Human Capital

In this episode of the Human Capital Podcast, Jeff discusses the importance of fostering healthy conflict and building a positive workplace culture. This week's guest is Ginger Hardage, a former C-Suite Executive at Southwest Airlines who is known for her expertise in culture-building. Jeff and Ginger emphasize the importance of putting employees first, transparency, and storytelling to connect employees with the company's values and purpose.

Ginger highlights the importance of involving employees in decision-making and measuring leaders' contributions to the culture during performance evaluations. They stress the pivotal role of culture in organizational success and the role of leaders in modeling healthy conflict behavior while creating a safe work environment for open discussions and diverse perspectives.

Ginger will be speaking at a 4-day organizational culture masterclass called the Fellowship, being held from November 6-9 at the Four Seasons Rancho Encantado in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

In this exciting episode, Jeff interviews Todd Westra, a successful entrepreneur. Todd shares about his journey which began as an eight-year-old with a paper route and ultimately allowed him to scale and successfully exit from several successful companies.

Todd explains that in life, you can turn almost anything you love doing into a business if you can solve a problem. He also highlights the importance of setting clear values and a company culture that aligns with your goals. Todd and Jeff discuss the power of delegation and how founders must learn to trust their team members to handle tasks by giving them the freedom to find their own solutions. They also talk about knowing your business's purpose and long-term vision. Todd advises entrepreneurs to understand what problems their business solves and to be specific about their goals and targets and the importance of having an exit strategy.

Revisit Jeff's interview with Sean Fahey. He is the Founder and CEO of VidCruiter, a company specializing in video interviewing and recruiting technology. Sean and Jeff discuss specifically how employers can find passionate people who are great at their jobs. Sean shares the challenges of having too many or not enough candidates in the pool, and the need to apply consistent structure, processes, and workflows to the recruiting methodology. Sean shares how he pulled off hiring 200 people in 30 days and how this became a catalyst for starting his company. They talk about weeding out bias in recruiting and what methods can improve diversity, equity, and inclusion. Sean shares his thoughts on the lack of readiness of artificial intelligence to be embedded into recruiting technologies and the associated pitfalls to be aware of.

Jeff interviews Bradley Rencher, CEO of BambooHR where they have an inspiring conversation about leading from where you are, one of BambooHR’s core values. Brad shares how this comes from making an impact, and how it often means you're promoted before you get the title.

Brad and Jeff discuss how most careers are not linear, why senior leaders must proactively mentor less experienced leaders, and how cultures that pitch and catch feedback well outperform their peers. Brad helps listeners understand the need to develop domain expertise at all levels of the organization and why eliminating silos at the top is paramount.

Link to Brad’s article on Entrepreneur Magazine:

This week Jeff revisits his interview with Katie Burke, Chief People Officer at HubSpot for a discussion about the HubSpot Culture Code. Katie shares how to make inclusivity part of your organization’s DNA through transparency, measurement, integrity, and authenticity. Jeff and Katie discuss ways to leverage both the head and heart to make the case for diversity improvement, and why these elements must be a business priority. Katie talks about the importance of treating employees well even when things are not going well at your organization. She shares the importance of vulnerability and how therapy can help reduce defensiveness and reactivity while leading to improved self-awareness.

In this podcast episode, we explore the lasting impact of the pandemic on work culture and customer relationships. Jeff's guest Jim Harter, is the Chief Scientist of Workplace Management and Wellbeing at the Gallup Corporation. Jim shares insights from his upcoming book "Culture Shock," offering solutions for a better world of work and life. Jeff and Jim discuss the common challenges organizations are facing coming out of the pandemic, including deteriorating customer relationships and declining employee engagement. Jim reveals the key habits of great managers and the five innate traits that predict managerial success. They dive into the importance of focusing on employee strengths rather than weaknesses, and how to build a diverse, strengths-based culture. Listen to discover how organizations can thrive in the post-pandemic era and create an engaged and productive workforce.

Explore the connection between sports and business with Jeff's guest, Randy Bennett. Randy is the renowned Saint Mary’s Men’s Basketball coach and on this episode he shares his insights and experiences in coaching his team to excellence. Randy shares about the transormation from when he inherited a 2-27 team 20-years ago to one of the top non-Power 5 programs in the US, with a 70.9% win-loss ratio. Together, Jeff and Randy discuss leadership, teamwork, strategy, and culture in both sports and business.

Randy shares valuable coaching tips about the importance of adaptability, a positive attitude, and teamwork in achieving success. They discuss the difference between improving personal best personal average, and how to manage systemic turnover in sports and business.

Difficult conversations are commonplace at work, but many people avoid them. Avoiding conflict sometimes feels easier, so we might avoid that tough conversation even though not having it might come at a high cost. In this episode, Jeff speaks to an expert who helps us understand the best strategies for managing difficult conversations and conflicts. Francesca LeBaron is a faculty member at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business and she "teaches the class" (literally) on healthy conflict at work. Jeff and Francesca explore why it's important to know the goal of a conversation before engaging, how visioning helps us be proactive with difficult conversations, and the impact role-playing has on our ability to resolve conflict in a healthy way. Francesca also shares practical tips for employees looking to manage conflict when trying to manage up. She also talks about the tangible financial benefits of conflict resolution, including increased engagement, reduced turnover, better productivity, and improved brand equity.

In this episode, Jeff and his guest are diving into the exciting world of HR Tech! To shed some light on this complicated topic, Jeff interviewed Phil Strazzulla, Founder of , a website dedicated to helping HR teams find and buy the right software. Phil is passionate about HR Tech, remote work, investing, and people operations. Jeff and Phil explore the biggest and most important trends in HR Tech, why they matter, and the hottest categories currently in HR Tech. They also discuss the ROI of different types of HR software and which categories provide the greatest opportunity for business transformation.

Additionally, they talk about the cost of not implementing the right HR Tech, how AI is impacting the industry now, and how it will transform the future. Jeff and Phil dive into how we can use AI to eliminate bias and what practices leaders need to deploy before considering installing new tech in the workplace. Finally, they discuss why HR tech will never replace the critical face-to-face conversations we must have in the workplace.

In this episode of the Human Capital podcast, host Jeff Hunt interviews Juliet Schor, Professor of Sociology at Boston University and board member of 4 Day Week Global, a research non-profit studying the concept of a four-day workweek. Juliet shares her findings on the benefits of a shorter workweek, including better work-life balance, higher employee retention, increased productivity, and decreased burnout rates. She also discusses how companies successfully made the shift to a four-day workweek and whether this change will become a competitive advantage for recruiting and retention. Juliet addresses concerns about measuring productivity and overcoming resistance from leaders who may be skeptical of this paradigm shift. Juliet's research sheds light on why this idea is gaining momentum and why it may become a significant ESG measure for companies in the future.