR leaders, importance of community, advantages of working in HR tech, and building the modern people leader. They also highlight lack of communication and mentorship for HR leaders and conclude with traditions and recommendations.

Joanna Kmiec, Vice President of People & Culture at Elastic Path, joined us on The Modern People Leader.   We talked about using metrics to drive your people strategy, understanding the pain points of other execs, and creating an employee experience that allows for flexibility and scale.   ---- This episode was brought to you by CandorIQ. Learn more here. ---- (3:03) Good news stories (8:00) The two things important to her in her career: thinking strategically & HR being viewed as a partner (13:38) What Elastic Path does (15:01) Why we should be jealous she gets to work there (16:48) State of the union for talent in Canada (20:25) Rebuilding trust and doing more with less (22:00) You can’t wait to put emphasis on your Employee Experience (24:30) Ways people teams can save money and do more with less (28:13) Using metrics to drive your people strategy gives you credibility (31:43) Asking the “odd question”: Figuring out the pain points of other execs (35:00) Having a leadership team first approach (37:30) The rest of the C-Suite need to understand the strategic nature of HR (42:23) “Full elastic approach”: Remote-first, their asynchronous charter, and having a flexible approach to all of their programs (47:55) Rapid fire questions ---- 📬 Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get key learnings & career advice from Modern People Leaders 🛎 Follow Joanna Kmiec on LinkedIn 💡 Follow The Modern People Leader on LinkedIn 😊 Follow Daniel Huerta on LinkedIn 😊 Follow Stephen Huerta on LinkedIn

Helen Russell, Chief People Officer at Rivian, discusses scaling culture, changing the face of manufacturing employees, and improving decision-making. Topics include her career journey, onboarding process, capturing essence of Rivian's early days, involving frontline employees in IPO, and spotting leaders for growth.

Jessica Zwaan (Author, Built for People) and Ryan Bonnici (CMO, Gympass), joined us on The Modern People Leader.   We talked about why HR should be considered a revenue generating function, how to align yourself closer to revenue as an HR leader, and why you don’t need to get the metrics perfect for every single people program.  ---- (2:17) Good news stories (7:14) How Ryan and Jessica became Aussie besties (10:15) Ryan’s career journey: flight attendant —> Salesforce —> HubSpot —> CMO at G2 —> CMO at Gympass (15:40) Built for People is out (22:05) How HR leaders can align themselves closer to revenue (29:06) The CHRO role is the hardest role in the C-Suite (31:15) HR is a revenue generating function (32:32) Looking at things like the CAC to LTV ratio for employees (37:06) You don’t need to get the ROI or the metrics perfect (41:26) The waterfall style that HR has traditionally operated within (47:40) Crawl, walk, run approach to marketing HR programs (49:31) Rapid fire questions ---- 📬 Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get key learnings & career advice from Modern People Leaders 🛎 Follow Jessica Zwaan on LinkedIn 🛎 Follow Ryan Bonnici on LinkedIn 💡 Follow The Modern People Leader on LinkedIn 😊 Follow Daniel Huerta on LinkedIn 😊 Follow Stephen Huerta on LinkedIn ---- We're gifting free copies of Jessica's book, Built for People. The first 5 people to shoot me (⁠Daniel⁠) a LinkedIn DM get one.

Dr. Vivienne Ming (Professional Mad Scientist), joined us on The Modern People Leader.   We talked about letting AI replace the routine work, the qualities of the smartest teams, and how to foster collective intelligence.  ---- (2:00) Good news stories (6:00) Digging under the surface to get to the root of problems (20:45) Her career journey as an entrepreneur and scientist (33:00) History of AI over the last 25 years (41:56) Three definitions of AI (48:39) The non routine is what’s left of our jobs after AI (56:30) Building AI to augment people (58:12) Teaching future generations how to learn (1:01:06) What separates the most elite performers from everyone else (1:09:54) The 3 qualities of the “smartest teams” (1:17:10) Psychological safety isn’t just a squishy idea about not hurting people’s feelings (1:23:20) How to foster collective intelligence at your company (1:34:45) Identifying pockets of low psychological safety (1:43:30) Rapid fire questions ---- 📬 Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to get key learnings & career advice from Modern People Leaders 🛎 Follow Dr. Vivienne Ming on LinkedIn 💡 Follow The Modern People Leader on LinkedIn 😊 Follow Daniel Huerta on LinkedIn