The Modern People Leader: Forward-Thinking HR

Q Hamirani, Chief People Officer at Paper, joined us on The Modern People Leader.  We talked about his first 6 months as a Chief People Officer, why your company should have well-defined focus areas, advice to other first-time CPOs, and tying your HR KPIs to actual business outcomes. ---- This episode was brought to you by Leapsome. Explore Leapsome's intelligent HR platform here. ---- Go check out The PeopleGPT Community. ---- (1:26) How Q’s first 6 months as Chief People Officer went (7:45) Good news stories (13:42) What Q’s journey as a first-time Chief People Officer has looked like so far (18:45) Setting rigor on backfilling and workforce planning process (21:30) How he describes the role of Chief People Officer (23:08) Why people should aspire to be a Chief People Officer (24:30) Rebuilding trust at Paper (27:30) Why they moved comms under the People Team (30:29) Defining the three areas of focus for the business (39:06) Advice to other first-time CPOs (42:45) Tying HR KPIs to actual business outcomes (46:05) Changing his views on AI in HR (51:47) Why he built the PeopleGPT community (1:03:42) 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

Haris Ikram, Co-Founder at CandorIQ, joined us on The Modern People Leader.  First, he interviewed us about how we got into the HR space and times we’ve noticed “the system” to be broken. Then, he shared how we can empower managers to have pay conversations, the insights they need to turn those talks into performance conversations, and how you can be more proactive about pay increases. ---- Get the Pay Transparency Playbook: https://www.candoriq.com/resources/pay-transparency-playbook ---- (1:45) Good news stories (7:07) Haris interviews us (8:07) How we got into the HR & People space (14:50) Examples of times where we’ve noticed “the system” is broken (23:16) Examples of times when the system has worked (30:00) Stephen’s biggest learnings from interviewing over 100+ people leaders (33:00) How Haris got into the HR Tech world (35:30) The products need to work for the people team versus the other way around (36:20) The most difficult thing about being a founder (37:30) What CandorIQ does and why we should be jealous he gets to work there (41:02) Equipping managers to have conversations about pay (43:22) What makes talking about comp so hard (46:47) The insights you need to turn pay conversations into performance conversations (50:00) Understanding churn risks within your team  (54:05) How to be more proactive with pay increases (56:40) How remote and global work has changed pay over the last 3 or 4 years (59:00) Moving pay data out of spreadsheets (1:01:06) 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

Jodie Cenci, HR Director at Primary.com, joined us on The Modern People Leader.  She shared her journey navigating workplace accommodations since her fibromyalgia diagnosis, the surprising number of people in the U.S. with disabilities, and creative ways companies can be more inclusive of employees with disabilities. ---- (3:10) Good news stories (8:35) Jodie’s story: from selling Cutco knives to HR (14:48) What Primary does (16:02) Supporting employees with disabilities (17:59) Flexibility is a huge win for people with disabilities (21:02) The distrust of employees is problematic  (23:35) More than 25% of employees have some form of disability (27:00) Disability is an inclusion issue (29:10) Accommodation policies need to be more visible (35:17) How fibromyalgia has impacted Jodie’s ability to work (39:23) What Jodie learned from going through the accommodation process herself (42:33) Making it easier for employees to disclose their disabilities (46:33) Fibromyalgia is still widely misunderstood (48:40) DISCLO (50:11) Operating as an HR team of one (55:25) What she has lined up for 2024 (58:30) 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

Josh Siegal, VP of People at 7Shifts, discusses the science of high performing teams. Topics include navigating complexity and conflict at work, misconceptions about high performing teams, renewal rituals, speedy meetings, and prioritizing focus work.

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.