HR Unplugged

It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in, leaders are absolutely crucial to the future of your business.  

$366 million is spent globally on leadership development per year and around half of that is in the US alone. There’s also proof that this figure will grow, so what should businesses and HR teams be thinking about when it comes to fostering the next generation of leaders? 

In this HR Unplugged episode, BambooHR’s Human Resources Business Partner, Vanessa Brulotte, joins Head of HR, Anita Grantham, to discuss how to best equip the next generation of leaders. 

Plus, they explore how leadership is changing, the power of mentorship and why leadership strategy should be directly linked to company strategy. 

Key Moments: 

• The importance of building tomorrow’s leaders 
• Why leadership development spend will continue to rise 
• How leaders can align with business strategies 
• What leaders should consider for their leadership development programs 
• Applying ‘radical candor’ to your system 
• The skills required of tomorrow’s leaders 
• Navigating the next generation of leaders through rapid change 
• Managing multi-generational teams 
• Should leadership development programs be led by founders of HR staff? 

Key Links: 

• Subscribe to the HR Unplugged Series: https://www.bamboohr.com/resources/podcasts/hr-unplugged/ 
• Join the HR Heros Slack Community: 
• https://join.slack.com/t/hrheroesworkspace/shared_invite/zt-21ad3f1r8-dkWC2EdmyhxUAHw9cGLdQw 

The use of AI tools is growing in just about every industry right now, and HR is no exception. In fact, many HR leaders are using it as part of their day-to-day processes and are seeing great results.  

However, AI is not a replacement for HR professionals, and it’s important to be aware of the shortcomings as well as the benefits. To get a well-rounded picture of the state of AI in HR, we welcomed the Head of AI at BambooHR, Alan Whitaker, to the podcast. 

Alan explores the pros and cons of using AI, as well as some important elements to be aware of, such as security, bias, and compliance issues. He also explains a little about how we’re using AI at BambooHR and our plans for the future. 

Key Moments: 

• Why we use AI at BambooHR 
• What AI tools are useful for in the workplace 
• The shortfalls of AI  
• The state of AI in HR today 
• Different use cases for AI in HR 
• How AI can benefit HR leaders 
• How to protect data while using AI tools 
• AI problems that we need to overcome in HR  
• BambooHR’s AI plans in the future 

Key Links: 

Connect with Alan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/digiduke/ 

Many companies have a small HR department, maybe even a couple of people, to handle HR for the entire business. It can be tricky to manage as a small team, but we’ve put together some best practices to help.  

In this HR Unplugged episode, we welcomed Lisa Lindsey, Founder, Consultant & Coach of Peale Piper, to share her tips and tricks for small HR teams.  

Key Moments: 

• What a small HR team looks like  
• When to hire another HR professional 
• Why you should think about company goals  
• How to deal with a lack of leadership support 
• Interview questions to ask before taking a new HR role 
• Why you need to speak the language of the business 
• How to walk away from a role 
• Challenges for small HR teams 
• Why HR teams should embrace technology  

Key Links:  

• Connect with Lisa on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/llindsey/ 

Brought on by an uncertain economic environment and augmented by the pandemic, ‘quiet hiring’ has become a phenomenon that is starting to reshape the workplace. But what is it and what does it mean for HR leaders?  

In this episode of HR Unplugged, Head of HR Anita Grantham and HR Business Partner Vanessa Brulotte welcome Senior Manager & HR Business Partner Kelsey Tarp to the show to talk more about this.  

They walk us through the three different kinds of quiet hiring, lay out the pros and cons and cover best practices, while also providing expert responses to some of the biggest questions HR leaders are asking.  

Key points:  

• The three kinds of quiet hiring 
• Who is quiet hiring for? 
• Why it’s not for everyone 
• The pros of quiet hiring 
• The cons of quiet hiring 
• How to handle ‘no shows’  
• Quiet hiring best practices  

Employee turnover and how to reduce it is often one of the biggest challenges we face in HR. However, it’s a fact of life that employees will leave one day, and it’s something that HR leaders need to deal with in the right way. 

Whether employees are leaving by choice or through layoffs, it’s important to make the leaving process as positive an experience as possible. Not only will this help with the transition, but it’ll also help protect existing employees and the leavers themselves, who may even return to the company one day. 

In this episode of HR Unplugged, Head of HR Anita Grantham, and Vanessa Brulotte, HR Business Partner, share insights and advice on how to make leaving a better experience, what to do about low performers, and how to handle layoffs the right way. 

Key Moments: 

• Why you should set turnover targets by department 
• How to get ahead of turnover 
• Analyzing the reasons why people leave  
• Why you shouldn’t try to stop employees who want to leave 
• What you can do to reduce turnover 
• Why you should find a successor 
• How to approach layoffs

When the time comes for you to move on from a company, you set the tone for how you want to leave things. Being a good leaver means walking away on good terms and making the process a positive experience both for you and the company you’re moving on from. 

To discuss this in more detail, we invited Jennifer Pomerantz, Director of People Operations at Zuva, to join BambooHR’s Anita Grantham and Vanessa Brulotte on the podcast.  

We discuss the things to consider before leaving a role, how to be your own advocate, SOPs, and how leaders can deal with people leaving.  

Key Moments: 

• How leaders can handle job-hopping candidates 
• Red flags in a company or new hire to watch out for 
• What to consider before leaving a role 
• Why you need to advocate for yourself and your career 
• The problems with staying in a role that’s not right for you 
• How leaders can talk about employees leaving 
• How to implement SOPs and checklists around leavers 
• Why you should always aim to leave things better than you found them 
• Why you should try to speak positively about your time at an organization 
• Tips for conducting reference checks 
• How HR can support leaders and improve company culture 

Everyone wants to be recognized for doing good work – and yet many leaders don’t make employee recognition a priority.  

As a result, employees can feel undervalued and unrecognized for their hard work, and may even start looking for jobs elsewhere. In this episode of HR Unplugged, we welcomed special guest Trevor Larson, CEO of Nectar, to talk about how employee recognition can go a long way in making people feel valued at work. 

Trevor joins Anita Grantham, Head of HR, and Vanessa Brulotte, HR Business Partner at BambooHR, to explore ways to build recognition into company culture and the benefits of doing so. 

Key Moments: 

• The benefits of giving employee recognition 
• How recognition can improve employee retention 
• How recognition drives engagement 
• Why businesses struggle to give recognition 
• Two ways companies can start to give recognition 
• How to convince management to prioritize employee recognition 

Key Links:  

• Connect with Trevor on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trevordegnlarson/  

Have you ever seen a valued employee surprise you out of nowhere by leaving for a new job? Watching team members come and go is normal for HR leaders, but sometimes those employees would have stayed if only things were a little different.  

In fact, a Gallup survey in 2021 found that 52% of employees say their manager could have done something to prevent them from leaving. However, people aren’t always forthcoming about issues at work and so leaders are often surprised when good employees finally leave.  

One thing you can do is hold stay interviews with employees to see where they’re at and if there’s any indication that they might leave. In this episode of HR Unplugged, Anita Grantham, our Head of HR, joins Vanessa Brulotte, our HR Business Partner, to discuss the benefits of holding constructive stay interviews and the best ways to conduct them. 

Key Moments: 

• What is a stay conversation 
• The benefits of stay conversations for managers 
• How stay interviews benefit employees 
• How to choose who to have stay conversations with 
• Why stay conversations need to come from leaders 
• Questions and topics to cover in stay conversations 
• How Anita responded to Vanessa’s honesty in a stay conversation  

Key Links: 

• 5 Ways Managers Can Stop Employee Turnover by Gallup 

Manual processes can slow us all down, which is why automation and AI are such big topics in the business world right now. But when you’re in the business of people like HR, it’s not always simple to optimize and automate. 

In this episode of HR Unplugged, we sat down with TJ Davis, our Head of People Operations at BambooHR, to hear his perspective on improving manual processes. We hear his approach to continuous improvement, how to decide what to automate, and the best ways to use AI to become more efficient. 

Key Moments: 

• The biggest challenge when optimizing HR processes 
• Examples of processes that could use automation 
• How to decide what to automate 
• How to use continuous improvement principles  
• Convincing leadership to move away from manual processes 
• Tools that can help you automate HR processes 
• What you need to know about AI 

In the world of HR, it may seem like a lot of it is hard to quantify and measure. But by digging into “people analytics,” you can start to analyze and learn more about your workforce.  

In this HR Unplugged session, BambooHR’s Head of HR, Anita Grantham, sits down with Vanessa Brulotte, Human Resources Business Partner, to talk about data – how we can gather it, what data to focus on, and what we can do with that information to become better business partners.  

Key Moments: 

• What is people analytics? 
• What to do if you don’t have engaged employees 
• What HR data can help with 
• Why you should  get clear on which problems you want to solve 
• Why stay interviews are so important 
• How to have unbiased conversations 
• How to pick a HR tool  
• Top takeaways and advice 

Key Links: 

• The Definitive Guide to People Analytics: How to Make Better HR Decisions