The Era: Recent Episodes
BambooHR
Hosted by BambooHR CEO, Brad Rencher, the Era is a podcast about the employee experience era. The podcast features conversations from leaders and workers about the importance of a people-first strategy for all types of organizations. Brad joined BambooHR as CEO in 2019, bringing more than 25 years of tech industry, customer service, and SaaS expertise. Brad leads the company’s mission to set people free to do great work with award-winning HR software, serving over 22,000 organizations in 120 countries.
There is one secret key to achieving excellent customer engagement.
🗝️Employee engagement 🗝️
If you aren’t actively working to take care of your people and keep them engaged, your customers will not engage and you won’t have the revenue necessary to stay afloat.
Ashik Ahmed, CEO, CTO and Co-Founder of Deputy, reminds us that above all else, businesses are people-powered machines.
And while mission, vision, values and OKRs are essential, at the end of the day, they are all tactics and frameworks to serve your people better.
Ashik shares three cardinal mistakes that businesses make when trying to build culture and engagement:
Conformity
Copying other organizations
Making decisions to people-please
Instead, a healthy and thriving workplace is built on:
Humility
Authenticity
Appreciation for those helping you
Want to learn more about building a workplace that will elevate your business to success and provide personal growth and satisfaction to your employees?
Tune in by following the link below 🎧
If 2021 was the year of the Great Resignation, 2022 has been the year of learning why it happened. We witnessed a deliberate shift towards a people-first, communication-driven culture that prioritizes career growth. This goes beyond taking in the anecdotal evidence around us — it’s grounded in analyzing our customer usage data. We took a deep dive into our customer reports to help you make 2023 work even better for you, your employees and your bottom line.
In this special year-end episode, our host and CEO, Brad Rencher, highlights what we learned in 2022 and what HR pros can expect in 2023.
Join us as Brad recaps the year and highlights four trends:
Shifting toward a people-first culture
Prioritizing career growth
Using HR data to strategize
Hiring and retention
Links and resources mentioned in this episode:
Review our 2022 Compensation Trends Report
Use reliable, research-backed tools like our Employee Satisfaction to measure employee sentiment and track it throughout the year.
You can deepen your understanding of the employee experience with a multifaceted exploration of what takes employees from “satisfied” to “engaged.” We launched our own Employee Wellbeing survey tool this year for just this purpose.
Create a professional growth and development plan for your company that suits your needs and employees. Don’t know where to begin? Start by reading our Definitive Guide to Performance Management.
Enable continuous performance management with a tool that was built for ongoing, meaningful, and actionable communication: BambooHR Performance Management.
Tune into our other podcasts: HR Unplugged and What Happens at Work?
Find all our webinars right here, for on-demand sessions that provide new, clarifying insights on the topics that keep your brain working overtime.
Join our HR Heroes Slack community, where you can connect and collaborate in real-time with HR pros trying to make a difference just like you.
Learn how to recognize, champion, and leverage the link between HR data and business strategy to make a serious impact on productivity, quality, and ROI at your organization.
Investigate the potential ROI of retiring paper processes (yes, all of them) and embracing intuitive automation and a central database.
Take our Total Compensation Calculator for a spin to see how this simple tool can be a powerful way to show candidates and new hires the full value of their comp package.
Maybe kickoff the new year with a demo of BambooHR? Our award-winning HR software generates data analytics that helps you interpret the data to make the best decisions for your business and your people.
Having a qualified, resilient, and engaged team isn’t an accident. These traits must be cultivated from the ground up — starting with leadership. An optimal team is also diverse, incorporating people's experiences from various backgrounds.
Sheryl Tullis, self-proclaimed Lead of the Department of Why, joined the most recent episode of The Era Live. She draws on her military experience to inform a lifelong pursuit of uncovering what makes a great team. Her answers may surprise you.
Join us as we discuss:
Why military service helped inform Sheryl’s civilian career
How you can begin the process of bringing diverse experience onto your team
What you need to do to build trust and resilience in your people
HR professionals know that employee experience is a key driver to business success. But our work life has changed drastically over the last few years.
As a result, building trust and connection — both key to the employee experience — takes overcoming major hurdles in this new virtual and hybrid work landscape.
Companies that are now remote-first have unlocked a seemingly unlimited talent pool — but if we, as HR professionals, can’t cultivate an optimal experience for our workforce, can we really hope to sustain this change?
In Episode 14, Join our guest host, Anita Grantham, Head of HR at BambooHR andLJ Brock, Chief People Officer at Coinbase, to discuss how freeing people to do good work remotely still requires enabling them to work within a framework. For LJ, being a remote-first company presents an excellent opportunity to craft an adaptable framework and utilize what he calls, ‘efficient execution.’ In addition, he shares insight into Coinbase’s journey to finding success as one of the early adopters of flexible working strategies through the pandemic.
Join us as we discuss:
Innovating employee experience and people programs to drive business
Getting clear on the problem you are solving instead of people-pleasing
Remote work — especially for companies that are in-person by nature — and finding balance for both introverts and extroverts on your team
We have exciting news! We have launched a new BambooHR Podcast called What Happens at Work! Join host Amy Frampton, Head of Marketing at BambooHR, for real-life stories from real-life people covering the good, the bad, and the crazy of what really happens at work, from the start of the job search to the everyday of working life.
We hope these stories provide opportunities to reflect, reconnect, and better understand people’s work experiences—and more importantly, how we can improve them.
It’s a myth that we must control, manage, and watch people to ensure they finish their work. In truth, this just leads to low morale and quiet quitting. If you want people to be successful, then your leaders need to inspire employees to want to thrive at your company.
Sandy Gould, Chief People Officer at Callisto Media, shares his origin story, why he advocates for empowering employees to find and use their superpowers, and why leaders should co-design their company's culture with their employees. We also learn about Sandy’s experience leading media companies like Yahoo, Disney, ABC, and the online video game, Second Life.
Join us as we discuss:
Empowering employees to find and use their superpowers
How to find the right talent for your organization
The difference between diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging
We're past the time when business models are defined by HR policies and statements. As we’re progressing into the new norm of hybrid and remote work, we must invite employees into the early stage of the creation process to create the ideal employee experience.
Dave Carhart, VP of Advisory Services at Lattice, shares what he’s learned while engaging Lattice employees in developing a new hybrid work model and how to improve the benefits companies offer their workforce.
Join us as we discuss:
Customizing employee benefits
Creating the ideal employee experience
Bridging the gap between HR and other functioning roles
When discussing wellness programs, we hear a lot about mental health, but did you know that about 20% of the population struggles with chronic pain? From lower back pain to migraines, many employees are suffering in silence while showing up for work.
Dr. Jim Feng, Chief Executive Officer at Phyxable, discusses working with business leaders and HR teams to create effective organizational wellness programs that address pain management. Rather than applying random engagement tools, Dr. Feng emphasizes the importance of a tailored approach that addresses the specific root causes of employee pain points. We also learn about Dr. Feng’s injuries growing up and how that influenced his philosophy on employee wellness.
In today’s episode, Teresa Mitrovic, Managing Partner and Founder of Oro Collective, joins us to share the path she took to form the Oro Collective and explain what it takes to help your employees feel safe enough to be genuinely vulnerable and want to have an impact on the organization.
Mitrovic gives a masterclass on the tools and systems that every leader needs to know if they want to shed prior assumptions, identify areas for improvement, and solve the root issue behind the lack of trust.
Helping employees of all generations and backgrounds see the value of humanity in the workplace can overcome many traditional workplace weaknesses. Brad and Teresa explore the difference that comes when leaders focus on building value and trust in their teams instead of managing output, which results in the following benefits:
Employee engagement
Employee development
Improved retention
Better outcomes in business ventures
Jeff addresses the misconceptions surrounding what it takes to create a great company culture and highlights common leadership styles that make negative employee experiences. He also shares his experiences working with brands to implement modern-age performance reviews and develop guiding principles that unite an entire organization.
The first step in creating a great company culture is defining what culture is and how it plays a role in workplace functions. Unfortunately, while many businesses define core values and state that they place heavy value on a positive culture, most fail to attaint the intended effects.
Jeff Hunt helps to clarify what exactly workplace culture is composed of and how organizations can attain it.
Unless you’re a company of one, you have to get your employees to buy into your purpose in order for them to deliver an exceptional service or product to customers—and the stronger your experience for your people, the more likely they’re going to give customers a great experience.
By having a clearly defined purpose or mission, you’re also more likely to attract people who feel invested and motivated to bring that to your customers and the communities in which you do business.
Tie HR Priorities to Business Outcomes to Impact the Daily Employee Experience
Trying to impact the daily employee experience for even 20 people can be daunting. For Donna, that number is in the millions, but her philosophy at Walmart and her advice to HR at any company is the same: be strategic and find those HR priorities that will help drive the business outcomes you’re working towards.
Daniel Yanisse and Checkr, a BambooHR Marketplace partner, are on a mission to improve background checks and give more people a second chance in the workforce. Even though background checks may seem like a small piece of the employee experience, Daniel discusses how they can impact a business’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and make a huge difference in the lives of people with criminal backgrounds.
Traditionally, background checks are a tedious, slow compliance step for HR, and as a candidate, you never really know what information they cover. Simplifying background checks and making them more transparent can be a big differentiator in the candidate experience, especially in such a tightly competitive job market.
Investing in candidates with less-than-perfect experience isn’t just a moral choice—it’s also good for business. As Daniel explains, an estimated 30 million Americans have criminal records, so there’s a huge pool of highly motivated and experienced workers just waiting to be tapped.
Some of the business benefits of giving people second chances include:
- Reduced cost of hire
- Increased diversity
- Higher employee loyalty and productivity
Join Brad as he chats with BambooHR founders Ben Peterson and Ryan Sanders, who share why they prioritized creating a company that promotes doing the right thing.
We’ll then hear from company culture advocate and CEO of Great Place to Work, Michael C. Bush. You’ll come away with new ideas about how you can help your company create an environment where everyone can bring their best self to work.
Guests Jordan Monroe and Zack Bomsta, Owlet’s co-founders, talk about leading from where they are while staying true to their vision. Also in this episode: Gene Farrell, the innovator behind the freestyle Coca-Cola soda fountain, and Tim Mulligan, the CHRO at Vulcan, on setting people free to lead from where they are.
Brad interviews the co-founders of BambooHR, Ben Peterson and Ryan Sanders, and discovers the origin stories behind two company values. He also speaks with Joseph Grenny, co-author of best-selling book Crucial Conversations and co-founder of VitalSmarts, about social capital, lag time, and how remote work is impacting communication in the workplace. Lastly, Nessie Larsen shares a story about an out-of-touch manager and plowing snow.
Brad Rencher discusses how crucial it is to adapt during times of unprecedented change since organizations that thrive are those that recognize change as an opportunity to improve.
First, Nivi Achanta shares valuable insights from her young career about finding more meaningful work.
Then employment attorney Mark Kluger joins to discuss navigating difficult workplace disruptions.
Finally, SurveyMonkey’s chief people and places officer, Becky Cantieri, explains how her company has built a culture that can withstand even the toughest challenges and changes.
Soapbox Project
Kluger Healey, LLC
Survey Monkey
Brad Rencher dives into culture head first to explore how focusing on culture and values can close the gap between employees and employers, and set the foundation for an exceptional employee experience.
First, we learn about Sara Jones’ amazing adoption story and the lessons it teaches us about inclusion and the modern employee.
Then, culture champion Anita Grantham shares her insights on how to identify and communicate shared values in an organization.
Finally, BambooHR’s own Cassie Whitlock discusses how those shared values can impact every single thing you do in the workplace.
InclusionPro
Sara Jones’ Ted Talk
Pluralsight
BambooHR
This week, Brad Rencher discusses how putting employees first can help organizations grow from good to great. First, Brad explores the psychological contract between employer and employee and the bind on HR to serve both with special guest Rebecca Weaver.
Then, we hear about a company vision discredited moments after rolling out. And finally, guest Katie Burke, chief people officer at HubSpot, shares her take on what it means to Grow Better.
HRuprise
HubSpot
HubSpot Culture Code