HR Mixtape

Too many people treat resilience like a switch: either you have it or you don't. But what if the real way to build it is by showing up for hard things again and again, even in your off-hours? In this episode, fitness and wellness coach Nicole Zapoli draws a direct line from the weight room to the workplace, sharing how the discomfort you push through in a tough workout is the same mental muscle you call on when work gets hard.

Nicole is a professional fitness coach, owner of NZ Fitness, and author of Live FIT From the Inside Out, with 25+ years of experience training athletes, busy parents, and working professionals around the world.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why "toughen up" is the least helpful thing you can say to someone struggling with resilience

• How consistent physical training builds the mental framework to stay steady under workplace pressure

• What leaders can borrow from great coaches: balancing honest feedback with genuine care to build trust that actually motivates performance

[00:00:34] Nicole's background: from competitive fitness to resilience coaching

[00:01:39] Why "just toughen up" misses the point of real resilience

[00:02:08] How tough workouts train the mental muscle of resilience

[00:03:37] Acknowledging discomfort vs. letting it stop you

[00:05:50] Nicole's SHIFTS Framework and the power of daily habits

[00:06:56] The stick-shift story: how steady, patient support changes everything

[00:10:30] How leaders can become the calm, guiding voice for their teams

[00:12:19] Balancing direct feedback with genuine care in the workplace

[00:17:01] Why people respond better when they know you actually care

[00:18:55] Closing thoughts: using trust to motivate and build resilience

Nicole Zapoli is a professional fitness and wellness coach, owner of NZ Fitness, and author of Live FIT From the Inside Out: The 6 SHIFTS to Living Your Strongest, Healthiest, and Happiest Life. With over 25 years of experience, a Pro card in natural bodybuilding (Figure & Sports Model), and ranking among the top 5% CrossFit Games Open athletes, Nicole is a leading expert in holistic wellness, having trained thousands globally.

Brought to You by Paylocity

Paylocity is the fastest growing unified platform for HR, Finance, and IT. Paylocity brings your people, processes, and data together in one place so HR leaders can spend less time managing systems and more time doing the work that actually moves their organizations forward. Learn more at paylocity.com

Keywords: resilience, workplace resilience, fitness coaching, mental health, HR leadership, daily habits, SHIFTS Framework, leadership development, employee wellbeing, performance culture, growth mindset, Nicole Zapoli, NZ Fitness, HR Mixtape, Paylocity

Your meetings are costing you more than you think. Between time lost to bad notes, missed context between conversations, and documents that take days instead of minutes, the hidden tax of poor meeting intelligence adds up fast. Artem Koren, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at Sembly AI, is building the fix. His team started in 2019, well before AI was a buzzword, with one simple idea: if technology can understand what happens in a meeting, it can do a whole lot after one.

In this episode, Shari and Artem unpack what it really takes to implement AI listening tools responsibly:

Timestamps

00:16 Artem introduces himself and Sembly AI's origin story

00:38 What 'augmented work' really means for everyday teams

02:05 How Sembly AI carries meeting context well beyond the call

03:00 Product deep dive: artifacts, agentic research, and infinite memory

04:52 Why context continuity changes everything for collaboration

05:35 Addressing security and data privacy concerns head-on

08:42 Table-stakes questions every buyer should ask an AI vendor

10:21 Sovereign data storage explained in plain English

13:35 Transparency in action: how Sembly AI makes its presence known

16:03 The ROI case: $2.5M return on a $100K investment

Guest Bio

Artem Koren is the Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer of Sembly AI, a meeting intelligence platform that transforms conversations into actionable insights across Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and WebEx. Artem started Sembly in 2019 with a straightforward premise: technology that understands meetings can do far more useful work after them. Today, Sembly's agentic AI builds a living library of meeting content, generates documents from entire interview pipelines, and has been shown to deliver a 25x ROI for its customers. Artem is a vocal advocate for transparent, consent-driven AI, and brings a product builder's clarity to the complex questions organizations face when adopting AI in the workplace.

Brought to you by Paylocity

Paylocity is the fasted growing unified platform for HR, Finance, and IT. Paylocity brings your people, processes, and data together in one place so HR leaders can spend less time managing systems and more time doing the work that actually moves their organizations forward. Learn more at paylocity.com

Keywords: meeting intelligence, Sembly AI, AI collaboration, HR technology, data privacy, SOC2, sovereign data storage, agentic AI, meeting ROI, AI vendor vetting, augmented work, change management, psychological safety, employee trust

Leaders are burning out quietly, and most organizations are still pretending it isn't happening. Mel Doman, organizational psychologist, author, and founder of the Workplace Mental Health Method, has spent years equipping leaders at Google, Microsoft, and Salesforce with the skills to have real conversations about mental health at work. In this episode, she breaks down why we've systematically dehumanized leaders, what that costs us, and what we can do about it right now.

What you'll take away:

Timestamps

00:02 Intro: What is the HR Mixtape?

00:16 Mel's background: from clinical therapy to organizational psychology

01:06 The moment Mel decided to leave clinical work and why

03:38 Why shared language is the foundation of mental health conversations

04:48 Introducing Cornered Office and why she wrote it

08:20 Leaders are human too: the forgotten truth in organizations

09:30 The Nike/Air monologue and what it reveals about how we treat leaders

12:00 The fence, not a door: how leaders can navigate vulnerability and authority

13:03 Gender-based emotion shaming and why everyone is affected

18:54 What U.S. organizations can learn from global duty of care practices

Guest Bio

Mel Doman is an organizational psychologist, author, and founder of The Workplace Mental Health Method. A former licensed therapist, Mel made the shift from clinical practice in 2013 to tackle mental health at a systems level. She has since worked with global organizations including Google, Microsoft, and Salesforce, equipping leaders and teams with the conversational literacy they need to talk about mental health, communication, and team dynamics at work. She is the author of two books, including her latest, Cornered Office: Why We Need to Talk About Leadership Mental Health. Mel has lived and worked across the U.S., U.K., and internationally, giving her a uniquely global perspective on workplace culture.

Brought to you by Paylocity

Paylocity is the fasted growing unified platform for HR, Finance, and IT. Paylocity brings your people, processes, and data together in one place

Your people strategy shouldn't be a support function. It should be a competitive advantage. In this episode, Dr. Shari Simpson sits down with James Terry, Head of US Revenue at IndeedFlex, to talk about what it really means to build an agile, flexible workforce in today's labor market. James brings a frontline revenue perspective on how companies can stop treating staffing as a headache and start treating it as a growth lever.

Here's what you'll take away:

Timestamps

00:02 Intro — What HR Mixtape is all about

00:15 James Terry introduction and his role at IndeedFlex

01:07 Why staffing is a business survival issue, not just an HR problem

03:02 Hiring for the business vs. hiring for the role

04:05 How AI is reshaping recruiting when applications flood the funnel

08:11 Candidate perspectives on AI screening (and why 60-70% prefer it)

12:37 Removing interview bias and focusing on real skills

13:46 What an agile workforce actually looks like and who gets unlocked

17:53 The pilot program strategy that wins over skeptical operations teams

22:05 James's top takeaways: fall forward and dare to lead

Guest Bio: James Terry is the Head of US Revenue at IndeedFlex, the contingent labor arm of Indeed. He specializes in helping businesses build more agile, flexible workforces, particularly in high-velocity industries like logistics, hospitality, and customer service. James brings a data-driven perspective to workforce strategy, championing the idea that HR professionals who speak the language of operations, and back it up with numbers, become some of the most valuable people in any organization.

Brought to you by Paylocity

Paylocity is the fasted growing unified platform for HR, Finance,

Keywords: agile workforce, flexible staffing, contingent labor, AI recruiting, talent acquisition, workforce flexibility, HR strategy, IndeedFlex, pilot programs, shift patterns, Gen Z workforce, implicit bias, AI screening, turnover rate, data-driven HR, profit center HR

Most performance problems aren't about effort. They're about unclear expectations. When employees don't know exactly what they're responsible for, how much authority they actually have, or what happens when they hit it out of the park (or don't), the whole system breaks down.

In this episode, you'll learn:

Timestamps

00:02 Intro: What HR Mixtape is all about

00:16 Caroline's background and what she helps leaders solve

01:04 How 'people chaos' shows up in organizations: trust, communication, and the data trail it leaves behind

02:27 The Three-Legged Stool explained: responsibility, authority, and consequences

03:24 Which leg is missing most often, and why consequences get neglected

07:00 Why consequence clarity, both positive and negative, is the foundation of real accountability

11:20 Authority blockers in action: Shari's story about draft work, iteration, and the peek behind the curtain

12:42 The two authority-blocker archetypes: the micromanager and the authority cowboy

17:11 Why leadership development stays in the CHRO top five every year, and what's at stake if we don't fix it

20:56 One quick win this week: a self-reflection exercise for all three legs of the stool

Guest: Caroline Quiett is the Principal of Quiett Consulting, LLC, where she helps leaders solve performance issues by building clear accountability structures, defined roles, and practical leadership systems. Drawing on deep curiosity about people and a genuine passion for untangling organizational complexity, Caroline developed the Three-Legged Stool framework to help leaders think more clearly about responsibility, authority, and consequences. She works with organizations of all sizes to restore trust, improve communication, and create environments where both people and performance can thrive.

Brought to you by Paylocity.

Paylocity is the fasted growing unified platform for HR, Finance, and IT. Paylocity brings your people, processes, and data together in one place so HR leaders can spend less time managing systems and more time doing the work that actually moves their organizations forward. Learn more at paylocity.com

Keywords: accountability, performance management, leadership development, three-legged stool, responsibility, authority, consequences, people management, HR strategy, organizational culture, trust, communication, manager training, employee recognition

Most leaders are quietly using AI tools to get more done, but the real question isn't whether AI can automate tasks. It's whether your team can do the work AI can't: building relationships, pushing the frontier, and creating ideas that didn't exist before. Steven Puri, founder of The Sukha Company and a veteran of motion picture studios, three startups, and $20M in venture funding, brings a refreshingly grounded take on what humans need to protect in the age of LLMs. In this conversation, Dr. Shari Simpson and Steven Puri cover:

• Why flow states are the human edge AI can't replicate, and how to build them into your team's schedule

• How hiring for culture alignment (not just skills) is the real foundation for unlocking deep work

• The difference between productive AI use and the 'foductivity' trap where tools create the illusion of output

Timestamps

00:00:15 Steven's background: motion picture studios, $20M venture, three startups

00:02:00 What LLMs actually are and why they're the forcing function for workplace productivity

00:04:33 The jobs AI will replace first and why repetitive task workers should pay attention

00:06:00 The two futures of work: tech trillionaires vs. skilled laborers, and what's missing

00:07:56 Defining flow state: the psychology behind deep work and why it takes 20-23 minutes to enter

00:09:30 The river metaphor: how Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi defined flow and why it stuck

00:11:18 The interruption cost: why a single distraction sets you back 20+ minutes

00:13:16 Flow state conditions: why 'exploring Claude' doesn't count and what does

00:17:27 When a flow state app doesn't help: the meeting-heavy leader problem

00:21:00 The hiring argument: why culture alignment is the prerequisite for deep work on your team

Guest: Steven Puri is the founder of The Sukha Company, a platform designed to help knowledge workers achieve flow states and do their best work. Steven has been a senior executive at multiple motion picture studios, raised over $20 million in venture capital, and built three startups, including one successful exit. He speaks and writes frequently on flow states, deep work, and what it means to do human-only work in an AI-saturated world. He's based in Austin, Texas. Reach him at [email protected] or explore the platform at thesukha.co.

Powered By

HR Mixtape is powered by Paylocity, the unified platform for HR, Finance, and IT. Paylocity brings your people, processes, and data together in one place so HR leaders can spend less time managing systems and more time doing the work that actually moves their organizations forward. Learn more at paylocity.com

Keywords: flow states, deep work, AI in the workplace, LLMs, productivity, burnout prevention, knowledge work, hiring, culture fit, HR technology, employee wellbeing, focus, Steven Puri, The Sukha Company

In this episode, Dr. Shari Simpson speaks with Madeline Kipperman, Human Resource Leader at Gorilla Glue, about the importance of leading with humanity in the workplace. They discuss how compassion and transparency can enhance leadership effectiveness, especially in high-pressure environments.

Listeners will learn practical strategies for fostering trust and psychological safety among team members.

• Understand the role of metrics in fostering conversations rather than just evaluating performance.

• Recognize the importance of having difficult conversations with clarity and compassion.

• Learn how to model humane leadership behaviors on the production floor.

• Discover actionable steps to build trust when it is low among team members.

• Identify the key elements that the next generation of employees seek in leadership.

Timestamps:

00:00 -- Introduction to the episode and guest

00:52 -- The importance of leading with humanity

01:54 -- Metrics: helpful or harmful in leadership?

03:14 -- Example of leading with humanity vs. without

08:08 -- Coaching managers for difficult conversations

10:01 -- Leadership in high-pressure environments

12:09 -- Building trust and psychological safety

15:09 -- Transparency in communication with employees

18:02 -- What the next generation wants from leaders

19:17 -- Actionable steps for humane leadership

Guest(s): Madeline Kipperman is a Human Resource Leader at Gorilla Glue. She specializes in HR strategy, workforce development, and leadership, bringing a frontline perspective to her role. Madeline has a strong commitment to fostering human potential in the workplace.

Keywords: human leadership, workplace compassion, HR strategies, building trust, difficult conversations, employee engagement, metrics in HR, psychological safety, next generation workforce, leadership transparency

In this episode, Dr. Shari Simpson speaks with Jillian Ambrose, Counsel at Crowell, about the urgent legal and compliance risks associated with using AI in hiring processes. As organizations increasingly adopt AI tools for recruitment, understanding the evolving landscape of state laws and potential biases is crucial.

Listeners will gain insights into how to effectively engage with AI vendors, ensure compliance, and mitigate risks while leveraging AI for efficiency in hiring.

• Understand the evolving patchwork of state laws affecting AI in hiring.

• Learn key questions to ask AI vendors about their tools.

• Discover the importance of conducting bias audits before using AI tools.

• Recognize the need for human oversight in AI-driven hiring processes.

• Identify best practices for communicating AI use to candidates.

00:00 -- Introduction to the episode

00:35 -- Importance of AI in hiring today

01:44 -- Legal and compliance risks of AI tools

02:32 -- Engaging with AI vendors effectively

03:40 -- Liability concerns for employers using AI

06:17 -- Addressing bias and disparate impact in AI

08:02 -- Governance and oversight of AI tools

09:23 -- The complexity of state laws on AI

10:19 -- Starting points for AI policy development

12:10 -- Balancing efficiency and legal compliance

13:05 -- Managing human oversight in AI processes

14:30 -- Baby steps for implementing AI in hiring

17:31 -- Communicating AI use to candidates

19:57 -- Future of regulation in AI hiring

Guest(s): Jillian Ambrose, Counsel at Crowell. She advises employers on employment law, focusing on compliance and emerging workplace risks. Jillian has extensive experience navigating the complexities of AI in hiring and its legal implications.

Keywords: AI in hiring, legal risks of AI, compliance with AI tools, bias in AI recruitment, engaging AI vendors, human oversight in hiring, state laws on AI, AI policy development, communicating AI to candidates, future of AI regulation

In this episode of the HR Mixtape, Dr. Shari Simpson speaks with Meghan Focht, Human Capital Director at Concurrency, about the intentional design of workplace culture. They discuss how to identify cultural strengths and weaknesses through values and behaviors, and how to implement systems that support a positive environment.

Listeners will learn practical strategies for assessing their organization's culture and making meaningful changes.

• Understand the importance of aligning values with behaviors in the workplace.

• Identify key systems to evaluate when assessing organizational culture.

• Learn how to create a culture of recognition that reinforces desired behaviors.

• Discover ways to engage leaders in cultural conversations and accountability.

• Explore practical steps to implement cultural changes in your organization.

00:00 -- Introduction to the episode

00:54 -- Meghan's experience with culture change

02:43 -- Key systems to assess culture

04:42 -- Linking values to behaviors and competencies

05:15 -- Hiring for cultural fit

06:19 -- Celebrating values through recognition programs

08:11 -- The role of technology in culture

10:39 -- Engaging leaders in cultural alignment

12:50 -- Identifying cultural misalignments

16:00 -- Signs of a healthy culture

17:55 -- Building values from scratch

19:39 -- Actionable steps for cultural improvement

Guest(s): Meghan Focht is the Human Capital Director at Concurrency, where she focuses on developing strong people systems that foster growth and a positive culture. She has extensive experience in identifying and addressing cultural challenges within organizations. Meghan is passionate about creating environments that empower employees and enhance collaboration.

Keywords: workplace culture, assessing culture, values and behaviors, recognition programs, leadership accountability, cultural change, hiring for fit, technology in HR, employee engagement, culture systems

In this episode of the HR Mixtape, Dr. Shari Simpson speaks with Steve Jaffe, author at Jaffe Marketing and Publishing, about the emotional and practical impacts of layoffs. They discuss how to approach layoffs with empathy and the importance of understanding the stages of grief that accompany job loss.

Listeners will learn how to support employees during layoffs and how to rebuild their own identities after being laid off. This conversation provides valuable insights for HR professionals and anyone facing job loss.

• Understand the emotional stages of grief after a layoff.

• Learn how to separate your identity from your job.

• Discover the importance of a compassionate layoff process.

• Identify resources to support employees during layoffs.

• Recognize the long-term impacts of layoffs on mental health.

00:00 -- Introduction to the episode

00:41 -- Steve Jaffe's layoff experiences

01:13 -- The emotional impact of layoffs

02:48 -- Stages of grief related to job loss

04:37 -- The human aspect of layoffs

06:05 -- Distinction between layoffs and terminations

07:36 -- Rebuilding identity after a layoff

09:11 -- Gender differences in handling layoffs

10:38 -- Best practices for HR during layoffs

12:12 -- The importance of community support

14:12 -- Resources for those laid off

15:47 -- Financial considerations after a layoff

19:56 -- Final thoughts and advice

Guest(s): Steve Jaffe, author at Jaffe Marketing and Publishing. He focuses on the emotional and practical impacts of layoffs and how individuals can rebuild their lives after job loss. Steve has extensive experience navigating multiple layoffs and aims to help others process their experiences more effectively.

Keywords: layoffs, emotional impact of layoffs, stages of grief, HR best practices, compassionate layoffs, rebuilding identity, support resources, mental health after layoffs, gender differences in layoffs, community support after job loss