Brands That Endure: Authenticity in Action
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza August 04, 2026Companies once made public commitments to ethics and responsibility, but it became “acceptable, and maybe even a little trendy, for brands to quietly neglect those commitments,” said Sandra Moerch, global head of content and customer marketing Autodesk, which makes industrial design software. “That behavior just won’t cut it anymore. Authenticity is making a comeback because people are craving honest and pure and authentic transactions again.”During a panel discussion on brands’ enduring authenticity at From Day One’s July virtual conference on brand strategy, Moerch and a panel of additional marketing leaders spoke about the risks and rewards of brand realness.Marketers have to reach outside their own department to achieve authenticity in their messages. “Some of our best ideas really come from our sales teams, our engineers, our product management field teams, and most importantly, our customers,” said Diana Sanicki, head of North American marketing at construction technology company Doka. “We regularly talk with them and visit job sites, and those conversations help us create marketing that’s relevant instead of promotional.” Journalist Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza moderated the session among marketing leaders (photo by From Day One)Even the most global and wide-reaching brands need some level of localization to achieve authenticity, said Emma Riley, director of marketing and growth for the Americas Global at creative firm AKQA. “Backstory,” the Levi’s commercial that debuted during the 2026 Superbowl, features shots of the brand’s iconic back pockets and red tab on musicians, dancers, rock climbers, and even cartoons, with cameos from Grammy-winning rapper and singer Doechii and Woody from Toy Story, and a nod to the iconic cover of Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A.. Riley said that these “influencers speak to who it is that we needed to talk to, but they are true. They are who they are. They really use the product.” Even Woody.‘Customers Don’t Buy the Story You Tell About Yourself’Customers aren’t looking for a sales pitch. They want an experience, like Levi’s can offer, or, as is more common in the B2B world, they want a solution.Yet customers aren’t always aware of the problems they have, said Todd Brown, VP of marketing for the financial institutions group at Fiserv, “not until they read a piece of thought leadership or they hear from someone on the team about a new solution.” Fiserv, which makes the technology underlying much of the financial services industry, expands mostly by selling into its existing customer base, so Brown must deliver a constant drip of education and customer testimonials. When a client has a particular need, they know Fiserv can meet it. “The best advocates for us are our clients who are telling the stories about the impact our partnership has not only on their business, but also on the communities they serve,” he said.Authenticity requires giving up some amount of control over the message and presentation of your brand—attaching your logo to a celebrity or handing the mic to a customer carries inherent risk. But any authentic relationship requires vulnerability. Believability begins with deferring to the customer point of view, which means letting the buyers say it for themselves. “Customers don’t buy the story you tell about yourself. They believe the story your customers and employees tell about you,” Sanicki said. “Years ago, companies owned the message, and today the customers own the conversation.”Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is an independent journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about business and the world of work. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Inc., and Business Insider, among others. She is the recipient of a Virginia Press Association award for business and financial journalism. She is the host of How to Be Anything, the podcast about people with unusual jobs.(Photo by julief514/iStock)
The Marketing Lessons Worth Taking From the 2026 World Cup
BY Erin Behrens August 03, 2026Now that the 2026 FIFA World Cup has wrapped up, marketers are taking a closer look at the brands that won the battle for attention, and what their success says about today’s marketing landscape. While official sponsors enjoyed unmatched visibility, some of the brands that generated the most conversation weren’t necessarily the ones that paid for the most prominent logos. Instead, they won by tapping into fan culture and creating content people actually engaged with. On Fox networks, World Cup advertisers averaged an attention index of 121, according to iSpot, meaning their ads performed 21% better than the average ad. The metric was based on the percentage of viewers who completed watching the full ad message.Here are three lessons from the brands that captured attention across the screens of viewers, the arenas where players competed, and the billboards that turned the tournament into a global marketing stage. Opportunities Exist Beyond the Main EventThis year’s tournament highlighted the power of shared experiences, as fans traveled across continents, explored new cultures, celebrated victories, and shared in the heartbreak of losses together. The cities hosting matches became part of the story, with fan experiences and local moments filling social media feeds throughout the tournament, like in the case of the Boston beer-shortage.The brands that stood out recognized that fans weren’t just watching the games, they were traveling, discovering new cultures, and becoming part of the global experience surrounding the tournament.Airbnb brought this idea to life through its “The World Is Meant to Meet” campaign, which centered on the connections and cultural exchanges that happen when people travel. Rather than focusing only on the competition itself, the campaign highlighted the people, places, and experiences that bring a global event like the World Cup to life. The company even offered rewards for those who signed up to host during the event. By celebrating the communities and connections formed around travel, Airbnb showed how brands can create relevance by becoming part of the cultural moments happening beyond the stadium.Marketing That Feels Interactive, Not DistractingMichelob ULTRA, a brand that calls itself “a superior light beer brewed for the social athlete,” built its World Cup marketing around fan participation. The brand introduced the Superior Player of the Match award, selected through fan engagement, giving viewers a role in recognizing standout performances. It also created fan-focused experiences designed to bring the tournament atmosphere beyond the stadium.“For more than twenty years, Michelob ULTRA has connected with its fans during the occasions they love. The brand’s playbook has been simple and relentless: invest, learn, and execute as the Official Beer Sponsor of America’s most prominent sports and active-lifestyle moments from Team USA to the NBA to the upcoming FIFA World Cup 2026™ and LA 2028 games to a 30+ year partnership with the PGA Tour. This approach has turned Michelob ULTRA into an absolute rocket ship, and we’ve got tremendous opportunity ahead of us,” said Kyle Norrington, chief commercial officer at Anheuser-Busch. Strong marketing doesn’t interrupt the moments people care about; it becomes part of them and invites them further into it. The success shows in the sales, as the beer continues to be the best-selling beer by volume, in America. Becoming Part of the CultureThe brands that make a lasting impression find ways to become woven into the event itself, creating products or experiences that fans recognize and remember. Adidas demonstrated the power of turning a sponsorship into a cultural asset that everyone recognizes. As the official match ball provider, the brand had a presence in every game, but it went beyond simple visibility by making the ball itself a centerpiece of the tournament experience. The design and storytelling created around the ball helped transform a piece of equipment into a symbol of the competition. The lesson: brands can earn lasting attention when they create something audiences naturally associate with a cultural moment, not just something they see during it.Erin Behrens is an associate editor at From Day One(Photo by peterschreiber.media/iStock)
What We’re Learning from Real AI Deployments in HR
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza July 30, 2026Dina Siclovan’s HR team was spending far too much time on emails. As the director of team member experience at Breeze Airways, she knew that while the company would keep growing, the size of her team would not. “We spent a lot of time just answering repetitive questions, even though the information already exists on our intranet. There are hundreds of policies, and many answers depend on the context,” she said during a From Day One webinar. “So we saw a need.” For many helming an HR department today, “the strategic work is often done in the leftover hours,” Jim Barnett, CEO and co-founder of HR tech platform Wisq. AI can now handle the repetitive tasks that gobble up valuable hours, but Barnett believes it can do even more.Together, Siclovan and Barnett—plus Wisq’s AI-powered HR teammate Harper—have changed not only the way Breeze’s HR team gets done, but the work that’s theirs to do. Context Is EverythingHR is seldom short on documentation. Any given team might have reams of policies about employee leave and PTO, performance reviews, performance improvement plans, rewards and recognition, benefits packages, and payroll. Then there’s the information on individual employees, like location, performance, team structure, skills, and tenure.But it’s usually just that: Reams of paper (digital or otherwise) with little relation to each other and plenty of room for error and interpretation. So when a long-tenured employee is moving from one city to another and in the midst of that has a medical emergency that requires complex surgery—what do you do? Situations like this may be governed by a policy, but they’re handled under precedent and case specifics. Jim Barnett, the CEO and co-founder of Wisq, the Agentic HR Platform, spoke during the webinar (company photo)“The AI opportunity is so large and so diverse,” Barnett said. “It’s not talking to a bot about whether you have President’s Day off. These workflows are complex and compliance-ridden with lots and lots of risk. You have to have HR reasoning because you want to get this right, and it’s going to get more complex over time.”There’s also opportunity in finding gaps in all those policies. When their AI agent Harper started identifying patterns in employee questions at Breeze, Siclovan realized that in some cases no process, policy, or guidance existed. AI is equipped to assist there too, says Barnett. The right AI agents are capable of fielding context-dependent questions, identifying patterns, finding policy gaps, and now—building the processes that underlie the policies. “There should be both manual and automated learning loops,” he said. As questions come in, “patterns emerge, which can trigger an alert that there’s a missing policy. It’s really important that you put these learning loops into your system so it can get smarter and grow and get better over time.”Barnett said he often finds that HR teams are operating on ambiguous and conflicting policies, but “your system should be able to fix this for you.” AI can tell you what the workflows are and recommend what that flow should be, and then it should tell you the integrations you need. It can even help you build a business case and line up the resources to build it. But it’s smarter than to take an idea and run with it. Harper knows “when to escalate, triage, and hand off to a human,” he said.The airline industry is heavily regulated at both the federal and state levels, so Siclovan can’t simply hand the reins to a disembodied agent. Breeze employs a complex and varied workforce of maintenance crew, flight attendants, and pilots distributed across airports around the U.S., plus the folks, like her, in corporate headquarters. “Essentially, HR has to support the operation that runs 24/7, and we work a standard eight-to-five Monday-through-Friday schedule.”Siclovan’s team once spent a lot of time answering questions from all directions about benefits, payroll, recruitment, and onboarding, “and now they’re coaching leaders,” she said. “They’re solving team member relations issues. They’re helping with workforce planning and reorganization design.”This has been a successful partnership because, Siclovan explained, we started with a clear problem to be solved. “Ask yourself, ‘Where do you spend too much time? What questions are on repeat every day? What work doesn’t actually require human judgment?’ That’s where you start.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Wisq, for sponsoring this webinar.Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is an independent journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about business and the world of work. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Inc., and Business Insider, among others. She is the recipient of a Virginia Press Association award for business and financial journalism. She is the host of How to Be Anything, the podcast about people with unusual jobs.(Photo by S and V Design/iStock)
How Marketeers Are Finally Solving an Age-Old Question
BY Jessica Swenson July 27, 2026It’s no secret that marketing departments have long operated in a chaotic, reactive state, and the growing complexity, expanding market channels, and an increasingly fragmented audience base only amplify the problem. When marketers are unable to quickly answer unpredictable questions, this creates what George Huff, co-founder and CEO at Opal, calls an alignment tax—the hidden cost of extra meetings and late-night or off-hours work—which can make them seem disjointed and is very costly to businesses.“How do we help build confidence in the marketing function?” is the question he explored during a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s July marketing virtual conference about brand marketing and strategy.Huff believes that the volume of marketing and content demands will only continue to increase in 2026 and beyond, which could require organizations to produce as much as twice what they did in 2025. Aside from the increased capacity this involves, it also creates a need for additional organization and structure, which can get more difficult as organizations and programs grow.George Huff , the founder and CEO of Opal, led the virtual thought leadership spotlight (company photo)Despite mixed industry sentiment on AI use, he predicts that 50% of marketing content will be AI derived by the end of 2026. Some of Opal’s clients avoid AI while others are already running early pilots with agentic platforms. He and his team see the use of AI as a massive opportunity to “rethink some of the entrenched patterns within our organizations.”Huff acknowledges that as more employees gain access to AI tools, governance becomes more important—but he doesn’t foresee a single person using AI to create operational change on an organizational scale. Instead, he believes the most pragmatic next step for marketing organizations is what he calls a “multiplayer mode for marketing teams.” “Multiplayer to us is really about teams of people having agentic workflows and agents working together in the same spaces, and you have this visual home for plans, campaigns, and content.” Huff said, “And it really is integrated into how you work.” He emphasized the importance of evolving to integrate AI, but considering it as a part of your stack so you can maximize team alignment from the start.His team at Opal has created that shared space where teams can organize work in real-time around strategy, maintain a real view of the customer experience, and quickly inform partners and leaders about marketing initiatives, making alignment a low-friction activity. Users can import presentations into the platform or export content out into fully branded documents, including live data views, quickly answering questions that might have previously required extra meetings or late-night emails to answer, he says.With the existing space as a foundation, Huff sees future opportunity for organizations to leverage Opal’s structured historical context to make their experience even more comprehensive by adding an instructional layer.“When your team is working in a shared environment that has all the planning and the historical context, it's got strong instruction, and you’re bringing AI into that environment—that’s really the multiplayer vision, and that’s a massive step change from where we are. And I think it’s the right future for marketing as a function to go towards, because it allows you to do all the things you need to do.”In response to an audience member question about safely using AI for branded content, Huff outlined Opal’s process that allows teams to place guardrails on both the front and back ends of production. Marketers can encode brand requirements into their space, he said, ensuring that any AI-generated content remains grounded in the brand. For those who don’t use AI to generate content, the platform also allows externally drafted content to be compared to the encoded brand standards.“While there’s definitely fear, uncertainty, and doubt in the marketplace,” Huff said, “we think that it [AI] represents this opportunity to rethink everything in terms of how we work, and so that’s the future that we’re aiming at.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Opal, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Jessica Swenson is a freelance writer and proofreader based in the Midwest. Learn more about her at jmswensonllc.com.(Photo by JLco - Julia Amaral/iStock)
The Trust Economy: Marketing in the Age of AI-Generated Sameness
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza July 23, 2026The attention economy has been flipped on its head. Creating highly polished, precisely targeted ad campaigns was once an expensive endeavor, requiring teams, time, and budget. But suddenly, artificial intelligence has flooded the channels with cheap content that’s mass-produced and poorly valued.Trust is now almost as important as awareness, said Renaye Edwards, the global chief operating officer and managing director at the ad firm Ammunition, and it’s relevant earlier in the buying cycle. Consumers have grown skeptical of brands that make grand promises, whether about product value, environmental responsibility, authenticity, or workplace culture. Companies that published road maps toward five- and 10-year goals about corporate values tended to invite scrutiny, opening themselves to accusations of “greenwashing,” “diversity washing,” or “pinkwashing”—labels for the gap between what a company says and what it actually does.Consumers in 2026 are savvier and maybe a little more cynical. Tired of handing their attention to disingenuous companies, they’re looking for brands they can trust, but proving credibility is harder than it’s ever been.‘Today, Customers Own the Conversation’In the trust economy, marketing no longer covers for a brand’s operational or ethical failures. “If your brand is promising something it fundamentally can’t deliver, then you have a much more systemic problem,” said Robin Harrison, CMO of customer-experience technology company Concentrix. Some brands make loftier promises than others, simply by the nature of the business: While a budget airline may be able to get away with an AI-powered chatbot, a home security company would not. “When you’ve got a brand that is premium or it’s high-value or it’s quirky, letting AI do the work for you feels like the wrong thing.”Achieving authenticity is a matter of hewing closely to brand values, according to Angela Johnson, the CMO of Edible Brands, the parent company of Edible Arrangements, known for its fruit bouquets. “Edible has its ‘wow’ factor to protect,” she said. “We have a $75 check average, and it comes in beautiful wrapped branding, red packaging. It’s handcrafted, it’s very personal, and it’s hand-delivered.”While Edible is active on social media and often comments on cultural moments like the World Cup and Love Island, it passed on the 2025 Labubu craze, which didn’t feel elevated enough for the brand, as well as this year’s tongue-in-cheek “bad news for my wallet” meme in which content creators confess their indulgent spending habits. High quality doesn’t mean high-polish, though, and given the personal nature of gift giving, Edible has found better success working with content creators that deliver candid, unpolished exposure. As it builds awareness among Gen Z consumers, the brand has increased its influencer marketing budget by 27% since the initial investment in 2024, while at the same time pulling budget from linear-TV ad buys.“Years ago, companies owned the message. Today, the customers own the conversation,” said Diana Sanicki, head of marketing in North America for construction technology and materials firm Doka, during a From Day One panel discussion in July on authenticity in marketing.Consumers are quick to scold companies that show up uninvited. Just a few years ago, social media users might get a kick out of a witty comment from Oreo’s official Instagram account on another brand’s post or even one from an ordinary user. But tolerance for this attention-seeking behavior is now incredibly low. Comments from brands are often met with a string of replies from annoyed users.If the public no longer really believes the stories that brands tell about themselves, trust can be borrowed from the people consumers already know, like creators and peers. Of course, “the risk of working with content creators and user-generated content is that it requires some surrender of control,” said Sandra Moerch at 3D-software company Autodesk, during the July panel discussion. But when it works, the trust is more likely to last.Highly digital consumers are hungry for the real world and its flaws. Edwards, of the ad firm Ammunition, said that her recent appearance on an uber-polished video podcast didn’t garner nearly as much engagement as an off-the-cuff, low-fi video she made with her front-facing camera. “It feels like we’re almost regressing back to the unpolished version of everything,” she said. “The two are night and day in terms of the way that they perform.” Now that AI makes it possible for a brand to do anything, “everybody’s questioning whether something’s real or not.”Where Trust Is LostIf authentic companies don’t deliver what they stand for, then trust erodes in the gap between the two. AI is proving most valuable in operational infrastructure, not as a substitute for original content or brand identity. In many cases, AI shouldn’t be customer-visible at all, asserts Harrison of Concentrix. “Remember that AI can make operations more efficient and more effective by sitting in the background.”Companies using AI to generate content or marketing insights are just on their way to irrelevance, he says. If everyone is getting their ideas from the same place, then everyone will look and sound the same.As campaigns, products, and even companies become easier to replicate, “the only thing that then differentiates you is your brand and the people you’ve got within the business,” said Edwards. Consumers are easily fatigued, and they’re quick to spot copycats. Once a trend catches on—whether as a meme, a product, or a claim—“people are like, ‘it’s kind of everywhere, so it’s like anything, isn’t it?” she said.In an environment where brands are looking more and more alike, the ones that deliver on their brand promises will stand out. The problem is that when money’s tight, companies often spin up quick campaigns and neglect the hard work of brand-building, which may need a rebrand itself, said Edwards. Given the choice between “brand marketing” and “performance marketing,” which would an executive choose? The temptation is to go for the latter. But Edwards believes the focus on performance is short-sighted, especially when content is abundant but credibility is scarce. “These short-term kind campaigns feel like a means to an end,” she said. “A race to the bottom.”Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is an independent journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about business and the world of work. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Inc., and Business Insider, among others. She is the recipient of a Virginia Press Association award for business and financial journalism. She is the host of How to Be Anything, the podcast about people with unusual jobs.(Photo by atakan/iStock)
Why Most GLP-1 Strategies Are Failing, and What to Build Around Them
BY Kristen Kwiatkowski July 22, 2026GLP-1 use continues to grow as more individuals explore these medications for weight management. Along with rising interest come important questions about effectiveness, long-term outcomes, and cost. While some employer approaches have fallen short, others are finding more sustainable ways to provide access and support. How can companies develop a thoughtful GLP-1 strategy that delivers meaningful value for both employees and the organization?Yasmine Meneses, manager of consultant relations and registered dietitian at Nutrium, provided insight into this topic during a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s June virtual conference. Working among benefits teams and leaders, Meneses says GLP-1 medications are “one of the most discussed line items in pharmacy spend right now.” One of the most common questions employees ask is whether their health plan covers GLP-1s. It sounds straightforward, but the answer is often anything but. “The question isn’t just whether you cover it, it’s what you’re paying for around it to make it sustainable and get that ROI,” she said. A study of people without diabetes who started GLP-1 medications for obesity found that nearly 70% discontinued treatment within a year. Given the high cost of these medications, those findings raise important questions about long-term value, she says. Many people who stop taking GLP-1s regain weight, yet employers may still face significant, ongoing costs associated with coverage. As a result, HR leaders and CFOs are increasingly weighing how to offer these medications in a way that supports employee health while remaining financially sustainable.It’s important to note that coverage is not a strategy. Coverage answers the single question about who gets access, but strategy answers a more difficult question which is, “What happens next?”The Public Health Story“About 40% of adults are living with obesity and with the changes in definition to obesity, some might say that it’s even higher,” said Meneses. “One in 10 adults are living with severe obesity. Those rates are roughly three times higher than what they were in the 60s.” The public health story behind pharmacy spend doesn’t typically show up labeled as obesity, she says. “It’s usually arriving to you in rising claims, high-cost claimants, chronic condition burden, leaves of absence, disability, and the benefits complexity that just keeps on multiplying,” she said. Yasmine Meneses, manager of consultant relations & dietitian at Nutrium, led the virtual session (company photo)This is where GLP-1s enter the picture. A successful benefits strategy has to account for a workforce with a wide range of experiences and access points. Some employees receive GLP-1s through the employer's health plan, while others obtain them through self-pay, direct-to-consumer providers, or other channels. Still others may be considering whether the medications are right for them.HR’s approach can’t focus only on employees whose prescriptions are covered by the company’s health plan. Instead, benefits strategies should be designed to support employees across the full spectrum of GLP-1 use and decision-making, recognizing that workers will engage with these medications in different ways. “That’s why the individual coverage decision here is never the whole answer,” said Meneses.“The goal for you as an HR team member is not to become a clinical decision maker. That’s not on your work description and that’s not something that you should be worrying about,” said Meneses. “The goal is to build a benefits architecture that is consistent, explainable and fair.”Before making decisions about GLP-1 coverage, HR leaders should be able to answer three questions: What support is available before an employee starts the medication? What support is provided while they're on therapy? And what support is in place after they stop? It's equally important to consider employees who never use GLP-1s but still need effective weight-management and metabolic health resources.“GLP-1 therapy sits inside a broader model of care that includes healthy diet, physical activity, behavioral support, and professional guidance, and with that intensive behavioral intention interventions should be offered alongside the medication, and that is in order to enhance treatment outcomes,” said Meneses.Support From Nutrium CareMeneses says Nutrium’s approach reflects that broader philosophy. Rather than treating GLP-1s as a standalone benefit, Nutrium Care integrates them into a comprehensive nutrition strategy designed to support employees before, during, and after medication use.“The infrastructure you build for GLP-1 users should be the exact same infrastructure serving employees who need metabolic health support, chronic condition management support, or simply a structured entry point into better habits,” she said. Nutrium offers a dual-path model which covers care complexity and offers various steps. Everyone starts at the Health Foundations Review, which is the same front door for all and includes an initial assessment with a registered dietitian. The program starts with phase one: building the foundation through nutrition education and habit formation. A registered dietitian then determines whether GLP-1 therapy may be appropriate for consideration by a clinician. In phase two, members follow either a GLP-1 or non-GLP-1 health journey, while receiving the same standard of care. The final phase, graduation, focuses on long-term maintenance, autonomy, and relapse prevention—the stage where the program’s long-term success is often determined. “So that communication, that story needs to land clearly, and the reason for that is internal word of mouth is either your best enrollment tool and your best friend or your biggest credibility factor,” said Meneses. “We really need to make sure that we’re clearly stating how these are equal and not different.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Nutrium, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Kristen Kwiatkowski is a professional freelance writer covering a wide array of industries, with a focus on food and beverage and business. Her work has been featured in the Bucks County Herald, Eater Philly, Edible Lehigh Valley, Cider Culture, and The Town Dish.(Photo by skynesher/iStock)
Aligning Brand Promises With Customer Experience
BY Grace Turney July 21, 2026When Kentucky Fried Chicken ran out of chicken at its United Kingdom locations in 2018, the company didn’t hide from the blunder. It took out a full-page apology ad with its logo rearranged to spell “FCK,” admitted the mistake, and let the joke land. It’s the kind of recovery that sticks in Nizzi Karai Renaud’s mind years later as a great example of authenticity: not a flawless brand, but one that bridges the gap between what it promises and what it delivers, even when that means owning a very public mess.Renaud, Chief Brand Officer at Zazzle, the global print-on-demand marketplace headquartered in Menlo Park, California, explored that idea during a fireside chat at a recent From Day One’s July virtual conference. In a discussion moderated by marketing journalist Lisa Lacy, the two examined how brands earn consumer trust by keeping the promises they make, and why authenticity has become such an urgent topic across industries.Renaud traced the current consumer fixation on authenticity to a widening gap between what companies say, what they do, and what they actually value. “Authenticity is very unique in content, but universal in mechanism,” she said, noting that what feels authentic to Zazzle looks nothing like what feels authentic to a bank, even though the underlying test is the same everywhere. That test, she says, is whether a decision would still make sense traced back through a company’s history, or whether it only makes sense because it happens to be trending.Tone and alignment are related but distinct, Renaud added. A company’s tone, whether buttoned-up or unhinged on social media, is simply the outfit it wears. Alignment is the character underneath. She pointed to Duolingo’s owl mascot as an example of a chaotic tone that still tracks honestly with the app’s famously persistent reminders. Consumers forgive an unconventional outfit, she said, but not a character that doesn’t add up.Nizzi Karai Renaud, chief brand officer at Zazzle, spoke during the session moderated by journalist Lisa Lacy (photo by From Day One)At Zazzle, where customers design and personalize their own products, Renaud says every order is a promise either kept or broken. This makes authenticity as much an operational question as a marketing one. That philosophy shows up internally through what the company calls CHIA: creativity, heart, integrity, and amaze, a shorthand Renaud’s team uses when navigating difficult calls, including content moderation decisions and the rollout of Zazzle’s AI shopping agent, Z.Trust itself, Renaud says, is built over time through repeated interactions rather than a single standout moment, meaning brands should design for the hundredth customer interaction, not just the first impression. She recommended making fewer promises and keeping them consistently, while also planning in advance for the moments when a company inevitably falls short. Nothing collapses public trust faster than hypocrisy caught out in the open.Renaud also urged brands to hand storytelling over to their customers rather than narrating on their own behalf. She cited Lego’s fan-designed product line and GoPro’s use of customer-shot footage as examples of companies that let real users become their most credible advocates. The underlying psychological concept, she said, is “mattering,” a framework popularized by the late scholar Isaac Prilleltensky, built on the idea that people need to feel both valued and capable of adding value in return.As for brands that exemplify sustained trust, Renaud pointed to Costco, a company she described as a quiet master of brand integrity that has avoided reinvention or gimmicks in favor of relentless consistency. “Marketing can just be the mirror, not the mask,” she said. No amount of messaging can manufacture authenticity if the underlying operation doesn’t support it.In the end, Renaud’s advice circles back to a single idea: authenticity isn’t a campaign a brand launches, but a discipline it keeps. The companies that last, she suggested, are the ones willing to hold their values fixed while everything else, tone, channels, even the tools they build with, keeps changing around them.Grace Turney is a St. Louis-based writer, artist, and former librarian. See more of her work at graceturney17.wixsite.com/mysite.(Photo by skynesher/iStock)
Building a Brand That Earns Trust and Loyalty Across Every Channel
BY Ade Akin July 20, 2026A stop outside an Ashley Home Store during a 90-day tour of U.S. markets crystallized a troubling trend for John Mask: lower-income shoppers were no longer showing up in furniture stores.Mask, the EVP of sales and marketing at Ashley Furniture, shared that the solution to that problem is a two-step process that starts with building trust with customers before selling the product. He spoke during a fireside chat at From Day One’s July virtual conference, in conversation with Seattle Times business reporter, Megan Ulu-Lani Boyanton. Mask shared how Ashley Furniture navigates a crowded marketplace, evolving consumer expectations, and the transformative role of AI in marketing. The fireside chat covered everything from global expansion to the return of traditional mailers. Yet, the central theme remained clear: cultivating brand loyalty today requires building trust, sharing stories, and engaging with consumers wherever they are; across all channels.A Saturated Landscape and the Shift to ValueMask started the conversation by identifying the greatest challenge facing today’s marketers: saturation. Thanks to the democratization of marketing tools such as social media, anyone can now reach customers on a one-to-one basis. “It’s become more crowded because more people can actually talk to that consumer,” he said. Consequently, standing out becomes essential within such crowded marketplaces.A fundamental shift in consumer behavior compounds this new reality. Mask says he has observed customers moving from a price-based mindset to a value-based approach when making purchases. “What can I get for the cost, as opposed to what’s the lowest cost that I can find out there?” he elaborated. This is particularly pronounced in a K-shaped economy, where lower-income consumers are short on cash and middle-to-high-income shoppers, the “five to eight consumer” on an income scale, drive the market. These potential customers have disposable income but expect quality, story, and a clear value proposition from the companies they shop with.Marketing Across ChannelsAshley Furniture’s staggering reach includes running operations in 23 countries, over 1,000 branded stores, and partnerships with over 24,000 retailers, he says. Operating on this scale demands a more nuanced approach to omnichannel marketing. John Mask, EVP of sales & marketing at Ashley Furniture, spoke during the virtual session (company photo)“We have a saying that we like to have our feet in many canoes,” Mask said as he described the company’s strategy of serving consumers wherever they may be. The company utilizes brick-and-mortar stores, e-retail platforms like Amazon and Wayfair, big-box partners, rental channels, and international markets. Importantly, tailored content drives each specific marketing channel. Although big-box locations emphasize pricing above all else, the company’s dedicated showrooms prioritize aesthetics, atmosphere, and narrative. Additionally, traditional advertising avenues like print media and billboards are undergoing a notable resurgence, offering fresh opportunities to capture consumer attention amidst increasingly crowded digital spaces.Storytelling and the Customer LifecycleA layered approach to storytelling is at the heart of Ashley Furniture’s marketing strategy. Mask outlined their strategy for constructing brand narratives that look past simple product characteristics and pricing to focus instead on the deeper emotional connections people form with furniture; how it makes them feel, how it fits into their homes, and whether it meets their functional needs. This is especially important when appealing to different customer demographics. Younger consumers, for example, are increasingly interested in sustainability and what a company stands for.This storytelling is woven into what Mask calls life cycle marketing. Furniture purchases are tied to major life events such as having a baby, transitioning a child to a “big kid” bedroom, getting married, or buying a house. Ashley aims to build a relationship that spans generations by engaging consumers across these milestones. “We want a consumer to know at every touchpoint they’re going to get the best service from Ashley,” he added. The payoff is clear: loyal patrons become returning customers and bring in their children, creating a multigenerational brand loyalty that dramatically lowers acquisition costs.AI in Marketing: From Content Creation to Agentic SearchMask also shared how AI is changing the marketing landscape. “We can truly create campaigns that are foundational, and then use AI to create customizations in the individuals that are in the ads, in the backgrounds of those rooms,” he said. This enables the company to tailor messaging for different geographies, showing the same product in a rural setting versus an urban one, without needing a massive marketing team.The bigger shift is how consumers now discover products, he says. He pointed to the rise of agentic engine optimization (AEO), the AI-powered successor to traditional SEO. “We’ve seen a 45% increase over the last month alone in terms of traffic based on searches started with some sort of an agent via Perplexity, ChatGPT, or any of the other services that are out there,” he said.With personalized AI agents increasingly serving as the primary tool for consumer search, brands must organize their data to feed these engines and shape the sources they reference for recommendations. Mask cautioned that if your brand is not visible to AI, “they just may never find you.”Building Trust in a Two-Step ProcessDespite all the talk about technology and marketing channels, Mask returned repeatedly to the foundational importance of trust. He described a two-step process: “Do I trust you, and then what do you have to offer me as a result of the fact that I trust you?” Consumers need to know who a company is, how it engages with communities, and what it stands for before considering product features. This applies especially to the younger demographic, who place greater emphasis on the principles a business stands for and its commitment to eco-friendly practices.Mask’s advice to other marketing leaders was hands-on: “Go out and test.” He highlights the value of conducting A/B tests on emerging platforms, listening more than talking, and actively engaging in forums to discover what consumers truly desire. In an interest-based economy where consumers are constantly bombarded with choices, the brands that succeed will be those that earn trust, tell compelling stories, and meet customers where they are; whether that’s in a store, on a social platform, or through an AI agent.Ade Akin covers artificial intelligence, workplace wellness, HR trends, and digital health solutions.(Photo by ismagilov/iStock)
Reassessing Benefits, Reimagining Value for Today’s Workforce
BY Grace Turney July 17, 2026Ask a benefits leader what employees want most right now, and the answer may surprise you: it’s not just health coverage or retirement matching, but help simply making sense of the healthcare system itself. That was the message from Lenka Sloman, executive director and head of total rewards at WPP Media. Sloman spoke during a fireside chat at From Day One’s June virtual conference. The conversation about “Reassessing Benefits, Reimagining Value for Today’s Workforce,” was moderated by Megan Ulu-Lani Boyanton, a business reporter for The Seattle Times. A Navigation Problem, Not Just a Cost ProblemOne of the most persistent challenges Sloman hears from brokers is how to control costs, but she traced much of that cost pressure back to a navigation gap. Employees increasingly self-diagnose online before ever consulting a doctor, she says, then choose specialists based on guesswork rather than guidance. That pattern drives up claims because people end up seeing the wrong providers and undergoing tests that were never necessary in the first place.Lenka Sloman of WPP Media spoke with moderator Megan Ulu-Lani Boytanton of the Seattle Times (photo by From Day One)“If there was some sort of assistance for employees to seek and actually be guided in what doctors they should see, I think it would prevent a lot of the unnecessary costs that are happening to employers,” Sloman said. Boyanton could relate. “I am so guilty of the quick, “Let me check with WebMD and see where my symptoms align with,’” she said. Communication and Innovation as a Retention ToolBoyanton asked how Sloman keeps employees informed during periods of organizational change. “I just try and be as transparent as possible,” Sloman said. “I’ll send out proactive messaging, share links in real time, make sure that I’m always available. I’ll coach my team. I’ll tell them just to be good listeners.”When WPP Media recently sunset a physical-exam benefit that had become redundant with standard health coverage, her team treated the change as a teaching moment rather than a simple announcement, walking employees through how to get the same care through their existing medical plans.“Both utilization and disruption should always be considered when reviewing any type of changes to benefits,” Sloman said. A change that trims costs but unsettles a large group of employees, she argued, often ends up costing more once a company accounts for the exceptions it has to make to soften the blow.Sloman also described how her team is experimenting with AI agents to help answer employee benefits questions. “It’s a logic-based data source that we’ll use to answer the questions that’s positioned directly from the employee that is asking the question,” Sloman said. Rather than offering generic responses, the system is designed to pull from each employee’s specific plan elections, so a worker enrolled in a PPO with dental and vision coverage receives answers tailored to those exact benefits. Staying within HIPAA guidelines, she says, is central to how her team evaluates any new AI tool.Rethinking What Counts as a Family BenefitAsked about innovative offerings, Sloman pointed to something less conventional than the usual stipends and perks list: pet care.“It’s really something that goes a long way, because we do support so many family building benefits,” Sloman said. “This now also supports employees that may not have families, but have pets, and that’s their family, so it now encompasses the entire population.” “I had never heard of that before, so that’s a little bit mind blowing for me, but would be great for my cats,” Boyanton said.Sloman also detailed WPP Media’s approach to parental leave, which pairs standard bonding time with a part-time, full-pay phase-back option for parents returning to work after an extended absence, giving them a gradual reentry to their client work rather than an abrupt return to a full schedule.Closing out the conversation, Sloman offered a simple piece of guidance for other leaders balancing employee needs against business priorities: “Don’t go at this alone. Lean on your vendors, on your carriers, your brokers, whoever it is that you work with, and make sure that you work hand in hand with your leaders,” Sloman said.“The more that they understand what you’re trying to provide the company, the more that can be done for your employees,” Sloman said.Grace Turney is a St. Louis-based writer, artist, and former librarian. See more of her work at graceturney17.wixsite.com/mysite.(Photo by dusanpetkovic/iStock)
Caregiving as Workforce Infrastructure: The Non-Negotiable Investment Hiding in Plain Sight
BY Jessica Swenson July 16, 2026Caregiving isn’t just a family issue. It affects employees’ physical and mental health, financial well-being, and workplace performance. As family needs become more complex, employee expectations evolve, and costs continue to rise, the entire caregiving ecosystem is under increasing strain. How can employers strengthen their caregiving benefits and better support the employees who rely on them?This question was asked and answered by Jess Brown, VP of marketing for Cariloop, during a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s June virtual conference on benefits and total rewards. As a long-term caregiving industry advocate and a working parent, Brown has a comprehensive view of the issue. She believes caregiving should be a part of a company’s infrastructure strategy rather than a niche benefit. “It’s important to recognize that as employee expectations continue to rise and benefit budgets continue to shrink, employers are being asked to do something really difficult. You need to provide meaningful support without simply adding another expensive point solution to the ecosystem,” she said. Family-based caregivers spend an average of 27 hours each week fulfilling care responsibilities for their loved ones, says Brown, on top of coordination, research, transportation, medication management, and any full or part-time paid work. In-home non-medical senior care can be upwards of $100,000 per year, she says. Childcare is considered affordable by the Department of Health and Human Services only if it doesn’t exceed 7% of household income.These time, health, and financial pressures can cause a ripple effect that not only impacts employees, but also businesses. Citing a 2025 AARP study, Brown shared that 56% of employees reported going to work late, leaving early, or taking unplanned time off, and roughly 20% shifted from full-time to part-time status. “When it comes to choosing to care for the ones you love and showing up for work, people are always going to choose their family,” she said. Jess Brown is the VP of marketing at Cariloop (company photo)She encourages employers to foster a culture of care by being open and vulnerable about their caregiving journeys. This can help employees feel safer and be willing to do the same. Brown also urges employers to prioritize multi-generational caregiving in addition to parenting and childcare. In her view, this type of care is a long-term priority that will persist for generations.She offers three key suggestions as companies head into their annual benefits planning season. First, review any backup care program you may have in place. Traditional models built upon prepaid, exclusive-provider networks may have you prepay for a bank of days, charge a premium cost for additional days during the contract period, and limit choices for employees seeking care for their families. She no longer sees this model as viable due to changing preferences and a shrinking supply of professional caregivers.Second, acknowledge that caregiving is more than just backup care to offset a disruption. With the largest generation in the workforce, millennials, now shouldering care for both their children and parents, it is increasingly important to help them plan ahead.“When you’re investing in caregiving benefits, it’s important to think about how you’re avoiding disruptions in the workplace, but it’s also important to recognize that there will always be disruptions because of caregiving, so you can invest in programs that support employees when those disruptions arrive,” Brown said. “But really the foundation of those programs should be the fact that you want to help employees build a safety net, plan ahead, and have a plan B ready to go if and when those disruptions come knocking on their front door.”And third, she suggests asking targeted questions to understand your workforce’s actual caregiving needs. This helps you better prepare for disruptions and reduce surprises when caregiving absences must occur.Once caregiving benefits are evaluated and implemented, Brown says that companies can use a few different approaches to measure their ROI: business performance, clinical outcomes, and dollar-for-dollar savings. She recommends that employers identify their top priorities before they define how they’ll measure success, and cautions that ROI measurement is typically a collaborative process.It can be difficult to attribute business outcomes to one specific program, so she recommends using a cohort analysis that compares utilization data between employees who have and have not used caregiving benefits. This helps build a directional story. Measuring clinical ROI helps connect “caregiving support to measurable health, well-being, or clinical outcomes,” said Brown, such as earlier engagement with benefits, fewer instances of burnout, increased use of preventive care, and the reduction of physical or mental health issues caused by stress. A simpler option is to directly compare dollar-to-dollar costs to determine any savings within a specific time frame or between vendors. She encourages leaders to get into the weeds with benefits providers to understand their support and enable a more thorough comparison. Brown reiterated that employees can be directly affected by a lack of caregiving support, which makes this type of care a strategic lever for employers. “Caregiving is not a niche issue,” she said. “It’s a strategic workforce force issue that really does impact the entire infrastructure of your employee experience. Every employer has employees who care for other people, and when those employees lack support, it has a direct impact on how they show up for work.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Cariloop, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Jessica Swenson is a freelance writer and proofreader based in the Midwest. Learn more about her at jmswensonllc.com.(Photo by dusanpetkovic/iStock)
Reducing Change Fatigue and Building More Adaptable Teams
BY Carrie Snider July 15, 2026If the past few years have made anything clear, it’s that change is now a constant in business. That reality has left employees at every level grappling with change fatigue. How can leaders help their people adapt while reducing the toll of continual transformation?At From Day One’s Manhattan conference, leaders participated in a panel addressing practical approaches for leaders. Moderated by Tania Rahman, social media director at Fast Company, they discussed how organizations can move beyond reactive change management and instead build systems that help employees sustain performance through continuous disruption. Across the conversation, a clear theme emerged: change fatigue is not simply about the pace of transformation, but about how leaders communicate, support, and structure it.Reframing Fatigue With Better CommunicationWhen most people think of change fatigue, they think of the volume of change. But it could be more about how that change is communicated. Michele Moskowitz, group head of talent at TP ICAP, emphasized that leaders have more control here than they might think.“Change fatigue comes when change becomes tiresome,” she said, but added an important distinction: “people are never really fatigued by positive change, by things that are exciting and inspirational.” The difference lies in how the change is framed and reinforced.At TP ICAP, leaders focus on consistently answering a core question for employees: what’s in it for me? By clearly communicating why a change matters, whether it’s a merger, a new system, or a strategic shift, and repeating that message across channels, organizations can shift change from something imposed to something employees can connect with and even anticipate.Leaders spoke about "Change Fatigue Is Real: How Leaders Can Keep Teams Adapting," during the executive panel discussionEqually critical is moving beyond one-way communication. Moskowitz described a common failure point that leaders are relying on top-down messaging and expecting alignment to follow. “We have a leader who stands up at a town hall or sends out a big email and kind of expects the world to just follow their lead,” she said. Instead, organizations must invest in dialogue, not just announcements.That’s where managers play a pivotal role. Moskowitz calls them “meaning makers,” the ones responsible for translating strategy into reality and feeding employee sentiment back up to leadership. Supporting them with the right tools, training, and space to listen is essential to reducing fatigue. Without that middle layer functioning effectively, even well-designed strategies struggle to land.Acknowledging the Toll, Recognizing the EffortOne of the most overlooked aspects of change fatigue is its psychological weight. Naomi Dishington, director of consulting at Workhuman, pointed out that employees today are living inside a constant loop of change.“It feels like at least weekly, if not daily, we’re all embarking on that change again every day,” she said, leaving little time to process or recover. The result is a workforce that rarely gets the chance to fully move through the natural emotional cycle of adaptation.For leaders, the first step is acknowledging it, then they can move to fix it. That simple act of recognition can reduce stress and build trust, signaling to employees that their experience is valid and understood. From there, leaders can make change more manageable by breaking it into smaller, shared steps rather than presenting transformation as a single overwhelming goal, she says.Equally important is how organizations define recognition itself. In a constantly shifting environment, waiting to celebrate only outcomes is no longer sufficient. Dishington emphasized the importance of rewarding effort, not just success: “Recognize the process, recognize you raised your hand to volunteer, recognize you took a risk and you failed.”These moments reinforce the behaviors organizations need most right now, including adaptability, initiative, and resilience. Recognition becomes not just a reward system, but a cultural signal about what matters in times of uncertainty.Adaptability Is EssentialPointing to the growing importance of what’s often called the adaptability quotient, or AQ, panelist Cesar Salas, VP and head of HR operations, Americas at EXL, says roles are shifting faster than ever.“What I am doing now in my position is totally different from what I was doing two years ago, or one year ago, or even six months ago,” he said. That pace forces employees and leaders to accept a hard truth: what got you here won’t necessarily move you forward.At EXL, Salas is focused on turning adaptability into practice rather than theory. He asked his direct reports to identify “five mini projects” where AI could be applied to improve productivity. The key was not immediate execution, but identification and prioritization.By surfacing opportunities first, then selecting the ones with the highest impact, teams create momentum without overwhelming themselves. This approach builds what Salas describes as a “virtuous circle,” or small wins that reinforce learning, confidence, and continued experimentation.Adaptability, he says, is no longer optional. It is becoming a baseline requirement for both employees and leaders. Organizations that fail to build this muscle risk falling behind not because of technology itself, but because of how slowly people are able to adjust to it.Transparency Builds TrustIn times of constant change, employees are looking for more than transparency about what decisions have been made. They also want to understand why those decisions were made, what factors were considered, and the broader business dynamics that shaped them. Lacey McBurney, head of talent and culture at Wiley, emphasized that traditional communication often falls short because it focuses too heavily on outcomes rather than process. “Yes, you have to communicate what the change is, yes, you have to communicate why that change is important,” she said. “But we’ve been really focused on how the decision got made.”That distinction is critical. When employees understand the reasoning, constraints, and trade-offs behind decisions, they are far more likely to trust them—even when the news is difficult. Without that transparency, gaps are filled with speculation and skepticism.As McBurney noted, without context, employees often respond with questions like: “Why didn’t they consider this?” or “Why are they doing these things at the same time?”Wiley has also invested in continuous listening mechanisms, moving away from one-off feedback cycles. Instead of treating communication as an event-driven activity, the organization has embedded ongoing dialogue through leadership forums and smaller group discussions. This helps trust become part of the system, not just part of major announcements.Create Space for ChangeOne of the hardest truths for leaders to accept is that you cannot continuously add work without also taking something away. In today’s environment of nonstop transformation, creating space is essential.“You can’t have a conversation around this sort of change climate today without talking about where we can create slack in the system,” said Sallyanne Oettinger, senior director at LHH. Without that slack, even the best-designed initiatives risk overwhelming employees.The challenge is that prioritization sounds simple but rarely is. Teams often begin with the intention of streamlining work, only to find that “everything ends up in the urgent and important quadrant, no matter how hard we try.” Real prioritization requires difficult trade-offs, including saying no to initiatives that people value.That difficulty is amplified by the reality that change is no longer linear. “It’s simply not that anymore,” Oettinger said, describing organizations as “trying to swim to seven beaches at once.” In that environment, constant addition without relief accelerates fatigue.One solution is increasing employee agency over how those changes are implemented. That involvement reduces disengagement and helps people feel less like passive recipients of disruption. Ultimately, creating space is about resourcing people properly. “Employees need a little bit more slack, so that not everything is a burning priority,” she said. Without that breathing room, even strong strategies fail to land.In a business landscape where change is no longer episodic but constant, the leaders who succeed will not be the ones who understand and design for change fatigue and actively work to reduce its weight. Change fatigue isn’t going away. But it can be managed. And how organizations choose to manage it will define not just how well they adapt—but how well their people endure what comes next.Carrie Snider is a Phoenix-based journalist and marketing copywriter.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)
Balancing Care and Cost: Effective Benefits For Everyone
BY Katie Chambers July 14, 2026“The cost of healthcare is expected to rise between 6-9% this year,” said Courtney Vinopal, senior reporter at HR Brew, citing estimates from Mercer while moderating a recent panel at From Day One’s June virtual conference. Globally, estimates are even more dire at 9-12%, says Damilola Akinduro, global head of benefits at Equinix.Employees expect benefits that support mental health, family needs, and financial well-being, but employers must provide them while managing costs. Striking the right balance requires prioritization, creative solutions, and clear communication so employees understand the value of what’s offered. Which benefits are the most innovative and impactful today? Panelists answered these questions and more during the virtual session. There are numerous factors behind the rising costs of healthcare, says Akinduro. “Our primary drivers include medical inflation; of course, general inflation impacts that. We see an increase in utilization as well, and specialty care [such as] oncology treatments,” she said. Other specialty or chronic issues on the rise include musculoskeletal problems and diabetes care. Gillian Plummer, director of employee health and wellness at Quest Diagnostics, says medical advancements and new therapies, while beneficial, can also contribute to rising costs. “We see pharmacy trends with GLP-1’s and autoimmune cancer gene and cell therapies,” Plummer said. “And let’s not forget the impact of surprise billing, [which] is also driving costs. One other aspect is the use of AI for upcoding of claims.” This new reality is daunting. “Employers are always concerned about the burden this puts on their employees,” said Rebecca Liebman, CEO and co-Founder of LearnLux. Her team helps by incorporating healthcare coaching into employer-sponsored financial well-being programs. “In the United States, picking [one’s] own healthcare plan is the number one reason for personal bankruptcy. A lot of people might be contributing to their 401k, but they’re struggling with this medical bill…their kid broke their leg, or they have an unexpected expense,” she said. Panelists shared their insights on the topic "Balancing Care and Cost: Effective Benefits For Everyone" (photo by From Day One)Teaching employees to incorporate healthcare into their budgets can help them prepare, as can educating them on all benefits available. “If people are scared of the bills, they delay going to the doctor, and usually that ends up costing them and their company more later on. [Make] sure people understand what they have access to now, so it doesn’t build up and become incrementally or exponentially more expensive for them and their employer,” said Liebman. Monique Scroggins, VP of HR total rewards and operations at Lloyds Banking Group, and her team have launched a cost-containment strategy centered on wellness programs. “A lot of our higher claims came around GLP-1 and oncology claims, so we focused [on] return-to-office engagement [and] having people on site teaching you how to eat clean and healthy, and encouraging you to take walks on your lunch break.” Similarly, Quest launched “Healthy Quest” for its 40,000 frontline workers, centered on pillars of how we work, eat, move, and feel, each of which can combat chronic conditions. “It’s really important to have a strategy like that with an organization: not just communicating it broadly, but you physically need to be there on site with your employees and have your leaders and middle management be able to adopt the program,” Plummer said. Plummer’s team also provides over 50 health tests for employees through “Blueprint for Wellness,” collecting data that can help predict future health issues. “Many have changed their lives because of Blueprint for Wellness; they found out they were at risk of a heart attack. That’s very shocking, and that would also be a high-cost claim on our plan,” she said. Designing an Effective Benefits Program As noted, leadership buy-in for any benefits program is crucial. “We have a benefits design committee that consists of our CEO, CFO, legal compliance, [and] our CHRO. We meet monthly and go through all of our strategies,” Plummer said. HR reps should be prepared to articulate needs and potential positive outcomes to higher-ups. “We’re presenting this as a business investment rather than just a cost increase,” Akinduro said. There is one big paradox that can make pitching a benefits program tricky. “The primary goal is to get employees to use these benefits. Utilization is a metric that employers are looking at to judge the success of benefits, but as more employees use a benefit, that can also drive the costs [to] the company higher,” Vinopal said. It’s up to HR to balance those competing goals. For example, Plummer’s team at Quest has seen a rise in mental health claims, with the “anxious generation” of 18-34-year-olds consistently seeking support. “It’s a totally different generation that’s entering the workforce,” she said. While those costs are higher, they are also leading to more productive and engaged employees. Quest also offers free therapy sessions to employees to help combat those costs. “It [also comes] down to culture in your organization: how your supervisors, managers, or leaders are working with their employees impacts mental health too,” Plummer said. Looking at the DataMetrics of benefits engagement should be approached with diligence and nuance. Liebman notes that engagement data can be tailored to the specific benefits, noting that some apps are automated and may be working well but don’t require as much day-to-day engagement as something that relies on one-on-one customer care; both can still be highly effective. It also depends on the individual using the benefit. “It’s [about] understanding what people need from an accountability and engagement perspective, providing all levels of access so that someone can engage in the way that works best for them,” said Liebman.The best wellness programs are holistic, recognizing that various aspects of life and work impact health. “Organizations are realizing that financial health is health,” Liebman said. “Financial stress has major impacts on the brain and mood, cardiovascular, respiratory, gut, digestion, immune system, hormones, muscle, sleep, and recovery. Every single thing in your life that you’re working through from a health perspective gets impacted if you’re stressed about money. Financial planning is really just life planning, so that’s changed who might even own this function within the organization.”As employers continue to balance cost and care, they shouldn’t shy away from being transparent with employees about the value of what is being offered, Akinduro says. “People see the employer contribution alone, but they don’t understand the total value. From time to time, we have to make them aware that behind that is a whole lot of costs that you’re not privy to, and we go all out to make sure that you’re cared for,” she said. “Sometimes employees think that their benefits are not competitive, whereas they are competitive, [but] they just don’t understand it. In written texts, ‘ask me anything’ programs, all-hands sessions, HR sessions, we deploy quite a mix of communication strategies to get people up to speed.” Her organization even includes administrative costs in printed benefits materials, so employees understand the full value of offerings. With costs on the rise across all areas of life a comprehensive benefits package is a generous way to support employees that may be more affordable than salary raises or bonuses. “It’s hard to live without thinking about how every cost is going up,” Liebman said. “They can say, ‘Even though you’re only getting a one or 2% raise, we’re bringing in a benefit to help you understand what to do with your salary, and how to best utilize it.’ So it’s a way that they can still support their employees through times like this.”Katie Chambers is a freelance writer and award-winning communications executive with a lifelong commitment to supporting artists and advocating for inclusion. Her work has been seen in HuffPost, Top Think, and several printed essay collections, and she has appeared on Cheddar News, iWomanTV, On New Jersey, and CBS New York.(Photo by erdikocak/iStock)
How Teams Lose Time and Money to Benefits Navigation, and How to Get It Back
BY Christopher O'Keeffe July 14, 2026Health benefits remain one of the most significant investments organizations make in their employees, but according to Ben Howard, co-founder of Sheer Health, offering comprehensive coverage is only part of the equation. During a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s Manhattan conference, Howard shared that many of the challenges employees experience stem not from the quality of their benefits, but from the complexity of understanding and using them.Howard opened by asking attendees how many had encountered employees seeking help with confusing medical bills, prescription costs, or questions about insurance coverage. He suggested that these situations have become commonplace for HR teams, particularly as healthcare benefits have grown more complex. Rather than discussing benefit design or cost containment strategies, he focused on what happens after an employee receives an unexpected bill or encounters a confusing insurance decision.Throughout the presentation, Howard described what he called the gap between coverage and care. Employees may have access to comprehensive health plans, but they often struggle to determine what services are covered, what they will owe out of pocket, whether a claim was processed correctly, or what steps to take after receiving a denial. As a result, questions that begin with insurance carriers or healthcare providers frequently find their way to HR departments. “A benefit stops feeling like a benefit, and the confusion has to go somewhere,” he said. From Reactive Assistance to Proactive NavigationHoward illustrated this challenge through several common scenarios. During open enrollment, employees may select plans without fully understanding deductibles, provider networks, or long-term costs. During major medical events such as cancer treatment, fertility care, or the management of chronic conditions, patients often face multiple insurers, providers, approvals, and billing systems simultaneously. Even routine prescriptions can generate unexpected expenses when employees are unaware of preferred medications or pharmacy programs available through their health plans.Ben Howard, co-founder of Sheer Health, led the sessionThe problem is rarely inadequate benefits, says Howard. More often, employees lack the information they need to navigate the healthcare system, especially when making decisions under stress. Healthcare has become a navigation problem as much as an access problem, he says, with benefits creating value only when employees know how to use them. That makes proactive benefits navigation, rather than reactive support, increasingly essential.Traditional benefits assistance often begins only after an employee identifies a problem. A claim has been denied, a medical bill appears incorrect, or an explanation of benefits raises new questions. Employees then begin contacting insurance companies, providers, or HR departments in an effort to understand what happened.Howard described an alternative approach in which claims and benefits information are reviewed as they are processed, allowing potential issues to be identified before employees spend significant time trying to resolve them independently. Rather than waiting for employees to report problems, the goal is to identify billing discrepancies, explain insurance decisions in plain language, and assist with appeals before confusion escalates.Measuring Time Alongside CostWhile much discussion surrounding employee healthcare focuses on financial costs, Howard encouraged attendees to consider the amount of time consumed by navigating the healthcare system.He reported that since 2023, Sheer Health has helped members recover nearly $20 million through reimbursements and savings, resolved more than 75,000 insurance-related questions, and saved members more than 25,000 hours that otherwise would have been spent dealing with claims, paperwork, and insurance companies. These hours represent time returned both to employees and to HR teams that would otherwise become involved in resolving benefits questions, he says. Closing the session, Howard returned to the theme that framed the presentation from the outset. “The hardest part of healthcare was never really the paperwork,” he said. “It’s the confusion that paperwork creates.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Sheer Health, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Chris O’Keeffe is a freelance writer with experience across industries. As the founder and creative director of OK Creative: The Language Agency, he has led strategy and storytelling for organizations like MIT, Amazon, and Cirque du Soleil, bringing their stories to life through established and emerging media.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)
AI Skills in Action: Beyond the Buzzwords
BY Paul Kersey July 13, 2026If artificial intelligence has left HR leaders feeling both excited and overwhelmed, they’re far from alone. Companies see enormous potential in the technology and are racing to prepare their workforces for what comes next. The challenge is that no one agrees on the best way to get there.Dr. Ken Matos, the director of market insights at HiBob, spoke with PBS News correspondent Megan Thompson during a From Day One webinar on the matter. As Matos sees it, employers are still in the early stages of adopting AI. Expectations are high, but plans are still vague, as businesses experiment with a wide range of approaches to AI use and employee training. “What’s problematic is that hole in the conversation where it’s a very confident ‘yes, we’re going to do this,’ and a very panicked, ‘I don’t know what doing this really means.’”The hole shows up clearly in HiBob’s survey of 1,200 corporate decision makers, says Matos. Question after question, what emerges is a consensus that AI is important and that workers must be prepared to use AI tools, but there is rarely any agreement about best approaches for use or training. The survey shows that 75% of decision makers agree that even non-technical jobs will require at least moderate AI proficiency, he says. But when it came to what that training actually looked like, there was little consensus. HiBob’s survey listed nine different approaches to upskilling employees, from external seminars to hands-on practice labs and sandbox experimentation, and adoption was remarkably even across them, ranging from 23% to 30%. In other words, most employers were trying two or three methods, but there was no clear playbook for which ones to useThere’s also a conundrum over just who should be in charge of that training. Again, respondents came back with a wide range of answers, from managers to technology vendors to unions to public schools. The leading answer, by a narrow margin, was direct supervisors. But only 36% of respondents thought that those same supervisors were qualified to do the teaching. “Managers of today were not hired because of AI skill,” Matos said, “and those who are promoted are not necessarily good managers who are able to teach.”The AI Skills That Matter MostSo what skills should employers be developing? Matos says that adaptability tops the list. Until now, workers could count on computers to produce the same output from the same input. If the result was different, something had likely gone wrong. AI changes that equation. Even the engineers who build these models can't always predict how they'll respond. As models evolve behind the scenes, the same prompt can produce a different answer than it did yesterday. Employees need to be comfortable working with that uncertainty, adjusting to shifting systems and unexpected outcomes.Kenneth Matos, Ph.D., the director of the Insights Lab at HiBob, led the session (company photo)The second is understanding how AI itself works. This is more than just writing good prompts. It starts with knowing what tasks AI is good at and where humans need to take control. “AI is absorbing a lot of the explicit knowledge” Matos observes, referring to discrete information you might find in a book or a spreadsheet. But there is also tacit knowledge which involves experience and understanding people. AI will lack this sort of knowledge, he says. The third piece will be safety and ethics. “So much of AI usage is envisioned as individual AI people going forth and just doing things and spinning up vibe-coded apps and other applications,” Matos said, but they need to think about what data is in the system. Employees who use AI should pay attention to what data an application really needs, what is and isn’t safe, and what the consequences will be if there’s a breach.Coaching For AI: Learning TogetherIf direct managers are going to be doing the bulk of the training, then companies should rethink just what training means. Matos says that they should adapt a coaching mindset instead. He encourages managers to guide and learn with their subordinates. “You’re not supposed to go and tell them what to do or how to do it because you know it better. You’re there as a critical thinking sounding board to reflect back what they’re saying, to ask them questions.”With that in mind, employees may use AI to generate a report, but they shouldn’t send it to a supervisor until they understand what it’s saying. And rather than acting on every insight AI produces, teams should identify one or two key findings, verify them, and build from there.AI will change workflows and processes, but Matos recommends that this process not be rushed into. His first step? “Map your workflows, don’t even worry about AI yet,” he said. Once you have your actual processes documented, “then you can start saying, ‘Where does AI actually help make this faster, smoother, more integrated?’”“One of the challenges with AI is that no one really understands AI,” Matos said. The uncomfortable truth is that a lot is still unknown about the functions and capabilities of this technology. Accepting that will mean proceeding a bit more slowly with adopting artificial intelligence, but it will free managers to explore the technology along with the rest of their teams. The companies that commit themselves to really learning this technology, balancing bold experimentation and methodical application, will be best positioned to thrive.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, HiBob, for sponsoring this webinar. Paul Kersey is a former attorney and freelance writer who has covered events for Bloomberg News and other outlets. Paul is based in Chicago, IL.(Photo by Kindamorphic/iStock)
Comprehensive Workplace Wellness: Stopping Burnout Before It Starts
BY Jessica Swenson July 09, 2026Employee burnout can quietly erode engagement, productivity, and performance, especially in high-pressure fields such as investment banking, says Stephanie Chiodi, head of benefits at Moelis & Company. That’s the reason her organization monitors utilization of PTO and protected weekends—to make sure they’re being used. The company also invests heavily in targeted manager training, ensuring that deal teams and staff have the tools they need to build resilience and excel in their roles.Chiodi and a panel of cross-industry leaders discussed tools and benefits that help manage everyday stressors and avoid employee burnout at From Day One’s Manhattan conference. The session was moderated by HR Brew senior reporter Courtney Vinopal.Employers across industries are finding ways to detect burnout warning signs. Serina Pak, SVP of talent and total rewards for Danone, works with her team to use pulse checks, employee resource group insights, and biannual healthcare utilization reviews to understand the mindset of the broader employee population.“What we emphasize is really identifying early warning signs, and we do that by being very connected with our employees, doing pulse checks, and we also believe that a lot of this is about culture,” said Pak. The company focuses on connection and fosters a leader-led culture that empowers employees through a shared accountability model.Modern Workplace Wellness“Ten years ago, walking challenges were what we did for wellness,” said Nicole Wolfe, VP of B2B partnerships at Rula Health. “What an incredible evolution to what we consider wellness now.”Wolfe is seeing companies shift from a check-the-box mentality with regard to mental health to making wellness a foundational part of their employee programs. She identified three main pillars that many employees and employers are prioritizing: timely access to care, with no long lead times; authentic provider connections; and reasonable costs enabled by in-network care.Danone has a layered benefits ecosystem, says Pak, which evaluates every benefit against four pillars: physical, nutritional, mental, and financial health. This influences the company’s decisions not only around medical coverage but also flexible time off, fertility support, childcare leave, and more, to support thousands of employees. “We think about how we support every employee’s mental wellness.”Panelists spoke about "Workplace Wellness When Employees Feel They’re at the Breaking Point" at the Manhattan conferencePanelists also addressed how AI is entering the wellness equation. Sword Health’s AI-assisted care model offers employees 24/7 access to care, enabling care on their timeline while preserving PTO hours for rest and rejuvenation, says Kinsay Conner, doctor of physical therapy and clinical specialist with Sword Health.But AI shouldn’t be working on its own. All of the company’s solutions “pair members with a clinician, whether that’s a PhD psychologist or a doctor of physical therapy. The clinicians are providing 100% of the clinical oversight,” said Conner. “The AI is there for support.”Mental Health Support When It MattersChiodi uncovered a critical access gap at Moelis early in her tenure. Despite having very robust medical plans, employees often ran into 3-4-month wait times for mental health care in the UK and multi-week waits in the United States. Moelis found an organization to partner with that could connect employees with care within one business day, and eliminated barriers to care by completely covering that benefit for employees.“We made a decision as a firm to cover the benefit at 100% so that we were removing really any barrier that someone could come up with to access their own self-guided elements,” she said, “or to graduate into care [with a coach, psychiatrist, or psychologist].”Panelists agreed that the opportunity for genuine disconnection from work is critical to mental wellness, but methods vary between organizations. Wolfe noted a trending practice of normalizing mental healthcare by allowing team members to block out calendar time for therapy appointments.The ROI of Workplace WellnessMeasuring ROI on these comprehensive benefit programs is “an art and a science” said Pak. Danone analyzes not only employee survey data and benefit utilization statistics, but also turnover, leave of absence, and engagement scores to determine the company’s best path forward.Wolfe cautions that utilization alone is not enough—it needs to lead to results. “There’s a balance of ensuring that you can provide care regardless of where people are and what they need, but also they are utilizing it in a way that you can see results,” she said. “Engagement is important, but it’s also ensuring that the right people are using the right benefits at the right time.”Jessica Swenson is a freelance writer and proofreader based in the Midwest. Learn more about her at jmswensonllc.com.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)
Building an AI-Ready Workforce: Culture, Skills, and the Human Side of Transformation
BY Ade Akin July 09, 2026When LexisNexis rolled out its first AI skills assessment, HR leaders expected pushback. The voluntary program, offered to about half the workforce with no mandates, KPIs, or pressure, simply invited employees to gauge their AI skills. Instead of resistance, participation far exceeded expectations, with 91% of employees completing the assessment. The surprise challenge came from an unexpected group: managers.“We had to chase our managers,” Amy Liedke, EVP of HR at LexisNexis, said during a fireside chat at From Day One’s Manhattan conference. “Employees were coming forward in very, very high numbers. Managers were coming forward organically at about 40%,” she said. The gap revealed something deeper than a simple scheduling conflict. Liedke unpacked what the data exposed about leadership culture, psychological safety, and the surprising resistance from the very people expected to guide others through transformation during the fireside chat moderated by Jessi Hempel, senior editor-at-large at LinkedIn. The Assessment That Became a MirrorThe introduction of the AI skills matrix at LexisNexis occurred within a broader strategic framework. The company released its first customer-facing AI product called “Lexis+ AI” in early 2023, and its CEO had been discussing AI adoption consistently for three years. The skills assessment was part of an approach to driving AI culture and fluency within the organization. It was paired with a tiered learning program—Explorer, Accelerator, and Transformer—that gave employees a clear path forward.The true revelation for Liedke wasn’t in the technology’s capabilities; rather, the insight lay in the surprising demographic patterns of its uptake. Employees embraced the opportunity to understand their current AI skills and create a plan for growth. Managers, however, were slower to participate, often pointing to packed schedules and competing strategic priorities that made it difficult to find the time. “It has a lot more to do with their own comfort and embracing of the tools, and how to change. Some of them, I think, are hanging on to certain old ways of working, and a discomfort with how they play a role in developing others on a skill that they might not yet have fully developed in themselves,” she said.Amy Liedke, EVP, HR, LexisNexis, right, spoke with Jessi Hempel, Senior Editor-at-Large, LinkedIn, during the fireside chatBuilding an AI-ready workforce requires a lot more than training programs. It requires confronting employee fear head-on. Liedke acknowledges that the constant barrage of headlines, such as job cuts and apocalyptic predictions about AI eliminating roles, makes the role of HR significantly harder.Liedke’s response has been to reframe the narrative entirely. Rather than positioning AI as a tool that replaces workers, LexisNexis emphasizes augmentation. The company has increased employee headcount steadily over the past year, using productivity gains from integrating artificial intelligence with existing systems to fund new work that was previously out of reach.The Evolutionary, Not Revolutionary, ShiftWhile headlines create fear that AI will upend the job market, Liedke sees a more gradual transformation. Rather than eliminating roles overnight, she expects AI to steadily reshape the tasks that make up individual jobs. To prepare for those changes, LexisNexis has formed a fifth “tiger team” focused on workforce engineering, developing a repeatable process for identifying how roles are evolving and the new skills employees will need.“A lot of the new skills are competency-based, right? It’s a lot of the more strategic work, it’s a lot of the more human, interpersonal, judgment-based work,” she said.The old model, writing a job description and leaving it untouched for a decade, no longer works. Liedke now advocates for reviewing job architectures at least once a year, preferably twice. The nature of work is shifting incrementally, and HR teams need a process to track those changes in real time.Liedke’s experience leading AI initiatives has revealed an unexpected lesson: hiring a single AI-savvy employee rarely changes an organization because the existing culture quickly absorbs them. Instead, she recommends hiring groups of AI talent who can reinforce one another and help sustain change. The AI assessment also gave employees a shared understanding of their skills and ownership of their development, but she says leadership must evolve alongside them.“Leaders have to be willing to make different types of decisions to move at a different pace and to challenge constantly,” Liedke said. “You can’t just do it with your CEO, and you can’t just do it with the workforce alone.”Don’t Wait to Be InvitedLiedke advises HR leaders to invite themselves to the table. In her case, she recognized her opening when LexisNexis’s CEO started asking for more AI natives. “I asked him, ‘Okay, I have my own idea around that, but what do you mean when you say AI native? What does that look like for you? What’s the definition of that for you?’” she said. That moment became the catalyst for the AI skills assessment rollout. Liedke understood that somewhere between a science experiment and “you know it when you see it” lies a space where HR can design practical frameworks that are simple, development-oriented, and safe for honest self-assessment.Now, she deliberately avoids using the term AI native because it suggests a closed club reserved for people who happened to be at OpenAI or Anthropic five years ago. Instead, she promotes “AI first” as a growth mindset. Everyone has a starting point. Everyone can gain fluency. “We can all have a starting point and say, ‘I’m here today, and I know how to experiment, and I’ve had new technology presented to me before, and that’s what I’m going to do,” she said.Liedke also points out an unexpected demographic twist: Gen Z and Gen Alpha are some of the most resistant to the AI technology revolution. It’s the first tech evolution where the youngest workers aren’t the early adopters. That’s another invitation for HR to step in to understand the why behind their reluctance, to increase participation, and to keep the conversation surrounding AI integration developmental rather than judgmental. “We have a role to keep this positive and developmental, and that’s one that we can definitely play,” Liedke said.Ade Akin covers artificial intelligence, workplace wellness, HR trends, and digital health solutions.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)
Aligning Scale and Flexibility in Global Benefits
BY Ade Akin July 08, 2026Akamai shuts down five times a year. Not the internet infrastructure that serves as one of the backbones of global connectivity—the company itself.The company’s culture embraces occasional shutdowns that give employees three day weekends to rest and recharge, says Ken Wechsler, VP of global total rewards. He spoke during a fireside chat at From Day One’s June virtual conference, moderated by Corinne Lestch, journalist and founder of the Off-Site Writing Workshop.Akamai also offers five dedicated wellness days each year, deliberately scheduled around U.S. holidays such as Memorial Day and Labor Day, says Wechsler. Akamai’s commitment to mental health and recharging is part of a deliberate, global philosophy that balances scale with flexibility.Meeting People Where They Live and WorkThe company employs 12,000 people across 35 countries, spanning regions as varied as India, Poland, and Costa Rica. Designing global benefits that resonate across that many cultures and the life stages of each employee is no small job. “We recognize that employees’ needs, legal requirements, and cultural expectations vary across all the regions,” Wechsler said.The company relies heavily on employee feedback, demographics, and utilization data to determine which benefits to retain and which to discontinue. For example, the wellness allowance Akamai offers is available to all employees regardless of the region they work in, but the dollar amount varies. “We try to say, ‘What is the market average around there, and how can we meet people there at that same level?’”That sensitivity to local norms extends to benefits like family planning. For example, employees in India, where multigenerational households are common, increasingly want to include their parents on medical plans. However, those parents make up about 62% of the company’s healthcare costs in India. Akamai is now exploring cost-sharing adjustments to keep the benefit sustainable while remaining competitive. “Our benefit programs help us recruit and retain our employees,” he said. Remote Work as a Strategic AdvantageAkamai has doubled down on providing flexible work options at a time many CEOs are ordering workers back to their desks. Akamai’s employees can work remotely 100% of the time if they choose. “It allows us to differentiate ourselves,” he said. The numbers support Wechsler’s assessment. Attrition rates in the tech industry typically hover around 10 to 14%, but Akamai’s attrition rate is about half of that. Recruiters lead with policy, and tenure is longer. Ken Wechsler of Akamai Technologies spoke with journalist Corinne Lestch (photo by From Day One)Wechsler recognizes that remote work doesn’t work for everyone, though. “We may not be the right place for the right young people who actually really need to be in an office,” he said. His own son works at a financial firm and loves the commute and water‑cooler chats. For Akamai’s more mature workforce, though, the ability to integrate work with family is invaluable. “We always talk about work‑life balance; we really think it's work‑life integration,” he said.Holistic Total RewardsAkamai’s total rewards philosophy doesn’t stop at employee salaries. The company recently introduced a financial fitness center through LearnLux that offers sessions on budgeting, housing costs, retirement planning, stock administration, 401(k) education, and tax planning twice monthly. “We’ve received incredibly high satisfaction from that,” Wechsler said. It has also made family benefits a cornerstone of its global offering. With Carrot, employees have access to fertility treatments, surrogacy, adoption support, and even menopause or low‑T care. The program is inclusive across life stages for anyone building a family in whatever form that takes. Akamai has an aging workforce, so the company ensures that older employees, including those who are eligible for Medicare, can stay on its health plan if they choose to return from retirement, he says.Akamai’s most distinctive innovation is its network of mental health first aiders, says Wechsler. These are 100 trained employees who aren’t professional counselors, but serve as compassionate first-line listeners. The program was launched five years ago and has since expanded to every region of the company. “It’s no longer taboo, but people didn’t know where to get help,” Wechsler said. The first aiders can have that initial conversation and point colleagues to professional resources.Trust in the mental health first aiders has grown organically. Staff members gladly showcase their first aider badges in their email signatures, while word of mouth keeps the program prominent. “We have ongoing seminars a couple times a year just to let people know it exists,” Wechsler said.Additionally, while many employers are scaling back coverage for GLP‑1 drugs, Akamai refuses to budge. “We’re not reducing anything,” Wechsler said. The company covers the drugs for both medically necessary and lifestyle purposes. Akamai’s healthcare costs haven’t spiked as badly as some of its competitors. Wechsler partly credits the company’s wellness culture, which includes gym memberships, wellness days, and a holistic approach to health care, for keeping costs down. Advice for Benefits LeadersModerator Corinne Lestch asked Wechsler for his top advice as the fireside chat came to a close. “Know who you are, focus on your demographics, listen to your employees, try to figure out how to meet people where they are,” he said. He warned against blindly following benchmarks. “Just because everybody else is doing it doesn’t mean it’s right for your culture.”Wechsler also says building a long‑term plan is essential. Akamai is already mapping out 2027 through 2029. “It takes time to get there,” he added. “It’s okay to be different. It’s okay to say this is right for us because here’s how we'll help this population.” That human-first philosophy might be the most consequential product of a company that handles 30% of internet traffic. Ade Akin covers artificial intelligence, workplace wellness, HR trends, and digital health solutions.(Photo by Parradee Kietsirikul/iStock)
Making Total Rewards a Strategic Retention and Engagement Tool
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza July 08, 2026“As HR professionals, we think in terms of compensation, health, retirement, well-being, and recognition, but employees think about things in terms of, ‘Can I afford my life? Do I feel valued? Does my company care about me?’” said Joshua Lemon, head of AI and compensation at smart home tech company Resideo. Lemon and four other leaders of HR and benefits were part of a panel discussion about using total rewards for engagement and retention during From Day One’s June virtual conference.And, indeed, communications matter. According to Mercer’s 2025 Health on Demand Report, 79% of employees that receive communications about their benefits say the company cares about their health and well-being. To better tailor their outreach, Resideo created personas for employee groups, like employees with young families, for instance, and target communications programs based on common needs and concerns, says Lemon. “That makes it much more approachable, much more relatable, and the messaging really hits a lot stronger,” he said. But, Lemon says, it takes more than just mailers and email blasts, no matter how segmented. “How well are your HR business partners and your managers scripted to talk about benefits?”Benefits access should also slide nicely into the flow of work, said Kate Duncan, the chief people office at benefits technology company Nayya. “If your employees are using Slack, can you get benefits information distributed in that way? If everyone knows to go to your intranet or your hub, make sure your benefits information is available there and accurate.” There are plenty of tech platforms meant to make benefits access as easy as possible, but can they nudge employees based on preferences and needs? And if they’re AI-powered, how accurate is the LLM?A company might have a robust package, but in a crisis, no one can shuffle through a dozen point solutions to find what they need. That’s why global business services provider APi Group uses a concierge service that connects employees to what they need when they need it. The point isn’t to sell vendors by their brand names or their value propositions, says VP of total reward Eric Roesner, it’s about meeting a need.Employers should consider those elements beyond healthcare and retirement plans, said Stacey Olson, who focuses on the physical environment for clients at the design firm Gensler. “You can provide all the opportunities for mental and physical health, but if the people don’t feel they have the capacity to make use of those things, whether it’s because they don’t have the time in their schedule, the space, the privacy, or a sense of security, then they will go unused.”Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza, journalist and From Day One contributing editor, moderated the session (photo by From Day One)“Do they feel a sense of purpose when they come into their space—physical, intellectual, and so forth?” she said. “How are we designing space that allows people to connect?” Workplace relationships, especially with one’s manager, have an impact on employee engagement and retention, and Olson says employers should design physical spaces—whether offices or hospitals or shop floors—that facilitate those relationships.The small things matter too. “Finding and capturing bright moments to engage with your team is probably one of the most important things, and it doesn’t always have to be something huge,” said Micha Berkuz, CEO of employee recognition company Gifted. “If someone is sick at home, we will send them a small gift with a DoorDash, Uber Eats, or a Grubhub gift card, just to save them the trouble of cooking lunch. If you capture those special moments at the right time, it’s a low-cost, high-impact way to connect.” Personalization goes a long way, especially when it comes to messaging. More than half (54%) of employees say they want personalized benefits communications, according to MetLife’s 2023 Employee Benefit Trends study. Panelists agreed that AI can help make that possible. “All of our employees are at different stages of their lives, have different needs, and are in different circumstances,” said Duncan at Nayya. “We can’t expect them to remember the benefits that they enrolled in at open enrollment time, let alone the benefits that were newly rolled out two years ago.” Access to an informed GPT can remind them at the right moment.“You have a workforce, who, somewhat regardless of generation, understands what an LLM is, and they use it in their personal lives,” said Roesner at APi Group. “The part I find so interesting is the ability for it to retain and build on history.” LLMs learn an employee’s unique circumstances and what’s important to them. “It’s really powerful, and I also think it’ll be transformative.”Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is an independent journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about business and the world of work. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Inc., and Business Insider, among others. She is the recipient of a Virginia Press Association award for business and financial journalism. She is the host of How to Be Anything, the podcast about people with unusual jobs.(Photo by Benjamas Deekam/iStock)
Maintaining a Wellness-Forward Workplace Amid Change
BY Kristen Kwiatkowski July 07, 2026Organizational success starts with the people who make it possible. When employees are healthy, supported, and engaged, they’re better equipped to collaborate, innovate, and perform at their best. Increasingly, workers recognize this too: research shows that most employees would rather work for an employer that prioritizes their well-being than receive a 10% pay raise. The message is clear—investing in employee well-being isn’t just the right thing to do; it’s a competitive advantage that drives stronger performance and better business outcomes, says Alexandra Powell, director of insights at Reward Gateway. Powell spoke about how employers can maintain a human workplace in the midst of change during a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s Manhattan conference. “In the midst of change and uncertainty, your people make all the difference,” she said.Employees Want Employers to Care About Their Well-Being“What we love to do is play in the space of how do you create an employee value proposition that’s going to get and keep top talent and what is it people are looking for?” she said.The answer lies in recent survey data that highlights a significant shift in employee priorities. According to research done by Reward Gateway, 58% of U.S. employees across industries said that working for a company that cares about their well-being is more valuable than receiving a 10% raise. That’s a notable increase from 44% in 2023, suggesting that employees are placing greater emphasis on workplace culture and support than on pay increases alone.Alexandra Powell, director of insights at Reward Gateway, led the session, "Maintaining a Human Workplace in the Midst of Change"There were other sentiments offered as well that seemed to be more important to employees than a 10% raise. “Ability to learn and grow, great relationship with my manager, and consistent, frequent praise,” said Powell.“We’ve also found that one of the most interesting differentiators in the data over the past few years is where people work,” Powell said. Among fully remote employees, 54% said a company that cares about their well-being is more valuable than a 10% raise, slightly below the overall average. That figure rises to 59% for fully onsite workers. Hybrid employees reported the highest levels, with 57% of those who spend fewer than two days a week in the office and 63% of those in the office three or more days a week saying they value an employer that prioritizes employee well-being over a 10% raise.How to Promote Workplace WellnessWhether an employee feels their employer cares about their well-being majorly impacts turnover and retention, says Powell. In fact, 1 in 5 workers say they are leaving if the company doesn’t care about their well-being, she says. So, how can employers let their team members know they matter to them? “Employee resource groups, pulse surveys, lots of things we can do to let people know that they matter to us and make it visible,” said Powell.Powell pointed to her company’s response during Covid as an example of making employee support more accessible. Her team created a centralized hub of benefits information that answered common questions, allowing employees to find resources on their own without having to contact HR or their managers.She also emphasized that employers should make their commitment to well-being visible. That can include initiatives like Wellness Wednesdays, expanded counseling services, wellness care packages, or well-being challenges with prizes. Why Recognition Is Essential to Employee Well-Being“Recognition is a powerful way to support well-being, so we combined the two over the years,” she said. “We do campaigns to recognize well-being and the first one we did was super powerful, as it was to recognize your manager that supports your well-being. I love this, because it’s getting stories told across the organization.” Another recognition initiative the company runs during Mental Health Awareness Month encourages employees to thank colleagues who support their well-being. Appreciation cards are available with the message: “Thanks for all you do to support my mental health.”“These recognition campaigns are something we can do to make sure people feel valued and seen, but also reinforce what’s already working [in the realm] of well-being,” said Powell.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Reward Gateway, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Kristen Kwiatkowski is a professional freelance writer covering a wide array of industries, with a focus on food and beverage and business. Her work has been featured in the Bucks County Herald, Eater Philly, Edible Lehigh Valley, Cider Culture, and The Town Dish.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)
How to Hire for the Agentic Era
BY Ade Akin July 06, 2026The role of software developers has been fundamentally transformed in the agentic era. What was once a linear path from requirements to deployment has evolved into an active process of agent orchestration, in which AI agents handle the heavy lifting of coding, testing, and maintenance. This shift has forced a complete rethinking of how companies identify and hire talent that thrives in this new landscape. Vivek Ravinsankar, the co-founder and CEO of HackerRank, delivered a thought leadership spotlight on this new challenge facing organizations at From Day One’s Manhattan conference. His session, “How to Hire for the Agentic Era,” laid out a roadmap for HR and talent leaders navigating a world where AI fluency is as vital as code correctness; a world where it has become more challenging than ever to maintain integrity in the hiring process.The Orchestrator's New RoleRavinsankar started his presentation by acknowledging the pervasive anxiety surrounding AI. Addressing the widespread concern regarding AI, he noted that anxieties about technology replacing workers have deep roots, citing a 1928 news report that linked rising unemployment to the advent of new machinery. Vivek Ravinsankar, co-founder and CEO of HackerRank, led the session titled, "Hire for the Agentic Era," in Manhattan Adapting to the AI revolution requires a fundamental shift in perspective. The software developer’s profession has transcended the boundaries of the conventional development cycle. “Today, AI agents can do all of this in a much better way than humans,” he said. “The job of a developer has now become an orchestrator of agents.” This evolution extends beyond the field of software engineering; Ravinsankar notes that a customer support person’s role today is to “build an agent that can respond to tickets as good or better than they can.”Rethinking the InterviewThe method used to evaluate candidates must evolve if the job has changed. Ravinsankar detailed a three-dimensional shift in how HackerRank’s customers, over 3,000 companies ranging from garage startups to Fortune 500 enterprises, are adapting their hiring processes.First, the type of questions asked has evolved. Companies are moving away from standard algorithmic puzzles toward “tasks on code repositories that mirror real-world work.” This gives candidates a tangible sense of the company’s work environment and allows employers to assess their skills.Second, the criteria evaluated have expanded. Historically, the focus was on a candidate’s ability to write correct code. In the current landscape, that is merely the baseline expectation. Ravinsankar says evaluation has shifted from code correctness to critical thinking, judgment, and AI fluency.Third, the candidate experience is also changing. Developers used to operate in an Integrated Development Environment (IDE), a space where programming code served as the primary focal point. That is evolving into what Ravinsankar calls an ADE, or Agentic Developer Environment, “where the agents are the spotlight.”The technical assessment candidates go through is also undergoing a paradigm shift. Ravinsankar mapped the historical progression from the abstract brain teasers of the 1990s to the algorithmic focus of the 2000s, followed by the adoption of online testing and collaborative pair programming. Ravinsankar notes that the current environment is defined by a clear move toward AI-driven interviews supported by a human-led screening process.The Integrity Challenge in an AI WorldRavinsankar also addressed the rising tide of integrity issues during his presentation. Trusting that a candidate is who they say they are—and that their work is their own—has become a paramount concern due to the proliferation of suspicious tools and the ease of impersonation.He identified three primary issues that compromise the integrity of the hiring process: leaked questions, the use of cheating tools, and impersonation. To combat question leaks, HackerRank scours the web, sending DMCA notices and providing alternate questions to its customers. He notes that the most popular site for leaked questions in the last three months was a website called Study X, highlighting the ever-changing nature of the threat.Ravinsankar spoke candidly about the use of questionable tools, asserting that integrity hinges on adherence to established guidelines rather than the simple presence or absence of AI. “Integrity is not about whether you use AI or not. Integrity is about whether you follow the rules,” he said. To support this, HackerRank’s platform provides employers with full visibility into a candidate’s session, including alerts if they navigate to third-party sites like ChatGPT.Lastly, Ravinsankar provided several striking metrics regarding candidate impersonation. According to Ravinsankar, analytics on flagged suspicious activity reveal that approximately 77% of cases involve video streams being toggled on and off, likely indicating that a candidate is searching for answers. Furthermore, multiple individuals appear in the frame in about 20% of these instances, while the candidate's identity changes entirely during the session in roughly 2% of interviews.“It’s like watching Benjamin Button,” he said, “the person completely changes.” Ravinsankar further observed that patterns in webcam use differ notably across various geographic regions and career levels, highlighting the necessity for a flexible, rather than uniform, strategy for maintaining hiring integrity.HackerRank has launched a new product called Chakra to address the twin challenges of evolving skills and rising integrity concerns. The name, which means “superpower,” reflects its mission. “It’s an AI interviewer that tries to find the superpower in every candidate,” Ravinsankar said. It marries the search for next-gen skills with a high-integrity process, representing what he believes is the new form of AI-led screen.Ravinsankar concluded on an optimistic note, reinforcing his belief that “the more capable AI becomes, the more valuable human labor will be.” Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, HackerRank, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Ade Akin covers artificial intelligence, workplace wellness, HR trends, and digital health solutions.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)