NOW of Work

Today my co-host, Jess Von Bank and I discussed the industry news of the week during our live, unscripted show. We will also checked in with our amazing audience and their questions about HR, HR Tech, employee experience, work-life balance, leadership, and humanizing work during our open Q&A on all things Now of Work. 
The Now of Work is a movement to better serve humanity by humanizing work. This movement represents the humanization and digital disruption of work during the most historic labor market and business cycles we’ve seen in modern times. People are calling the shots, and we’re calling them differently. 

Are you craving community and inspiration? Jess Von Bank and I talk all things HR, HR Tech, and humanizing work. We also had a little surprise in store for our listeners... On today's episode, Amanda Hahn, Chief Marketing Officer of HireVue surprised us live!

HireVue is an organization that helps global enterprises gain a competitive advantage in the modern talent marketplace with video interviewing software, conversational AI, and pre-hire assessments. Together we chat about getting the full view of PEOPLE while leveraging tools that HireVue uses to transform the way companies discover, hire, and develop talent. By combining video interviews with predictive, validated IO science and artificial intelligence (AI), HireVue augments human decision-making in the hiring process and delivers higher quality talent, faster.

Together Jess, Amanda and I discuss the utilization of talent acquisition tech platforms and how they help to better evaluate skills, capabilities, and future potential in the hiring process.

The new Now of Work is constantly changing. With people at the heart of the workforce, they make global work and productivity churn at a rapid pace. Inclusion is a big part of that. "DEIB is always evolving and I try to stay immersed in what’s happening and what’s next," Brook Sims tells us. Brook is the COO of MAC Diversity Recruiters and we are excited for you to hear more from our chat with her.
You may remember that we featured Brook's company on our social media channels a few months ago, as one to watch, and their growth is proof. MAC provides recruiting services to large companies in fields like engineering, investment banking, and information technology. They believe that a diverse workforce powers the future and that employers should be reflective of the communities in which they exist and serve. Their mission is to "lead the transformation of the workforce by being the bridge that provides access and opportunity to the most exceptional talent and helps clients achieve increased profitability, innovation, and success."
MAC recently launched their sister company, MAC Digital, which specializes in Marketing, eCommerce, and Software talent recruitment with a focus on AI, and ensuring that AI is implemented in an inclusive way.
Before leading MAC, Brook was an Executive Recruiter and Head of Diversity at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and First United Bank. Jess and I can't wait to chat with her about the changes she's seeing in DEIB, what happens when AI is added to the mix, and what steps leaders can take to ensure a more inclusive future. 

"Human Capital is not some subset of 'HR.' It’s less about process and more about people, the culture they desire, and a vested commitment to the development of their skills."  
Jess Elqmuist is the CHRO and Chief Evangelist at Phenom, a company whose mission is to help 1 billion people find the right job. Their Talent Experience platform bridges people, data, and interactions to great experiences, using AI and automation, so that leaders can hire faster and retain their employees. What Jess enjoys most is helping C-suite leaders maximize the potential of their team.
"My best days are when I’m bringing solutions to CEOs and CHROs that help their workforces run at peak performance. And I do it from the perspective of a people and workplace culture executive who believes in the power of human capital to help organizations thrive."
Jess Von Bank and I welcomed our Special Guest: Jess Elmquist, to talk about putting the HUMAN back into HR and how leaders can find, develop and retain the best talent using 3-Ps: Purpose, People & Process.

There is no shortage of leadership coaches, keynote speakers, motivational platforms, and business books teaching us about how to better connect with and inspire the workforce. We're not even a stranger to the idea of EMPATHY, but is anyone truly putting this into practice in a meaningful way? In business? With measurable impact?
Eric M. Bailey digs deeper into the concept of UNCONDITIONAL EMPATHY and illustrates what it looks like in practice with a leadership and communication methodology grounded in brain science and psychology.  
Eric is an innovative leader and the President of Bailey Strategic Innovation Group, which helps organizations unlock their full potential-fast. He has worked with companies like Google, been featured in Forbes and HuffPost, and hosts a 2-minute YouTube series on leadership called The Walking Meeting. 

This latest episode was recorded on March 31, International Transgender Day of Visibility. It is also the day that our friend, Sarah Reynolds, a leader and incredible marketer, was formally announced as HiBob's new Chief Marketing Officer. What a day to celebrate Sarah, and what a day to celebrate trans and non-binary people in our workforces and everywhere!
Sarah (they/them) is non-binary and transgendered. They are well-versed in the power of bringing your full, authentic self to the workplace. Everyone wins when diversity is not only welcomed but infused in talent, solution, and experience design.
We're proud of our Now of Work community for the space we've created for humanity to thrive at work!

Progress in the making: McDonald's commitment to diversity has stretched for decades. They went international in 1967. In 1968, their first restaurant owned by an African-American person opened their doors. The same year McDonalds allowed women to work as crew members in company-owned restaurants, for the first time. 

Fast forward to the 1980s, when one of their Hispanic franchise owners launched the scholarship fund that's awarded $32M in funds to date. In 1986, they launched the "Silent Persuasion" campaign, becoming the first quick service restaurant with a commercial in American sign language.

In 2000, McDonald's was named named Fortune magazine’s Most Admired Company for Social Responsibility. In 2004, they formed their first Global Diversity Advisory Council, and just last year that council engaged our own Jess Von Bank to coach them on new ways to view talent and remove barriers.
Jess and I introduce you to Reginald Miller, Chief Diversity Officer at McDonald's, and the mastermind behind ALL of this since he joined McD's executive ranks in 2020. Hear about his progress since then and his ongoing plans for approaching Career, Culture and Care from a DEI perspective.

Fun fact: Reggie also claims to know more about Star Wars than almost anyone!

It's all about the green. Jess Von Bank and I are joined by two industry experts: Jason Corsello, Founder and General Partner at Acadian Ventures, and Scott Berg, Managing Director, Sr. Research Analyst at Needham & Company. Together, we dove into last week's financial collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank and how this impacts the HR and HR Tech industry. We explained our expectations for short and long term impacts!

All industry professionals passionate about HR, the HR Technology vendor community, and where we go from here are encouraged to listen. The world is at a crossroads again around banking, investing, and how innovation continues to be funded in the world of HR and HR technology. Let's learn together!

As leaders we might be okay alone, but we're much more powerful when we work together. We started our Friday Digital Meetups in 2020 to do just that, build community at a time when we needed togetherness. Three years later, that sentiment still holds true. To thrive in today's rapidly changing Now of Work, we need each other and we need to be REAL about our wins and challenges, to move forward. 

Today, Jess Von Bank and I hosted a 'Community Be Real Session' on our Digital Meetup! We held an open, honest and unscripted discussion about being human. Our listeners shared their wins and challenges at work and at home. Together we discussed the support we each need most as leaders to thrive and humanize our workforce experiences.

James Ellis is a world-renowned expert on employer brand on a mission to create 1 million employer brand thinkers! It would take a former digital marketer and inbound audience expert to understand how brands can better connect to talent; this is why James does a brilliant job connecting digital marketing to talent marketing.

Jess Von Bank and I had a TON of questions for James. We asked him questions like:

- Why does employer branding only matter in a candidate-driven market? 
-How can we keep marketing to talent once they’re hired? 
-It’s Black History Month, soon to be Women’s History Month, then Mental Health, Autism Awareness, Pride. How can brands and employers authentically align corporate values to social values without looking like they’re just following the social media calendar? 

...And why are we still calling all of this employer branding? The brand is the brand is the brand — doesn’t really matter if I’m a job seeker, an employee, part of your supply chain, an alumni, or a customer — does it? 

There was so much to unpack in one of the most chaotic (JVB would say disrespectful) candidate markets we’ve seen in a while. 

From Minneapolis, to Paris, to Vegas! Jess and Jason are back from their #HRTech show travels. During this meetup, they share their recent insights from Unleash, Oracle Cloud World, and Cornerstone Convergence 2022. Take a listen to hear what's new and ahead in HR Tech, what's buzzing in the product and thought worlds, and what the future of the cloud looks like!

The job market is undoubtedly different today than it was two years ago. But what exactly has changed? How do these vast transformations impact hiring and job trends, talent availability, matching or mismatching talent? ...And what about the elephant in the room? There's several actually. During  this Meetup, Alex Zea & Ryan Malkes have an honest chat about the recession, quiet-quitting, and the power of AI to bring about sweeping change.

As our hosts, Jason Averbook and Jess Von Bank  wrap up UNLEASH in Paris, we're excited to feature Special Guest Hosts: Alexandra Zea, and Ryan Malkes. Alex is Leapgen's Client Partner & Team Lead and Ryan is our Workforce Experience Director - HR Advisory. And stay tuned for special guests Steve Jewel and Mandy Whiting!

Take a Listen!

How has the pandemic impacted well-being at work? We take a deeper look by examining brain power on this live Digital Meetup with Lauren Waldman, a Learning Scientist and the Founder of Learning Pirate.

Lauren is one of the first learning designers globally to merge the operational function of the brain with cognitive theories to create large-scale learning designs. She's worked with employees at prominent organizations like Allstate, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, and Disneyland. Take a listen to this great conversation between Jason Averbook, Ryan Malkes, Lauren Waldman, and the Now of Work Community as they discuss topics surrounding our brains and how they respond to trends in the workforce!

We love HR Technology Conference & Exposition's annual Pitchfest. It's a great opportunity to give spotlight and stage to new innovation, new voices, and new approaches to solving old HR and talent problems. This year's lineup was as good as ever; a field of 33 was narrowed to 6. A winner of one of the most sought-after awards in our industry was announced. The winner was: SPOTLYFE!

We couldn't wait to chat with Team SPOTLYFE following their big win. They tell the story that won the prize, why they think they're grabbing headlines in the current talent market, and how supporting PEOPLE outcomes supports WORK outcomes. They also share their latest research on burnout and the hustle culture, two big factors affecting the quality of our everyday lives. 

Take a Listen!

We can't believe that HR Tech Conference was just last week! Our team is still riding high after the amazing energy at the conference and all of the great insights shared. We were excited to share a full HR Tech Conference Recap on today's Digital Meetup! Joined by Harry West, Leapgen's VP Team Leader & Customer Partner, we shared the biggest highlights, takeaways, and insights from the largest HR Tech event globally. We couldn't wait to share what we learned about the state of work and what's brewing in HR Tech!

At HR Tech, I delivered a closing keynote on the HR, IT, and business skills needed to guide transformation in the Now of Work. I also shared How To Optimize the Employee Journey, during a panel with our friends at Conduent and ServiceNow. Didn't have a chance to attend my in-person HR Tech keynote or catch our weekly digital meetup LIVE? Take a listen now!

Join us as we wrapped up our week at HR Tech Conference with lots of smiles and gratitude. It was a wonderful week reconnecting with many of our friends, colleagues, and clients in the HR & HR Tech community, after so long! Big thanks to everyone who visited our booth, connected with our team of consultants, attended our mixer or one of our panels. 

No better way to wrap up HR Tech week in Las Vegas than chatting LIVE with Reejig's CEO, Siobhan Savage. We had such a wonderful and thought-provoking conversation with Siobhan. She really knows how to spark a conversation! Didn't have a chance to listen LIVE? Take a listen now! 

There's so much talk about building future ready organizations, but how do we know what the future looks like and build for it with intention? Understanding how we work, how work is changing, and how it can be designed is both a study in technology and in human psychology. 

Technology enhances AND limits our imagination when it comes to imagining how organizations can enable human performance. Humans, on the other hand, are the most resilient and adaptable organizational resources you have. People can literally change faster than technology, but their core human truths aren't as trendy as you think.

The big question is: Do people NEED technology to perform, or does it get in the way? How does technology become a human performance multiplier? 

Steve Hunt is an avid student of the history of work, the role of technology, and the interplay of human psyche. If anyone can connect the dots, he can. We waited patiently for his book launch to bring him to you, and here we are!

We welcomed Steve Hunt, PhD, Chief Expert of Technology and Work at SAP, and author of just-published Talent Tectonics to our Now of Work Community. Take a listen! 

All MC to: Ace of Spades, by Motorhead

All MC to: Miserlou, by Agent Orange 

Want a strong finish to your work week? Then take a listen!

We had the opportunity to welcome Don Weinstein, Chief Product & Technology Officer at ADP, as a Special Guest to our Now of Work Community.

We chatted with Don about humanization and digital disruption trends in the workplace, the importance of data, and the trends that he and his team are seeing as the largest human capital vendor in the world. We also unpacked how the future of AI and Machine Learning will play a larger role in the future of HR Technology. Don had incredible insights on designing and leveraging technology to enhance the HR function!

What does the CHRO of the future look like? We all know that the pandemic has stretched us in unforeseen ways; requiring leaders to take on different tasks and develop new skills. But what role has technology, data analytics and automation played in it?

We had the opportunity to talk shop with HR Executive & Founder, Lisa Buckingham. Lisa is the global expert on jobs, work, and people!

We dove into the trends that Lisa is seeing in today's HR world, what she learned from her role as CHRO at Lincoln Financial Group, and talked to her about her HR Tech Conference keynote, titled: Meet the CHRO of the Future....a Technology Expert.

Take a listen!

How do we humanize work in this historic labor market? We can start by rethinking how we work, where we work, and how valuable of a role talent plays in all of it. 

We had the pleasure of chatting with Jerome Ternynck, CEO of SmartRecruiters, a company that is leading the charge on remote work, recruiting, and hiring. SmartRecruiters is one of the first companies to announce that they'd go remote first—forever. We dug into what Jerome and his team have learned from that business decision and how it's helping them shape remote hiring best practices inside of the world’s largest enterprises.

We also had a chance to dive into his values, entrepreneurship, today's talent market and why you need a talent strategy, along with the role of technology in achieving it. 

Take a listen!

Meg Bear has the same mission we embrace: change work for good. But to change it for the better in long-term and sustainable ways, we have to be willing to roll our sleeves up. Get a little dirty. Think a little bigger. And put humans at the center.

Every organization is attempting to do just that by addressing and supporting DEI, well-being, and personalized experiences for the workforce. They're attempting by creating agility and organizational resilience while they do. And they're pushing the envelope around skills and the future state of work. Where to begin?

It starts now! We Welcomed Meg Bear, President and Chief Product Officer at SAP SuccessFactors, to our #NowofWork Community for a fresh perspective on how to truly move the needle. Take a listen! 

“Every time I change jobs, I try to change industries so I have to change how I think.” Pat Wadors' growth mindset aligns with how successful leaders approach today's Now of Work. It may also inspire those determined to cling to processes of the past. 

But that's not the only reason why we chatted with UKG's Chief People Officer. Pat is a trailblazer who intentionally created a cohort where people leaders can share with authenticity and transparency. She practices leading and learning openly; while encouraging others to be honest with authentic. 

Pat believes that we should repeat and multiply what works, but don’t stand in front of our peers and parrot case study after case study of 'flawless execution.' “I haven’t done anything flawless in my life. Why can’t we admit our mistakes to one another? How are any of us going to learn and grow?”

TAKE A LISTEN to this insightful conversation! 

Renowned global industry analyst Josh Bersin joined us for a powerful and real conversation about the global market, the labor economy, technology investments, and why he hates talking about the FUTURE OF WORK. “These things you are trying to accomplish don’t just require new skills; they require new job models, new job titles, new job descriptions...” Every company is trying to figure out how to adapt to the Future of Work, which is the NOW OF WORK. Take a listen to hear more!

We also get an early look at Josh’s new book Irresistible, written for business leaders who want to create thriving organizations. The book lays out seven practical management principles. Plus, don’t miss Josh Bersin’s opening keynote at HR Technology Conference & Exposition: "The Disruption Never Stops: What’s New and What’s Ahead in the HR Tech Market at HR Tech 2022."

You know your people WANT to stay… right?! 

The Great Resignation happened because good talent is restless, and should be. They care a whole lot about a whole lot of things, as they should. 

They want MORE, and why not? They could have been saved if they thought you were invested in their career.

That’s the honest truth. 94% of talent say so, according to LinkedIn research.

Tracey Parsons created WORQDRIVE because she had a hunch. People want to stay if they think they have a future. This is why most employers are investing in talent mobility solutions. It’s your #1 retention tool, and it also creates the workforce agility you need to make smart talent and business decisions when it comes to your people.

We unpacked this topic with Tracey! Take a listen to hear us talk SOLUTIONS!

Take a listen to a lively community conversation about TECH!

We've never had better technology at our fingertips, and that includes solutions for the workforce. We're a bunch of bright, smart, innovative people with an appetite for tech - we've shown that in our consumer and personal lives. So why can't we get tech to do all it's capable of when it comes to the workplace? Why does work still feel so.....clunky? 1993? Mainframe?

Maybe we've made it too complicated. More likely, we're not taking the right approach. Does HR need to be a technologist to shape and support the digital workplace, or do they just need to be technology-aware problem solvers?

Jess and Leapgen's President and Chief Service Officer, Mike Brennan, welcomed Ray Nunn and Reid McLaughlin of Covalence Consulting to our Now of Work Community. They unpacked the differences between deployment and implementation, talked about how to get tech to produce the right outcomes and the mindset required for true transformation.

The world of events doesn't look like it did before, but what will return, what's changed, and what's BETTER? The physical event business has already bounced back, but like the workplace, it's more innovative, more digital, more hybrid, more communal and human. There are more virtual participation options, smaller meetups and watch parties surrounding bigger events, and enhanced engagement opportunities. There are pros (hybrid and digital experiences are more accessible!) and cons (making a case for physical attendance & investment is harder when virtual is an option).

But what do people really want? Zoom or hugs? Expo halls or a virtual collaboration? Big stage keynotes to inspire, or micro-content from the comfort of their kitchens?

Kathryn Frankson is a world-class digital experience creator, event marketer, and storyteller. She just executed one of the largest events of her career, and there's more up her sleeve. She offers insights on the world of digital experiences and events. Our virtual #NowofWork community is ready to host LIVE & IN-PERSON MEETUPS; no one better to help us sort it out. ;) Take a listen to learn how! 

Leadership is never easy. It demands all of you. We talk a lot about bringing our whole selves to work, leading with empathy, the power of authenticity in creating cultures of connection. What if you're a leader who also happens to be an LGBTQ person? 

You require safety and support, especially if you seek to create judgement-free, compassionate workplaces where people can show up as who they are. WHAT A WIN THAT WOULD BE. Fully empowered humans leading with their authentic selves, using their unique voice to lead and inspire others. That's the type of executive coaching Chris Rollins provides, he tells a powerful story, as we continue to honor and celebrate Pride Month. 

Listen in as we talk with Chris about the power of authenticity, leading with empathy, building coaching cultures, and being an LGBTQ+ leader

75% of the workforce face some kind of caregiving responsibility. 83% of those use sick or leave time to provide care, and here’s the real kicker: 92% report heightened stress, depression, or trouble sleeping.

Caregiving can be beautiful, an honor, and a deeply fulfilling part of our lives. But it can be a financial, social, emotional, and legal burden — and it certainly affects our productivity at work.

Lindsay Jurist-Rosner founded Wellthy to care for caregivers. From supportive health plans and services to inclusion and community, Wellthy makes it easier for caregivers to feel supported. They also suggest ways for employers to de-stigmatize caregiving in the workplace, showing them they’re not alone and providing help and resources. Caregiving isn’t a new experience. It’s just become harder to ignore at work. In this episode, we discuss and look at the different ways we can all take better care of each other. 

Take a listen to our very special chat with Lindsay about how to best support caregivers so that they can thrive at work and home.

Automate to humanate! We say this often at Leapgen. When we talk about automate to humanate, we’re talking about giving everyone the experience they deserve. Automate what begs to be automated so humans can do what they’re especially equipped to do: BE HUMAN!

Why don’t we provide more tools, more virtual assistants, more robotic process automation (RPA), more conversational AI? Forget what it’s called: It’s called HELP. Humans are begging to be upskilled, supported, developed and career pathed. Technology is begging to improve experience for everyone: job seekers who need transparency and help navigating a clunky process, recruiters with overbearing req loads, hiring managers trying their best to onboard and unleash. Turn HELP WANTED into HELP IS HERE.

We talked AI with Josh Zywien, Chief Marketing Officer at Paradox, a software company fueled by the concept that AI can make recruiting more human. 

TAKE A LISTEN! 

When it comes to BEST DEPLOYING PEOPLE against WHAT THE BUSINESS NEEDS, most employers would admit they’re behind the eight ball. We hire, develop, and attempt to retain talent from a broken supply chain; always reacting, dependent on the weather vane of the talent economy, transactional, and riddled with waste. We don't have a clear line of sight to the talent we DO have - what skills they have or want, what they can do or want to.

What if organizations could future-fit their workforce, strategically and proactively building and equipping workers with the KNOWLEDGE and SKILLS they’ll need to support the growth trajectory of the business? 


Knowledge is power, skills are gold. Guild understands this. 

Take a listen to this special knowledge-filled episode with Lorna Hagen of Guild Education!

Energy and innovation have been bubbling in the HR Tech space for the past few years. What's next? We were thrilled to be joined by one of the most brilliant researchers in the industry to give us the inside scoop. Stacey Harris and Sapient Insights are currently fielding their 25th Annual HR Systems Survey. That’s right, 25 YEARS tracking the evolution of HR systems. You remember what we were using 25 years ago, right? We’ve gone from pushing paper to publishing APIs, graduated from mainframes to the cloud. 

Innovation is catapulting. But it hits different if you’re SMB vs. enterprise…or does it? What applications and vendors are seeing the most adoption and satisfaction, and why? What are the big spending plans? What’s the future of HRIS and Shared Services, and how in the world is HR resourcing everything?

In this episode, Jim Holincheck, Leapgen's VP of Advisory Services, and Jason Averbook welcomed Stacey Harris to the conversation to discuss insights and trends from this year's HR Systems Survey. How can we hone the right use cases to better optimize our workforces in uncertain times?

Take a listen to learn more about this year's HR Systems Survey! 

The conversation around the future of talent: attraction, acquisition and retention strategies, how to be more strategic and proactive around hiring, and how to build a talent pipeline that is sustainable, flexible and diverse - whether your organization is hiring like gangbusters or putting the brakes on, continues...

Molly Weaver, said it best: "My secret behind recruiting the best talent? People over paper. Fresh ideas over process for process’s sake." 

The former head of talent at Children's Mercy Hospital of Kansas City knows what she's talking about. She was responsible for recruiting the best medical, clinical, and research talent in the world to one of the most highly rated children's research hospitals in the country. Molly has endless stories about the creativity required to bring top global talent into flyover country USA in a highly competitive healthcare industry.

This is a conversation you don't want to miss! TAKE A LISTEN! 

"Companies that embrace remote work will replace every company that doesn’t.” This is the hill Chris Herd, CEO of Firstbase will die on, and we can’t find too many reasons to disagree. 

Where does your organization stand? What are the pros, cons, and challenges to making remote work a reality?

Chris just raised his $50M Series B to help power incredible remote work experiences for everyone. TAKE A LISTEN to our conversation on the pros, cons, and challenges of making remote work a reality. 

“The resources in our organization are the PEOPLE, that is what our human resources are.”

The last few years of pandemic life set the stage for both talent and an organization’s People function. The people function is more important than ever before; it’s how we BUILD UP our people. But how we have created opportunities for improvement? How we define the true meaning of HR? IT IS THE PEOPLE.
…AND that sparks the question, how are we taking care of our people? How are organizations shifting their HR mindset? How are we helping organizations reframe what HR really is? No organization should revert backward, pre-pandemic. You must solve for the outlier because then you have really done the work of the true people function.

This is an extremely important and powerful conversation, one that will make you think about your own people function. TAKE A LISTEN!

TW // suicide, trauma

This conversation addresses mental illness and attempted suicide. If you or someone you know is suicidal, please contact your physician, go to your local ER, or call the suicide prevention hotline in your country. For the United States, the numbers are as follows:
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255) or message the Crisis Text Line at 741741. Both programs provide free, confidential support 24/7.

On January 25, 2021, Natasha Bowman attempted suicide. Before this, “The Workplace Doctor” had written a best-selling book, performed a TED Talk, and was about to travel to Indonesia to be honored as one of the World’s Top 30 Management Professionals by Global Gurus. And was when that familiar record scratch happened: COVID-19.

“Other than my career, I felt like I didn’t have anything else to offer this world,” Bowman told HRD. She sunk into a hole some know all too well, others have a hard time understanding.

After Natasha was hospitalized and diagnosed with bipolar disorder, she was ashamed and reclusive. A vibrant presence on LinkedIn with more than 80,000 followers, she went silent on the social media platform. Now she is silent no more. Natasha has made it her life’s work to use her experience and expertise to drive needed change to destigmatize mental health, create mentally healthy workplaces, empower employers and managers to have human conversations and provide accommodation, and go beyond EAP to help employers provide truly meaningful support. 1 in 5 adults suffer from mental illness; it’s time to have the conversation.

Take a listen.

How do we really humanize and bring employee experience to life in the #NOWofWork?

More than ever, we need to continue to deliver a positive workforce experience. The devil is in the details: people are more digital, more remote and more distributed than ever before. There is still SO MUCH opportunity to deliver meaningful experience to people wherever they are, however they’re working. 

The question is: how are we delivering to a distributed workforce, and how do we plan to evolve from here?

This episode dives deep into true employee experience with the number #1 employee experience thinker worldwide, Ben Whitter, the Founder & Chief Experience Officer of HEX Organization. If you’re looking to deliver a workforce experience that is BETTER and more HUMAN than ever before, this is an episode you do not want to miss!

What do neurodiverse people need to feel welcome, be treated fairly, and celebrated at work? Often when most think about workplace diversity, race and gender are top of mind. But, please don’t stop there. Between 30-40% of the population are neurodiverse. Neurodiversity, or brain diversity, describes people who think differently. This includes members of the workforce with dyslexia, dyspraxia, ADHD, and autism.

How do we define, understand, and de-stigmatize neurodiversity? JOIN US TODAY as we honor Autism Acceptance Month with a Special Edition Digital Meetup discussing neurodiversity in the workplace. AT 1P ET, Jess and I will speak with a special guest panel that includes: 

-Michael Hofer, Global HR Transformation Executive at SAP and Neurodiversity Advocate

-Jose Velasco, Autism at Work Program Director at SAP

-Silvia Velasquez Casado, MBA/MPA Candidate at MIT Sloan/Harvard Kennedy School: Jobs for the College-Educated Neurodiverse

-Ed Thompson, Founder & CEO of Uptimize, focused on Talent that Thinks Differently 

Thinking differently can mean having a fresh perspective,  a stellar imagination, an uncanny ability to challenge norms, or habits that make you an incredible problem solver or innovator. These are a few of the assets we think about when we imagine equitable workplaces for neurodiverse talent. 

Thanks for listening! 

Joseph Ifiegbu comes to today's Now of Work Digital Meetup with stories to tell: how he discovered HR Analytics, his early days at the forefront of the people analytics movement inside envelope-pushing brands like Snap Inc. and WeWork, his own founder’s story as the CEO of eqtble...Joseph has built a career turning people data into people stories. The goal, after all.

Every good storyteller knows the critical elements of a story: characters, context, hero’s journey, ending. HR Analytics, or using people data for business outcomes, is often missing context, basic data collection, and interpretation. Alas, no good ending. “You can’t connect the dots if you can’t collect the dots!” (Jess Von Bank's favorite thing to say)

On this Digital Meetup, Jess and Jason hear Joseph’s take on collecting and interpreting data stories for workforce insights. Pretty useful stories to have in an employee-driven talent market!

The workplace is supposed to be neutral. "If you work hard you're going to rise, and that's all you need to do is put your head down and work, and all will be ok," Deepa Purushothaman shares before adding, "And I think that's wrong. That sets up a lot of people for struggle." 

For many, the tone of work culture is defined on a peer to peer level and a manager to peer level, which explains why many people are leaving their roles. Oftentimes it boils down to "My manager doesn't get me, doesn't understand, is talking over me," Deepa explains to host Jess Von Bank on our Now of Work podcast. As the Co-Founder of nFormation Deepa Purushothaman is focused on providing safe, brave, and new spaces for women of color at work: 

"Part of my work is talking about how the structure is differentiating and how the structure has its flaws, and it's ok to talk about that. It's important to understand that the experience is different, because if we don't understand it's different, we're not going make it better." 

In this engaging chat, Jess and Deepa not only talk about work structures and systems, they talk about what many women of color are doing after they resign (hint: it's not necessarily moving on to another job), why putting WOC in leadership seats is not always the best solution, why allyship is not enough, and how HR can and should listen--in a different way. Plus, they discuss Deepa's book: The First, The Few, The Only: How Women of Color Can Redefine Power in Corporate America. LISTEN: 

Tune in!

Happy Friday! How would you describe your work week? Need to refuel or get inspired? Want to share your wins or challenges? We are here! Enjoy the transformational power of our community from today's Digital Meetup. 

Our weekly meetups are now over 1500 people strong. Every week, co-host Jess Von Bank and Jason Averbook look forward to connecting with our friends in the HR, HR Tech, and talent acquisition communities.  

People are calling the shots, and we’re calling them differently. Work matters but for different reasons. Joy, inspiration, fulfillment, and human connection finally take a front seat. People want to be SEEN, not managed. They want to deliver VALUE, not performance. They want to be part of something SPECIAL, not a system. 

This is why our weekly meetups are so important. It's about connecting us all; as people—as humans, as a community truly focused on changing work.  

There’s lots to celebrate, and also a lot to hold each other accountable for in today's workforce. You may have remember seeing a lot of organizations make public pledges, commitments and investments to diversity, equity and inclusion programs in 2020. While the intention to diversify work may be good, the real question is has there been progress? Did organizations follow through on their commitment, were programs developed? Do these programs or initiatives have sticking power in an ever-evolving workforce? During today's week's Digital Meetup, we'll take a deeper look.

Today, Jess and Jason are excited to host leaders who are voices of hope, inclusion, diversity, and humanizing work to discuss DEI proof, progress and accountability. We'll unpack this important #NowofWork topic during a Special 90-minute live chat with leaders who you may have seen on past meetups, but never together in this sure to be dynamic panel setting:

-Torin Ellis, Speaker/ Founder/Advisor

-Jackye Clayton of Textio

-Shaun Peet  and Michael Metcalf Jr. of NASCAR and DECK Leadership.

Have a great listen!

Why are people leaving their jobs in droves? It's the top question asked since the start of The Great Resignation. Many answers have been given, but this one sticks. "The focus of manager has been put on the work, not on the people that create the work, who deliver the results...Everyone is just trying to manage the work, then they wonder why people are leaving?" Heather Polivka, of Awesome People Leaders, told our Jess Von Bank.

In a new #NowofWork podcast chat, the CEO shares why she believes that better trained managers hold the key to retention, the difference between being a manager and a people leader, and why great workers don't innately become great managers. Jess and Heather also talk about the importance of adjusting the traditional business mindset that people are replaceable, and how Awesome People Leaders acts as a resource for small and medium sized businesses who are struggling to make sense of the mass employee exodus. 

If you're looking to pump up employee engagement and retention, you'll want to TUNE IN to this conversation.

Now over 16,000 people strong, TODAY our Now of Work community will celebrate something special. It's our 100th Digital Meetup! 

Our weekly meetups started off as live Q&A chats designed to help leaders navigate work during an unprecedented time. Now, they include an ever-rotating, ever-lively lineup of HR & HR Tech industry guests, including Josh Bersin, Ben Brooks, Jackye Clayton and more. 

For today's Special 100th Meetup, we're thrilled to welcome a dynamic guest, Marcus Buckingham! The globally renowned workplace expert and the author of two of the best-selling business books of all time, chats with Jess Von Bank and Jason Averbook. He gives us a sneak peek at his NEXT book, LOVE + WORK, coming in April. LOVE + WORK helps us discover where we are at our best — both at work and in life. His premise is based on one core belief we can get behind here at Leapgen: Love has been driven out of our workplaces, and we need to get it back in.

JOIN Marcus, Jess Von Bank, and Jason Averbook, along with a special musical guest, The Brothers Koren, who toured with Coldplay, Pink and Rod Stewart. 

We’re celebrating community, all of you, LOVE + WORK, and our 100th live broadcast. Thanks for listening!

We might overcomplicate a few things - like feedback. You know, how a message is received. How leadership communication is distilled and delivered. Leadership, communication, culture, and organizational behavior CAN BE complicated, and it’s only by breaking it down it becomes intentional, impact-driving, and insightful.

We break it down through signals. Signals are what makes feedback real-time, relevant, and actionable. Authentic leadership really isn’t possible without truly listening to signals. But how do we signal-and-response at scale? In distributed work environments? In diverse and cross-functional teams? As a true habit? 

Feedback loops can be powered by tech so that positive behaviors can be reinforced, dissonance addressed, and psychological safety better supported. In this episode, Jason and Jess chat with James Kelley at qChange, about cutting down the leadership lag, leveraging signals and real-time feedback through technology, and creating authentic leadership in today’s Now of Work.

A lot of employees are leaving their roles because they don't feel seen. They don't feel like they're getting help with career development or growth, or able to harness connections.

Workhuman is on a mission to change that. As their wonderful brand name suggests, when working with clients they lean deeper into the individual experience, whether it has to do with a person's job role, or not. 

We're so excited to share this episode as Jess Von Bank chats with Workhuman's Rosette Cataldo who lays out what a human-centered organization is all about, and how they're winning at business in the new world of work. Jess and Rosette dig into the business of gratitude and who benefits from it, what it looks like when someone brings their whole self to work, freely-without judgement, and how to cultivate a supportive work culture that recognizes the direct correlation between wellbeing, recognition, and performance. 

"What many don't realize is that (gratitude) actually reduces stress. Lots of data shows that when you give gratitude, we call it 'Vitamin G,' you can actually reduce stress. Who doesn't want less stress?"

We couldn’t help but notice an exciting launch this week. Spotlyfe, we see you! In fact, we hope this keeps trending; show us more solutions employers can offer employees *right now* to help in this post-pandemic work environment. It’s about time we humanize work by truly seeing the people stepping up to do it every day.

It’s really up to CEOs/Chief People Officers/CHROs to SAVE people or watch them GO. The Great Resignation doesn’t have to impact you like it does your competition if you step up, meet people where they are, offer help, and provide basic resources to help people thrive at work and in life.

That's why we’re so excited to see our friends Josh Schwede, Scott Fowle, Tara Cooper and their team bring something fresh and innovative to market. We’re not even calling it HR Tech; this is a way to help the people you employ WIN AT LIFE.

Our relationship to work has shifted from “work for me or die,” to the power of a collective voice, to individual employees gaining power to meet their own needs, with managers as their co-pilots.

In this economy, fulfillment is the ultimate KPI, and building collective purpose serves to create connections between diverse populations in organizations through mutual paths forward.

In this episode, our host, Jess Von Bank, welcomes Aaron Hurst, foremost global expert on the science of purpose and fulfillment at work. In 2014, Aaron brought global awareness to the rise of history’s fourth economic era, the Purpose Economy. At the core of it is this concept that purpose-driven work is here to stay.

TUNE IN for their fascinating conversation about the PURPOSE OF WORK

Every family caregiver you know is so over it. Juggling work, life, distance learning, Covid closures and exposures, Covid itself, their own wellbeing, running a household, staying sane. It’s a lot!  

Let’s not forget about informal caregivers, elder care, and all of you in a caregiving arrangement of some kind without even realizing it. There’s no training or preparation for caregiving. We just do it. 

In the last two years, caregiving has become a global conversation at macro and micro levels. It affects our economy, our wellbeing, and how we live. There is so much humanity in it. People doing incredible things for those they love; more than they think they can.

There’s a lot we can do to help make the life of a caregiver easier, including at work. We are so happy to welcome TODAY'S special conversation with Susan Van Klink, full-time Chief Revenue and Chief Diversity Officer at Grokker, AND full-time caregiver. 

Thanks for tuning in

Everyone is talking about the business of change and transformation. What does it take to get an organization from point A to B during these changing times? How can you turn #NowofWork challenges into solutions? Curiosity is the common denominator, or as Dr. Diane Hamilton says, "Be willing to break things."   

Our Jess Von Bank had a fascinating chat with Dr. Hamilton, the CEO of Tonerra, about the role of curiosity at work, on our latest Now of Work podcast. Tonerra is a consulting firm that helps improve an organization's success by leveraging emotional intelligence, engagement, and curiosity for business success.   

They explore what keeps people from being curious, why it's imperative to transformation work, how to cultivate curiosity in leaders, and why being willing to break things is one of the best approaches to take with work, right now.

The new year is here, and the urgency to transform work has never felt stronger. The Now of Work comes with new sets of rules, discoveries, and challenges. We can't wait to dive in! 

Jess Von Bank and Jason Averbook are excited to host Leapgen's first Digital Meetup of 2022. JOIN US as we talk about the 10 Key Themes in the Now of Work. We'll preview FUEL, our 2022 digital kickoff event for HR, work tech, and people on January 24-25. The 2-day digital event is designed to inspire and motivate the transformation of work.

If you want to make an impact this year when it comes to humanizing work and maximizing business value, don't miss today's meetup or FUEL! 

LET US show you how to put people at the center of your digital transformation, technology, and change initiatives in the Now of Work.

As we step into 2022, we can't help but think about baggage that we can leave behind in 2021. What can we carry forward into the new year to fuel positive transformation, change, and innovation at work?   

Jess Von Bank, our Now of Work podcast host, was thrilled to dig into this topic with Cheryl Cran. The author, keynote speaker, and founder of NextMapping, is all about helping leaders put their people first. Nextmapping is a consulting company that leverages key strategies to help people navigate the Now of Work.   

As digital transformation evangelists, we LOVE their mission to: Automate the mundane, to innovate the humane. They believe that leaders and employees have more control to when it comes to being future-ready than they may know. It takes looking under the hood for patterns that will best serve us in our lives and our work.   

Want to shake off the dust from 2021 and move forward with purpose in 2022? LISTEN to our first podcast of the new year to help you design a year filled with impact, on your terms.

“We’re getting to the point where companies are getting more and more uncomfortable with all the technology available to them. Will someone build a better mousetrap that will just explode again?” We loved Larry Dunivan’s brilliant take on the NOW of Work.

The CEO of Namely, an HR, Payroll, and Benefits platform, pulls no punches during his chat with Jess Von Bank on our NOW of Work podcast. They dive into topics like: What happens next as we usher in the 4th wave of #HRTech? Whose job is people and culture and why does an HR leader own diversity? And the idea of solving HR problems that should be business problems. 

Interesting stuff!

Employees care, and they want to work for employers who care...About the world around them, that is. Philanthropy belongs in the employee experience conversation as we continue to blur the line between work and life, and take a whole person approach to designing work around people.  

Social giving and social impact are more important than ever as we wrap a year of lingering chaos, market turbulence, persistent change, and ETERNAL HOPE. We love that GIVING BACK is working its way into conversations around culture, employee wellbeing, employee experience, and workforce benefits.  

In this episode we dive into this topic on our LAST Digital Meetup of 2021. Alex Zea, Leapgen Client Partner, joins Jason Averbook as co-host. We're excited to welcome One Donation to talk about EMPLOYEE GIVING.   

We hope you’ll join us with your most festive self as we GIVE THANKS.

When your job is to attract the world’s best talent to spur company growth, it requires that your company become irresistible to talent, who have tons of  choices in what's become the tightest global talent market we’ve seen in decades. 

Enter Andrew Saidy. He leads Global Talent Acquisition for Ubisoft, a French video game company. In our new Now of Work podcast episode, he explains what it takes to be a company  that's irresistible to talent. He tells our host, Jess Von Bank, that companies must consider new ways of working, provide internal mobility options so people don’t stagnate and leave, and develop or restate an Employer Value Proposition that really means something in our evolving world of work. 

Andrew also has a thing or two to say about leading in the next era of business, and there’s ONE BIG THING he’ll carry with him into 2022. What is it? 

Take a listen.

Mo Hamzian knows the same thing an MIT professor recently declared: traditional office working is dead. The 9-6, too. In fact, stop calling work labor and learn to love what you do.   

Our host, Jess Von Bank, jumped right up on her talent soapbox to challenge employers everywhere: the pandemic gave people permission to put themselves first, and the first thing they want is an employer who has their backs. Who recognize they want choice and flexibility when it comes to how, when, and where they work.   

Mo designed a business that does one thing: makes PEOPLE the hero of the work story. Yes, VEL is a business model comprised of inspiring co-working facilities that sell the world’s best coffee. That’s not the real product. The real product is HUMAN EXPERIENCE.  

Which happens to be our favorite thing to talk about on the NOW of Work. Take a listen to Jess Von Bank and Mo Hamzian tell the greatest story of all time: the moment humanity won in a pandemic.

The Now of Work demands transformation, change enablement, growth mindset and innovation. How do people and business leaders get from reactive to proactive, from disaster recovery to thoughtful strategy, from mobilizing to maneuvering?  

Best-selling author and renowned innovation expert Simone Ahuja reveals the secret to winning in a "disrupt or be disrupted" market: innovate from within. She joined Jess Von Bank in our latest episode to explore the disruption of HR, how companies can intentionally and strategically disrupt to innovate, and how creating intrapreneurs within your own organization can drive radical and healthy innovation.

If we’ve learned something in the last 18 months, it’s the power of technology to connect people, not divide them. It doesn’t replace human relationship, but it can help form community, create interaction, drive conversation, fuel experiences. If we do it right. We talk a whole lot about Artificial Intelligence in terms of automation, but is it playing the right role in driving connection and creating cohesive relationship? Or getting in the way?

Phenom People is phenomenal at thinking about the power of AI and technology in forging one of our most significant relationships: WORK. In fact, they’re on a mission to hire and retain 1 BILLION PEOPLE. Can they do it? Will you be part of it?

Get ready for this pretty REAL CONVERSATION TODAY with Cliff Jurkiewicz, Phenom’s VP of Strategy -- including his big, deep, very personal WHY.

Chief Joy Officer. Have you ever heard of a better job title?  

We don’t use the word often enough when it comes to work, job satisfaction, candidate experience, and certainly not when applying for a job.

Symphony Talent's mission is to change that: to bring JOY back to the process of finding, interviewing, and applying for a job. Connecting incredible talent to inspired employers should spark JOY, too. Too often, the job of “processing” candidates (what a terrible word) is taxing, mundane, and duplicative. The whole thing begs for innovation.  

Jess Von Bank was overjoyed to have this podcast chat with Debbie Tuel! The Great Resignation means employers who do a better job finding, hiring, and nurturing available talent will have a massive leg up. In that case, JOY seems like a good goal to have.   

Take a listen to Jess & Debbie on our latest NOW of Work podcast episode.

There's 50 days left in 2021! Have you taken a moment to check in with your employees? What do they think is missing within the different layers of your organization? Jason Averbook digs into this topic on today's Digital Meetup, with a special guest host.

Aubany Roybal is a Change Management expert and consultant at Koniag Government Agency. Together, Jason and Aubany unpack this timely topic and engage with our #HR #HRTech community to talk all things Now of Work. Nothing is off the table, including hiring, retention, creating a people-first culture of connection, and the biggest Drivers and Drainers at work. 

Come with questions. Leave with strategy!

Women want a 'no-a$$holes' rule when it comes to work.   

Does that surprise you? Just one finding in a massive Leapgen study of nearly 3,000 working adults in the U.S. This timely research data is RICH because we were bold enough to EXPLORE: race, gender, income level, job function, employment status, age, and the usual, of course. But also whether you manage others, how long you've been in your job, how big your company is, and whether your household has multiple streams of income. 

The workforce is complex; people are complex; organizations need to be willing to explore those complexities if they are to deliver a meaningful, personalized, relevant and truly people-first culture. One that will keep people.  

Jess Von Bank, Head of Marketing and Brand Strategy for Leapgen, and Kristin Penney, General Manager of Leapgen's Luminate practice and Research Director for this study, break it down and issue BIG CHALLENGES to address the BIG QUIT. 

Know your people just like this, be prepared to act, and equip managers to better support people. TAKE A LISTEN

It's a candidate's work world and recruiters are in demand. But recruiters are also running on empty in a fragile labor market that's recovering from the pandemic, and challenged by The Great Resignation. Speed to talent is critical to business performance. 

Recruiter.com is a light at the end of the tunnel! They're not only the world's most powerful marketing engine for recruiters, they've also built a robust AI hiring platform that is disrupting the $120B recruiting and staffing industry. 

Listen in as Jess Von Bank and Jason discuss with Evan Sohn about how Recruiter.com's AI platform works, which technologies and innovations are creating effective talent matching and hiring, labor market trends, and if the talent shortage is real.

More great content every Tuesday and Friday, thanks for being a loyal listener. 

Representation is a problem when it comes to work. Until we solve it, we’re shortchanging people, business, and customers. Every business - EVERY. BUSINESS. - should be intensely focused on creating environments of belonging, a thriving and humble culture, and empathy-driven leadership. All done in a way that helps people feel brave, valued, and an integral part of building impactful business.   

Jess Von Bank was thrilled to talk to tech co-founder Katharine Zaleski, President of PowerToFly. They dug into why the diversity recruiting and retention platform made a strategic decision (hint: a human decision) to broaden their focus to help more than women, how they help employers tackle massive diversity recruiting goals at scale, and how her career led her from the world’s most impressive newsrooms (Huffington Post, NowThis, The Washington Post) to creating inclusive workplaces.   

POWER EPISODE ALERT. Listen up

Employers are struggling to make work matter -- matter enough to keep, inspire, engage, and attract incredible talent. That means WORK needs to feel incredible.

How do employers create incredible workplaces? Do new realities of remote, hybrid, distributed, digital work help or hurt efforts to create an inspiring, connected, even addicting workforce experience?

In this episode, Jess Von Bank and Jason Averbook dig into these pressing questions with Brandon Miller, CEO of 34 Strong, which provides human development solutions to organizations, and has built the best places to work since 2013. They not only believe that everyone deserves a great place to work, they believe that any workplace can be great!

When an organization focuses on building an employee's strengths, data shows that they become 3 times more engaged at work. Engagement is not only linked to well-being and customer satisfaction, it also strengthens retention.

Feel free to rewatch the recording to see Jess & Jason's epic Halloween Costumes!

Connect with Brandon:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandon-miller-873a6bb/

34 Strong: 

https://34strong.com/

Last week we talked about signals in the Now of Work. How we receive them, what they mean, how to take action. The signals keep coming FAST & FURIOUS; every organization who was squarely focused on proactively and thoughtfully improving employee experience is suddenly focused on REACTION & RESPONSE again. This time to sweeping vaccine mandates in the U.S., what it means for labor supply, and the impact on….you guessed it, EXPERIENCE.

How is HR to operate in this ongoing Experience v. Compliance tug of war? How can HR operations and service delivery support these efforts? Leapgen's own Jim Scully joins today's Digital Meetup, who is not only our Service Delivery Practice Lead, he is known as the world's preeminent expert on service delivery models for digital experience.  

In this episode Jason is broadcasting from the rolling hills of Pennsylvania and co-host, Jess Von Bank, joins from a race course in Door County, Wisconsin. If that’s not enough reason to join, Scully definitely clinches the deal. 

Thanks for tuning in!

What would you be able to predict if you paid attention to signals? Probably a lot. Signals are everywhere; whether or not they mean anything relies solely on our ability to receive them, take note or make sense of them, and discern what they might mean.

We could have predicted the labor shortage, right? Or these supply chain issues? Remote work? The social justice outcry of 2020? Would you have predicted The Great Resignation based on signals we’ve been seeing for months?

Forget crystal balls and predictions; on today's Digital Meetup, Jess Von Bank and Jason Averbook will talk about ACTUAL SIGNALS. Markers. Indicators—what they mean, where we see them, and what to do about them as leaders in today's world.

Thanks for tuning in. 

There are still so many questions about what the future holds for the #HR #HRTech industry. Are we making necessary changes fast enough? The workforce and labor market continues to decide. 

So what did Jason observe at this week's HR Technology Conference in Las Vegas? One thing he's likely to say: there's no simple fix, and it requires a mindset and purpose shift to come back strong.  

All that and a special guest on today's Digital Meetup: Don MacPherson joins us to reveal the Future Leaders Academy, a program to prepare high-achieving high school and college students from economically challenged or underrepresented communities to become exceptional leaders in their homes, communities, schools and workplaces. LOVE OUR FRIDAY FEELS.

Jess Von Bank and I can't wait to be with you. Chat soon!

The Rise of the Hourly Worker is a BIG topic. They’re a BIG part of the labor force (82.3M hourly workers in the U.S. alone). They’re also in BIG demand as the economy thunders back to life.

If you’re an employer of hourly workers, your challenges are just as BIG. They often change jobs more frequently, making attracting and keeping them harder. Hourly workers make up a big part of the deskless workforce; supporting and engaging them takes imagination and creativity. Pay is a huge driver for hourly workers, but it’s not the only thing. They want flexible work options; camaraderie and culture; development and advancement; a sense of community; and a frictionless experience that makes it easy for them to contribute and belong.

Josh Secrest knows these challenges intimately. He solved for them at Abercrombie & Fitch, then at McDonald’s, and now at Paradox. Jess Von Bank and I are excited to welcome Josh to today's Digital Meetup to talk challenges and solutions when it comes to hiring, supporting and retaining hourly workers.

"I'm losing my patience," said Jason Averbook. "I'm losing my patience with HR organizations who aren't changing." Jason and Jess Von Bank pulled zero punches in this fiery conversation. If your plan, they explain, is to bring everyone back to the office or your plan is waiting until this is all over, you're missing the greatest opportunity you'll ever have to make the biggest impact we'll ever make in the history of work. 

This means thinking about employee experience not as a technology interface but as whole person wellbeing; it means cease & desist on archaic talent management models, and it means meeting the most basic (living wages and pay equity, fairness, safety, health = all of this is surviving) AND the most aspirational needs (culture, belonging, working for purpose, inspired leadership = all of this is thriving) of the entire person. 

"I've lost my patience with it. How many more reports, how many more studies of mental health, how many more discussions do we have to have about HUMANS to understand our part in the role of HUMAN RESOURCES? They're not workers, they're humans, and they're struggling. HR, you have to act."

Tune in for more great content on the NOW of Work. 

What a week! We hosted a successful webinar on Deploying HR Tech to Fuel People & Purpose. If you tuned in, thanks for the support. The time is NOW to redesign HR tech for people, not for HR, using a whole person approach and human-centered design thinking. 

On today's Digital Meetup, Jess and Jason share key highlights from the webinar; specifically how a deployment approach fills the gap between implementation and value, between technology as a tool and as a human enabler. 

We are redefining workforce experience as so much more than it was before, requiring a new approach to the solutions that can enable it. Speaking of workforce experience, how would you define it? We asked our team, and got a variety of interesting responses. 

We'll dig into what workforce experience looks like today, the hierarchy of needs when it comes to it, and why we need to reorganize HR. PLUS, we'll introduce a new Management Reset Masterclass created by our friend, Jason Lauritsen. His free training series is designed to support managers who are navigating their way through all of the changes in the Now of Work.

Employee development is a bright light in a competitive labor market. It not only helps with retention, developing talent can build trust, loyalty and connection to your organization's greater purpose. 

...And just like everything in the past 18 months, it is critical for leader to rethink how to approach employee development in the #NowofWork. Does digital culture, the distributed workforce, and hybrid models of working help or hurt our efforts to focus on people, their needs, and how they can be nurtured and developed to drive value as businesses innovate and evolve?

We into this topic on today's Digital Meetup! Jess Von Bank and Jason Averbook will be joined by Ben Brooks, a Top 100 HRTech Influencer. We'll talk about the role of tech in developing people at scale, the acceleration of skills development brought on by automation, and the difference between employee coaching and traditional talent management. Ben is the CEO of PILOT, a career management technology platform that helps business leaders and employees to make work more satisfying and fulfilling. 

Connect with Ben

https://www.linkedin.com/in/benbrooksny/

Ben's Company

https://pilot.coach/

THEN: She became Miss North Dakota for a big reason: to use her voice as a young Black woman on a platform with influence and reach in a place not expecting to see someone like her. Rosie Nestingen tells Jess Von Bank, our Head of Marketing and Now of Work community host, about the day she arrived at a school assembly to share her inspirational youth message with grade school kids. The principal greeted her: "I love your message, I love your story, but you should know your audience. There is ONE diverse person in our community. The only family who isn't German is Norwegian."

NOW: What it must feel like doing diversity recruitment. You can't hire your way into workplace diversity. (Repeat that 100 times.) You CAN welcome marginalized employees by addressing belonging, inclusion, and retention. That's the real work, the harder work, and it also requires knowing your audience. "Where are we really at, if we're being honest?" You don't create workplace diversity in a Big Bang; you do it in repeatable, measurable, incremental ways that show PROOF of the PROMISES you make."

This is Rosie's approach in her mission to attract and retain more diverse technology talent within Best Buy. She's not on the DEI team, she's on the technology team. DEI isn't a TEAM, it's a WAY OF BEING. Important #NowofWork podcast conversation; listen up!

Connect with Rosie Nestingen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rosienestingen/

It's OFFICIALLY the 2nd half of 2021. Does your company still operate like it's 2019? A pandemic, unique labor market, and sweeping social movements all have the power to permanently alter human psyche. They can impact and forever change how we see people and work.

Plain and simple, your organization shouldn't look the same as it did a year ago. How do you take steps to change things for GOOD?

Tune in to this great episode where our Jess Von Bank welcomes Jason Seiden of BRNDSTRM to talk brand marketing, employee storytelling and tech adoption in the NowofWork. 

You don't want to miss this!

What keeps every HR & People leader up at night should come as no surprise. Every organization continues to plot and prioritize post-pandemic pivots around DEI; the mental wellbeing of the workforce; optimizing tech and streamlining workflows for the digital and hybrid workplace; and leading people with more transparency, more empathy, and increased personalization and flexibility. We have leadership gaps, too -- most organizations don't have enough or effective enough people leaders to drive the workforce through historic change and transformation.

All of this is Workforce Experience. Technology is KEY to delivering and measuring experience at scale. Yvette Cameron and Cara Capretta join Jess Von Bank and I for this week’s Digital Meetup to share how organizations can bring mission-critical priorities to life for better employee experiences and business outcomes that matter.

JOIN us for good conversation, strategies and solutions.

Join Steve Boese, HR Technology Conference Chair, and Jason Averbook, CEO & Founder of Leapgen, as they discuss ways HR can utilize technology to help employees achieve their goals, improve their skills, and enhance their career development. 

Thanks for joining the conversation!

Jennings Wynn is a CUSTOMER champion for recruiting solutions that deliver results, but he's also a PEOPLE champion for equity, diversity, creating spaces for belonging, and inclusive workplaces. He has deep expertise in Employee Resource Groups and the real value they can bring the business, he talks about the use of pronouns and inclusive language and workplace practices, and he tells a rich story around the real history and significance of #Pridemonth.  

So before the final weekend of Pride celebrations commence, Jennings joins our Digital Meetup to tell us WHY THIS MATTERS in our efforts to humanize work. When it comes to #DEI and corporate values, what does a brand look like when it's not just talking the talk?  We love our Fridays together! 

Join the team at Leapgen for this important conversation.

Connect with Jennings:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennings-wynn-6908409a/ 

Today's Digital Meetup is pretty inspiring. Jess and I are thrilled to welcome Lindsay Wrege to our broadcast. You may remember Lindsay from our #NowofWork podcast. In fact, her interview holds the top spot for our most listened to episode to-date.

Lindsay's best friends in grade school were disabled. She grew up in their world with adaptive activities and inclusive classrooms. After high school graduation Lindsay looked forward to college, internships, and studying abroad. “But for them, it was a stopping point," she said, "...80% of people with disabilities are unemployed, and that’s just not OK."

Instead of simply moving along, Lindsay decided to do something about it. As a college freshman, she created 321 Coffee. 100% of her coffee shop employees are disabled. Her successful business model is not just a rally cry for erasing the stigma around hiring disabled people, it's also a testament to change. It shows what embracing a diverse workplace can truly look like when put into daily practice.

In this episode we see where Lindsay is now that she's a new college graduate, talk about inclusive workplaces, and how we all can take steps to create a working world of change.

Connect with Lindsay:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindsay-wrege/

321 Coffee:

https://321coffee.com/

We are excited about today's Digital Meetup, and we have two stellar guests on deck!

How we tell the story of work changed completely when work changed completely.

Jess and Jason are joined by Katrina Kibben, CEO of Three Ears Media. Katrina is a professional work storyteller with special expertise in writing job descriptions FOR the candidate, not ABOUT the employer. We talk about using inclusive language at work, the use of pronouns, and writing job advertisements that don't stink.

We also focus on the power of storytelling for work during our chat with Elena Valentine, CEO of Skill Scout. We will unpack the art of visualizing and illustrating opportunity when it comes to talent, the work they do, where, and how they do it!

Grab some coffee or a snack and TUNE IN. Jess will be live from the Black Hills of South Dakota. I have a feeling this is going to be a good one to share with your colleagues and team. See you soon on our live broadcast!

Connect with Katrina:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/katrinakibben/

Connect with Elena:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/elenavalentine1/

"One thing that we've been looking at and starting to see is this blending of societal culture and organizational culture. We're starting to identify ourselves in very a left and right way...This is starting to get a little bit dangerous, in how we build organizational culture." 

Fascinating chat with Dan Riley, Co-Founder of RADICL, and our Jess Von Bank. On our NowofWork podcast, they peel back the layers of organizational culture, including talking about visible and invisible belief systems, hiring for culture, and what happens if we rally around purpose. 

Check out RADICL's formative work:

https://www.radiclwork.com/

Connect with Dan:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-riley-57b9431/

"We didn't start off to create a business called Experience Happiness...We started it to save our lives," Nancy O'Brien shares with Jess Von Bank on our #NowofWork #podcast. 

Happiness may be a simple topic, but it's not simplistic, especially when it comes to work. On this new episode Jess chats with Nancy and Rachelle Anderson, the founders of Experience Happiness and creators of The Happiness Practice™— an innovative, sustainable, and scalable solution that helps people and organizations increase happiness, engagement and reduce burnout. 

During the chat they unpack what makes us happy at work, how to get there, and why we all deserve it. Jess adds, "We throw a lot of buzz words around, especially when it comes to work. In a workplace setting we talk about how people perform and we measure performance and talk about engagement...use a lot of words to measure human beings at work, but I think that we're missing one really important and that is are people happy?"   

Experience Happiness:

https://www.experiencehappiness.biz/

Connect with Nancy:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nancylobrien/

Connect with Rachelle:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelle-abdo-anderson-7546412/

Thomas Otter joined Leapgen’s Digital Meetup last week, and an hour just wasn’t enough. 

Thomas uses a brilliant analogy for the IT strategy of any organization (are you a sunflower, daisy, cactus, or dandelion?) and explains who the power couples should be when C-level executives collaborate to modernize their function and the business overall. 

Sure, we’d love see to see HR and IT partner more often and more successfully, but Thomas thinks you should probably check in with Marketing if you want to take notes from a function who has successfully aligned delivery and technology to innovate the way they deliver value to the business. 

He canceled 14 dates to spend his Friday night with us, and we guarantee this conversation was worth every minute of the time. Learn about the future of work tech directly from The Very Guy who helped scale SAP SuccessFactors to more than 50 million users and drove an HR Tech research agenda for Gartner that helped shape an industry. Enjoy!

Connect with Thomas:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomasotter/

How do you define self-care? More importantly, how do you approach and prioritize self-care alongside demands on time, physical space, schedule, health, and work? 

Covid-19 has been especially harmful for working mothers, who were already carrying a disproportionate burden of teacher, housekeeper, babysitter, therapist, and all kinds of second shift duties. Working moms are dropping out of the workforce at an alarming rate because THIS. JUST. ISN'T. WORKING. So how can we find balance? If working moms don't save themselves, it's unlikely anyone else will.

Jess Von Bank was proud to host Leapgen's own social media content producer, Chie Davis, to learn about Mommafied. When Chie isn't storytelling Leapgen's brand and services across social media, she's providing health, wellness and self-care tips for busy moms who want to lead more whole lives. Take a listen to their conversation, including what it's like to match personal brand and values to corporate brand and values. 

Great conversation, Jess and Chie!

Learn more: https://www.mommafied.com/

Connect with Chie: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chiedavis/

Connect with Jess: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessvonbank/

How would you rate your Workforce Experience on a scale of one to 10? Would you give it a 10? Would you say, without hesitation, that it is REMARKABLE? That's the goal; an experience where both PEOPLE THRIVE and business moves forward.

On today's Digital Meetup, we're excited to dig into the topic of DESIGNING A REMARKABLE WORKFORCE EXPERIENCE TO FUEL PEOPLE AND BUSINESS. JOIN Jess and I TODAY AT 1PM ET, as we welcome Special Guest: Greg Pryor, Senior VP, People & Performance Evangelist at Workday.

Our chat is a warm-up to next Tuesday's Workday Navigator Series event, focused on delivering a meaningful and frictionless employee experience.

Brian Matthews is President of Appriss Insights and is responsible for the overall strategic direction, and financial performance of this leading data and analytics business focused on saving lives, preventing fraud, and keeping communities and workplaces safe. Since joining Appriss in 2017, Brian has lead Insights’ product strategy, successfully pivoting the business towards new growth opportunities in risk management and fraud prevention, growing revenue by 70% and doubling EBITDA. In October 2019, Brian was promoted to President of Appriss Insights. As President, Brian has continued to drive growth and helped shape the culture of Insights to focus on growth over status quo, action over deliberation, and team over self-interests.

Brian has over 30 years of senior leadership in technology companies with a primary focus on strategy, business development, sales, marketing, and product management. His experience ranges from startups and growth-stage companies to Fortune 50 organizations. Career highlights include almost a decade at JP Morgan Chase, eight years at VeriSign, as they scaled from $100M to $1.5B in revenue, and growth leadership roles at eOriginal, Verint, and Vubiquity. In these roles, Brian focused on defining growth strategies, disrupting markets, launching new products and channel distribution.

Brian holds an MBA in Finance from New York University’s Stern School of Business and a BBA in Accounting and Pre-Law from Ohio University. He lives in the suburbs of Maryland outside of D.C. with his wife and three children.

Connect with Brian: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bdmatthews99/

Connect with Jess: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessvonbank/

Appriss: https://appriss.com/