Pep Talks: The People Experience Podcast: Recent Episodes
Chava Vietze
"People Experience" is what HR should have been all along. Employees are people, not resources. It's about time we start recognizing this. We believe that human-first leadership is pivotal to the future of work. We want to create a community of knowledge sharing and uplift voices of those trying to make a difference in the employee, or rather, "people experience". In our episodes, we’re going to talk with people leaders across various industries about their experiences, their wins, their pivots, challenges, failures… and what they are envisioning about both our present workplace and the future of work.
Our guest, Erin McCann, has been a part of multiple fast growing startups where she's helped People Ops start from scratch and shaped processes. Over the course of our episode, you'll learn about her windy-road journey into People Ops and everything that growing organizations should be considering when it comes to setting up compensation structures and strategies at their orgs.
Not a decision maker? Currently employed folks and candidates searching for roles alike have an opportunity to learn about all the different facets of compensation packages and even questions that you might consider asking potential or current employers. Who knows, maybe you'll walk away with a fresh perspective on what motivates you to show up every day to work!
In this episode, Billy Moyer, Human Capital Thought Leader, joins us to talk about the when, why, and how on developing the role of Chief People Officer at organizations. We'll talk about his work partnering with CEOs and C-level executives on developing organizational culture and when is the sweet spot to bring in a People Leader.
Along with diving deeper into Billy's work, you'll learn more how to identify:
- Who should be responsible for focusing on People from Day 1 of a business
- Why you need someone focused on understanding People from the inception of your business
- When to hire a People Leader (hint, it's probably sooner than you think)
- What options companies have for inserting someone into a People Strategy role (there are a variety of options!)
"Take your judgment out of your policies." says our guest, Lorraine Vargas Townsend, People and Culture Executive and Chief People Officer at ESO.
In this week's episode, our conversation starts with discussing how organizations should be supporting working-parents and over our time together progresses into discussing the changing employee-value proposition, what it means to truly listen to your people, how "HR" has progressed over time, how employees can become empowered, AND more.
This is a must-listen episode with takeaways that are extremely thought provoking, whether you are an IC facing challenges in your own worklife, a manager trying to navigate transforming people experience, or perhaps an entrepreneur thinking about what we need next in "people tech".
More about our guest: Lorraine Vargas Townsend has been featured in Fast Company, The Wall Street Journal, and has been a key note speaker at Women in Tech Festival, Silicon Valley Organization, Siemens Digital Summit, Sharp Heels Conference for Women in Business, and more. Because of her progressive HR practices, she has been recognized as a Female Health IT Leader to Know, and in 2019 was named one of the Leading Latinas by Hispanic Executive Magazine.
Pivot. Experiment. Try something new. Get comfortable with the uncomfortable.
This is something that our guest, Tushar Pandit, knows quite well.
Tushar is a People Experience and HR Leader with over 20 years of experience across a variety of industries. He is the former CPO of Affinitiv and helped lead the organization as they navigated the rapidly changing work environment and the COVID pandemic.
The team worked tirelessly to put employee health and safety first and that was the driving force in all decisions that they made.
In our conversation, you'll learn how Affiinitiv positioned their remote-first work policy and how they continued to adapt that policy into their new hybrid work policy that they call "Work from Here". By the end of this episode, you should expect to walk away with ideas to truly prioritize your people and adapt to remote and hybrid work environments.
"The old normal is dead. It's not coming back. Stop trying to get it back." - Trav Walkowski
In this week's episode, People Ops leader Trav joins us for a reality check.
Candidates and employees have taken back their power. They no longer will stand to be overworked or under appreciated and won't work under poor conditions. They want flexibility and healthy work environments and they're willing to go out an find it.
In our episode, you'll hear Trav's take on what's going on in the talent world, how he has worked with his recruiters to completely revamp their candidate recruiting experience, and his outlook on the relationship between candidates/employees and companies.
Earlier this year, we had the chance to meet with Rebecca Waits, Chief People Officer, and Chief Coach, of SierraConstellation Partners. Rebecca's role supports business growth and transformation. And how does she do that? By being an ally and supporting her people first and foremost.
You'll learn from Rebecca how to foster a coaching culture at your organization. Not sure what a coaching culture is? You'll learn about that, too.
On this week's episode, Kristen Bakalar, joins us to advocate that organizations focus on creating inviting cultures, which are proactive and deliberate. We'll learn how to truly create an inclusive culture you first start with an invitation.
About our guest: Kristen Bakalar is a workplace innovator and a diversity advocater. She runs her own consulting practice, where she specializes in what she calls "the fun part of HR", which includes: culture, DEIB, leadership development, talent management, career movement, and more.
On this episode, we invite Chief People Officer, BJ Johnston to discuss his experiences over his career, how that has shaped his leadership style, and what is important to consider when designing the ideal candidate experience. BJ Johnston has had an incredible journey. He worked as the Senior Leader of Air Operations & Professional Military Education in the United States Air Force which led him to a variety of additional leadership experiences over his career including roles at the Washington Post and Bloomberg. He is now the Chief People Officer at Objective Area Solutions, an aviation consultancy with a focus on aviation operations and organizational performance.
Chief People Officer Loren Rosario-Maldonado joins us to discuss what it takes to lead multi-national and multi-cultural organizations through the constantly changing world and work environment, and, thought-provoking suggestions to leaders on key areas of self-development to consider.
Maureen Joseph was the first hire at GoodVets as their Chief People Officer. If you ask Maureen, she'll tell you she's a coach and advisor first and foremost. We know that mental health and burnout are top of our concerns across many industries, especially in the past few years amidst a global health crisis and other humanitarian crises... But mental health and burnout have been long-standing issues in the veterinary industry. Maureen is working to tackle improving mental health and burnout from many different angles --- including a strategy to remove the stigma that exists around talking about mental health in the workplace and combating compassion fatigue in the veterinary industry.
On this trailer episode, you will meet your host, Chava Vietze, ChangeEngine's Head of Content and Community and two of the founders of ChangeEngine, Andrew Higashi and Gaurav Saini. Here at ChangeEngine, we're building the next big workplace tech solution and paving the way for the future of work! As a part of that, we want to create a community of knowledge sharing and uplift voices of those trying to make a difference. So listen in for a sneak peak to our upcoming conversations with People leaders!