Training for AI: Six Ways HR Leaders Are Getting Their Teams Up to Speed
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza December 15, 2025As corporate America operationalizes AI at an ever-increasing rate, “HR is going to be the one figuring out how to connect the dots,” declares Dan Kaplan, managing partner and co-head of the CHRO practice at ZRG Partners. Company-wide AI rollouts are ultimately an HR matter, he argues, since they affect productivity, headcount, culture, and revenue. A new report from McLean & Company found that while 68% of companies are using AI, just 14% have a formal strategy. To get a handle on the new tech, some HR teams, like the one at New York Life, are taking the lead on adoption. The insurance firm launched its enterprise-wide AI training program in April, but HR had already been part of early pilots in 2023, testing internal systems that later scaled across the company.“Because of our early experiences with AI, HR became an essential voice for the broader rollout,” said Elliot Steelman, head of employee relations and leader of the HR department’s AI initiative. His team built fluency in prompt engineering, skills intelligence for talent mapping, analytics for long-term planning, and GPT creation. That is, generative pre-trained transformers, the large language models underlying today’s tools.Approaches to training up the HR team on the latest in AI tech vary by organization, but many combine classroom sessions, company-wide knowledge-sharing meetings, messaging channels for swapping tips, and virtual sandboxes where employees can play and experiment. Here are six ways HR leaders are training their teams to use–and lead–with artificial intelligence.HackathonsAt New York Life, AI hackathons–intensive, collaborative workshops focused on solving specific problems–have become one of the most effective ways to build HR’s proficiency. “Of the thousands of GPTs created at New York Life, many of the most-used were developed by HR,” said Steelman. “To date, employees in our HR department have collectively built more than 100.”The company’s CEO, Craig DeSanto, has been unequivocal: using AI is not optional. Yet the company has avoided ugly ultimatums by setting employees free to have fun with the tech. Starting with learning and exploration made adoption less intimidating. “Employees felt like they were driving the change, not chasing it,” Steelman said.S&P Global was also an early adopter. After acquiring AI and analytics company Kensho in 2018, the company began training employees almost immediately. During a From Day One webinar, the global head of people solutions, Tiffany Clark, noted that S&P hosts quarterly hackathons to help employees experiment with AI and solve real problems.Internal Tool Development and TestingSome HR teams are co-designing their own AI productivity tools. The people-operations team at Nextdoor, the hyperlocal social network, began experimenting with ChatGPT in 2022. The head of compensation and talent, Tony Castellanos, said that their early willingness to tinker with a tool that was still clunky, and adapt it to their needs, helped build lasting proficiency.“You need curiosity. You also need resilience and perseverance,” he said. His team has developed their own AI tools to automate common workflows and answer employees’ questions about things like open enrollment and immigration.In 2024, S&P Global rolled out an AI assistant to handle common questions for the people-operations team. In partnership with the AI strategy team, Clark’s team helped develop the framework and conduct testing, a move that’s been instrumental not only in how employees leverage the assistant, but in building the HR team’s literacy, she said.Some people-operations experts, like Janine Yancey, founder and CEO of Emtrain, want the department to take the initiative when it comes to AI use. “I’d love to see HR leaders be the first to the table,” she said at From Day One’s Midtown Manhattan conference in October.Secure Sandbox Environments Training needn’t be too structured, or even goal-oriented. Many companies simply invite employees to experiment with sanctioned tools in “sandbox” environments, where applications and code can be tested safely.At biotech firm Genentech, all employees are trained on AI principles, ethics, and responsible use. The company encourages experimentation within sandboxes, coupled with live sessions and peer-learning events where colleagues show off what they’ve built.These safe, low-stakes spaces where employees are free to make mistakes, take risks, and “learn out loud,” are essential to adoption, said Amelia Rosenman, director of programs at the Experience Institute, during a From Day One webinar. “Share both your successes and your failures. That’s what creates that safe environment, that risk-free sandbox,” she said.Messaging Channels for Trading TipsAt fintech company Stripe, the people operations team set up a Slack channel where employees share how they’re using AI for little productivity boosts. “We make a point of being transparent about how we’re thinking about the future,” said Róisín Daly, head of people solutions, during a panel on how innovative companies are using advanced HR tech. The same was done at Aspen Dental, which created a Microsoft Teams group dedicated to sharing ideas for responsible AI use. This went a long way to quelling concerns that using AI was in some way cheating, said VP of learning and development Katie Stangel during a virtual panel. “People are starting to celebrate and call out when they’ve used it, saying, ‘I use ChatGPT to help me with this outline,’ or ‘I used Articulate AI to help me with the design and development of the course.’ We celebrate that.”Peer-Led Demos and WebinarsPeer-to-peer learning has become one of the most widely used ways to get employees comfortable experimenting with AI. New York Life hosts live workshops where staff demo their own AI use cases for colleagues. These sessions are often led by what initiative leader Steelman calls “internal evangelists” and “AI influencers.” These champions normalize experimentation, model best practices, and accelerate adoption by showing what’s possible.Every department requires different AI training, said Marvie Wright, VP of HR at Qualfon, during a From Day One virtual panel discussion on AI in HR. To meet those varied needs, the company created a cross-functional task force to evaluate tools and department-specific use cases, weighing factors like budget and compliance requirements. As adoption has grown, Wright has even added an AI programmer to her HR team. “The possibilities are endless, and my company is excited to invest because we know this is leading to a more enhanced future,” she said.Fellow panelist Ari Levahi of Moody’s Global agreed, noting that while training formats needn’t differ by function, “it’s all about the unique use cases associated with the HR role.”Traditional Training Environments, Both Classroom and Virtual More traditional forms of learning still play an important role in ensuring consistent, baseline AI literacy across HR and the enterprise at large. Nextdoor trains its team in a virtual classroom, where employees spend one hour a week for five weeks learning how AI works and then experimenting with it in their daily tasks. “One of the things that we're excited about is just the broad range of opportunities,” said Castellanos. “We don’t want to be prescriptive about what people do because we want to tap into the creativity and ingenuity of everybody here.”That openness has already paid off. One recruiter trained an AI-powered voice interviewer to help her team practice candidate interviews, something that previously had no real-world, low-stakes equivalent. “She really embodies curiosity, creativity, and the desire to improve,” Castellanos said. “She has continuously experimented with very specific use cases, and when this opportunity came along, she was one of the first to recognize its potential.”Rote reporting and paper pushing “erode energy and deplete people’s reserves,” he added. With a more AI-literate workforce, “you see an elevation of conversation. We’re not talking about how to push a task forward–we’re talking about strategic objectives. And that’s a lot more fun.”Stripe’s L&D team created a course that employees can access on demand, while New York Life supplements hands-on hackathons with on-demand modules. These structured offerings give employees shared language and technical grounding, making experimentation, and safe use, easier across teams. They also brought in the experts to teach AI skills, inviting leaders from Microsoft and OpenAI as well as Conor Grennan, chief AI architect at New York University’s Stern School of Business.While only a small fraction of companies have formal AI strategies, those that do are already reaping the rewards. At New York Life, an internal survey conducted in June found that 90% of HR employees’ say that they are confident in using AI in their day-to-day work, with 92% of employees reporting they actively look for new ways to integrate the technology into their daily work. “That speaks volumes about our shared enthusiasm, growing confidence, and the trust we’ve built together,” Steelman said.For HR leaders, that may be the lesson: AI adoption isn’t just about deploying new tools, it’s about building a workforce that feels empowered, curious, and capable of shaping the future of work itself–and that can begin with HR itself.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.(Featured photo by FG Trade/iStock by Getty Images)
How Innovative Companies Put Advanced Technology to Work
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza December 10, 2025HR leaders are on the front lines of AI adoption in the workplace. They’re responsible not just for finding ways to make their own departments more productive and efficient, but for ensuring that it can be smoothly applied throughout the organization. At a panel discussion at From Day One’s November virtual conference about how innovative companies are putting advanced tech to work, leaders shared how AI is reshaping their organizations, from hiring to data privacy.How AI Is Saving One Company Thousands of Hours At Vail Resorts, one major success has been in taming application volume, an enormous relief for a company that employs 50,000 workers, roughly 80% of whom are seasonal. “Our first attempt with leveraging AI is around modernizing the talent-acquisition process,” said Shiv Akumala, senior director of HR and finance. The hospitality company launched a mobile-friendly UI interface where candidates can apply for jobs that match their skill sets and their experience.Behind the scenes, the platform analyzes applications and automatically schedules screening calls and interviews. For a team accustomed to manually sorting through seasonal hiring surges, the impact has been dramatic. This first attempt at AI has saved the talent acquisition team thousands of hours, Akumala says.Vail’s use of AI doesn’t stop at hiring. The company is also using tools that forecast labor needs in real time, factoring in guest bookings and weather conditions to help managers schedule workers more accurately. Instead of relying on instinct or static staffing plans, managers can use dynamic models to understand exactly when demand at resorts will spike.Training a Modern Workforce on AIAt S&P Global, leaders saw the promise of AI early. The data and intelligence firm began training its workforce on artificial intelligence in 2018, well before the 2022 release of ChatGPT created the current AI boom.All new hires get exposure to AI tools and principles, regular hackathons challenge teams to develop their skills, and employees are incentivized to solve their problems with AI. Journalist and From Day One contributing editor, Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza moderated the session (photo by From Day One)Executives model this behavior. CEO Martina Cheung and CPO Girish Ganesan have spoken at company all-hands meetings about how they use AI, both in and outside the office. That openness matters, says Tiffany Clark, S&P’s global head of people solutions and well-being. “That’s what really encourages and incentivizes our employees to leverage AI.”Making AI Simple and PersonalFor some, the AI learning curve is steep, and a slower introduction is needed, said Tyson Foods’ HR tech leader Devina Desai. The challenge is ensuring the tools are accessible enough for everyone to participate. “We need to make the experience for our team members basic,” she said.So, Tyson created a simplified, one-stop user experience within its HR administration system. Instead of navigating multiple portals with discrete credentials, employees can log in to a single platform to review dental insurance, submit medical claims, or learn about financial benefits. When everyday tasks like these become easier, Desai says, employees are more likely to use their benefits. Line managers get their own tailored dashboards with analytics, attendance records, and tardiness data–and each user sees exactly what they need.Ensuring Data Privacy Amid a Surge of AIIf efficiency is one side of AI adoption, data protection is the other. “We have very important internal employee data, so I always think about the possibility of leakage,” said Róisín Daly, head of people solutions at fintech company Stripe.As HR tech vendors began adding AI features, Daly’s team scrutinized the fine print. “We were suddenly faced with this problem: They’re processing our data and the lawyers don’t exactly know how to handle this, because it’s very new.”Daly must handle HR data–which includes troves of personally identifiable information, or PII–differently than her counterparts in other functions handle their data. While non-PII employee information may sit safely in the cloud, sensitive personal data requires iron-clad protections. The slightest bit of leakage is problematic at best, and catastrophic at worst.“That’s how leaders in the HR space tell me that they lose sleep, so I’m very focused on the experience, both from an internal data storage perspective and a vendor relationship perspective.”Clark agreed: “HR data is not the same as other forms of data. The biggest part is getting people to understand that difference, and then making sure we have firm data governance and data safeguards.”At pharmaceutical company McKesson, rigorous review is standard for every AI-enabled initiative. Ajeeth Anand Viswanath, senior director of HR tech services, says the company uses a three-tier approval model. First, legal reviews the use case. If it passes, it’s on to a senior specialist or data architect. Only after clearing those hurdles does it go to an executive-level board that assesses risk, exposure, and alignment with company priorities. “It’s a long process, as there are multiple questions,” he said. “Even the attorneys are present.”As the rate of change accelerates workplace transformation, HR leaders will have to contend with the way AI both simplifies and complicates the discipline. Whether it’s speeding up hiring, simplifying frontline tools, or tightening data protections, each organization is reckoning with how to deploy AI in ways that serve both the business and its people.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 JLco - Julia Amaral/iStock)
New Year, New Recruiting: Trends and Tech in 2026 to Optimize Hiring, Screening, and Beyond
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza December 02, 2025The HR tech industry continues to introduce new innovations to make hiring smarter, faster, and easier. Yet even as the number of applications per position grows, some talent leaders are rethinking how, and how much, they want to rely on this technology alone.During a From Day One webinar on recruiting trends and technology heading into 2026, talent leaders debated the ways in which tech will automate and augment the hiring process, and how to strike the right balance between human and artificial intelligence. They agreed on this: AI is here to stay, but so is the human touch. What Is Responsible AI?For Kim Stevens, director of talent acquisition at recruiting platform Employ, responsible AI can be defined simply: “It’s technology that supports people. It doesn’t replace them.” In practice, that means AI never overrides human judgment, and a person always makes the final call. It also means the technology can explain itself. When Employ’s AI screening tool flags standout candidates, it provides a clear rationale. This information helps keep the company audit-ready, a legal necessity–and some argue, a moral one.Mike Rockwell, VP of account management at Verified Fist, which conducts employee background checks, added that responsibility also includes security. “If you think about the most popular AI tools people are using, like ChatGPT, if you put something in there, everyone has it,” he said. Sensitive hiring information can’t be treated casually. Employers need to ensure the tools they adopt have the infrastructure to keep candidate data protected.Transparency with candidates is part of responsible AI use. If a company is relying on AI tools for recruiting, they should be upfront about it, Rockwell says. Job seekers who feel misled or entirely cut off from real human interaction aren’t likely to walk away with a positive view of the employer.Journalist and From Day One contributing editor, Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza, moderated the session (photo by From Day One)Erica Wallace, senior talent acquisition manager at HR management software BambooHR, says that some organizations still struggle to formalize internal guidelines. “We can’t say people are breaking the rules if we haven’t established what those rules are,” she said. At BambooHR, guardrails are built directly into internal tools. Even if a recruiter tries to ask the AI who they should hire, the system is designed to decline.Clarity also extends to the candidate experience. Some job seekers assume recruiters haven’t looked at resumes in years, Wallace joked. To counter that perception, her team tells candidates upfront if AI will be used in the interview process and gives them the option to opt out. Every AI-generated decision, from whether to advance a resume to the next round to any ranking of applicants, is still audited by a human.The panelists agreed that it’s always worth questioning whether technology is saving time or quietly creating more work. “That’s something we’re asking all the time,” said Wallace. Her rule of thumb: AI should only be introduced to solve a clearly named problem. Too many vendors, she said, are inventing products for problems that they don’t face. Adopting tech for tech’s sake is a reliable way to burn hours, not reduce them.Some tasks require a combination of the human touch and tech power. Fraud prevention, for instance, has pushed BambooHR back toward more in-person interviews to verify a candidate’s identity. Employ has also increased the amount of screening done by human recruiters. And Stevens cautioned against “over-engineering” the process by letting AI handle too much candidate messaging, especially deeper in the funnel where a personal touch matters most.What Employers Should Focus on in 2026As hiring teams plan for the new year, Stevens encourages leaders to think about candidate communication as a baseline requirement. With so many applicants across industries, it’s common for job seekers to hear nothing or receive only canned responses. “It is our responsibility as humans to treat other humans as such,” she said. AI can help clear the noise and reduce administrative work, but it shouldn’t replace meaningful interaction.That means reinvesting time in the humans doing the hiring. Spend more time with your recruiters, Stevens says. Help them become better interviewers, better communicators, and more empathetic guides in a challenging job market. AI can accelerate workflows, but it can’t build trust or make someone feel valued.Technology should enhance the human element, not erode it, panelists agreed. “We have an obligation to try the best we can to remain human and keep that human element, even with the advancements in technology and AI,” said Stevens. “One way to differentiate is to lead with kindness and empathy in everything you do,” Rockwell said. “There’s someone on the other end that’s trying to get a job because they need to pay bills, they need to feed their kids, they need to be sitting in a seat so they have a career. It’s really easy to forget about that when everything’s happening through a computer.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Employ, 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 Take Production Studios/Shutterstock)
Hiring Reimagined: Driving Trust and Compliance in the Age of AI
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza December 01, 2025Companies are increasingly feeling a kind of FOMO (that is, fear of missing out) when it comes to artificial intelligence in hiring, says Adam Vassar, head of talent science and learning design at CodeSignal, the AI-driven skills assessment platform. Just six months ago, many employers were still taking a wait-and-see approach to AI adoption, and some were playing defense against job seekers who were using AI to complete assessments and interviews.Not anymore. Vassar says his clients are asking to pilot new programs. “They’re less afraid about being the first one to make a mistake, and more concerned about the fear of missing out and being left behind,” he said. “It’s been exciting to implement these products, see what problems we can solve, and get real data behind it. The possibilities are limitless.”Vassar joined California-based employment attorney Heather Bussing for a From Day One webinar about fostering trust and ensuring compliance in the age of AI. Together, they outlined how the technology is being deployed, and the risks employers should be aware of. Artificial Intelligence Enters the Recruiting Workflow Companies are deploying AI at three key points in the hiring process, says Vassar.First, top-of-funnel screening. Recruiters are overwhelmed by hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of applications per role and are automating early phone-screen interviews to manage the largest end of the funnel. Second are skills simulations. Companies are building high-fidelity simulations to test on-the-job abilities, giving hiring managers stronger signals about candidate fit.Adam Vassar, head of talent science & learning design at CodeSignal, spoke with moderator Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza during the webinar (company photo)And finally: interview training. AI is being used to train human interviewers by enforcing consistent, structured practices. “We’ve been teaching humans for years,” Vassar said. “Now we’re prompting AI to follow those rules–and they’re much better at it.” And together, they’re getting pretty good.Vassar is adamant that none of this is designed to, nor could it, replace recruiters. Rather, it gives recruiters a team of AIs they can delegate to, freeing recruiters for the higher-order work of decision-making, judgment, and relationship-building. Recruiters are overworked and under-resourced. New tools help them move faster and potentially improve hiring quality.The Legal Questions, and What MattersMany employers still hesitate to adopt AI because they worry about legal exposure. But the risks aren’t new, Bussing says. They’re the same ones that apply to humans: bias and discrimination.“All the data used to train these systems is based on what humans have done, and it is going to be biased too,” she said. “We just need to keep holding AI to the same high standard.”That means employers must regularly audit hiring outcomes–job offers, promotions, and retention rates–through a human and an AI lens. Do your outcomes reflect your applicant pool? Are certain groups over- or under-represented? Some jurisdictions, like New York City, require regular audits; Illinois requires notifying candidates when AI is used; Maryland requires notice and consent before using video analysis.But disclosure requirements have limitations, and employers should be aware, lest they consider it a box-checking exercise with no impact to the candidate. “If you look at the power dynamics in hiring, it’s not a real choice,” Bussing said. A candidate can refuse AI screening, but that may mean giving up the chance at the job.Ensuring Fairness With AI in RecruitmentEmployers can take steps to create more equitable processes. Asking for diverse candidate slates is one step, and assembling diverse interview panels is another. “We are naturally designed to prefer people who look like us and feel like us,” Bussing said. If employers want better diversity, or simply a more diverse skill set, they need recruiters and hiring managers who know how to look for it. Beyond legal compliance, Vassar added, there’s a moral obligation.In this spirit, CodeSignal has adopted its own rigorous fairness standards regardless of jurisdiction. To test itself, the company asks candidates to voluntarily disclose demographic data so it can evaluate outcomes by gender and other factors. “We want that data. We starve for that data,” Vassar said.CodeSignal created its own version of the “Pepsi Challenge”: a blind comparison of AI interview outcomes versus human interview outcomes using the same rubric. Vassar expected wide gaps. “But we found alignment,” said Vassar. In some cases, the overlap between humans and AI was about 85%. This is a good sign, he says.“Humans still need to be in the loop,” Bussing said. “And we have to call out the reality of the situation, not pretend we can come up with a magic formula, and presto: change.” The future of hiring will hinge on disciplined oversight: humans checking the machines, machines checking the humans, and both held to the same rigorous standards. The goal isn’t to make hiring perfect, but to make it fairer and more consistent. A better outcome for both employer and candidate.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, CodeSignal, 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 SmileStudioAP/iStock)
Corporate America’s Retreat from the ‘Whole Self’ Era
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza November 20, 2025Remember the time when workers were invited to “bring their whole selves to work”? When they were welcomed to zones of psychological safety and encouraged to speak freely? When they were given highly flexible work arrangements to suit their lifestyles? When dogs and cats roamed through Zoom meetings?Those days are over. While no company will exactly say, “return to the office, and please leave your whole self at home,” corporate expectations have changed. The breezy notion of colorful individuality now feels risky. But where exactly are we now?“The pendulum is swinging. This goes back and forth through the decades,” said Janine Yancey, founder and CEO of Emtrain, which creates workplace compliance and culture training. At the moment, Emtrain’s customers are focused on productivity, cost savings, and efficiency. “It’s really about the bottom line right now,” Yancey said. The employee experience and company culture has receded in importance. “That’s less of a priority.”The “whole self” concept became HR gospel during the first half of the decade, propelled in different ways by three events: the pandemic, the surge of support for DEI, and the Great Resignation. (One of the first explicit references came a few years earlier in a TED talk.) During the pandemic, when remote work offered glimpses into our colleagues’ homes and lives, and widely shared stress revealed new parts of ourselves. With schools and childcare centers closed, companies granted unprecedented flexibility for workers to care for family members. The social justice movement of 2020 also opened the door for self-sharing at work. Employers spun up employee resource groups (ERGs) and some invited employees to share their feelings in all-hands meetings. Some, like Walmart, even trained staff in mental health first aid to better recognize distress among coworkers.The Definition Is TrickyBut what exactly does it mean to bring one’s whole self to work? It depends, and that may be the challenge as the bar is reset. Some may feel that it’s a license to dissolve healthy boundaries. Want to pitch a fit in a meeting? Go right ahead. That’s your whole self. Others may feel relief that they can talk openly about being on the autism spectrum without fear of discrimination. Like most trendy terms, its definition is nebulous. While individual companies may have taken the time to define the term, there’s been no broader consensus.It’s unlikely that any employer ever wanted employees to bring everything to work. Insubordination was never welcome, even if it comes naturally. “Authenticity at work is guarded authenticity,” said John Higgins, who studies and writes about activism in the workplace. “Because at work, you can be fired. That’s the reality.” What really undermined the “whole self” movement was the backlash against DEI. Some companies and universities have scrapped their DEI plans, closed diversity offices, and laid off chief diversity officers—once a fast-growing C-suite position. Following President Trump’s executive order to end all federal DEI programs, there have been state-level bans, lawsuits, and corporate roll-backs.The skirmishes are often public. Some federal employees were fired or put on leave for participating in DEI programs recommended by the first Trump administration. More recently, some employers fired or disciplined workers for social posts they made about the murder of right-wing political figure Charlie Kirk. According to a special report from Reuters, more than 600 Americans were “fired, suspended, placed under investigation or disciplined by employers for comments about Kirk’s September 10 assassination.” Several of those workers have since filed lawsuits against their employers.Where Should the Line Be Drawn Now?Especially for leaders, the idea of unfiltered authenticity is misguided, according to management expert Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, writing in Harvard Business Review. “Decades of psychological research studies show that power diminishes inhibition, weakens empathy, reduces self-control and any sense of obligation to others, and amplifies the toxic traits leaders already possess,” asserts Chamorro-Premuzic, author of the new book Don’t Be Yourself: Why Authenticity Is Overrated (and What to Do Instead). Instead, leaders should model values instead of performing them, protect their personal lives, and choose empathy over ego.Even the term “psychological safety” needs to be revisited. Amy Edmonson, the Harvard management professor who popularized the term, argues that bringing one’s whole self is precisely what we shouldn’t be doing. “Your ‘authentic’ or ‘whole’ self also includes the undesirable, unprofessional, and dark side dimensions of your character,” she wrote in a recent article for Fast Company.Venture capitalist Marc Andressen, a vocal critic of DEI, wrote on X in late 2024: “The one thing you should never, ever, ever do is bring your full self. Leave your full self at home where it belongs and act like a professional and a grownup at work and in public.”It’s arguable that “whole self” was never what workers needed. In a New York Times opinion piece, University of Pennsylvania economist Corinne Low wrote that “women, and especially mothers, don’t necessarily need remote work. We don’t need so-called flexible work schedules. What we need are plain old boundaries–jobs where work stops at a set time and allows other parts of life to exist without interruption.”But employers reach outside the workplace, where our whole selves live. In many cases, the comments about Charlie Kirk that resulted in terminations were made on personal social media accounts. It’s not the first time this has happened. A private-sector employee was fired from her job in 2020 after she called the Black Lives Matter “racist, claiming it caused segregation and alleging Black people were ‘killing themselves,’” according to the New Jersey Monitor. The employee sued, but a judge upheld the termination. While some may decry unprofessionalism in the workplace, others may be pushing back on expressions of personal identity that don’t align with with their ideological camp. For instance, the Trump administration wanted to ban transgender people from changing the sex marker on their passports, and the Supreme Court upheld the ban. We might ask, Is it that we don’t want people to behave unprofessionally, or that we don’t want people to feel safe and comfortable disclosing politicized aspects of their identity?When employers invite authenticity at work, Higgins said, what’s usually welcome are the traits that benefit the business. At its most mercenary, the message is really, “bring a socially acceptable version of yourself so I can use you.” Of course, what’s socially acceptable changes. What will be the next cycle? “Employers will overreach a little bit, and then employees will start to mobilize because that’s the only way you can achieve some leverage and power,” said Emtrain’s Yancey. Sometimes unions are formed or sit-ins are held. Who does the rabble-rousing has a great deal to do with who has the upper hand in the job market—or what ideology is in vogue. But the pendulum will one day swing again, she said. “It always does.” 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.(Featured illustrated by Dave Long Media/iStock by Getty Images)
Unified by Innovation: Tech’s Role in Global Workforce Management
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza November 06, 2025Artificial intelligence may be the most exciting new hire, but it’s not ready to make tighter-knit teams. As companies race to automate recruiting, performance reviews, and even written feedback, some HR leaders are asking a different question: Can technology actually make people feel more connected at work?That question is top of mind for Claude Silver, chief heart officer at global marketing firm VaynerX. Her team is experimenting with AI to generate personalized, quarterly feedback for employees—part of an effort to give people more consistent check-ins with their managers. But she’s yet to find something AI-powered that really facilitates interpersonal relationships. “I really want some AI tools that strengthen human relationships,” she said. “Bottom line: belonging and trust. I want to find a way that AI can help us with the connection moments.”Until AI can do it, companies are finding other ways to use technology to foster interaction, especially as teams become bigger and more global. That was the topic discussion among a panel of HR leaders during From Day One’s October virtual conference on smart strategies for collaborating across borders.At fintech company NCR Atleos, global executive director of talent and learning, Curtis Brooks is using tech to create learning communities where employees exchange leadership lessons and self-reflect. “People are starting to comment, and when one person comments, it creates the space for the next person,” he said. That kind of engagement, while modest, can spark a ripple effect of connection across teams.Too Many Tools, Not Enough ConnectionBut as companies add tools, they risk overwhelming the very people they’re trying to connect. HR tech stacks have grown taller–and unwieldy. Information and data are stored across disparate systems, team communications are fragmented, and unvetted tools can introduce security risks.Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza, journalist and From Day One contributing editor, moderated the session (photo by From Day One)The first test of whether a tool is worth using is whether it creates connection or friction, says Carol Cochran, senior director of HR at BOLD. Cochran recalled a team that relied on a pulse-check tool for frequent feedback. When that platform was retired, the team tried to recreate it on their own, adding so many new questions that it became a miniature engagement survey. “Suddenly it shifted right from being a pulse check useful for line managers to a mini-engagement survey where they were asking questions that, frankly, line managers aren’t in a position to really address,” Cochran said. “That was going to create more friction than connection.”Picking and ChoosingAt Google, global HR leader Jasmine Dolfus uses a four-part rubric to decide whether new tools are worth adding. Step one: assess needs and local compliance requirements. Step two: compare against standardized business criteria to ensure equity and consistency. Step three: make sure the change won’t disrupt or disadvantage other teams or regions. And finally, monitor the impact once the tool is in use.At NCR Atleos, Brooks applies an 80/20 rule. About 80% of technology and processes should be universal to the company, while 20% should be unique to specific teams or geographies. “It’s employee-driven, business-directed, and organizationally enabled,” he said.Cochran says that at BOLD, which recently acquired CareerBuilder and Monster, the challenge has been integration. Each company brought its own HR systems, workflows, tools, and habits. “At least in the beginning, you have to save a lot more than you can cut to keep business continuity,” she said. “There’s so much change hitting people that you don’t want to pull away the tools they need to stay functional and operating–even if it’s just a communication platform, because that’s what they’re used to.”That cautious approach may be what keeps these HR leaders grounded amid all the AI hype. For all the promise of automation, the real opportunity lies in designing systems that strengthen, not replace, human relationships.“We all need to understand AI, to use AI, and to not be afraid of it,” said Silver. “But at the end of the day, when I put my hand on your shoulder and say, ‘I got you,’ AI is not going to do that.”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 Jacob Wackerhausen/iStock)
Maintaining Employee Experience at Scale—Without Losing Personalization
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza November 04, 2025There are two parts to the HR field, says Sarah Rose Hattem: the administrative work of ticking boxes, sending emails, and ensuring compliance, and the creative work of designing better processes, developing a workforce, and improving the employee experience. “That’s the more important work,” she said during a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s September virtual conference.Hattem is now a senior solutions consultant at HR tech company Rippling, but she spent her early career in HR. As the first HR hire at a company with just 50 employees, and plans to double headcount in a year, she faced a challenge familiar to many HR teams: doing a lot with very little. Tracking applicants, sending offers, and onboarding dozens of new hires each month quickly became overwhelming. But with Rippling’s platform, which worked like an operating system with its own taxonomy and native apps, “it was really like having an extra set of hands,” she said.Sarah Rose Hattem, senior solutions consultant at Rippling, spoke with journalist Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza during the session (company photo)The paper-pushing side of HR work meant that Hattem, like so many other HR professionals, risked being an admin rather than a strategic contributor. This familiar problem has only grown as companies navigate big changes like layoffs, restructurings to return-to-office mandates, and the arrival of AI “coworkers.” HR teams are managing increasingly complex work while trying to preserve the human side of their role.Much of HR’s daily frustration, Hattem says, comes down to fragmented systems. Most organizations rely on a patchwork of tools that don’t easily communicate–one for payroll, another for benefits, and another still for performance reviews. They’re scattered and disconnected, and that slows the most basic processes. Technology should enhance the human side of HR, not replace it, Hattem says. The “human component” is the one thing she didn’t want to lose. “Does someone feel warm and welcome? Do they feel like we’ve given attention to them on a personal level? That’s really hard to do when you have to do all the other administrative things,” she said. The fix, Hattem argued, isn’t more software, but a smarter system. If employee data such as role, location, or manager could automatically sync across systems, if performance reviews could be connected with payroll, and work anniversaries with PTO balances, then HR teams could spend less time chasing paperwork and more time on what makes the job meaningful: creative problem-solving, process refinement, and building real connections. This, she says, is where HR professionals deserve to work.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Rippling, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. 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 Jacob Wackerhausen/iStock)
AI as a Corporate Earthquake: How Big Changes Can Make or Break Company Culture
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza November 04, 2025The embedding of AI in business operations represents the most significant disruption to our working lives since the internet, and for the majority of the workforce—who aren’t old enough to remember how the internet upended not only day-to-day work but entire career trajectories—it’s the most tectonic change in their lifetime.In the race to operationalize AI, employers are destabilizing company culture. Long-proven processes are being overturned, responsibilities reorganized, tasks eliminated, knowledge re-oriented, and jobs replaced. What once required a team to accomplish can be done with just one or two people. Some solopreneurs are able to mount wildly profitable companies with no team members at all.As the workplace morphs into something entirely new, leaders must consider the effects on culture. The trouble is that many “companies often have a hard time understanding how quickly their organization changes,” said Miles Overholt, founder and CEO of Strategia Analytics.From Day One contributing editor Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza spoke with Miles Overholt, above, founder and CEO of Strategia, about how to effectively integrate AI into the workplace (company photo)An expert in organizational transformation and change with advanced degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and its Wharton School, Overholt has watched as companies fail to consider the working environment during major overhauls, only to have communication break down, distrust spread, and changes ultimately fail. A company may start a new project, he said, “but by the time you’re into it, the company has already changed and the implementation strategy has to be adjusted.” Initiatives can easily fail unless leaders account for how changes will affect what Overholt calls “organizational DNA,” or the ways an organization interacts with internal and external environments. Organizational DNA is always evolving, but it is especially fragile during major shocks such as mergers, acquisitions, or operational overhauls, including the introduction of AI.To preserve a healthy culture, leaders must know what the company is today, and have a clear picture of what it should be in the future. The Rush to Adopt AI, While Failing to Account for Cultural ChangeMany companies have already gotten ahead of themselves with AI. An analysis found that while major U.S. companies talk often about AI, “other than the ‘fear of missing out,’ few appear to be able to describe how technology is changing their businesses for the better.” This raises the question: If companies can’t clearly state the impact of AI on the business, do they know anything at all about its impact on culture?AI is shocking many companies because leaders failed to consider its effects on mentality, relationships, and behavior of the workforce, said Dave Lopez, Strategia Analytics’ SVP of systems research. “When AI is introduced, employees en masse believe, rightly or wrongly, that they’re out the door. If you’re introducing an AI system and your workforce is now concerned that they are about to be made redundant and lose their job, how does that impact how your organization is functioning?”Without clear communication about purpose, application, and goals, huge operational overhauls create distrust between workers fearful for their job security and leaders frustrated by slow adoption or outright resistance. How workers feel about operationalized AI depends on the industry and the role. Heavily routined industries such as manufacturing are seeing heightened anxiety, says Lopez. While in others, like financial services, “AI is seen more as a tool that can help you better perform your job, but your job is not necessarily at risk.” That’s not to say its effects on culture are smaller, only different.When Change Overlooks DNA, Culture CracksCompanies that fail to consider how AI will disrupt the way an organization interacts with both internal and external environments will face three critical problems.First, a breakdown in communication that engenders distrust can occur. If AI rollouts are framed as efficiency plays without transparency, employees—especially those in highly vulnerable roles like customer service and software engineering—may suspect ulterior motives. Unless your people know where you’re going and why, they won’t follow you there.In a From Day One webinar, Overholt recalled one spectacular breakdown in communication that left leaders and workers at aggressive odds. One of his early clients was a CEO who was certain that a fire on the machine floor was deliberately set and executive cars vandalized by employees. After investigating, Overholt discovered that while workers loved pleasing customers, they hated the work environment. “I’m listening to all these people in pain,” he recalled. “I’m watching supervisors trying to make things better, but they’re caught in the crunch between top management and employees, and nobody’s talking.” This gulf was widened when leadership built an executive parking lot fortified by a wall. Rather than take the time to understand what employees were feeling, the leaders drew battle lines and prepared for a fight.“If you want to understand behavior,” he said, “you have to understand the individual and context that individual happens to be in.”Next comes a disengagement from work.Managers and supervisors are employees’ most crucial point of connection to the company. Gallup found that upwards of 70% of variance in team engagement can be chalked up to the manager alone.If line managers who work directly with rank and file aren’t incorporated in AI rollouts early and eagerly, buy-in from the broader organization will suffer. Engaging managers will prevent leaders from seeing the organization as homogenous and unmoving—they are your key to understanding team dynamics, day-to-day operations, and likely roadblocks. Few leaders truly know why things don’t get done and why changes don’t land. But your managers do.The last problem Overholt sees is changes that don’t stick. Without trust and engagement, work suffers. “Behavior is a function of the person and the environment,” Overholt said. If a company’s culture doesn’t actively support and reward the behaviors it wants to see, meaningful change simply won’t stick.Some leaders are prone to see change as a zero-sum game: It’s good for business or it’s good for employees. But that’s not true, says Frances Almstrom, Strategia’s VP of systems research. “You can do what’s good for your company and what’s good for your people at the same time.” When you do, operations can change, quite successfully.Practical Steps for Preserving Culture Amid AI DisruptionResisting the urge to simply keep up with the Joneses is the first step. While benchmarking your competitors is useful, imitation is not an operational strategy. Success comes from understanding what truly fits your organization’s unique DNA and long-term goals, says Overholt. Before and after any AI rollout, leaders should take stock of how changes affect the organization across four dimensions: strategy, leadership, culture, and execution. By regularly measuring the root causes of underperformance, say, every six months, they can catch small problems before they metastasize into larger ones.Managers play a pivotal role in guiding employees through transitions. Well-prepared leaders don’t just enforce new systems, they help employees understand the changes, address concerns, and model behaviors that reinforce the desired culture.Communication strategies, too, must be thoughtful and nuanced. Employees will perceive AI differently depending on their roles, experiences, and industry context. Effective messaging anticipates these varied perspectives, highlighting both opportunities and challenges so that employees feel part of the process rather than casualties of change.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Strategia Analytics, for supporting this sponsor spotlight. 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 FG Trade/iStock)
Recruiting Rebuilt: How to Streamline Your Hiring Pipeline, Data, and Workflow
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza November 03, 2025Recruiters are busier than ever, though not necessarily more productive. “We’re seeing three times more applications per recruiter today than just a few years ago,” said Meredith Johnson, chief product officer at Greenhouse, during a From Day One webinar on streamlining the hiring process. At small companies, that influx could mean 100 applications for a single job, and at larger companies–thousands.“Today’s job seeker can use AI to mass apply for hundreds of roles in just a few clicks, and they’re customizing their resumes instantly,” she said. Recruiters’ inboxes are flooded with fraudulent, unqualified, or disingenuous applications, “and it’s creating a lot of false signals.”Greenhouse tracked 300 million applications in a single year, which means that there could be 200 times more applications than roles filled in a given quarter. “Recruiters are spending upwards of 80% of their time sifting through this noise,” Johnson said. Meanwhile, the teams doing that work are shrinking. “The average number of recruiters per team has dropped by 24%,” she said, and each recruiter is now handling triple the workload of a few years ago. Sorting candidates, especially at the top of the funnel, is getting harder.Candidates, meanwhile, expect more: faster responses, transparent processes, and personalized communication. In short, Johnson said: “Recruiters are stuck with quite a bit of chaos.”‘From Requisition Takers to Talent Strategists’Johnson says that recruiters can break this cycle not only with automation, but with strategy. For reactive hiring teams, work starts when a role opens. For proactive hiring teams, the work is building the workforce at all times. Johnson wants to help recruiters go from “requisition takers to talent strategists,” continuously building relationships and pipelines.Meredith Johnson, chief product officer at Greenhouse, pictured, spoke with journalist Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza during the webinar (company photo)That requires structure and consistency. Johnson described one client whose hiring process varied wildly–each manager had their own way of evaluating candidates, and no candidate’s experience was like the next. By standardizing the process and criteria, the company created a more equitable and more predictable system. The new structure also allowed recruiters to act as advisors, not just box-tickers.Johnson emphasized that AI isn’t meant to replace recruiters–it will help them work efficiently. The recruiter remains in charge of the process and rubrics, while the tech can handle things like candidate sentiment analysis and flagging potentially fraudulent applications. With smarter tech, recruiters can then prioritize real candidates who express genuine enthusiasm for the role, without removing human judgement or sacrificing the candidate experience.AI makes it easy for good-faith candidates to apply easily, and makes it easier for bad actors to do the same. Greenhouse has found that nearly one percent of resumes contain some kind of trick like inflated skills or falsified experience. One percent may sound like a small figure, but when a company receives 2,000 applications for a single role, those numbers add up.To address this, Johnson pointed to Greenhouse’s partnership with Clear, which allows recruiters to confirm a candidate’s identity at any point in the hiring process they choose. “It’s as simple as taking a selfie photo and uploading the government ID.” As the pressure on recruiters to do more with less continues, the next phase of talent acquisition will depend on how effectively teams can balance automation with human judgment, using AI to find the signal in the noise. “Recruiters are being forced to spend a lot of critical time and energy manually sifting through hundreds or thousands of resumes,” Johnson said. “What they really want to do, and what they’re skilled at, is building relationships with truly qualified talent and moving those candidates through the process.” And that’s what she wants to give them.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Greenhouse, 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 Pakin Jarerndee/iStock)
Improving Financial Wellness for Your Employees at a Modest Cost
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza October 28, 2025As inflation squeezes paychecks, student debt looms over graduates, and the cost of childcare keeps climbing, companies are under mounting pressure to help employees make the most of their money. But offering financial wellness programs isn’t just a nice-to-have. Employees now expected it–and it’s a strategic business move. The problem, however, is doing so cost-efficiently.The first challenge is often getting executives, who make six- or seven-figure incomes, to understand the financial plights of salaried, and especially hourly, employees. At MGM Resorts–famous for its gaming, hospitality, and entertainment venues–many leaders are what DJ Rao, the company’s head of total rewards, calls “homegrown.” They started with modest means. “They’ve grown from the front desk upwards into the C-suite. Our leadership appreciates and understands what $400 is,” he said during a recent From Day One webinar about improving employee financial wellness at a modest cost.If your leaders don’t have this kind of appreciation, Rao emphasized that presenting programs as a moral imperative won’t be enough. HR leaders must benchmark against competitors in terms of ROI, reduced absenteeism, and increased productivity. Your leaders are concerned about the business, so translate it into dollars and cents. “It just cannot be, ‘Let’s do this because it’s good.’ You have to show the money.”But how do you know if you’re delivering what your employees really need? Trade-off surveys are a helpful tool. Devin Miller, co-founder and CEO of emergency-savings platform SecureSave, recommends asking employees which benefits they actually want, rather than assuming the standard offerings will work. Expert speakers joined From Day One contributing editor Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza for a conversation on improving employee financial wellness at a modest cost“Everything’s costing more, and you want to add more, but do they really still need all of these things? And which one do they prefer over others?” Miller said. Some employees might prioritize emergency-savings accounts over health savings accounts or other perks entirely. Understanding these preferences ensures programs make a meaningful impact.Financial resources don’t have to be expensive, and some don’t cost a thing. Damilola Akinduro, global head of benefits at the data-center company Equinix, points out that, without extra cash, employees often struggle to save. To help, Equinix helps its workers with tax efficiency and brings in volunteer experts for financial education. “You’d be surprised at how much employees appreciate these things,” she said.First United Bank also leans on its internal resources. They invite specialists from within the bank to host talks about budgeting, and have their 401(k) provider give free seminars, said Christina Escobar, a senior financial well-being specialist at First United. “We really try to leverage our vendors and our internal resources.” These resources are especially helpful for their new grads (they hire 100 to 200 every year), who may have never followed a budget or set up a retirement account.Vendors themselves are evolving to make financial benefits more cost-effective. Dave Kirby, SVP of total rewards at marketing data company Epsilon, noted that platform-style solutions now allow companies to consolidate things like charitable giving, wellness programs, and financial literacy offerings in one place, making it easier to scale benefits efficiently. “There are now vendors that are bringing all this together under one platform,” he said.Over time, employers may need to reevaluate their offerings. “It’s surprising how few employers take the time to go through these programs, ask the hard questions, and pull that money back,” Miller said. Many companies can fund improvements by reallocating underused benefits rather than increasing budgets.Rao warned against chasing wellness trends. “Everyone wants to do something new, but be very careful what you offer your employees,” lest you have to roll it back. He recommends investing fully in a few initiatives and communicating widely—through word of mouth, employee resource groups (ERGs), signage, and internal websites. “Do few things,” Rao said, “but do them well.”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. (Featured photo by LordHenryVoton/iStock by Getty Images)
Why AI Is Forcing Companies to Rethink What a Job Is
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza October 22, 2025The rapid maturity of AI is changing the question HR leaders ask when they’re talking about jobs. Where leaders once asked, “Who can do this job?,” they’re now asking, “What combination of human and AI can do it best?”This is a natural next revolution of the “skills-based hiring” model that shifted job paradigms away from role descriptions and toward equipping workers with specific capabilities the organization needs. And that goes for AI agents too. One of AI assistant Claude’s new features is actually called “skills.”Headlines make it sound like AI is wiping out jobs by the thousand, but “there’s a lot more at play there,” says Lisa Highfield, the principal director of HR tech and AI at the consulting firm McLean & Company. Some companies are going through typical reorganizations while others are simply responding to market downturns. “We’re not seeing the masses of AI job reduction that a lot of these headlines sometimes indicate.”While displacement is not yet widespread, companies are experimenting with augmenting workers–and sometimes replacing them, yes–with AI. Startups like Artisan and Viven are building “AI coworkers” and “digital twins,” and attracting tens of millions of dollars in venture funding. Yet few are forecasting human irrelevance. Even Artisan CEO Jaspar Carmichael-Jack, whose company is probably best known for its provocative “Stop Hiring Humans” marketing campaign, told TechCrunch that he doesn’t believe AI will replace most human labor. “Human labor becomes more valuable when you have the AI content,” he said. In fact, the company has been hiring all year. It’s more likely that we will see more human-AI partnership in the workplace.How far up the ladder could this go? Hanneke Faber, CEO of global tech manufacturing company Logitech, says that she would entertain the idea of an AI agent joining her board of directors. “We already use [AI agents] in almost every meeting,” Faber told the audience last week at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women conference. “As they evolve—and some of the best agents or assistants that we’ve built actually do things themselves—that comes with a whole bunch of governance things. You have to keep in mind and make sure you really want that bot to take action. But if you don’t have an AI agent in every meeting, you’re missing out on some of the productivity.”Many leaders are putting faith in AI as a productivity booster. A leaked message from a Meta executive told workers that they should be working five times faster, thanks to AI. Even companies just dabbling in automation are using AI to handle repetitive tasks like data entry and reporting, while augmenting others, like analysis and strategy. Employees are reporting time savings. At HR tech company Deputy, employees using AI tools report saving five to ten hours per week. At media company Scripps, 20% of newsroom workers using AI for just one or two hours per day say they save roughly 20 minutes of total work time.Nascent AI practices are not without their problems, of course. Employees are frustrated by the amount of “workslop,” or AI-generated content void of substance, being served up, forcing humans to clean up after the machines. It’s become so common that colleagues are reportedly losing trust in each other. “We think [AI] will reduce our workload,” said Sue Cantrell, a work futurist at Deloitte. “But in reality, many workers are finding it increases their workload. It can also increase feelings of loneliness when they’re working more with AI than with their colleagues.”Yet thanks to AI, workforce planning is becoming more nimble. Cantrell recently met with a company developing a tool that lets managers click a button to see who, or what, has the right skills for a given task. That could mean a full-time employee, a contractor, or even an AI agent. With that data, managers can more accurately forecast headcount, fill roles, and seek out needed skills. HR already has a wealth of information about employees and their skills, and applying some smart AI can help compile skills ontologies and find workers who have them. Highfield believes that, aside from cost efficiency, this is the greatest opportunity AI has afforded so far.Companies are using technology that can deconstruct jobs into skills, then assess workers for skills, and match the two. But this model, so far, breaks down when it comes to work that requires higher-level thinking. Cantrell said that some skills–like creativity, empathy, and strategic thinking–can’t be cleanly parsed from the people who have them, and atomizing such work can kill not only the nuance, but also the joy. “Tasks are the actual activities underneath the job, and skills are the actual capabilities that workers bring,” Cantrell parsed. Not all work can, or should, be chopped into its component parts.In some organizations, the lines between people and technology are blurring at the structural level. Cantrell points to companies, like Moderna and Covisian, that have merged their HR and IT departments. IT’s role is to figure out how to perform work with technology, one leader told her, while HR’s role is to figure out how to perform work with people. Now companies are experimenting with bringing the roles together, though at least one leading HR thinker calls it a “senseless” endeavor. Stay tuned for more on that one.Work performed by both humans and machines, in parallel or in concert, may define the next revolution of business transformation. Think beyond efficiency, Cantrell said. Companies often think of AI as task replacement, but she believes “it’s an opportunity to reinvent the way we’re working.”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.(Featured image by Gremlin/iStock by Getty Images)
Optimizing Productivity and Efficiency in Times of Constraint
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza October 22, 2025As companies face tighter budgets, leaner teams, and pressure to boost productivity, one thing has become clear: Success depends less on scale and more on resourcefulness. The winners aren’t necessarily those with the biggest teams or deepest pockets—but those that can make the most of what they have. That was the takeaway from an executive panel discussion at From Day One’s September virtual conference. Panelists shared how they’re tackling the modern dilemma of how to stay effective when everyone is stretched thin.Balancing Priorities and Capacity“One of the biggest disconnects between leadership’s expectations and employees’ day-to-day is capacity versus priority,” said Joanna Eagan, senior director of people services at Core & Main. “Leaders tend to set ambitious productivity goals with the best intentions, but employees are juggling competing demands, a lot of administrative tasks, and often outdated tools. It can feel like leadership is asking for more without taking anything off their plates.”Ryan Sattler, director of HR tech and intelligence at M&T Bank, agreed that clarity is often a problem. “I don’t think many organizations do a particularly good job at clarifying and articulating where employees should be spending their energy,” he said. It’s easy to keep doing the same things, even when leadership has set new priorities. Leaders, Sattler added, should focus on strategy, removing obstacles and setting direction, rather than dictating day-to-day work.Managing Change From the Inside OutWhen every quarter seems to bring a new system, workflow, or AI automation, change fatigue becomes a real problem. By the time new initiatives reach the frontline, those workers often haven’t been part of the conversation. “We need to focus on listening to our employees and their experiences, reprioritizing low-value work so they can get on board with the pivots being asked of them,” said Eagan.To help new tools catch on, HR tech platform Deputy designates “AI Champions”—enthusiastic early adopters who can model success for their peers. “Instead of having something come from the top down, we’re building excitement and momentum from the middle of the organization and from the bottom up,” said Sejal Daswani, Deputy’s chief people officer.Journalist and From Day One contributing editor, Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza moderated the discussion (photo by From Day One)“Change is difficult for everyone, even if we know it’s going to make our life easier,” added Heather Mannings, executive director and HR business partner at Quest Diagnostics. Her team makes changes with a lot of explanation, and welcomes input from employees on how to make it better—after all, they’re the ones using it.Simplifying Work Through Smart AutomationCore & Main began its automation journey by targeting tedious, error-prone parts of payroll, and ultimately gaining hundreds of hours in productivity. Deputy reports similar benefits: Internal surveys found that AI tools are saving employees five to ten hours per week in writing, messaging, and presentation work.As tools multiply, integration remains a challenge. “I haven’t met a customer or frontline employee yet who says they don’t have enough apps, tools, or systems,” said Dave Nixon, CEO and co-founder of Enablo, an all-in-one communications platform for frontline workforces. The problem is integration. Companies are aspiring to reduce complexity for frontline workers—a single “digital front door” where they can check shifts, report incidents, and get company updates.The next era of productivity isn’t about squeezing more hours out of employees, it’s about removing friction, clarifying priorities, and designing systems that let people focus on work that matters. Whether through automation, better communication, or smarter change management, organizations are finding that efficiency in 2025 doesn’t come from doing more—it comes from doing less, better.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 miniseries/iStock)
Activating Learning in the Age of AI: Practical Approaches and Tools That Make an Impact
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza October 13, 2025As companies rush to integrate AI tools into daily workflows, a challenge has emerged: how to make the technology feel less like a threat and more like a skill everyone can master. Across industries, from tech to media, employers are rolling out training programs that make AI literacy fundamental and fully integrated.At biotech firm Genentech, every employee receives training in foundational AI principles, ethics, and responsibility. The company encourages staff to experiment with tools in sandbox environments, supported by live sessions and peer learning where colleagues can show off what they’ve built or learned. They’ve even developed internal “tech geniuses” who act as one-on-one tutors.“We want to make sure everyone’s got the same starting place, but also room to experiment and explore in such a way that they want to learn more and be more advanced in their capabilities,” said Heidi Schisel, Genentech’s VP of people and culture, during an executive panel discussion at From Day One’s August virtual conference. At Aspen Dental, the company appointed a head of artificial intelligence to its IT team and made AI training mandatory. But not everyone was immediately enthusiastic. Right away, employees were worried about their job security, says Katie Stangel, VP of learning and development. Others feared they’d be seen as “cheating” if they used AI. To normalize the tools, Stangel created a Teams group dedicated to sharing and celebrating responsible AI use. “People are starting to celebrate and call out when they’ve used it, saying, ‘I use ChatGPT to help me with this outline,’ or ‘I used Articulate AI to help me with the design and development of the course.’ We celebrate that,” she said. Panelists spoke about learning in the age of AI during the virtual session (photo by From Day One)Experts say AI literacy develops in stages—from unstructured experimentation to true automation and augmentation of work. Leaders, especially, often try to skip steps, said Amelia Rosenman, director of programs at the Experience Institute, but “learn out loud” cultures are key if adoption is to be company-wide. “If the leader isn’t showing that they’re making mistakes, or that they haven’t figured out all of the answers, then everyone feels that they should have it all figured out by now,” she said. “Share both your successes and your failures. That’s what creates that safe environment, that risk-free sandbox.”No one needs to be an expert yet, says David Wentworth, VP of talent at frontline learning management platform Schoox. “Let’s move past that and focus on results: What are we trying to do? Always tie it to real problems and real outcomes,” he said. The good news is, many companies already have standard operating procedures and ethics guidelines they can apply right away to get AI training up and running. “Don’t think that you have to start a whole new paradigm about how to approach this thing,” Wentworth said. “You’re probably 60, 70, or 80% of the way there. Just tweak it a bit to fit your current needs.”At multimedia company Scripps, AI tools are helping new reporters develop their skills faster. “Human coaches are amazing, but there’s something about an AI mentor that’s completely nonjudgmental,” said Ginger Summers, senior director of L&D. Their AI tool gives feedback on drafts, helping reporters think critically about sourcing and permissions, without having to tap their peers. About 20% of newsroom employees now use the tool one to two hours per day, saving roughly 20 minutes of work each time. “They’re still learning to use it,” Summers said, “but the time savings are amazing.”This is an excellent example of a successful roll-out of AI as a learning and development tool. Ultimately, said Rosenman, companies must be clear about why they’re implementing AI, and the results they’re achieving. If employees fear that AI is threatening their jobs, panic will quickly spread.“There’s so much opportunity for the smartest, most creative minds in media to eliminate the drag that keeps them from doing the work they do,” read a late-summer edition of the business newsletter Feed Me. “This instinct, too often, is to hire a COO, a CTO, a chief of staff, or a small army of ops staff, but if you develop prompt engineering skills, commit time to investing in these tools, you can replace huge chunks of that infrastructure and stay small, fast, and creative.”While some companies may be looking for ways to cut their workforces in half, many companies want to become more efficient without hiring anyone new or expand expertise more quickly, said Rosenman. When employees know that, the message shifts from existential threat to helpful teammate.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 gorodenkoff/iStock)
Creating a Competitive Edge in the Race for Talent
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza September 30, 2025Job seekers are exhausted. More than two-thirds (66%) say they’re burned out by the search, according to Employ’s 2025 Job Seeker Nation Report. The process is repetitive, opaque, and often ends with a rejection that explains nothing. “A lot of people are wondering, ‘is my resume seen at all, or am I just getting screened out?’” said Katie Ballantyne, VP of customer success operations at Employ. Ballantyne and her colleagues spoke at a From Day One webinar on how employers can gain a competitive edge in the race for talent.Most hiring managers don’t intend for it to be this bad. They’re often recruiting for brand-new, complex roles while juggling outdated processes. “But you wouldn’t build a house without a plan,” Ballantyne said. “You wouldn’t rock up every day and pop a pipe in over here, and a switch over here. No. You’re going to have a layout, you’re going to have an idea of what you’re doing. But people don’t approach hiring in the same way.” This is where AI can be a hugely valuable tool.The poor experience is costing companies. Many job seekers—including great candidates—drop out of an application process that’s “too cumbersome, too repetitive, and doesn’t usually elicit information that’s not already on a resume,” said Shea Shatto, Employ’s senior director of referral partners. Companies relying on endless forms or clunky portals are turning people away before they even make it to an interview.Traditional resume screening tools are a problem. Most automatically eliminate the majority of applications before they even reach a recruiter. But the reject folder could comprise tremendously rich candidates, says Katy Jenkins, Employ’s VP of product. An application submitted toward the end of the hiring window or one not perfectly tailored to the job shouldn’t disqualify someone with valuable skills. AI tools can help employers spot overlooked candidates deep in their pipelines, without spending more money.Journalist and From Day One contributing editor, Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza moderated the discussion (photo by From Day One)More employers are turning to more productive tools, like knockout questions and video assessments, that draw out meaningful information with minimal effort from candidates. Others are taking a more open-minded approach, using AI to steer strong applicants toward roles that are a better fit rather than ejecting them from the funnel altogether. “When you go through the whole process and you have your top five candidates, they’re all really qualified,” Shatto said. “Just because the other four don’t make it to that exact role, it doesn’t mean there’s not a good fit for them somewhere.”Some are leaning heavily into their employee value proposition. If an employer claims to value growth and development, candidates should see evidence—whether that’s details about internal mobility programs or stats about how many roles are filled from within. Recruiters need to be able to talk about these opportunities, not just point to a careers page. Without proof, employer branding can sound like empty promises.The weakest link in the hiring process is often evaluation. Many managers have little or no training in how to assess candidates consistently. That’s where AI-powered structured guides and interview intelligence tools come in. “We find that when people use some interview intelligence tooling, first year retention is, on average, 30% higher,” said Jenkins. “Because they’ve actually really evaluated that person against the job. Everyone has very clear expectations.”For candidates, consistency means clarity about what’s expected, how they’re measured, and even how they can improve. That kind of respect keeps people engaged, even if they don’t land the role this time.Jenkins asked her team to do an exercise in empathy: write the rejection letter they would want to receive. The exercise is simple, but it reframes the process around something hiring leaders often forget: every candidate deserves respect. Fixing hiring isn’t just about speed or efficiency, but trust. The companies that get it right won’t just win more talent, they’ll keep it.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Employ, 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 FG Trade Latin/iStock)
How Companies Are Tackling Employee Financial Instability With Emergency Savings
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza September 25, 2025As of 2024, 37% of American adults say they would struggle to cover an unexpected $400 expense. Financial precariousness shows up in the workplace as stress, disengagement, and turnover. Increasingly, companies are realizing that 401(k)s aren’t enough to ensure financial stability. Workers need short-term safety nets, too. That’s why a growing number of employers are experimenting with emergency savings programs.At specialty grocer The Fresh Market, a routine employee survey revealed that financial wellness—not physical or emotional health—was workers’ top concern. What followed was a pilot program that helped employees build lasting savings habits and avoid relying on costly paycheck advances.‘We See Emergency Savings as a Foundational First Step’Every year, Paula Stop, the director of total rewards at The Fresh Market, surveys employees about what benefits they would like to see in the coming year. In 2022, she asked which of the following forms of wellness was most important: physical, financial, social, or emotional. “We were surprised,” she said during a From Day One webinar about emergency savings at work. “The top selection overall was financial wellness.”Stop investigated and found that use of the company’s earned wage access platform was high—higher than she was comfortable with. Clearly, employees were struggling with cash, and they needed a better option than regular advances on their paycheck.That’s when The Fresh Market tapped their long-time partner Commonwealth, a national nonprofit whose mission is to make access to financial security and wealth-building common and accessible. Having an emergency savings account is the first step to financial security, said Charvi Gandotra, the organization’s senior director. Without that cushion, people overly rely on paycheck advances, 401(k) loans and hardship withdrawals, and predatory loans. For some, it shows up in tax levies and wage garnishments. “Because life happens, people tap into some of those longer-term retirement solutions, and that’s what we are trying to prevent,” said Gandotra, “We’re trying to help strengthen. We see [emergency savings] as a foundational first step.”Leaders spoke about "Emergency Savings at Work: How Employers Are Tackling America's Financial Safety" in the session moderated by Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza (photo by From Day One)Stop and Gandotra decided to add SoFi to the partnership. The Fresh Market had already been working with the digital bank for its student loan refinancing program, and Sarah McLemore, the senior director and business lead at SoFi, was ready to jump in and help. Emergency savings is often a great compliment to wage access, she says. “Earned wage access can be great in terms of avoiding going into deep debt. But on the flip side, you’re not teaching people how to save and prepare for big bills. They’re just going to get money when you need it. This is a nice one-two punch.” Rolling Out Emergency SavingsThey began with a pilot in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and the Florida Panhandle, areas where earned wage access was highest. The program let employees split their direct deposit at the time of payroll, and over the course of a campaign to encourage savings, the share of paycheck contributed to the program grew from 6% to 8%. Three months later, employees had retained their gains. The habit was sticking.When The Fresh Market rolled out the program to all employees, it matched a $75 direct deposit with a $75 company contribution. The incentive structure was a huge success for the grocer. Engagement is best when communication is clear and consistent and incentives are attainable, though McLemore noted that plenty of employers launch successful programs without a company match.The type of savings program that worked for employees at The Fresh Market may not work for employees at the next company, Gandotra says. “The starting point for employers is doing research, understanding what an employee’s needs and priorities are. Let’s identify some gaps in the financial benefits program, and then let’s figure out how to fill those gaps.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, SoFi at Work, 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 designer491/iStock)
If AI Starts Replacing Entry-Level Jobs, How Will Future Leaders Get Started?
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza September 17, 2025As AI expands across business operations, will the jobs of young workers be among the first to go? If that happens, how will the future leaders of tomorrow enter the talent pipeline? Those are questions that have many HR leaders worried. Headlines warn that AI will damage, or already has damaged, the first rung on the corporate ladder, where young workers start their careers and occupy an important and useful position in corporate hierarchy. Though the full effects of AI on the labor market remain to be seen, some employers are already rethinking their workforce strategies.With AI revolutionizing the most fundamental parts of work, employers must decide whether to regard AI as a substitute for early-career workers or as a tool to accelerate their growth. “If you are a head of HR and you are not jumping up and down and saying, ‘Hey, this is going to impact our culture and our business and our people, and me and my team need to be a part of it,’ then you’re not doing your job,” said Dan Kaplan, managing director of the chief HR officer practice at executive search firm ZRG.Kaplan, who has more than a decade of experience advising CHROs, believes most HR leaders do understand the moment. But he says not enough attention is being paid to the early-career stage, since managerial succession is built on solid entry-level talent.How Much Is AI to Blame?The working world in 2025 is looking grim to many early-career workers, especially for those with college degrees. It’s been a year of layoffs, hiring freezes, and ominous predictions about the obsolescence of entry-level roles under the weight of AI. Salesforce eliminated 4,000 customer-support roles this year, and CEO Mark Benioff told podcaster Logan Bartlett that with AI, he simply doesn’t need as many people. Anthropic’s CEO Dario Amodei told Axios in May that AI could wipe out half of entry-level jobs. Yet so far, there’s little hard evidence that AI is displacing young workers en masse. “A lot of this is just related to the fact that the labor market has shifted back to a low-hiring, low-firing labor market,” said Joseph Briggs, senior economist at Goldman Sachs, on the firm’s Exchanges podcast. While it’s true that, across many sectors, college graduates are having trouble finding work, “the relationship that the anecdotes have to AI is often a little bit overstated,” he added.Briggs did note some evidence of impact in tech industries, where unemployment among young workers is slightly higher than in other sectors. A working paper from researchers at Stanford University also suggests that widespread adoption of generative AI contributed to a 13% decline in the relative employment of early-career workers in sectors like tech and customer support.Whether AI alone will trigger widespread unemployment among young people remains unclear. Still, companies in key industries are bringing in fewer entry-level hires in 2025. And with large-scale retirements looming, the question becomes: How are they filling the leadership pipeline?Avanade Leans Into Early-Career TalentAt the IT professional-services company Avanade, Paul Phillips isn’t cutting entry-level hires—he’s reaching further upstream. The company targets college sophomores and juniors for internships, training them early so that graduates arrive ready-made for full-time roles.In professional services, it’s imperative that talent is qualified as early as possible, so that their work can be chargeable to clients. Phillips, who is the company’s global head of HR, talent acquisition, and onboarding, likes to know that when he makes a hire, it’s clear right away where that person will fit in the organization. Since expanding the internship program two years ago, Avanade converts roughly 80% of its interns into full-time employees.For those young workers, “the ability to learn, unlearn, and relearn is going to be key,” Phillips said. “We have a number of academies that we’ve spun up across Avanade where we bring in talent from non-traditional backgrounds and non-tech backgrounds, or we bring people working in sectors that we do see becoming commoditized in the near term and retrain them on the new set of skills.”In other sectors, where companies might have an older workforce, the retirement of baby boomers has created a knowledge drain. For process industry companies, which includes everything from metals and mining to paper and packaging, retirements are an acute problem and recruiting the next generation is a challenge. In such cases, AI can be a talent attractor, with employers positioning themselves as places where workers can use the latest tools and tech with less toil. In fact, a study by Boston Consulting Group and MIT found that when employees see the value of AI, they feel “more competent in their roles, more autonomous in their actions, and more connected to their work, colleagues, partners, and customers.”AI’s Short-Term Gain and Long-Term ImplicationsBusiness Insider reported that professional-services giant PwC is scaling back on hiring entry-level talent by nearly one-third over the next few years, citing “the rapid pace of technological change.” More broadly, BI has reported in May that AI could reshape consulting at every level of the business.If companies do rely too heavily on AI instead of young talent, “it is going to be short-term gain and massive long-term implications,” ZRG’s Kaplan warned. “If we find ourselves losing out at the entry level, it’s going to have a compounding effect, and it’s going to ultimately affect leadership pipelines.”Some employers are betting big on the opposite approach. “We’re helping a ton of clients think through AI investment and bring AI experts across their portfolio,” Kaplan said. Law, consulting, and private equity firms are doubling down on entry-level hiring. They see today’s graduates as a rare asset: digitally native, agile, and curious about technology. “Private equity tends to really see trends. They see trends and they understand.”Some leaders in the tech industry share this philosophy. Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman called replacing junior workers with AI “one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard,” arguing that this segment is the “least expensive” and “the most leaned into your AI tools.”Publicis, the global ad and PR company, launched a program to help jump-start these junior workers by building foundational skills. Called Ignite, the two-and-a-half-day kickoff program for early-career hires focuses on communication, time management, and business acumen. “We used to wait, but that’s when Ignite came to fruition. The goal is to get them to greater impact quicker,” said Nikki Slowinski, the Publicis group’s EVP of talent experience and development, at a From Day One conference.Without young workers, corporate culture will suffer. “You want that youthful excitement that typically comes from having new college grads and young professionals starting their career,” Kaplan said. “They socialize, they go out, they’re the ones who show up to the office baseball game and the office run in Central Park. If you don’t have that, it will erode your culture.”Augmentation, Not Replacement Trent Cotton, head of talent acquisition insights at iCIMS, told From Day One that while he can’t directly link fewer entry-level hires to AI, the trend does reflect a broader workforce-planning shift. Employers are asking where new hires are essential, and where AI can augment existing teams.Because AI is boosting individual productivity, some companies are consolidating roles and rethinking headcount. They’re asking whether they really need as many full-time employees, focusing instead on where those roles add the most value.Cotton believes the future is in augmentation, not replacement. AI is going to supercharge the young worker, he says. It normally takes 90 days to ramp up a new employee, but with AI, an employer can help an entry-level worker apply their education and start contributing right away. “I mean, AI can help them almost from day one.”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.(Featured photo by FG Trade Latin/iStock by Getty Images)
What Unusual Jobs Taught Me About Hiring, Retention, and the Talent You’re Overlooking
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza September 09, 2025Paddy Fanning never set out to become one of the best sheepdog trainers in the world. He was a cowboy working on a Canadian cattle ranch when he came across an old book on horsemanship that described the magical give-and-take between humans and animals. Back in Ireland, as he worked to recover from a drinking problem, he put those lessons into practice with a border collie on his father’s sheep farm, and, in the process, discovered a new sense of purpose.Twenty years later, Paddy has represented Ireland in international herding dog competitions and earned a reputation as one of the finest trainers alive. “I’m probably still a bit unemployable,” he told me, laughing. “You hear my job there, and I don’t really have one. And yet we do okay. Dogs have given me all that. I just feel glad with the way the whole deal turned out.”For the last six years, I’ve been writing about work. How people get their jobs and how they lose them, the relationship between employer and the employed, and how all of us find meaning in our work. I frequently meet people who are unhappy with their careers. But I noticed something: People who have unconventional jobs often are happy with their work.So I started searching for the people who have jobs they don’t tell you about in school, roles that don’t show up on job boards: the death doulas, sheepdog trainers, puppeteers, and Foley artists of the world. And I made a podcast about it, called How to Be Anything.Each episode tells the story of someone with an unusual job, and after interviewing 15 of them, I realized their lessons aren’t only for people whose careers take them off the beaten path. Their wisdom and experiences are relevant for anyone working today–including those in corporate America. Some of my findings: Self-Determination Is a Powerful Retention ToolFrom Day One contributing editor and journalist Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza takes you inside the world of unique and unexpected jobs in her podcastAlmost everyone I spoke with chose their job intentionally. Sometimes it took years (or decades) to find, but in the end they carved out space to do work they found meaningful. That self-determination is a powerful reason they stay.Puppetry artist Heidi Rugg built a career by weaving together all the art forms she loves, and her work became stronger once she focused on the environmental themes that deeply matter to her. On the TV Show Dimension 20, lorekeeper (kind of like a script supervisor) Skye Smith designed their own system for tracking the plot, a process they owned from start to finish. For Smith, the real satisfaction comes from being taken seriously. “If I have opinions, I get to say them and they get taken into consideration, which I think is a huge blessing, especially as someone who's young and I didn’t finish college,” Smith told me.And when veterinarian Cindy Otto worked at Ground Zero after 9/11, she saw firsthand the need for better medical care for search-and-rescue dogs. Backed by the University of Pennsylvania, she launched an entire research program to address it, and now is on the leading edge of working-dog science. When workers have the freedom to pursue ideas that matter personally to them, they’re far more likely to stick around.Everyone Needs to See the Fruits of Their LaborWork feels meaningful when you can see its impact.Forensic artist Melissa Cooper has seen her sketches lead directly to the capture of violent criminals, and she draws joy from knowing she’s giving power and a voice to survivors. Gavin Cox, a research scientist who works a mile underground searching for dark matter, described the satisfaction of spending a month designing a procedure to safely move liquified xenon gas, a high-stakes task that required precision and patience. “That’s when I feel proud of my work,” he told me.Employees don’t need a dramatic story to feel accomplished, but they do need to see that the outcomes of their contributions matter.I asked veterinarian Cindy Otto what she thinks of her career now that retirement is in sight. She told me that at a recent veterinary symposium, a presenter asked the crowd for a show of hands: Who had been affected by the Penn Vet Working Dog Center and the work they’ve done? Every single person in the room raised their hand. “I think about it a lot,” she told me. “I’ve made a difference. I’ve made an impact,” she said. Excellence Requires Freedom to FailNo one starts out as an award-winning sheepdog trainer or an award-winning Foley artist. You start as lousy, and then you become okay, and then you become good–and then you become great.That’s why the famous Jack Welch mentality of routinely cutting lowest performers (a practice now back in vogue in 2025) is so damaging. It sends a message to your employees that stumbling is a punishable offense, and eliminates the top performers of the future.Organizations that want innovation have to accept that employees will struggle, or even fail, on their way to mastery.Careers Are Built on Soft SkillsBrendon King has been climbing 500-foot cell towers for more than a decade. The hardest part isn’t fixing the electronics, it’s staying calm when the steel tower sways like a noodle in the wind. Patience, composure, and a little bit of thrill-seeking keep him safe. The technical skills, like repairing fiber optic cables and network switches, those are things he learned on the job. But the best part? “It’s a constant adventure, no matter how you look at it,” he said. “I’ve been in places where people have lived there their entire lives and they’ve never once seen the view that I get to see. It’s amazing.”Similarly, Erin Bishop spent two decades in market research before becoming a death doula. You might be surprised that running a focus group translates quite well to conducting community discussions about death and dying. “Having a career that helps me be a better person in the world—I never thought I would have that in my life,” she told me.Too often, employers seek out candidates who have direct experience, and miss out on remarkably talented people with unconventional career paths.Work Should Be EnjoyableBusiness leaders love to talk about purpose and meaning. They want employees to connect to the company mission, touting its ability to increase engagement and retention. It’s true, and there’s evidence to back it up. But purpose alone isn’t enough.The people I spoke with not only find meaning in their unconventional jobs, but enjoy them in the moment. An employee may love working at a company that saves lives with medical equipment or helps people afford homes. But if the day-to-day is tedious, they won’t stay. Meaning is important, but fun doesn’t get enough credit.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.(Featured photo courtesy of forensic artist Melissa Cooper)
The HR Metrics That Matter: Defining ROI in a People-First Culture
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza September 08, 2025In the rush to adopt the latest AI tools and maximize efficiency and output, employers may be overlooking the one factor that gives them a competitive edge: people.“It’s the unpredictable, varied creativity of humans that actually allows one business to leapfrog over another,” said Ken Matos, director of market insights at HR analytics platform HiBob, during a From Day One webinar. “When you’re people-first, you’re really looking for ways to get the right people to advance your business strategy most effectively.”Kenneth Matos of HiBob spoke during the webinar (company photo)A “people-first” culture, as Matos describes it, is one grounded in the belief that it’s people, not processes, not technology, that makes a business successful. That means designing the right roles for the organization, then ensuring the right people are in those roles. When employees feel well-matched, supported, and recognized, Matos says, “you get increases in creativity, novel ideas, and their ability to adapt and learn. That’s really valuable when you’re in a growth phase.”Flashpoint, a cyber threat intelligence platform, learned this firsthand. Several years ago, the company enjoyed a hiring surge. Headcount was growing at a steady clip and business was booming. But Lane McFarland, Flashpoint’s senior director of talent management, eventually hit pause. He began to question whether the pace of hiring was tracking closely enough with the company’s long-term goals.“We have a very complex and unique organization,” McFarland said. Flashpoint employs threat intelligence analysts from “three-letter” agencies like the CIA and FBI, vulnerability analysts who adopt criminal personas to draw out hackers, as well as accountants, HR partners, and other corporate staff. Each group brings its own professional culture and expectations about the working environment. “We want to make sure that we are matching both what we need and what they need,” said McFarland. “We don’t want to get to a point where it’s not a fit because it’s our fault.”So, McFarland redefined how Flashpoint approaches hiring, beginning with clear expectations. Job descriptions now outline outcome milestones for the first 30, 60, and 90 days, and checkpoints take place accordingly. Those check-ins aren’t just about evaluating employees, they’re also about ensuring the company is delivering on its side of the relationship.The company’s needs change, just as employees’ needs do–McFarland knows that. And rarely is someone so mismatched to a role that it can’t work. If a new hire lacks a requisite skill, McFarland can help them get it. If the role isn’t the right fit, he encourages pivots. Sometimes even outside the company.For some leaders, “people-first” suggests benefits packages and sentiment surveys, but Matos and McFarland encourage HR leaders to think deeper. “I always recommend HR leaders expand the scope of what they think of as well-being,” McFarland said. For him, it’s about whether employees feel fulfilled, valued, and recognized.Matos puts it this way: “What is a reasonable amount of work to give people before things break down? In an ideal world, we would say, ‘let’s measure their well-being. If their well-being goes down, that’s too much work. That’s not an ROI conversation. That’s an ethical conversation.”“Engagement is a symptom,” McFarland said. “We need to understand what’s the underlying problem, how we can impact that from an HR perspective, and whether we can expand our view of what HR leaders actually have the power to shape across the business.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, HiBob, 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 courtneyk/iStock)
The Untapped Power of Caregiving Benefits: Unlocking Productivity and Retention
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza September 03, 2025As the cost of childcare and eldercare increases and U.S. workforce shrinks, “it’s going to be ever more important that those who have caregiving responsibilities, who need to or wish to stay in the workforce, have the support they need,” said Phyllis Stewart Pires, the AVP of employee support programs at Stanford University.Childcare and eldercare are increasingly out of reach for many households: Not only is care often cost-prohibitive, it’s not always available. There are often long waitlists for care centers and some rural areas may have no options at all. Companies are increasingly aware that the need for childcare support was not just a circumstance of the pandemic, but a workforce issue with consequences for employee productivity, retention, and equity.Caregiving spans from the highchair to the rocking chair, says Dave Jacobs, co-CEO of caregiver support platform Homethrive. “It doesn’t discriminate based on education or socio-economic means. Even if you have the will and knowledge to be able to find the support you need, it’s becoming more expensive, and most of it is private pay,” he said during a From Day One webinar on caregiving benefits. Without support, the stress of taking care of family members encroaches on employee well-being and productivity. The result is distracted employees, or worse: preventable attrition.Caregiver dropout affects the whole talent pipeline. “As people are offered opportunities to move from, say, individual contributor to manager, manager to director, director to VP, sometimes they will decline those opportunities if they have a really stable caregiving situation and don’t want to disrupt that,” Jacobs said. Some are forced out of the workforce entirely. “It’s not only about losing opportunities, it’s also about losing the dream job or sometimes just losing everything.” Caregiving is not only a matter of health and wellness, it’s a matter of equitable opportunities for everyone,” said Arturo Arteaga, senior director of total rewards at VCA Animal Hospitals. Panelists spoke about "The Untapped Power of Caregiving Benefits: Unlocking Productivity and Retention" during the webinar (photo by From Day One)Forward-thinking employers are experimenting with a range of support. At Stanford, on-site childcare centers provide access to care and create jobs in the community, many of which were wiped out by the pandemic. Pires sees the potential for public-private partnerships to fill gaps in care. At VCA, where 80% of employees work on-site, Arteaga has introduced backup care.Some employers are building networks of vetted providers in communities where employees live, said Jacobs, offering subsidies for regular care, keeping backup care options available, and making schedules flexible when possible. At international law firm Sheppard Mullin, senior HR director Thomas Adrian is focused on gender equity, as the burden on caregiving falls primarily on women. “Because of the partnership model, we really want to maintain that gender equality between male and female,” he said, so employees are afforded as much paid time off as needed. The firm also defines caregiving broadly. “We won’t define the word family. If you live with your brother and he needs help, or his child needs help, we’re going to extend it to them. If you are concerned about someone you define as family, it’s going to come back and affect your work.”Flexibility is paramount, says Erin Fitzsimmons, the global head of talent attraction at TE Connectivity. One of her U.S.-based colleagues works with teams in China, and after putting her kids to bed, takes calls with her overseas colleagues. Fitzsimmons herself relied on the flexibility last year when she returned from parental leave. Unable to travel, she took overseas calls remotely while her team made the trip. “Being a global company, not everyone is on your typical 9-to-5. It all comes back to culture,” she said. Communication is paramount. Adrian at Sheppard Mullin makes sure caregiving benefits are automatically highlighted in any conversation about leave. Fitzsimmons created comprehensive benefits packets detailing when and how leave is available, and Arteaga stresses consistency: “Not once a year or twice a year. Constant,” he said. Some benefits don’t matter much until you need them–often right away. When that happens, employees need information close at hand. Employers investing in caregiving, from last-minute backup help to community infrastructure are not only helping their own employees, they’re protecting the future of the business.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Homethrive, 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 AleksandarNakic/iStock)
Supporting Financial Wellness Beyond the 401(k): Why Financial Stress Is a Workplace Matter
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza September 02, 2025A common misconception among employers is that high earners are financially stable. But as Mamie Wheaton, director of financial planning at LearnLux, points out, that isn’t always the case. “High income doesn’t necessarily equal peace of mind. Financial stress at any income level can lead to burnout, disengagement, and even turnover,” she said.Another common misconception: thinking that offering a 401(k) checks the box on financial wellness. In reality, employees are juggling far more immediate concerns, like credit card debt, student loans, or childcare costs. “If someone can’t manage today’s financial stressors, retirement planning is often the last thing on their mind,” Wheaton said.She and her colleague Jane Lund, who leads regional sales at LearnLux, a financial well-being platform tailored to individual needs, presented a From Day One webinar on how employers can support financial wellness beyond just retirement plans. In it they discussed the very real implications of financial stress on employee retention, engagement, and productivity.Uncovering the Source of Financial StressEmployees don’t always know what kind of help they need, or how to ask for it. “People often feel shame about their financial stress, especially if it’s tied to family building, life changes, or illness,” Lund said. Those needs often show up in hardship withdrawals from retirement accounts, upticks in personal loans, or rising absenteeism. “Sometimes all three,” she said.For HR leaders, this presents a challenge. Financial struggles are seldom obvious, but the downstream effects–like absenteeism, disengagement, and attrition–are very real. As Lund put it, “You don’t really see people raising their hands saying, ‘I need help,’ so how are leaders supposed to know what to prioritize?”Even when employees do schedule a call with a financial planner, like those at LearnLux, they might open with a question about retirement planning, but the real issue could lie elsewhere. That’s when licensed, certified planners like Wheaton dig deeper, looking for the root problem, so they can help employees feel empowered to make better decisions for themselves. Sometimes a single conversation can make a difference, while others will need regular touchpoints over weeks or months to find their footing. And for everyone, these needs may change over time.Why Financial Wellness Is a Workplace MatterThe implications of financial wellbeing are closely tied to safety, productivity, and retention. One LearnLux client, a construction company, launched a zero-injury initiative and discovered through surveys and conversations that employees’ financial stress was a key factor. “We see that a lot in frontline workforces,” Lund said. And not just in blue collar workplaces, the same is true in higher-earning industries, like healthcare.Journalist Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza moderated the discussion among leaders at LearnLux (photo by From Day One)By introducing financial wellness support, the company helped employees stabilize their personal finances, which in turn supported their safety goals. Retention improved, too. Based on their annual survey, “about 79% of employees who have used LearnLux for three months or more say they’re more likely to stay at their current job,” Lund said.“If we can be there to help new employees start off on the right foot, it’s going to help with retention,” Wheaton added. “It’s also going to help reduce 401(k) loans, credit card debt, and overall stress at work.” Small changes that add up to a healthier, safer, and more resilient workforce. Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, LearnLux, 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 Puttachat Kumkrong/iStock)