Doing the same thing for years on end doesn’t offer much opportunity for growth—and it quickly gets boring. Jeri Rosenberg, corporate HR director at CASSIA, knows how important balance is when making career decisions. On one hand, we all have skills and abilities that set us apart—and that’s great! But on the other hand, it’s important to stretch ourselves, get out of our comfort zone, and use our skills to do new things.

In this episode of the HR Mavericks podcast, we talk about:

• Why people resist branching out in their careers

• How to transition our existing skills to new roles

• Utilizing transferable skills to help your company thrive

• Why organizations benefit from hiring people with diverse skill sets

• Ways to refresh your skills and gain new ones

Connect with Jeri on LinkedIn

Pay transparency is one of the biggest topics in HR right now—and one of the most controversial. What are the advantages and disadvantages of posting salaries in job descriptions? Do the pros outweigh the cons?

In this episode of the HR Mavericks podcast, Brandon Fluckiger, people and capability advisor at Thiess and freelance HR consultant, tackles those questions and more. He’s a strong believer in transparency, but he knows that in order for transparency to work, businesses need to have the right processes in place first.

In this episode, we talk about:

• The definition of pay transparency

• How companies can benefit from making salary information public

• Potential downfalls of salary transparency

• Why it’s essential to have a solid compensation strategy

• How small businesses can be transparent—without losing their competitive edge

• Resources HR can use to determine how much to pay employees

Connect with Brandon on LinkedIn

Read his article on pay transparency

Visit Brandon’s website to learn more about his consulting services

Nobody can see the future. But Kelly Loudermilk, talent innovator at BuildHR, has a knack for predicting HR trends. In episode 27 of the HR Mavericks podcast, she predicted that 2022 would see an anti-work movement. Now, she’s back to discuss what she thinks will happen in the people industry during 2023.

In this episode, we talked about:

• How people ops has transformed the workplace

• What the term “people success” means—and why it’s important

• How the people industry had been impacted by the 2022 layoffs

• Why Kelly believes HR will have to adopt a “less is more” mentality

• How to become a true partner with your employer (even when times are tough)

It’s a vicious cycle: employees feel burnt out, so their engagement drops. With less engagement, the burnout just continues to get worse. HR often tries to solve the problem with rewards, recognition, events, and culture initiatives. While all of these are great, they don’t solve the issues at the heart of burnout.

In this episode, Deb Calvert, president of People First Productivity Solutions, offers some simple but powerful methods to tackle burnout at its roots.

During our discussion, we talked about:

• The rising levels of employee discontent and disengagement in 2022

• Who’s responsible for minimizing workplace stress

• What factor influences employee engagement the most

• Ways that HR and management can work together productively

• Five things you can do to help employees feel less burnt out

People First Productivity Solutions

People First Leadership Academy

How can we create an experience at work that reflects what our employees really want? Gregory Offner Jr, founder of Global Performance Institute and keynote speaker on the topics of engagement and performance, believes he has the answer: a tip jar culture.

In this episode of the HR Mavericks podcast, Gregory uses his experiences as a performer at a dueling piano bar to explain the give-and-take of employee experience. Ultimately, it’s all about creating a workplace culture where everybody gets what they want, and gives something in return.

In the episode, we talk about:

• What piano bars and people management have in common

Want to get in touch with Gregory? Email him at [email protected], visit his website, or connect with him on LinkedIn.

When it comes to employee engagement, appreciation is key—but it has to be done right. In this episode of the HR Mavericks podcast, we sat down with HR consultant Violet Mendez to talk about how appreciation can keep employees motivated, engaged, and eager to do their best work. Violet knows from experience the difference it can make when an HR leader truly cares about each individual they work with, and she shares how she’s used those insights in her own career.

During our discussion, we talked about:

• Why it’s important to value employees’ ideas

It takes two things to make a good employee: the right skills and the right behavior. Fred Rafilson, chief I/O psychologist at Talview, doesn’t underestimate the importance of skills—but he also knows that neglecting to measure candidates’ behavioral attributes could be a big hiring mistake. The best candidates have the knowledge and abilities to perform a job, and the behavioral tendencies (motivation, attitude, and personality) to become standout employees. In this episode, Fred draws on his knowledge of I/O psychology to explain how behavioral assessments work and why they’re beneficial.

We discussed:

• Why it’s important to screen candidates for both skills and behavioral traits

What’s your focus: profits or people? Of course, there’s no reason you can’t have both: a profitable business and happy, engaged employees. In fact, Ashleigh Wilson believes that the best way to have a successful company is to prioritize your people. In this episode of the HR Mavericks podcast we talk with Ashleigh, CEO and founder at Auditmate, about how her mission-driven, human-centered approach has helped her grow her business.

We talked about:

• What it means to bring your authentic self to work

Learn more about Ashleigh’s company Auditmate by visiting their website or checking out their LinkedIn page.

In business, it’s easy to slip into an “us-versus-them” mindset. When an issue arises, there’s the company on one side, the employee on the other, and human resources—or a legal team—stuck in the middle of the fight. But moving away from this adversarial mindset benefits everyone in both the short- and long-term.

On this episode of the HR Mavericks podcast, Bob Coursey shares his take on the intersection between compliance and compassion. As an attorney and owner at Modern Age Employment Law LLC, Bob has spent 20-plus years litigating employment law cases. In that time, he’s come to realize that viewing employees as human beings is the key to handling conflict.

We talked about:

• The real purpose of employment law (and lawyers)

Get in touch with Bob by emailing him at [email protected] or visiting his website.

“Let’s talk about our feelings.” Those are words that you don’t often hear at work. But understanding—and mastering—our emotions can make a huge impact on physical and psychological safety in the workplace. On this episode of the HR Mavericks podcast, Steven Farber explains what EQ is, why it matters, and how to improve workplace EQ. As vice president of training and certifications at Take Flight Learning, Steven knows a thing or two about how humans work together, and he says that growing our emotional intelligence is one of the first steps toward success at work.

During our discussion, we talked about:

• The importance of controlling our emotions