We're Only Human

An HR podcast focusing on the intersection of people and technology at work, We’re Only Human examines research, technology, and practical strategies for creating better outcomes for employers and the workforce. It’s a wealth of insight for anyone looking to create a high-performing organization.

Business
Management
Careers
101
Interviews as a Source of Rich, Actionable Data...
"The job of a talent acquisition leader is actually like five or six functions put together. You're a marketing leader doing outbound and branding. You're a sales leader, leading a team of individuals having conversations, converting candidates, or an operations leader by coordinating and scheduling and setting up interviews through the funnel. You're an analytics leader, trying to build dashboards and reporting." Teddy Chestnut, BrightHire We're Only Human -- Episode 125 ...
33 min
102
20 Hiring Strategies, Ideas, and Tips for a Tig...
Thousands of people have been our dataset this year that we've been talking to and analyzing and understanding what's happening. There's so much research and evidence here to help you. Transparently, I've never seen a market like we're in today. I hope this gives you some good insights and good ideas to solve for the current challenges and an extremely difficult hiring market. Ben EubanksChief Research Officer, Lighthouse Research & Advisory Host, We're Only HumanHost, HR Tech Talks Lives...
47 min
103
Openness to Failure as a Critical HR Skill on W...
"I think openness to failure is as important as openness to success, because if you're not open to failure, you're not open to trying new things. Full stop. You're going to keep rolling out the same trite things that maybe aren't the best things. So it's really as important to try new things, and where you give yourself the credibility is the fact that you are measuring and you are looking at whether or not this works objectively." Caitlin Bigsby, Visier We're Only Human -- Episode 123...
28 min
104
Digital, Secure Document Management for HR Team...
"An HR manager can do whatever they need to do. We do have a vision, and the vision is that all administrative tasks should be done in less than 15 seconds." Leila Laidani, Aconso We're Only Human -- Episode 122 In the last year, companies have shifted much of their work processes to a digital format. However, legacy files and workflows don't always transition so easily. In this episode, Ben talks with the team from Aconso about how using secure, digital storage solu...
24 min
105
What's Your Culture of Health? Featuring Mobile...
"You need to have a competitive pay and benefits offering. When you go to do that, the employer ends up paying for a lot of things that go unused just because there's too much to communicate. What's just amazing about the time and space we're in now is you can really use personalization to surface opportunities from among and within those programs and benefits at the right time, in a way where it's really a health and benefits journey of one." John Halloran, CEO at Mobile Health We're ...
23 min
106
SMB Employers, Complexity, and Compliance with ...
"I had a client that in February of last year had 72 employees, all in Boulder, Colorado. By September of last year, they eliminated their office and went remote. They went from having all their employees in one state to having those same 74 employees, but across 14 different states." Jordan Conley, President, Obsidian HR We're Only Human -- Episode 120 In the United States, approximately 98% of the employers that exist have fewer than 100 employees. It's easy to get caught up i...
29 min
107
Personalizing Talent Practices at an Individual...
"Companies can now optimize things like rewards and training and development. HR and the way companies communicate with employees is going to be based on personalization." Juan Betancourt, CEO, Humantelligence We're Only Human -- Episode 119 The "one size fits all" approach is being replaced with the "one size fits one" approach at some of the most forward-thinking companies. In your personal life, you expect personalization. Customized movie, dining, or clothing rec...
33 min
108
How to Bring the HR Community Together with Bil...
"It all has to link back to practical insights and practical takeaways about how best we can come through the current crisis together." Bill Banham, Editor, HR Gazette We're Only Human -- Episode 118 One of the fun parts of the last year has been connecting with new people, finding new resources, and building new communities. Someone at the heart of that is Bill Banham, editor and publisher at the HR Gazette. As someone who covers things happening in the HR industry, he brings a...
22 min
109
Work Has Changed at DHL - Here's How The Compan...
"Listening without solving... Is really important, because the tendency for a lot of people is when somebody comes to you with an issue, the immediate response is to try and find a solution to the problem when in fact that may not be what you need." Gordon Simpson, SVP Human Resources, DHL Global Forwarding We're Only Human -- Episode 117 Work is changing. We all know it. We've seen it. Hiring is more difficult than ever, and predictions are that it will get harder. Retain...
26 min
110
Don't Judge for Feelings, Judge for Actions - F...
"There's a lot of blame going around. Rumors, gossip, people are on their guard. So this kind of hidden anger and passive aggressiveness that I have seen, [what's] always an eye-opener with clients is how many people need to be CC'd on any given email. So the more people that are CC'd in anything gives you an indication: there's a bit of fear, and so that shows that there's generally low trust." Faye Ekong, Managing Director, RavelWorks Africa We're Only Human -- Episode 11...
24 min
111
Workplace Performance is 90 Percent Mental with...
"So the nerdy neuroscience about the brain is that your brain can't distinguish between a real-time event or if you visualized it. But when you when you walk yourself mentally, emotionally, visually through those things, and you just see yourself doing them and being successful, that's the really key piece." Roger Kitchen, Mental Skills Coach We're Only Human -- Episode 115 High-performing individuals in music, athletics, and even business use coaches to help them accompli...
25 min
112
Human Benefits for a Human Workforce with Marib...
"What I see is that we're no longer working from home. We're living at work. And so how do we help employees work differently?" Maribeth Bearfield, Chief Human Resources Officer, Bright Horizons We're Only Human -- Episode 114 In the last year, employers have struggled with how to support workers in a rapidly changing environment. Even today as some things change, others stay the same. During this episode, Ben talks with Maribeth Bearfield about how she looks at the human side o...
34 min
113
Stop Anonymizing Employee Feedback--Insights fr...
"If this week a leader acknowledges [employee feedback], next week, the person is eight times more likely to participate again than if the leader said nothing the week before." Ruby Kolesky, Co-CEO and Head of Product, Joyous We're Only Human -- Episode 113 What's your stance on employee feedback and anonymity? In today's conversation with Mike and Ruby from Joyous, they share a bold proposal: stop making employee feedback anonymous, because you're telling them that it's somethin...
35 min
114
Introversion-The HR Super Power with Tim Gardne...
My preference in work was not towards optimizing machinery, but helping optimize work processes for people. Tim Gardner, Former Organizational Development Consultant at Kimberly-Clark (retired) We're Only Human -- Episode 112 If you're an introvert in HR, you're not alone. Recently I shared a piece on LinkedIn about introverts in HR and the value of introversion, and the piece received thousands of likes and comments. Apparently my own preference for introversion is in good comp...
30 min
115
Hire Internal Employees to Drive Engagement and...
"The platform was up and running literally weeks after the pandemic hit. And through this platform they saved 2,000 jobs, so it's also about saving jobs by redeploying people effectively when the times are needed." Jerome Ternynck, Founder and CEO, SmartRecruiters We're Only Human -- Episode 111 In some brand new research, we found that internal hiring and talent mobility is a key priority for employers in the coming year, and they measure success through increased diversity, lo...
39 min
116
Owning HR's Cybersecurity Responsibilities with...
"I think as HR leaders, one of the biggest things that we have to do is never lose sight of the people." Erika Lance, SVP of People Operations at KnowBe4 We're Only Human -- Episode 110 According to research, organizations face an average cost of over $3 million for a cybersecurity breach. Do we have your attention? In today's episode, Ben talks with Erika Lance of KnowBe4 about the importance of cybersecurity and how HR can play an active role in supporting this critical ...
27 min
117
Connecting Healthcare Operations and Recruiting...
"It's about understanding that workforce isn't a recruiting job. It isn't a leadership job. It's everybody's job. If you have needs in the workforce, you must communicate them. And the vehicle to do that is our recruiting team." Betty Jo Rocchio, Chief Nursing Officer, Mercy We're Only Human -- Episode 109 One of the consistent priorities in our research over the last few years for recruiters is to align with the business and build deep, strategic partnerships. In today's episod...
31 min
118
Making Magic for Candidates with Paradox.ai on ...
"We are what we call a conversational AI platform, the main product being our AI assistant, which was built with a really simple kind of mission to create magical experiences for candidates." Josh Zywein, Paradox.ai We're Only Human -- Episode 108 Chatbots aren't new. Most of us have used them as consumers to get support when we visit a website for a cable or mobile phone provider. Plus, in our last report on chatbots in the recruiting technology space a few years ago, we ...
24 min
119
3 Keys to Creating and Becoming a Best Place to...
"What different actions can we take going forward? So whether it was an implementation to our benefits plan or whether it was rolling out a new piece to our onboarding process, let's do an analysis at the end... Is there anything that could've made this better? Just one little thing that we could tweak so that we can learn from this." Angie Redmon, striveHR We're Only Human -- Episode 107 Today there's no shortage of employer award programs. Every magazine, business publication,...
26 min
120
What is the Extended Workforce? Insights from U...
"The way work is getting done is increasingly flexible and it gives the worker the power of choice. That choice serves both the worker and the end enterprise." Dan Beck, COO of Utmost We're Only Human -- Episode 106 Quick, your business needs to fill a talent gap you have, but you don't want to hire a new staff member. What do you do? Hire a consultant? Pick up a freelancer? Snag an independent contractor? Historically, these activities have happened outside the real...
35 min
121
HR Analyst Day *Podcast Takeover* Featuring Eng...
"Be gentle with yourself. I think we can all afford a little compassion and we're often able to give that to others easier than we're able to give it to ourselves. Give yourself time for introspection to understand what truly motivates you and let that be your first step." Kristin Richter, Engagedly We're Only Human -- Episode 105 This is a special edition of We're Only Human! Last fall Ben cohosted HR Analyst Day with Jessica from Workology (who you'll hear on today's show). Th...
27 min
122
Engaging a Field-Based Workforce-Lessons from N...
"You can reconcile accounting, but you can't always reconcile people." Jeremy Stickling, Chief Administrative Officer at Nussbaum Transportation We're Only Human -- Episode 104 Turnover in some trucking and transportation companies runs nearly 100% a year, meaning they turn over virtually every employee over a 12 month period. But at Nussbaum, the turnover runs under 30% a year. What's the secret, and how can other employers with a field-based or remote workforce apply those pri...
26 min
123
Empowering Your Internal Experts for Better Lea...
I really do believe this is a moment for learning and training that could see a transformation that benefits learners. Simon Greany, Elucidat We're Only Human -- Episode 103 How many times have we in HR and learning been forced to create content in subjects we knew little to nothing about? In today's episode, Ben talks with Simon Greany from Elucidat about how the company supports employers through technology that enables subject matter experts to cocreate learning content...
33 min
124
Measuring Productivity in the Modern Workplace...
"We can't forget about being human." Tom Moran, Chief Strategy Officer, Prodoscore We're Only Human -- Episode 102 When workers gathered to work on assembly lines, productivity was easy: you counted the widgets produced per hour. In the modern workplace, it's a much harder proposition. How do you know when knowledge workers are really accomplishing what they need to be? In today's discussion, Ben dives into those questions and more with Tom Moran of Prodoscore. Prodoscore ...
26 min
125
Mediocrity, Clarity, and Personal Brand with Ca...
"We allow business leaders to dictate things based on who they like, who they golfed with the last weekend, and things like that when it should be: 'Who is doing the work and who is a benefit to our work environment and our culture?'" Carla Patton, HR Executive We're Only Human -- Episode 101 One of the challenges in the last year is that the pandemic showed the cracks in the relationships created by poor leadership. In an office environment, there are enough opportunities to sm...
27 min