HR Leaders

How does Primark develop frontline leaders and help colleagues build careers within the business?

John D. Hadeed, Senior Vice President, People & Culture, US at Primark, joins Chris Rainey to share the career conversations, training and leadership habits behind its approach.

At the time of recording, John says more than 60% of Primark’s US store leaders had grown within its US business, with an ambition to reach 80%.

We explore 5 practical takeaways for HR, from preparing people for their next role to equipping managers to support colleagues when HR isn’t there.

5 TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS EPISODE

→ Turn career ambitions into a plan

How conversations about potential, goals and mobility inform succession planning.

→ Make teaching part of the leadership job

What John learnt during 18 months alongside his predecessor.

→ Protect the time to learn

How Primark approaches onboarding, peer training and development away from the shop floor.

→ Explain what your values actually look like

Why “dynamic” needed a shared meaning across different cultures and languages.

→ Equip managers to support people when HR isn’t there

Why being people-first depends on how leaders show up every day.

🙏 Thank you to our series partner, Leapsome

AI is already reshaping HR. Learn how to build an agentic HR team in six months and unlock Leapsome’s €24K Accelerator plus its HRIS Foundation at no extra cost before 31 December → https://hubs.li/Q04yT6Rh0

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The meeting ends. Everyone nods. Then the real conversation starts without the CEO.

For HR leaders, that puts you in a difficult spot.

You hear the concerns. You see the friction. But how do you tell someone at the top that their own behaviour might be part of the problem?

In this episode of the HR Leaders Podcast, I had an inspiring conversation with Andrea Petrone, The CEO Whisperer and author of Reinvention at the Top: The Playbook for CEOs to Lead Under Pressure.

I also share what happened when I gave a former CEO difficult feedback.

Spoiler: it wasn’t a thank-you.

7 lessons you’ll learn from this episode:

1. When a leader’s biggest strength becomes the problem
2. What the CEO isn’t hearing in the room
3. What happened when Chris told his CEO the truth
4. The hidden cost of acting like a leader
5. Why the message isn’t getting through
6. The question every aspiring CHRO-to-CEO needs to answer
7. What leaders under pressure are really asking for

🙏 Thank you to our series partner, Leapsome

AI is already reshaping HR. Learn how to build an agentic HR team in six months and unlock Leapsome’s €24K Accelerator plus its HRIS Foundation at no extra cost before 31 December → https://hubs.li/Q04yT6Rh0

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What if the biggest barrier to better work is not a lack of technology, but unclear priorities, inconsistent ways of working and disconnected teams?

In this episode of the HR Leaders Podcast, I sit down with Sandra Ma, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, and Richard H., Jr., Co-Founder and Chief Design Officer at Jovial, to explore why better workplaces start with clarity, consistency and connection.

From meetings after the meeting to information scattered across Slack channels, Sandra and Richard explain why leaders need to understand what is making work difficult before introducing another solution. I also share what went wrong when we adopted an AI-native CRM before getting our data in order.

5 things you’ll learn from this episode:

1. Why introducing another tool or process can leave the real workplace problem untouched
2. How clarity, consistency and connection help leaders identify where work is breaking down
3. Why unreliable data and unclear sources of truth can undermine AI adoption
4. What meetings after the meeting can reveal about understanding, trust and participation
5. Why more communication channels do not necessarily create better collaboration

🙏 Thank you to our series partner, Leapsome

AI is already reshaping HR. Learn how to build an agentic HR team in six months and unlock Leapsome’s €24K Accelerator plus its HRIS Foundation at no extra cost before 31 December → https://hubs.li/Q04yT6Rh0

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What if the strongest workplace culture is not built through expensive perks, but through the everyday systems that make people feel seen, supported and able to grow?

In this episode of the HR Leaders Podcast, I sit down with Laura Lawson, Chief People Officer at United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM), to explore how UWM has built an unusually intentional workplace culture for its 9,000 employees in Pontiac, Michigan.

From onsite healthcare and career coaching to monthly employee-led conversations and a long-standing commitment to avoiding layoffs, Laura explains why culture at UWM is treated as something leaders actively design rather than something they leave to chance.

5 things you’ll learn from this episode:

1. Why a workplace can have great benefits and still fail to create a great employee experience
2. The unconventional hiring approach UWM uses to identify attitude, curiosity and work ethic
3. Why Laura believes monthly employee-led conversations can be more valuable than the traditional annual review
4. How UWM approaches internal mobility and career coaching to retain people even when their first role is not the right fit
5. Why some of the strongest culture initiatives may require more creativity than budget

🙏 Thank you to our series partner, Leapsome

AI is already reshaping HR. Learn how to build an agentic HR team in six months and unlock Leapsome’s €24K Accelerator plus its HRIS Foundation at no extra cost before 31 December → https://hubs.li/Q04yT6Rh0

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What if the biggest mistake companies are making with AI is trying to improve individual tasks instead of redesigning the entire process?

In this episode of the HR Leaders Podcast, I sit down with Bruno Da Sola, Group Chief People Officer at Inetum, to explore what changed when the company moved beyond scattered AI experiments and started redesigning critical end-to-end workflows.

For HR leaders, the bigger lesson is not simply to add more AI tools. It is to identify the workflows that matter most to the business, redesign them around outcomes, and be transparent with employees about what the change means for their work.

5 things you’ll learn from this episode:

1. Why asking employees for individual AI use cases did not create the business impact Bruno expected
2. The change in approach that helped Inetum move from scattered experimentation to end-to-end AI transformation
3. How one workforce process went from taking weeks to producing results in minutes
4. Why Bruno believes the most powerful AI workflows still need carefully chosen human intervention
5. The mistake HR leaders may be making by choosing small, low-impact processes to prove the value of AI

🙏 Thank you to our series partner, Leapsome

AI is already reshaping HR. Learn how to build an agentic HR team in six months and unlock Leapsome’s €24K Accelerator plus its HRIS Foundation at no extra cost before 31 December → https://hubs.li/Q04yT6Rh0

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

How Endeavor Health Is Building One Culture Across Four Health Systems

In this episode of the HR Leaders Podcast, I sit down with Dianna Sparacino, MBA, SPHR, Chief People Officer at Endeavor Health , to explore how the organisation is bringing multiple healthcare institutions together as one system while continuing to protect what matters most to its people, patients and communities.

For HR leaders, the conversation raises a bigger question about the connection between employee experience and patient experience. From supporting frontline caregivers to experimenting with AI, knowledge transfer and new approaches to leadership development, Dianna shares what Endeavor is learning as it continues building one organisation from several distinct histories.

5 things you’ll learn from this episode:

1. The difficult balance Endeavor had to navigate when bringing four healthcare organisations into one system
2. Why frontline leaders may be the difference between employees understanding a transformation and simply experiencing more change
3. What prompted Endeavor to move from allowing culture to evolve naturally to shaping it much more intentionally
4. How the organisation is thinking about the relationship between employee experience and the quality of patient care
5. Where AI, simulation and new technology could help solve some of healthcare's toughest time, knowledge and capability challenges

🙏 Thank you to our series partner, Leapsome

The companies pulling furthest ahead are already rewriting how HR works. Explore 5,000+ data points from 100 leading tech companies and learn what their 2027 playbook looks like → https://hubs.li/Q04wvZ7g0

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Employee listening only matters if people can see what changed because they spoke up.

In this episode of the HR Leaders Podcast, I sit down with Amy Schultz of DTE Energy to explore how employee listening can become a real operating system for culture and business performance.

For HR leaders, the bigger challenge is not collecting more employee data. It is building the leadership accountability, feedback loops and operating rhythms that turn sentiment into visible change. As organisations navigate AI, transformation and increasing uncertainty, Amy shares why culture has to become part of how the business operates, not something HR manages alongside it.

5 things you’ll learn from this episode:

1. What DTE discovered when employees started signalling that their opinions were not being heard as strongly as before
2. The mechanism that helped move engagement from an HR-owned process to an executive leadership priority
3. How DTE goes beyond survey scores to uncover what is really sitting underneath employee sentiment
4. Why closing the feedback loop can matter just as much as taking action on the feedback itself
5. How changing technology and AI are influencing the capabilities DTE may prioritise differently in future talent decisions

🙏 Thank you to our series partner, Leapsome

The companies pulling furthest ahead are already rewriting how HR works. Explore 5,000+ data points from 100 leading tech companies and learn what their 2027 playbook looks like → https://hubs.li/Q04wvZ7g0

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What if burnout is not only about how much you work, but what you believe success requires from you?

In this episode of the HR Leaders Podcast, I sit down with Nabeela Elsayed, MS, ACC, author of Breaking Burnout, to explore why high achievers can become exhausted even when they love their work, have supportive leaders and are succeeding on paper. Her research challenges the idea that burnout can always be explained by a toxic workplace or an individual who simply needs better boundaries.

For HR leaders, the conversation raises a bigger question about how we think about wellbeing at work. Burnout sits inside a wider system of work, relationships, caregiving, identity, expectations and personal beliefs, which means sustainable performance may require organisations and individuals to rethink far more than workload alone.

5 things you’ll learn from this episode:

1. Why some of the highest-performing people can also be the most vulnerable to burnout
2. The success belief Nabeela believes can keep people working harder long after hard work stops helping
3. Why having a strong sense of purpose can sometimes create an unexpected burnout risk
4. What Nabeela learned from sports scientists about performing at a high level without constantly operating at maximum intensity
5. The identity shift that can help ambitious people build a healthier relationship with work without giving up ambition

🙏 Thank you to our series partner, Leapsome

The companies pulling furthest ahead are already rewriting how HR works. Explore 5,000+ data points from 100 leading tech companies and learn what their 2027 playbook looks like → https://hubs.li/Q04wvZ7g0

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The fastest way to learn AI may be to stop learning about it and start building with it.

In the most recent HR Leaders Podcast episode, I had an inspiring conversation with Simon Brown Global Learning & Development Leader, Partner, Talent at EY.

He explains why organisations need to move beyond simply teaching people what AI is and create learning experiences that help employees build confidence by using AI in the context of their actual work.

By combining protected learning time, hands-on agent building, responsible AI principles and a stronger focus on human judgement, EY is exploring what it takes to build AI capability at scale while keeping learning relevant as the technology continues to evolve.

5 things you’ll learn from this episode:

1. How EY is moving employees from learning about AI to actually building with it
2. The capability Simon believes people need before they can delegate meaningful work to AI agents
3. Why making AI learning part of everyday work can change how quickly new skills are adopted
4. The reason stronger AI tools may actually make human expertise and judgement more valuable
5. How learning leaders may need to redesign their approach when AI capabilities change faster than traditional training cycles

🙏 Thank you to our series partner, Leapsome

The companies pulling furthest ahead are already rewriting how HR works.

Explore 5,000+ data points from 100 leading tech companies and learn what their 2027 playbook looks like → https://hubs.li/Q04wvZ7g0

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What if the future of executive leadership is less about specialisation and more about range?

For years, senior leaders have been encouraged to go deeper into a single function.

But in this episode of the HR Leaders Podcast, I sit down with Joshua Horenstein, Senior Vice President, Administrative Office & Corporate Secretary at Innophos, to explore a different model: the dual executive.

Joshua started his career as a lawyer before moving into a broader cross-functional leadership role spanning legal, HR, facilities, regulatory and other operational responsibilities. He argues that this breadth has made him a stronger executive because it forces leaders to understand the business beyond their original area of expertise.

And as AI makes specialist knowledge easier to access, that ability to operate across functions may become even more valuable.

5 things you’ll learn from this episode:

1. Why Joshua believes the traditional single-function executive model may be starting to break down, and what could replace it
2. The career move that took Joshua from law into HR and broader business leadership, and what it taught him about stepping outside your expertise
3. Why AI could make it easier for executives to lead functions they were never formally trained in, and what still cannot be outsourced to technology
4. The three leadership qualities Joshua believes will become far more important as AI changes how executives work
5. How taking responsibility for multiple functions can actually strengthen succession planning rather than create a leadership risk

🙏 Thank you to our series partner, Leapsome

Meet Leapsome: The AI-powered HR platform that raises your talent density. By unifying core HRIS, ATS, performance reviews, and learning into a single platform, Leapsome turns deep people data into measurable employee growth.

🚀 See Leapsome in action → https://hubs.li/Q04vQ-KT0

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