Getting Holiday Recognition Right: Creating Meaningful Moments That Bring Employees Together
BY Kristen Kwiatkowski October 28, 2026The holiday season offers an opportunity to recognize the people who keep your business running and show appreciation for their contributions throughout the year.Tray Ross, VP of growth at Corporate Traditions, shared how organizations can make holiday recognition more meaningful during a From Day One webinar, discussing how choice-based gifting can help companies show appreciation for the people behind their success.So, how can employers create this holiday recognition that has both a personal feeling and one that’s impactful at scale?Ross said there’s a four-question test that can be used to create the ideal holiday recognition plan for your team and includes the following questions: “Is it simple? Is it scalable? Is it personable? And can you scale it to where it’ll recognize all of the employees in every part of the business?”“As you know, the holidays are the one time of year where the employees are expecting their company to show up, and unfortunately, we still get things wrong a lot of the time,” said Ross. “We do a one-size-fits-all, whether that’s swag items or maybe we do holiday pies for everybody, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but we get everybody a Costco pumpkin pie, and then there's 25% of your workforce that absolutely can’t stand pumpkin pie.”“So, the whole goal is making sure that we provide more options,” said Ross. “Once employees have the option to be able to choose exactly what they want, they’re going to be more excited because they get what they want, and then we turn you into being the hero and guarantee to make sure that you stay on budget, which is always the most important thing in all of this.”Holiday recognition can take many forms, from branded swag and catered meals to cash bonuses. The key is choosing something inclusive that workers actually want and that can reach everyone, including remote team members, without creating a logistical burden.Tray Ross is VP of Growth at Corporate Traditions, where he helps People leaders turn new hire onboarding and employee recognition into a competitive advantage (company photo)Corporate Traditions works to check all of these boxes. “One of the benefits of Corporate Traditions is that we make all of the gifting simple for you,” said Ross. “One of our flagship programs is an all-in-one gift certificate. So you can send these out to all of your employees, and then the employee can choose exactly what they want that guarantees you stay on budget.”You’re giving workers something they actually want and will use, says Ross. Company-branded swag can be a nice gesture, but it may not be something people reach for regularly. “That’s what we’re trying to avoid,” said Ross. “It’s allowing employees to choose something that they want right off of their wish list instead of something that they’re never going to use.”Team leaders should brainstorm holiday recognition ideas early while awaiting budget approval. Digital gift cards make distribution quick and easy, letting workers choose what they want while ensuring everyone feels appreciated for their contributions throughout the year.Ross also said to remember to customize the gift and use the employee’s first name for personalization. “Just the sweetest sound in any language is a person’s first name,” said Ross. “So, the more that we can leverage someone’s first name, it’s going to add that personal note.”Corporate Traditions offers various holiday recognition options, such as the Gift Card+, where employees can choose from gift cards of all types; GiftYouPick, which enables employees to choose physical gifts with a budget from a wish list off of their favorite online store and get them shipped right to their door; and turkey and grocery vouchers. “They’re all dollar for dollar, meaning if you had a budget of $25, you can get your employees a $25 Gift Card+ or GiftYouPick certificate, or a $25 valued grocery voucher.”In the end, holiday recognition is about showing your employees that you are thankful for all that they do as part of the team. Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Corporate Traditions, for sponsoring this webinar. Kristen Kwiatkowski is a professional freelance writer covering a wide array of industries, with a focus on food and beverage and business. Her work has been featured in the Bucks County Herald, Eater Philly, Edible Lehigh Valley, Cider Culture, and The Town Dish.(Photo by miniseries/iStock)
Building a Resilient Immigration Program: What Every HR Leader Needs to Know
BY Ade Akin October 21, 2026A recruiter spends weeks courting a promising candidate. Interviews go well, the hiring manager signs off, and the offer goes out. Then the candidate mentions one detail no one asked about.“You get all the way to an offer, and the person says, ‘I need immigration sponsorship,’ and then everything stops, and you have to bring in counsel,” Matthew Hellrung, the co-founder and managing partner at Meltzer Hellrung, said. Hellrung often watches this scenario play out, and he says companies can avoid it by planning ahead. Employers that hire foreign national workers need more than a lawyer who files paperwork. They need a strategic immigration program that covers every stage of the employee lifecycle, from recruiting to offboarding.Hellrung and his fellow co-founder and managing partner, Matt Meltzer, made that case during a From Day One webinar about “Building a Resilient Immigration Program: What Every HR Leader Needs to Know.”Start With a Clear Sponsorship PolicyA written sponsorship policy sits at the center of any strong immigration program. Hellrung recommends a three- to five-page document that covers which visas the company sponsors, who qualifies, how the company splits costs with employees, and who approves exceptions.Meltzer takes a lighter approach for smaller teams. “If you’re a company of fewer than five sponsored employees, it’s not usually worth the effort to write a policy at all,” he said. Even at larger companies, a first policy can fill a single page. “There’s no reason a policy has to be long,” Meltzer added.Both partners favor sharing the policy with foreign national employees. Hellrung says that transparency signals care for a group whose visa status shapes nearly every career decision. “The most important thing that you’re offering them besides salary is their immigration sponsorship, and they want to know that you’ve got your act together as an employer,” he said.A written policy can also protect the company during an investigation. If a former employee files a complaint with the Department of Labor or the Department of Justice, Hellrung says, the company can show that it followed its documented policy. Hellrung now urges clients to review that policy more often because immigration rules keep changing. “I would have said once a year, but now I’m saying at least once a quarter,” he said.Bring Immigration Into Recruiting EarlyMeltzer encourages companies to decide where sponsorship widens their talent pool. Many new graduates qualify for Optional Practical Training (OPT), which provides 1 to 3 years of work authorization without employer sponsorship. In Meltzer’s view, ignoring these candidates is costly because he estimates that half of students in U.S. science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) master’s and PhD programs are foreign nationals.“If you are recruiting right out of school, and you’re not considering any foreign candidates, you have nixed 50% of the qualified applicants,” Meltzer said.Meltzer cautions that recruiters may ask only two screening questions about immigration status. “Do you have work authorization today? Will you now or in the future need sponsorship?” he said. Employers can also choose which visas they support. A company might decline to sponsor an H-1B for a role but sponsor a TN visa, a category reserved for candidates from Canada and Mexico.Avoid Costly Compliance MistakesSome shortcuts create serious liability. Employers must pay most H-1B costs, and pushing those costs onto workers can backfire. Meltzer warned that a company in that position is “only one complaint to the Department of Labor away from an unpleasant investigation.”Hellrung estimates that the mistake ends up costing about three times the original sum once back pay, fines, and legal fees add up. “Just pay the person what they’re owed,” he said.Job postings carry risk as well. Unless a role involves defense work or falls under International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) restrictions, Meltzer advises employers to never state that a job requires U.S. citizenship. Hellrung notes that a citizens-only requirement discriminates against lawful permanent residents, a protected class.Rising filing fees are driving up immigration costs. Hellrung’s team has cut client spending by using premium processing, which he pegs at about $3,000 per case, only when timing truly matters.Plan for Travel and Offboarding Risks“Travel is without a doubt the biggest hiccup in immigration right now,” Meltzer stated. “It is harder to get appointments than ever before.”Hellrung estimates that the share of visa holders pulled into secondary inspection has climbed from about 0.1% to roughly 1%. He stresses that most travelers still cross without trouble, but employers need a plan for workers stranded abroad for weeks or months, including pay, leave, and system access.Offboarding demands the same foresight. Meltzer notes that employers must offer to cover return travel for departing H-1B and O-1 workers who don’t stay in the U.S.Use Green Cards to Build TenureHellrung treats green card sponsorship as a retention tool rather than a hiring incentive. Most of the firm’s clients start the process about a year after a worker joins. “If you don’t do this, this employee will almost certainly leave at some point,” he said.Meltzer sees a recruiting edge, too. If competitors sponsor green cards at 18 months, a company that commits to nine months may win stronger candidates. “Someone may take a reduction in salary for more guarantee of green card sponsorship within a specific timeline,” he said.That loyalty gives HR leaders a way to measure return on investment (ROI). Hellrung suggests comparing the average tenure of sponsored workers with that of the rest of the workforce. “An immigration program structured properly, you can manufacture tenure.”Prepare for Audits and Rule ChangesImmigration enforcement keeps expanding. Meltzer describes U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as the largest police force and best-funded agency in the federal government today, and he warns that a single disgruntled employee’s tip can prompt a Form I-9 audit. I-9 compliance errors are common. “Of all the I-9 audits we’ve done, I’ve never seen any employer that’s done them perfectly,” Hellrung said.Meltzer advocates naming one internal point person to manage the program. When several HR business partners share the work, he explained, “Those programs are inherently more inefficient. They move slower. They give worse employee experiences.”Hellrung expects new prevailing wage rules to make permanent labor certification harder, so he urges clients to start eligible green card cases now.Still, Meltzer sees openings for employers willing to stay the course. He says the proposed $100,000 H-1B fee drove many employers out of this year’s lottery, which lifted his clients’ selection rate to 50%, up from roughly a third. Sponsored workers are staying longer, too. “Some of these challenges also create opportunities,” Meltzer concluded.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Meltzer Hellrung, for sponsoring this webinar.Ade Akin covers artificial intelligence, workplace wellness, HR trends, and digital health solutions.(Photo by belterz/iStock)
The AI Trust Gap: Why Consumers Are Tuning Out and How to Win Them Back
BY Ade Akin October 15, 2026Conversations in marketing rarely stray away from AI lately. Marketers feel pressure to deliver on the promise of content scaling “in hours rather than weeks or days,” said Meg Moss, head of global agency partnerships at Canva. Generative AI makes that speed possible, yet speed without a point of view carries a hidden cost.“The risk isn’t just wasted budget; it’s lost trust with a direct line to revenue,” Moss said during a thought leadership spotlight about “The AI Trust Gap: Why Consumers Are Tuning Out and How to Win Them Back,” at From Day One’s Chicago marketing conference. In an age of creative velocity, speed alone no longer sets a brand apart. The brands that pull ahead back that speed with human direction, consumer trust, and strong governance, she says. Marketers and Consumers Split on AITo measure the distance between how marketers feel about AI and how audiences respond to it, Canva commissioned The Harris Poll to survey 1,415 marketing leaders and 3,547 consumers across seven markets for its 2026 State of Marketing and AI Report.The results point in opposite directions. Ninety-seven percent of marketing leaders use AI in their daily creative work, and nearly all plan to increase their investment in it, according to the report. Consumers, meanwhile, are evaluating, judging, and pushing back on content that doesn’t feel earned. For Moss, that leaves marketers with one central tension: “how fast versus how well.”The consumer numbers make the point. Sixty-five percent say AI-generated ads are so obvious they’re laughable, 70% say those ads lack soul, and 87% say the best advertising still requires a human touch.When speed and volume push human direction aside, Moss says, teams end up with AI slop. “It’s polished, but it’s hollow. It doesn’t say anything to your customers, and we’re obviously in a sea of sameness,” Moss observed. “This is the cost that doesn’t show up in your AI budget line, but it shows up in your brand sentiment.”Moss stressed that the backlash targets how brands use the technology, not the technology itself. “I promise this isn’t an anti-AI story. Canva is an AI company, but it is conditional,” she said. Sixty-eight percent of consumers don’t mind AI in ads if the ads are helpful or relevant, yet 78% would still rather see ads made by people, according to Canva’s report. “They aren’t rejecting AI; they’re rejecting laziness,” Moss said.In her view, AI has lowered production costs while raising the value of taste. “AI collapses the cost of execution, not judgment,” she said. That shift changes the question teams should ask. “When AI makes almost every idea possible, the question is no longer, ‘Can we make this?’ It’s ‘Should we make this?’” Moss said.Marketing leaders seem to agree. Asked what AI can never replicate, 42% named empathy and emotional intelligence, while 41% cited brand intuition and creative judgment, according to the report. Three-quarters expect creative roles to grow over the next five years. The irony, Moss said, is that creativity “has become more strategic, not less.”Direction, Velocity, and TrustMoss outlined three principles that, working together, turn AI into a growth engine rather than a tool stack. Direction differentiates, velocity gets a team in the game, and trust sustains it.“AI raises the floor of execution, but your point of view is what makes the work unforgettable,” she explained. “High volume without direction just creates noise. High volume with direction creates a competitive advantage.”Trust depends on transparency, especially as AI-made ads become harder to detect. Seventy percent of consumers believe they’ll eventually be impossible to tell apart without disclosure, Canva’s 2026 State of Marketing and AI Report shows.Responsible AI governance needs a strategic approach. “It requires clear guardrails, defined standards, and intentional design,” she said. Make AI Integration IntentionalMany teams still treat AI as a generic layer on top of their old processes. “Generic AI produces generic results, and existing workflows don’t optimize for the new capabilities,” she said. Her answer is workflow optimization by design. Teams need to map where AI steps in, where humans step in, and where AI steps out. “There’s almost no way to accidentally get meaningful impact from AI agents. You have to be intentional,” Moss said.Rebuilding long-standing workflows is a change management challenge, Moss acknowledges, and Canva had to do it, too. The company built a culture around AI use, even asking in internal surveys, “Did you use AI for this, and how did you use it?” It also asked teams to treat AI “less like a tool and more like a teammate.”Canva’s marketing team integrates AI into each campaign. During planning, it uses Canva’s AI-powered search to surface insights and files from the previous year’s campaign, Moss says. For content creation, the team prompts AI to brainstorm visual directions, and the outputs stay fully editable. It also used Canva Code to build an interactive checklist of human-led checks for AI-powered content.Brand kits keep the output on brand. By attaching a brand kit to Canva AI, the team applies its fonts, colors, and tone of voice to every design which has eliminated much of the back-and-forth in production.Data analytics tools inside the platform made it easier to pull data for campaign check-ins and reviews. Automation handles the heavy lifting of localization: the team uses Bulk Create to produce batches of copy for paid campaigns and adapt headlines, text, and graphics for different regions. “This used to take weeks, and actually is one of those times where we now can say it actually takes us hours,” Moss said.How eXp Realty Removed BottlenecksMoss pointed to eXp Realty, a global real estate brokerage with more than 82,000 agents, as a customer that scaled without losing its brand. The brokerage integrated Canva Enterprise with its internal systems, allowing agents to pull listing details directly into brand-controlled marketing materials.With design tools such as Bulk Create, agents in every market can generate campaigns without having to file design requests. The result: eXp has quadrupled its approval speed, according to Canva’s case study.Moss closed by reframing consumer trust as a leadership issue. “AI trust is not a content problem; it’s an operating model problem,” she declared. Chief marketing officers must decide where AI can move fast, where humans stay accountable, and how trust gets measured. Canva took three steps: auditing every customer touchpoint to identify where AI was involved, classifying each by trust risk to determine the level of review and executive oversight needed, and defining who would own judgment, taste, claims, disclosures, and final approval.The winners of this current wave of AI-powered digital transformation will be the organizations that invest in human judgment, not just infrastructure. “As AI becomes standard, how will your brand stand out?” Moss posited. Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Canva, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight.Ade Akin covers artificial intelligence, workplace wellness, HR trends, and digital health solutions.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)
How AI is Making Marketing More Siloed, and the Only Way to Break Out
BY Kristen Kwiatkowski October 14, 2026AI tools are helping marketers work faster and more independently, but a single-player approach to AI can come at the expense of collaboration. When team members work in silos, it can lead to fragmented workflows and misalignment. A multiplayer approach to AI, by contrast, helps teams work together, share insights, and stay aligned, says David Gorman, SVP of product and co-founder of Opal.Gorman spoke about the topic during a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s Chicago marketing conference. Working with a multitude of brands for many years, Gorman and his team have seen the transformations these companies have gone through over time. “Even pre-dating Opal, marketing was always kind of a hair-on-fire situation,” said Gorman. “That’s what we always heard when we started, as we were running an agency and working with brands and kind of feeling it on the receiving end.” “We thought that surely, with technology, there has to be a better way,” he said.AI as a Common Marketing Tool“There’s this stat, which is 95% of marketers are using AI in 2026,” said Gorman. Marketing traditionally followed a step-by-step process: executives set the strategy, the marketing team wrote the copy, the art team developed the creative, and channel teams handled distribution across websites and social media.“Today, that looks a little bit different,” said Gorman. “That looks like everyone running a million miles an hour because you can now. Speed is certainly part of the promise here. But everyone is kind of back to doing that in a silo, and everyone is trying to kind of work as their own team with their AI.”But AI can introduce problems, including hallucinations and what Gorman described as a “siloing effect.” Customers have raised concerns about whether their content stays on brand, how siloed teams can quickly become misaligned, and how the broader strategy can get lost when work moves so fast. In the process, collaboration can become an afterthought.This can put you into a type of single-player mode and this is where issues can arise. For example, if three team members are using various AI tools for their work, even if they ask the same question, they’re going to get three different results. Some may be relevant to what you want to put in the market while other responses may be way off. This isn’t an effective way to work. “As someone that comes from the feeling that technology should bring people together to work as a team, I definitely don’t love how this feels,” said Gorman.So, how do we resolve these issues? Gorman stated we have two options: follow the 5% and stop using AI, or stop playing alone. How to Use AI as a Team“With Opal, we’re introducing a concept that we call the memory layer, and it is all about, ‘How do we enable teams to actually work together with AI in an effective way?’” said Gorman.Gorman said two ingredients required to do this include the context of the work and the instruction side of the equation. Opal uses something in the middle called Gem, an intelligence layer. Gem is an AI co-pilot built into Opal’s marketing platform that answers questions using information stored in its database, he says. For example, it can pull details on fall launches from the past five years. Users can also incorporate their workflows, guidelines, and preferences, then easily share the compiled information with teammates or in presentations.“I think about this as a way for the team to work together to produce work, improve the rules, and ultimately get to a better outcome next time,” Gorman said. “Whether that’s someone on your team, or you doing that work, or your agents doing that work, and you have more confidence that they’re working to the best of their ability in a framework that sets them or your team up for success.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Opal, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Kristen Kwiatkowski is a professional freelance writer covering a wide array of industries, with a focus on food and beverage and business. Her work has been featured in the Bucks County Herald, Eater Philly, Edible Lehigh Valley, Cider Culture, and The Town Dish.(Photo by Josh Larson for From Day One)
The Keys to Navigating Change: Marketing, Listening, and Creating Positive Stories
BY Paul Kersey October 13, 2026Change is a regular part of business, and sometimes adapting to new circumstances requires a company to overhaul its entire business model. Executives may spend months rethinking operations, products, and brand identity. But once the plan is finalized and presented to managers and workers, they may be tempted to consider the job done.Neil Bedwell, president of LOCAL, says that this is a mistake. Unveiling the plan is really only the beginning, he said during a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s Chicago HR conference. Putting the plan into action is where the real work begins. Turning a business strategy into reality can take a year or more, and success depends on getting employees on board.Marketing Change to Your Own EmployeesLOCAL specializes in helping companies communicate major business changes to their workforce, explaining the reasoning behind new strategies and getting workers on board with putting them into practice.It can be difficult. “Change is about people," Bedwell said. “We are not rational, logical individuals. We do not respond to information. We are emotional, passionate, creative creatures.”Managers may assume that employees will follow instructions simply because they’re paid to do so. But compliance alone isn’t enough. To get the best results, draw on workers’ knowledge and experience, and make changes last, executives need to sell the new approach internally, much as they would market a new product or service to customers, says Bedwell. Neil Bedwell, president of LOCAL, led the session titled, "It's Day One. Now What?"As is often the case with marketing, the key is effective storytelling and compelling stories. “Companies tend to think about it from a company perspective, which, if you’re an employee, that’s a change happening to me,” Bedwell said. “What we need to do is think about change happening with me.”A good story can frame change as a positive rather than a negative. Bedwell cited Alcoa Corporation, an aluminum manufacturer that brought in a new management team in the late 1980s. At the time, the company had a reputation among workers for cutting corners to improve efficiency at the expense of safety. The new leadership made worker safety a priority.It didn't happen overnight, but Alcoa's employees saw the shift. The company valued them and was working to protect them. Accidents fell by 95%, productivity improved along with employee morale, and income increased fivefold over the next twelve or so years, says Bedwell. This is the kind of story that HR professionals should want to tell, where change is not imposed on workers but implemented with workers, empowering them to do their best and enriching them.With AI, Stories Matter Even MoreNearly every workplace will be adopting AI tools in the next few years, if it hasn’t already. As the technology becomes more sophisticated, its usefulness will continue to grow. The AI-powered workplace will be one of steady change, as computers develop new capabilities and refine existing ones. But for workers, especially those in creative and knowledge-intensive roles, AI raises concerns. Will AI take over my job? How long before it does? And what happens to me then?From his vantage point, Bedwell says employees are “scared” and “apathetic,” concluding bluntly that workers “are not embracing this.” Concerns about how AI could affect workers’ livelihoods and well-being are widespread and likely to persist for years.Introducing AI to employees takes time. Employers must address uncertainty through education, establish shared values, and explain the business case. Bedwell envisions as many as eight steps to help workers move from apprehension to confidence in their future roles. But however many steps are involved, the key will be to adopt the marketing mindset of focusing on the needs of the audience, customers or, in this case, employees. “Marketing is orienting everything you do, everything you think, around your audience,” Bedwell said. “If you want to create that intentional, emotive, powerful story, you have to design it around them, not around the company.”Listening Leads to CaringPeople can only genuinely care about so much—Bedwell equates this to a parking lot with around 20 spaces. If you want to reserve a spot, you need to connect to the employees’ desires. “I want to make an impact. I’d like to grow my career. I want to be attached to purpose. If you can attach your initiative to that thing, then you get a spot, and that’s how caring works,” he said. At the heart of this approach is listening to workers and understanding their lives and ambitions. When HR leaders understand their workforce, they can develop policies that support workers and frame change as something that benefits both employees and the business. By communicating change from the workers’ perspective, managers, especially HR professionals, can gain the buy-in needed to make business changes succeed.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, LOCAL, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Paul Kersey is a former attorney and freelance writer who has covered events for Bloomberg News and other outlets. Paul is based in Chicago, IL.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)
How Winning Organizations Invest in Human Performance
BY Kristen Kwiatkowski October 12, 2026As AI tools are used more often and technology changes, HR leaders are tasked with navigating this change, which is more organizational than technological. “What we want to help you answer today is how do you overcome the growing employee mistrust and anxiety that’s a result of all of that change,” said Jen Mosher, marketing manager at Active Release Techniques (ART). “And the answer is to build a strategy that focuses on blending both technology and culture, and one that really puts your people at the center.”Mosher spoke during a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s Chicago HR conference, alongside Todd Prather, ART sales manager, and Stuart Yoss, an ART provider. Active Release Techniques (ART) is a U.S.-based soft tissue therapy system that offers noninvasive treatment for musculoskeletal and nerve disorders.Culture change is becoming a priority as 65% of organizations say AI will require drastic changes to their workplace culture. Culture also plays a role in employee retention, burnout prevention, and productivity. So, how can organizations build a healthy culture? Start by looking at the workplace from the employee’s perspective.“Employees don’t feel value based on the words of your mission statement, but rather they’re going to feel value based on the actions of your leaders and the investments that you make in them each and every day,” said Mosher.Keep Consistency in MindYoss is familiar with different organizational cultures. As a chiropractor and ART provider for professional sports teams, including the Chicago Bears, Blackhawks, and Bulls, he’s seen how different organizations operate. He also gets to speak with the players about all sorts of topics.“One of the main things that I’ve asked the [players] is what makes a good coach. Because as a fan, we all wonder about it,” said Yoss. Jen Mosher, marketing manager at Active Release Techniques, Todd Prather, ART sales manager, and Stuart Yoss, ART provider, shared the stage for the thought leadership spotlight titled, "The Balance Between Technological Adoption and Human Needs: How Winning Organizations Invest in Human Performance" Yoss has recognized a pattern of importance around “accountability and consistency.” One thing that stands out is how consistently the organization treats its players as valuable assets, a lesson companies should apply to their own workers, says Yoss. Yoss discussed consistency as it pertains to his application of active release technique and how consistency using one technique can help many people. Keeping consistency in the workforce, no matter what occupation, helps to boost productivity and cut losses, he says. Focus on the Human ComponentPrather discussed how professional athletes and corporate workers face similar workplace challenges and deserve the same level of care. He added that ART focuses on prevention, helping address issues before they escalate.“In my world, a lot of people come to me when it’s too late. Humans do that, that’s what we do. We wait until you almost have to go see a specialist,” he said. “With ART, you can get treatment ahead of that to ultimately support your recovery.”Prather says ART can address a wide range of workplace issues, and he was particularly impressed by its return on investment, which extends beyond preventing recordable workers’ compensation cases. “In 2026, we’re going to impact over a million lives,” he said. “On one edge of the value spectrum, you’re saving money. And then on the other, [there is an] this human component—the engagement, the cultural benefit when somebody comes to me and says, ‘This program actually tells me you care.’” When companies invest in the human side of work, workers feel valued rather than replaceable. A strong culture builds trust within teams and fosters a deeper emotional connection.“We wanted to focus on this idea of technology and culture, because we all know AI will continue to change the way we work, the way we do everything. But human needs won't change,” said Mosher. “And so, the organizations that continue to pay attention to their employees’ needs and invest in those employees are the ones that will win in the future.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Active Release Techniques, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight.Kristen Kwiatkowski is a professional freelance writer covering a wide array of industries, with a focus on food and beverage and business. Her work has been featured in the Bucks County Herald, Eater Philly, Edible Lehigh Valley, Cider Culture, and The Town Dish.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)
Nobody Wakes Up Fluent in AI: A Playbook for HR Leaders
BY Kristen Kwiatkowski October 08, 2026Just as computers became part of the workplace in the 1980s, AI is becoming a fundamental workplace skill today. “No one woke up computer literate in 1985, and no one is going to wake up AI fluent in 2026,” said Abigail Seldin, chief growth officer at Scholarship America.Fortunately, HR leaders can take practical steps to help their teams build the skills and confidence they need to use AI well. Seldin spoke about the evolution of AI and how HR leaders can help their teams grow with it during a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s Philadelphia conference. “AI fluency is an emerging standard that many of us are working to define and implement in real time,” said Seldin. “In this moment of transformation and dislocation, buy-in can be hard to come by.”Seldin was an early AI adopter and started learning more about this tool in November 2022. What originally started as something she was curious about turned into a multipurpose tool.“Today, a few years later, I use it to probe weaknesses in my go-to-market plans, identify summer camps for my sons, and to find obscure headlines to show in talks,” she said. “It’s a multi-prompt use.”But Seldin realizes not everyone is a daily AI user. She’s exchanging prompts with some of her colleagues often, while she’s gently encouraging other team members to start using AI.Scholarships With an AI Focus Are Continually EmergingAt Scholarship America, Seldin and her team members are in the business of removing barriers between learners and the training and education they seek. Scholarship America runs 1,300 different scholarship programs to make this connection possible, she says. Scholarship management is a big part of this process and it’s a double-sided marketplace, including the sponsors and the applicants. “Since the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, we have begun to see interest in scholarship programs focused on AI,” said Seldin. “Some sponsors choose to expand existing programs to add AI as an allowable focus area, and others choose to set up brand new programs either for their employees or members of the public.”Abigail Seldin, Chief Growth Officer at Scholarship America, led the thought leadership spotlight With the increase of AI, it’s important for HR managers to take a leading role. “As HR leaders, we are responsible not just to steer learning and development but also to steward organizational culture in this transformational and dislocating moment,” said Seldin. Seldin shared a case study that started with an AT&T strike where 155,000 workers walked off the job in 1986 for about a month and did so to strike for job security and retraining support purposes. As a result, a resolution included a $21 million investment from AT&T which went towards offering targeted training and pipelines so workers could transition before the jobs they held vanished. Through partnerships with community colleges, customized short-term vocational programs were developed, with the colleges paid upfront to ease financial concerns for employees. The program ultimately retrained more than 150,000 people and helped fill thousands of internal roles with workers who had completed the training. When AT&T laid off workers in the late 1980s, those who had participated in the program found new jobs faster than those who had not.“What made these efforts so successful, both for employees who were ultimately retrained and upskilled, as well as those who went on to other careers after reductions in force, is that the employers defined the needs,” said Seldin. “They defined the training that was going to help them meet those needs.”How HR Leaders Can Help Implement AIToday, HR leaders are well positioned to understand what workers need and what they’re willing to try. Scholarship America is seeing interest across three areas: access, application, and acceleration.Before workers can become AI fluent, they need access to the technology. That requires tech, time, and interest, she says. Peer-to-peer demonstrations can help, but even “free” programs require internet access, making investments in technology essential.The next step is application: learning how to use AI in the context of the work. This can include individual courses, short online certificates, or product-specific training. But AI fluency takes time, even for workers eager to learn.Acceleration is the final step, focused on leadership. These are the workers who can help lead their organizations through the adoption of AI.“We know that these opportunities and obligations to our employees don't end when employment does, as AI eliminates job categories, and I expect it will,” said Seldin. “Employers can also invest in the people leaving, helping them acquire the skills they need in the labor market that they’re entering.”While no one wakes up fluent in AI, Seldin knows that HR leaders want to work together to ensure employees aren’t left behind during this period of dislocation and change.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Scholarship America, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Kristen Kwiatkowski is a professional freelance writer covering a wide array of industries, with a focus on food and beverage and business. Her work has been featured in the Bucks County Herald, Eater Philly, Edible Lehigh Valley, Cider Culture, and The Town Dish.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)
The Million Dollar Patient
BY Kristen Kwiatkowski October 05, 2026The onset of a serious medical issue is often when people realize just how much healthcare can cost. That realization comes as they navigate an often confusing and daunting medical system, make difficult treatment decisions, and try to manage the financial uncertainty that comes with them.Organizations, however, have opportunities to help workers and plan members navigate the healthcare system and manage costs while protecting the people those plans are designed to serve. Matthew Cavallo, VP of member experience at RazorMetrics, has personal experience in this area. Cavallo discussed his battle with multiple sclerosis and healthcare during a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s Austin conference. The Multiple Sclerosis DiagnosisAt 28, Cavallo began experiencing symptoms that led to an MS diagnosis. What started as numbness in his feet progressed to temporary paralysis from the waist down within five days. After extensive testing, including CT scans, MRIs, and a spinal tap, doctors gave him three possible diagnoses: sarcoidosis, Lyme disease, or MS.Cavallo engaged in various treatment methods, including outpatient physical therapy and aquatic therapy. A month later, he had a follow-up appointment with his neurologist who diagnosed him with probable multiple sclerosis. The diagnosis couldn’t be confirmed until the next exacerbation. The confirmation came six months later when Cavallo was out walking his dog, Ted, a beloved pet he had waited years to welcome into his home and who he promised to walk twice a day, every day, a promise he kept, no matter what his MS was doing.“I’m out walking Ted one day, about six months later, and I see this pinhole in the center of my vision and by the end of the day, my whole right eye went blind,” said Cavallo. “I knew right away this was going to be another MS episode, so I went to the neurologist's office, and he diagnosed me with optic neuritis and told me that the diagnosis of MS was confirmed.”Cavallo asked why he was experiencing an MS relapse despite weekly medication. His doctor explained that, with relapsing-remitting MS, the medication helps extend the time between relapses. A year later, Cavallo developed chest pains, forgetfulness, and difficulty finding the right words, the latter two signs of a cognitive relapse.New Medications, New HopeAt this point, Cavallo decided to try a new medication which was an experimental treatment at that time. He didn’t want to continue battling frequent MS relapses, so he started the once-a-month treatment, and it helped Cavallo to keep MS relapses at bay for quite a while. He needed a resolution after all he had been through, including cognitive issues, sight issues, and even losing functionality from the waist down temporarily. However, he also considered with gratitude all he had achieved: he wrote his first book, got a master’s in public health, and had two children.Matthew Cavallo, VP of Member Experience at RazorMetrics, shared his story during the thought leadership spotlight “But I was a problem for health plans because I was very expensive,” said Cavallo. “My treatment cost $90,000 a year, and then I had a bad blood test, so my physicians had to switch me.” Cavallo switched to a different medication which cost $80,000 a year, was on IV chemotherapy medications for 15 years of his life, and then finally was able to take a pill “which was a pill that allowed me an off-ramp.” It’s been three years since Cavallo has needed an MS medication.“The total healthcare spend of my plans was over 1.4 million dollars of MS medication coursing through my veins, and I'm grateful for that,” said Cavallo. “But more importantly, I’m happy to be medication-free. I've finally achieved a point in my life where I have medication independence, and that’s what we do at RazorMetrics.”RazorMetrics looks at pharmacy claims, analyzes drug spend, maps out plans and eligibility, and then provides options, called switch or deprescription opportunities, to the doctors to discuss with the patient regarding medication options. RazorMetrics works with the physicians, not around them.Cavallo closed out the session with this final thought: “You don’t overcome adversity, you get through it,” said Cavallo. “You don’t choose the things that happen to you, you choose the way you respond.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, RazorMetrics, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Kristen Kwiatkowski is a professional freelance writer covering a wide array of industries, with a focus on food and beverage and business. Her work has been featured in the Bucks County Herald, Eater Philly, Edible Lehigh Valley, Cider Culture, and The Town Dish.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)
Decoding What Moves People: A New Model for Engagement in the Age of AI
BY Ade Akin October 02, 2026David Kristal grew up in Minnesota, and he’s all too familiar with what water can become. “At 32 degrees, it’s a solid block of ice. At room temperature, it flows through our hands, and above 212 degrees, it’s vapor in the air, invisible,” he said. People change states too, Kristal says. The same employee who shows up energized on Monday can be distracted on Tuesday by a new baby, a rough commute, or a boss they don’t get along with. Traditional employee engagement initiatives have historically operated under the assumption of a static environment, ignoring changing circumstances. “The future of workplace engagement enables us to tailor every response, not just to the individual employee, but to the temperature, to the moment. Context changes the game,” Kristal, the founder and CEO of Augeo, said. Kristal spoke with Katie Cunningham, the director of product at Augeo, about this during a thought leadership spotlight titled “Decoding What Moves People: A New Model for Engagement in the Age of AI” at From Day One’s Austin conference.When Intelligence Becomes a UtilityKristal started the conversation by acknowledging real fears companies and their employees have, from data leakage to the commoditization of intelligence. He contends that these two priorities are not mutually exclusive: organizational leaders can actively champion regulation and transparency while simultaneously driving AI adoption forward at full speed.He notes that every few centuries, civilization’s operating system undergoes a complete rewrite, moving from the printing press to the industrial engine, and later to the internet. “Intelligence itself has become an accessible utility,” he said.Engagement programs have always relied on personalization and data signals, according to Kristal. What’s new is the ability to pull those signals from many more sources and process them almost instantly. “For the first time, we can decode what will move millions of people millions at a time and one by one in real time,” he said.Augeo, which Kristal says has built engagement solutions for almost three decades and serves about 100 Fortune 500 companies, has put money behind that belief. The company sold its card-linking subsidiary Figg to JPMorgan Chase in 2022, and Kristal says Augeo has never invested more than it does now. In early September, it announced a collaboration with SpaceXAI to integrate Grok’s reasoning into THEO. While Kristal notes that the company maintains a platform-agnostic approach, it continues to explore strategic technology partnerships.One Operating System, Many ProgramsKristal’s ambitions extend beyond HR. He asked the audience to imagine AT&T, not an Augeo client, trying to sell more accessories in its stores. Today, that goal might spawn three efforts: an incentive program for store employees, a customer loyalty program, and a vendor program, each in its own silo.David Kristal, CEO of Augeo and Katie Cunningham, Director of Product at Augeo, shared the stage in Austin“Our north star vision is to be the engagement operating system for the enterprise, meaning the full company,” Kristal said. For that model, a single shared intelligence layer serves HR, customer loyalty, brand advocacy, and customer support simultaneously. He hedged the bet candidly: “If we’re wrong, and each of our programs remain siloed, that works too.”Signals That Used to Be InvisibleContext is what makes orchestration matter to people leaders. “Maybe an employee has a new baby. Maybe their route to work is disrupted. Maybe a friend got a promotion, and they didn’t. These are all previously invisible elements that affect how people might react in the workplace.”THEO reads those signals throughout an enterprise and acts on them. Kristal describes it as humanizing technology rather than a replacement for people. “We’re leveraging AI tech to actually humanize the workplace experience because it recognizes humans are always changing, evolving,” he added.Augeo is building two architectures around THEO. The first is what Kristal called the world’s first commerce engine: a conversational, fully personalized interface for redeeming rewards. It draws on data that companies already share with Augeo from their Human Resources Information Systems (HRIS). “There’s no creepy data effect,” he said. The second architecture connects THEO to the tools where people already work, such as Slack, Teams, CRM platforms, and HRIS systems.From Systems of Record to ActionTHEO, Cunningham says, is meant to “shift the experience from systems of record to systems of action.” Legacy platforms wait for someone to enter data; THEO continuously analyzes signals and recommends next steps.Cunningham’s demo followed three people at a grocery chain. Maria, a regional director overseeing 30 stores, gets a Teams message as her day starts: her peak-season program sits at 83% of target, but Store 412 in Riverside is at 62% and has lost momentum for 10 days. THEO recommends that John, the store’s manager, launch a weeklong sales incentive sprint. It flags another store that has held pace all quarter and drafts a note recognizing its manager, which Maria tweaks and sends. This is automation in service of judgment: Maria still makes the call.“Where it might have taken Maria days to notice this performance dip at one of her stores, THEO sees this signal immediately, understands the context, and helps her act,” Cunningham elaborated.John, who manages 80 associates, receives the sprint and has THEO personalize the announcement for each associate using their individual performance and profile data. “Without THEO’s analysis of individual performance data and knowledge of what motivates each team member, John would have had to deploy a one-size-fits-all incentive across his 80 associates,” she said.Cunningham’s demo ended with Alex, a checkout associate who works mostly from a handheld device. His challenge: convert four more loyalty perk signups at the register to earn 500 points. THEO knows he loves music and movies, so it suggests concert tickets or a movie night bundle. By day’s end, Alex redeems his points for the movie night because his kids will love it.“This is where personalization moves beyond a segment or just a campaign,” Cunningham said. “That is a system that brings intelligence into the flow of work every single day, helping people make better decisions and act in the moment.”Moving Fast Without Giving GroundKristal closed by sharing the mindset Augeo has held for nearly 30 years: “What got us to where we are today will not get us to our next collectively. This is not the next, literally, but a quantum leap forward.”Speed in decision-making currently outweighs any individual choice, says Kristal. For the engagement sector, he identifies two lasting competitive edges: deep domain expertise and robust underlying infrastructure. The first is know-how: “We have decades of proprietary engagement expertise that off-the-shelf agents can’t crawl and will never be able to crawl,” Kristal said. The second is infrastructure, the systems for recognition, badging, and redemption that the agent world lacks. Leaders shouldn’t give those away, he says. Instead, they should work side by side with AI agents while preserving the human element of the workforce experience.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Augeo, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Ade Akin covers artificial intelligence, workplace wellness, HR trends, and digital health solutions.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)
Validating Real Skills in an AI World
BY Carrie Snider October 02, 2026Artificial intelligence is changing how companies recruit, evaluate skills and develop their employees. For companies looking to implement AI strategies, where should they begin?Mike Mosgrove, head of solution engineering at CodeSignal, addressed that challenge during a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s Austin conference. Rather than trying to apply AI everywhere at once, Mosgrove encouraged organizations to start with specific problems and use AI where it can provide a practical solution. “Don’t boil the ocean,” he said. “Figure out a legitimate problem that you are facing and apply AI to that specific problem.” Mosgrove focused on three challenges organizations are facing as AI becomes increasingly embedded in the workplace.The Rising Challenges of RecruitingWith the help of AI, one immediate challenge is the sheer number of candidates entering the recruiting pipeline. AI makes it easier for job seekers to apply for positions at scale and produce polished resumes and applications. At the same time, many HR teams are being asked to manage more work with fewer resources. The result can be weaker signals for recruiters trying to determine which candidates are actually qualified.Mosgrove described how one large cryptocurrency company addressed the problem by using AI interviewers for top-of-funnel screening. Candidates received an AI interview after applying, giving recruiters another source of information before deciding whom to engage further.But AI should not take over the hiring decision, he said. “The idea is you should never be allowing AI to fully make decisions for your company.” Instead, AI can handle some of the repetitive work while humans remain involved in the decisions that follow.Mosgrove also emphasized the importance of a good candidate experience. “Top of funnel activity does not need to drive your entire interview process,” he said. For high-volume positions, it can provide a way to give candidates an opportunity while collecting information that helps identify stronger candidates.Validating Changing SkillsAI is also creating an ever-changing set of skills that employers need to evaluate. CodeSignal’s talent science research shows that the number of job categories has increased tenfold in the last 50 years compared with the previous 200 years combined. New technologies are creating new jobs and new skills, while skills that once stood out on resumes have become table stakes.“We all used to put Microsoft Word, PowerPoint on resumes. Those became table stakes,” Mosgrove said. “Now people are putting prompt engineering and Claude [as a skill]. These are skills that didn’t exist a couple of years ago.” And skills will continue to change at a rapid pace, he added.Mosgrove described a “peanut butter jelly sandwich model” for assessing technical skills. One part involves understanding stakeholders and gathering requirements. The middle involves completing the technical task, potentially using AI. The final part involves explaining the reasoning behind the work.He compared that last step to learning algebra. Many students wondered why teachers asked them to show their work if they were just using a calculator. “It’s not about your ability to use a tool.” The tools themselves will change, he says. What matters is whether someone can critically think, apply the technology and explain what they did. That philosophy can also change the way technical assessments are designed. Instead of trying to prevent candidates from using AI, employers can create simulations that reflect how people will actually work.The goal is to make “simulation-based hiring and simulation-based learning and development as real-world as possible.”Developing Skills After HiringThe need to validate skills doesn’t end when someone gets the job. Mosgrove said organizations are increasingly trying to determine who among their existing employees understands AI and where additional development is needed.He described skills as a “golden thread” running through talent strategies: Companies recruit for skills, workforce-plan around them, assess them and then develop them after employees are hired.At one pharmaceutical company, Mosgrove talked about how assessments were used to identify employee skill gaps and learning and development programs were then used to address those gaps.Practice is important. Completing an online course doesn't necessarily mean an employee has mastered a skill. Mosgrove described using simulations himself to practice difficult workplace conversations, giving him an opportunity to work through challenging situations before having the actual conversations.“Practice early and often,” he said, describing the approach he uses for learning and development. “We want to apply that same logic and technology to learning and development, so that we are actually giving people safe spaces and environments to practice what they have learned.”There are a lot of AI tools to choose from that can help validate employee skills. “Using these real-world simulations for upleveling your employees on both the recruiting the right skill set and then building the right and then continuing to build and grow on that in your current workforce,” he said.For Mosgrove, AI is a tool that organizations can use to solve specific problems. From an HR perspective, that can mean using AI to help manage high-volume recruiting without handing hiring decisions entirely to machines. It can mean creating realistic assessments that measure skills rather than relying solely on polished resumes. And it can mean continuing to assess and develop those skills after employees are hired.At the center of all three is the same challenge: In a workplace where AI can change both the tools people use and the way candidates present themselves, employers need stronger ways to see the skills underneath the surface.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, CodeSignal, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight.Carrie Snider is a Phoenix-based journalist and marketing copywriter.(Photo by Josh Larson for From Day One)
The Benefits Gap: Why Wellness Dollars Aren't Reaching Employees
BY Kristen Kwiatkowski September 16, 2026Wellness dollars are intended to give workers access to valuable benefits, but too often they go unused. How can organizations make sure those dollars actually reach workers and deliver value?During a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s September virtual conference, Tray Ross, VP of growth at Corporate Traditions, an employee recognition and gifting company, shared how companies can help their employees know about these benefits and how to use them to their advantage. “We have leaders telling us they have wellness credits built into the plan, but half the team doesn’t even know they exist,” said Ross. Beyond workers not knowing wellness credits exist, companies report that wellness apps often see low adoption and redemption catalogs don’t always offer what people want. As a result, the wellness dollars expire unused, employees get another login they don’t want, and there tends to be a catalog that employees don’t peruse or simply don’t want the items.How to Get Wellness Rewards to EmployeesTray Ross, VP of Growth at Corporate Traditions, led the session about "The Benefits Gap: Why Wellness Dollars Aren't Reaching Employees" (company photo)These unused benefits come with real costs, from delayed recognition to paying for duplicate benefits without getting full credit for what HR provides. But there are ways to close the gap. Organizations can close the gap by making rewards easy to access: no app required, meaningful choice in what workers receive, and rewards delivered as soon as the activity is completed.It’s also important to ensure that the carrier-administered wellness funds go through a single-step redemption process and get the rewards in the hands of employees as soon as possible, says Ross. This can be accomplished by having the employees record their activities and progress and submit them for rewards close to when they earn it.Closing the Unused Benefits GapOrganizations can take four steps to close the gap: identify expiring rewards, tie rewards directly to activities and distribute them soon after, offer a wide range of choices, and use a single platform for accessing wellness rewards.“With Corporate Traditions, the access that they have is one link or one code to be able to copy and redeem,” said Ross. “They can access the catalogs, whether it’s on their phone, their tablet, or their computer and they've got millions of options.”Even if organizations would rather not give away gift cards, Corporate Traditions partners with online retailers to offer expansive options to individuals wanting to use their wellness rewards. “Employees can get the specific item they want from their favorite vendor and have it shipped directly to them with the same warranties; it shows up in the same box as if they were to buy it off of their favorite online platform themselves,” said Ross. “And by employees getting physical, tangible items, it qualifies as a de minimis fringe benefit.”However organizations choose to offer wellness rewards, it’s important that workers receive notice of their reward right away and can redeem it quickly and easily. Delays or a complicated redemption process can lead to rewards going unused, leaving wellness dollars on the table. Ross also encouraged organizational leaders to talk with their carriers about available wellness benefits, particularly if they haven’t used them before. Some companies may not even know these benefits exist or what they include.When rewards are earned and redeemed soon after, companies can put their wellness dollars to work while ensuring workers actually receive the benefits.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Corporate Traditions, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Kristen Kwiatkowski is a professional freelance writer covering a wide array of industries, with a focus on food and beverage and business. Her work has been featured in the Bucks County Herald, Eater Philly, Edible Lehigh Valley, Cider Culture, and The Town Dish.(Photo by Viorel Kurnosov/iStock)
The Caregiving Continuum: Meeting the Needs of a Multigenerational Workforce
BY Jessica Swenson September 15, 2026Nearly one in four adults provides ongoing care for someone they love, says Lisa Leighton, chief commercial officer at Cariloop, making caregiving an increasingly important workforce issue. “Caregiving touches every generation in the workforce,” she said.And because it affects “how employees show up, how they stay at work, how they use their benefits,” she believes this type of support should be more than a niche offering. She sees it as “a fundamental workforce and benefits priority” that cannot be addressed by supporting only one population or need at a time.During a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s September virtual conference, she emphasized that caregiving is a human experience that doesn’t happen in a tidy, predictable pattern; rather, these needs often overlap and can arrive unexpectedly. Leighton embraces Cariloop’s core philosophy that caregiving is continuous and concurrent, with needs ranging across people’s careers from pre-childbirth to caring for aging parents, and everything in between. Employees are trying to balance these demands with their workloads on a daily basis, she says, creating hidden costs that companies may not even realize they are incurring. Citing research showing that “more than 80% of employees with caregiving responsibilities say that caregiving affects their productivity” she acknowledged that employers are already paying for the impacts of caregiving roles among their employee populations through absenteeism, presenteeism, burnout, reduced hours, and turnover.Lisa Leighton, Chief Commercial Officer at Cariloop, led the session (company photo)“Supporting caregivers isn’t just a nice to have or a feel-good benefit,” Leighton said. “It's removing a very real barrier between employees and their ability to be present and productive at work.”However, she cautions against simply expanding your company’s benefits portfolio with more vendors and services without including tactical support to help navigate what is available. “We have made the benefits ecosystem and the employee experience so sophisticated at the exact same time where employees’ lives have become more complicated, so too often employees are trying to connect dots themselves,” she said. Employers may offer robust benefits, but employees are trying to solve a problem, and “that distinction really matters when you think about how we are evolving and communicating our benefits to our people,” she said. It’s important to improve employee access to existing benefits when they actually need them, not just add more layers.Caregiving situations are rarely introduced with a clear statement of benefits needs. Rather, they arrive with an open-ended, multi-pronged problem to solve. Cariloop’s model uses a four-step approach to support employees through the process. Personal care coaches work one-on-one with employees to help assess the situation, navigate available benefits, and build a plan. “Sometimes the most valuable thing you can give somebody isn’t just another website or a link to another solution. It’s a knowledgeable person in your corner,” she said. They also help users move from the research phase to locate and secure the care needed, and can initiate flexible backup care to address immediate disruptions. The personal care coaches connect members to the existing benefits that can fulfill their needs, rather than replacing them with something more complex. “Our goal isn’t to replace every single benefit that you’re offering. It’s actually to help your people understand where those resources fit into their caregiving journeys and how we can help them navigate.”This type of model drives value not just for the employee but also for employers, says Leighton. The value to employees is of course personal: less time spent searching, less ambiguity, and a knowledgeable guide. “It’s helping them make what feels like a very impossible situation feel more manageable.”Employer value includes less distraction, improved productivity, and a strong culture of care that helps employees maximize their use of available benefits. She encourages the use of broader questions, rather than a single metric, to evaluate the value of caregiving support. “I like to ask our clients ‘How much employee time did we get back? How many complex situations did we help resolve? How did your people feel using the benefit?’” To help organizations evaluate their own approach, Leighton suggested asking whether they understand the caregiving needs across their workforce, what unsupported caregiving is already costing them, and whether an employee who suddenly becomes a caregiver would know where to turn for help.She encourages leaders to design this programming around how people experience life, rather than focusing exclusively on the benefits. Think about what happens at transition points like starting a new job, having a baby, supporting aging parents, or retiring, and “weave caregiving into all of those moments across the employee lifecycle.”“Your people don’t wake up every single day thinking about benefit strategy. They wake up thinking about their lives. When they’ve got somebody in their corner to help them, they have more capacity for everything else, including their work and especially their families,” said Leighton.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Cariloop, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Jessica Swenson is a freelance writer and proofreader based in the Midwest. Learn more about her at jmswensonllc.com.(Photo by svetikd/iStock)
How to Plan Holiday Recognition That’s Simple, Scalable, and Actually Meaningful
BY Katie Chambers September 02, 2026A few Decembers ago, Tray Ross, VP of growth at Corporate Traditions, received a very special gift from his company: the option to choose his own company Christmas present. “I got a backpack that I’ve always wanted, but never really had the budget or had the means to purchase. I still use that backpack almost every single day. And every day I pick that backpack up, I flash back to getting that gift, and the holiday party, engaging with the different members of my team,” Ross said during a From Day One webinar. That little gift had a major impact: positive emotion. “It wasn’t anything massive. It wasn’t incredible. It’s not going to change the world, but every time I look back, I have immense gratitude for the fact I was able to get that small item,” he said. Most HR teams scramble to pull together holiday gifts weeks before the deadline and end up with branded swag nobody wanted, last-minute raffles, and a budget that didn’t stretch far enough. Ross discusses how to build a holiday recognition strategy now, before the rush hits, that scales across your entire workforce, maximizes the value employees actually feel, and makes HR the hero of the holiday season. Beating the Holiday Season ScrambleLots of companies fall into what Ross calls the Q4 scramble, trying to plan holiday celebrations or gifts for employees at the last minute, losing hours or work time to logistical planning, running out of room for storage, giving out branded swag nobody wanted, and working with a budget that doesn’t quite stretch far enough. Waiting too long to plan for holiday recognition,including waiting on the leadership team to approve a budget, can lead to overpaying for less and employees feeling like an afterthought. Tray Ross, the VP of Growth at Corporate Traditions, led the session (company photo)Ross says August is the perfect time to start planning holiday recognitions, giving teams 60 to 90 days to prepare. His suggested plan of action is to shortlist a tool now that can move as soon as the budget is approved. By September and October, you’ll be ready to move forward, wherever the budget lands. Then, in November and December, you can execute in minutes rather than weeks.With Corporate Traditions, “you can just upload and send out lists and be able to recognize employees at scale and make a personal impact, even if it’s for three employees or with 3000 or 5000 or 10,000 employees,” Ross said. “We make our money on the back end through our partnerships, so we keep everything dollar for dollar for you, which makes it easy to get approval from finance.”Available rewards include Gift Card+™, in which employees can select from over 1700 gift card options and enjoy instant fulfillment; GiftYouPick™, in which employees choose their own prizes from over 500 brands; and Grocery Vouchers, which can be especially meaningful around Thanksgiving and Christmas. Both GiftYouPick™ and Grocery Vouchers are de minimis fringe eligible, Ross says, meaning they can stay compliant with the IRS requirements to keep a gift tax-free and off an employee’s W-2 payroll. “The IRS has outlined three requirements for a de minimis fringe gift,” Ross said. “The first requirement is it has to be infrequent, so holiday gifts, birthdays, work anniversaries [all apply]. The second one is that it has to be impractical to track for,” which means generally $100 or less, though this threshold varies by city, county, and state. “The last one is it has to be something specific and tangible, so that’s where the GiftYouPick™ and the Grocery Vouchers come in handy because they’re able to get something specific and tangible that is no longer a cash equivalent.” Corporate Traditions makes it easy to ensure gifts are actually fulfilled and enjoyed, he says. “You have digital copies of every single code that was issued for the employees for the Gift Card+™ and the GiftYouPick™, so you can just reissue those as many times as you need without ever being charged again, as well as being able to send reminders as often as you need,” Ross said. The Holiday PlaybookRoss offers a playbook for creating gift programs that are simple, meaningful, and memorable. Start by choosing a tool that can move quickly, since you rarely control when the budget is approved. Instead, focus on being ready to act as soon as it is available. Next, choose the moment you want to recognize, whether that’s Thanksgiving, December, or both. Rather than sourcing a single gift and guessing at people’s sizes or preferences, give recipients a choice and let them pick for themselves. Finally, keep the process simple: upload your list once, with no minimum order or contract required.This streamlined process can help you avoid hours of vendor calls, reviewing quotes, making spreadsheets of preferences, storing items, chasing down who got what, and reconciling piles of receipts. Instead, you can focus on what really matters for the business. “It takes a lift off the HR team,” Ross said. “You can now spend time developing your people, taking care of the people, and building the business and building your culture, rather than dealing with all of these logistics and things that honestly sometimes are just a time suck, especially when a vendor changes pricing last minute or those types of things.” But don’t minimize the importance of intentional holiday gifting among other HR strategies: it too can have a major impact. “Employers are spending fortunes on retention strategies, but I’ve had friends in the recruiting space, and they talk to different employees about why they’re leaving or why they’re looking at different jobs. And they tell me one of the common threads that they’re promised certain things, even small items or opportunities, and they never come to fruition,” Ross said. “We need to keep true to those small promises, even though they are small. Staying true to them will help retain our employees and make it easier to keep them, especially around the holidays.” That’s because holiday gifts are tied to memories and emotions, the things that make us human. “Most memories we have are attached to the emotions that we have,” Ross said. “If you can create more emotions, and if we can allow employees to choose exactly what they want, it fosters more of those positive emotions, which then lead to gratitude [and] appreciation.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Corporate Traditions, for sponsoring this webinar. Katie Chambers is a freelance writer and award-winning communications executive with a lifelong commitment to supporting artists and advocating for inclusion. Her work has been seen in HuffPost, Top Think, and several printed essay collections, and she has appeared on Cheddar News, iWomanTV, On New Jersey, and CBS New York.(Photo by dikushin/iStock)
The Numbers Behind the Strategy: Financial Fluency for L&D Leaders
BY Jessica Swenson August 26, 2026There is a significant gap in business acumen among not only frontline workers, but also senior leaders, says Kevin Cope, founder and CEO of Acumen Learning. A Harvard Business Review study showed that 95% of a company’s employees don’t understand its strategy. “Even VPs in well-run, well-known companies have a big gap,” Cope said during a From Day One webinar. “I think [this happens] as companies grow—they specialize, and people become experts in L&D, marketing, sales, or operations, and they sort of lose that big picture perspective.” He encourages learning and development (L&D) leaders to see themselves as business leaders first, who happen to work in L&D. By learning how executives think about the business, knowing how to read the company’s profit and loss (P&L), and connecting L&D activities to business outcomes, Cope believes leaders can build credibility and elevate the learning function to a strategic business driver rather than just a cost center. The Five Business DriversCope laid out a framework to help any leader learn more about financial data, financial performance, and elevate their department’s interorganizational value.Kevin Cope, the founder and CEO of Acumen Learning, led the session (company photo)There are five key business drivers foundational to executive strategy, he says: cash, profit, assets, growth, and people. Cash, profit, and assets are clear indicators of a company’s health and potential, but they also tie directly to financial statements that public companies are required to file—the cash flow statement, income statement, and balance sheet.“What happens to companies that run out of cash? You really have two options. You’re either figuring out a way to get more cash, or you’re going out of business,” he said. Different business strategies drive different profit margins—organizations that establish themselves as a unique brand or offer unique product lines often have deeper profit margins, while companies competing on a price basis have thinner margins, Cope says. Companies can use those profits to fund reinvestment in the business, its products, and its employees.Assets are anything owned or controlled by the company that has value—this can include cash, property, product inventory, or even company vehicles. He emphasized a need to balance asset strength with asset utilization to optimize short- and long-term value. Cope shared the example of UPS, which counts 140,000 delivery trucks among its assets. To improve route efficiency and reduce both labor and vehicle wear-and-tear, a driver suggested eliminating left-hand turns. This small operational change reduced routes by 100,000,000 miles and eliminated 100,000 metric tons of emissions annually. “Growth is critical for organizations,” said Cope, and that’s true for a few reasons. Stagnation can indicate decline, shareholders expect growth, and it attracts top talent. Candidates “want to be aligned with an organization that is innovative and also has opportunities for movement and upward mobility.” The final driver, people, highlights the importance of engaged employees who are anticipating and meeting customer needs. Gallup data places the cost of employee disengagement in the trillions of dollars, both domestically and internationally. Cope referenced a study that identified key employee engagement levers: understanding the connection between one’s role and the company strategy, and having a sense of one’s role being important to the organization’s success. “In other words, when people are clear on how their role can drive and impact company results, they’re going to have a better sense of how they make a difference, how they add value and the importance they bring to a company. That’s where you’re going to get engagement,” he said.Financial Fluency in ActionCope conducted a detailed review of retailer Costco’s recent P&L. For a more concise P&L review or for people with limited time, he suggests looking at three key items. “If I’ve got just a couple of minutes to look at a P&L, I do three things. Number one, I look at revenue, and I want to see it growing. Number two, profit—I’d like to see profit growing, ideally at a faster rate than sales. And then the third thing I look at is the net profit margin,” he said. The net profit margin reflects net income as a percent of sales, and has to be calculated.How can business leaders in L&D shift their mindset and begin connecting their department activities to company outcomes? A good place to start is understanding two key profit levers, increasing revenue and reducing cost. Each method has its place, though cost-cutting has its limits and risks. “If you need to improve profit in the short run, you’ll get there faster by reducing costs. Over the long term, ideally, you’re growing revenue consistently over time and looking for any way to save money and reduce costs.”Cope recommends partnering with a finance colleague willing to help you understand the nuances of your company’s financials and explore how your department’s functions can affect business results.For example, he suggests, you can look at more nuanced impacts of your training programs beyond just the quantity of employees trained. Document any increase in retention that you can attribute to training, which saves employee replacement costs. Training can also lead to more knowledgeable, experienced sales and marketing staff, boosting sales and deal-making, while well-trained purchasing and sourcing staff can lower product and material costs. Expedient onboarding processes across departments can accelerate revenue generation or lower costs by removing technology bottlenecks.By gaining financial knowledge and serving as a strategic business partner, you can elevate L&D’s value within your organization and also help your employees understand the impact they have on its results. “People work hard for paycheck, harder for a person, and hardest for a purpose,” said Cope. “The more that you can help your team understand how their actions impact company results, creating that line of sight, the more you’re going to get engagement from your own team.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Acumen Learning, for sponsoring this webinar. Jessica Swenson is a freelance writer and proofreader based in the Midwest. Learn more about her at jmswensonllc.com.(Photo by utah778/iStock)
What We’re Learning from Real AI Deployments in HR
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza July 30, 2026Dina Siclovan’s HR team was spending far too much time on emails. As the director of team member experience at Breeze Airways, she knew that while the company would keep growing, the size of her team would not. “We spent a lot of time just answering repetitive questions, even though the information already exists on our intranet. There are hundreds of policies, and many answers depend on the context,” she said during a From Day One webinar. “So we saw a need.” For many helming an HR department today, “the strategic work is often done in the leftover hours,” Jim Barnett, CEO and co-founder of HR tech platform Wisq. AI can now handle the repetitive tasks that gobble up valuable hours, but Barnett believes it can do even more.Together, Siclovan and Barnett—plus Wisq’s AI-powered HR teammate Harper—have changed not only the way Breeze’s HR team gets done, but the work that’s theirs to do. Context Is EverythingHR is seldom short on documentation. Any given team might have reams of policies about employee leave and PTO, performance reviews, performance improvement plans, rewards and recognition, benefits packages, and payroll. Then there’s the information on individual employees, like location, performance, team structure, skills, and tenure.But it’s usually just that: Reams of paper (digital or otherwise) with little relation to each other and plenty of room for error and interpretation. So when a long-tenured employee is moving from one city to another and in the midst of that has a medical emergency that requires complex surgery—what do you do? Situations like this may be governed by a policy, but they’re handled under precedent and case specifics. Jim Barnett, the CEO and co-founder of Wisq, the Agentic HR Platform, spoke during the webinar (company photo)“The AI opportunity is so large and so diverse,” Barnett said. “It’s not talking to a bot about whether you have President’s Day off. These workflows are complex and compliance-ridden with lots and lots of risk. You have to have HR reasoning because you want to get this right, and it’s going to get more complex over time.”There’s also opportunity in finding gaps in all those policies. When their AI agent Harper started identifying patterns in employee questions at Breeze, Siclovan realized that in some cases no process, policy, or guidance existed. AI is equipped to assist there too, says Barnett. The right AI agents are capable of fielding context-dependent questions, identifying patterns, finding policy gaps, and now—building the processes that underlie the policies. “There should be both manual and automated learning loops,” he said. As questions come in, “patterns emerge, which can trigger an alert that there’s a missing policy. It’s really important that you put these learning loops into your system so it can get smarter and grow and get better over time.”Barnett said he often finds that HR teams are operating on ambiguous and conflicting policies, but “your system should be able to fix this for you.” AI can tell you what the workflows are and recommend what that flow should be, and then it should tell you the integrations you need. It can even help you build a business case and line up the resources to build it. But it’s smarter than to take an idea and run with it. Harper knows “when to escalate, triage, and hand off to a human,” he said.The airline industry is heavily regulated at both the federal and state levels, so Siclovan can’t simply hand the reins to a disembodied agent. Breeze employs a complex and varied workforce of maintenance crew, flight attendants, and pilots distributed across airports around the U.S., plus the folks, like her, in corporate headquarters. “Essentially, HR has to support the operation that runs 24/7, and we work a standard eight-to-five Monday-through-Friday schedule.”Siclovan’s team once spent a lot of time answering questions from all directions about benefits, payroll, recruitment, and onboarding, “and now they’re coaching leaders,” she said. “They’re solving team member relations issues. They’re helping with workforce planning and reorganization design.”This has been a successful partnership because, Siclovan explained, we started with a clear problem to be solved. “Ask yourself, ‘Where do you spend too much time? What questions are on repeat every day? What work doesn’t actually require human judgment?’ That’s where you start.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Wisq, for sponsoring this webinar.Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is an independent journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about business and the world of work. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Inc., and Business Insider, among others. She is the recipient of a Virginia Press Association award for business and financial journalism. She is the host of How to Be Anything, the podcast about people with unusual jobs.(Photo by S and V Design/iStock)
How Marketeers Are Finally Solving an Age-Old Question
BY Jessica Swenson July 27, 2026It’s no secret that marketing departments have long operated in a chaotic, reactive state, and the growing complexity, expanding market channels, and an increasingly fragmented audience base only amplify the problem. When marketers are unable to quickly answer unpredictable questions, this creates what George Huff, co-founder and CEO at Opal, calls an alignment tax—the hidden cost of extra meetings and late-night or off-hours work—which can make them seem disjointed and is very costly to businesses.“How do we help build confidence in the marketing function?” is the question he explored during a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s July marketing virtual conference about brand marketing and strategy.Huff believes that the volume of marketing and content demands will only continue to increase in 2026 and beyond, which could require organizations to produce as much as twice what they did in 2025. Aside from the increased capacity this involves, it also creates a need for additional organization and structure, which can get more difficult as organizations and programs grow.George Huff , the founder and CEO of Opal, led the virtual thought leadership spotlight (company photo)Despite mixed industry sentiment on AI use, he predicts that 50% of marketing content will be AI derived by the end of 2026. Some of Opal’s clients avoid AI while others are already running early pilots with agentic platforms. He and his team see the use of AI as a massive opportunity to “rethink some of the entrenched patterns within our organizations.”Huff acknowledges that as more employees gain access to AI tools, governance becomes more important—but he doesn’t foresee a single person using AI to create operational change on an organizational scale. Instead, he believes the most pragmatic next step for marketing organizations is what he calls a “multiplayer mode for marketing teams.” “Multiplayer to us is really about teams of people having agentic workflows and agents working together in the same spaces, and you have this visual home for plans, campaigns, and content.” Huff said, “And it really is integrated into how you work.” He emphasized the importance of evolving to integrate AI, but considering it as a part of your stack so you can maximize team alignment from the start.His team at Opal has created that shared space where teams can organize work in real-time around strategy, maintain a real view of the customer experience, and quickly inform partners and leaders about marketing initiatives, making alignment a low-friction activity. Users can import presentations into the platform or export content out into fully branded documents, including live data views, quickly answering questions that might have previously required extra meetings or late-night emails to answer, he says.With the existing space as a foundation, Huff sees future opportunity for organizations to leverage Opal’s structured historical context to make their experience even more comprehensive by adding an instructional layer.“When your team is working in a shared environment that has all the planning and the historical context, it's got strong instruction, and you’re bringing AI into that environment—that’s really the multiplayer vision, and that’s a massive step change from where we are. And I think it’s the right future for marketing as a function to go towards, because it allows you to do all the things you need to do.”In response to an audience member question about safely using AI for branded content, Huff outlined Opal’s process that allows teams to place guardrails on both the front and back ends of production. Marketers can encode brand requirements into their space, he said, ensuring that any AI-generated content remains grounded in the brand. For those who don’t use AI to generate content, the platform also allows externally drafted content to be compared to the encoded brand standards.“While there’s definitely fear, uncertainty, and doubt in the marketplace,” Huff said, “we think that it [AI] represents this opportunity to rethink everything in terms of how we work, and so that’s the future that we’re aiming at.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Opal, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Jessica Swenson is a freelance writer and proofreader based in the Midwest. Learn more about her at jmswensonllc.com.(Photo by JLco - Julia Amaral/iStock)
Why Most GLP-1 Strategies Are Failing, and What to Build Around Them
BY Kristen Kwiatkowski July 22, 2026GLP-1 use continues to grow as more individuals explore these medications for weight management. Along with rising interest come important questions about effectiveness, long-term outcomes, and cost. While some employer approaches have fallen short, others are finding more sustainable ways to provide access and support. How can companies develop a thoughtful GLP-1 strategy that delivers meaningful value for both employees and the organization?Yasmine Meneses, manager of consultant relations and registered dietitian at Nutrium, provided insight into this topic during a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s June virtual conference. Working among benefits teams and leaders, Meneses says GLP-1 medications are “one of the most discussed line items in pharmacy spend right now.” One of the most common questions employees ask is whether their health plan covers GLP-1s. It sounds straightforward, but the answer is often anything but. “The question isn’t just whether you cover it, it’s what you’re paying for around it to make it sustainable and get that ROI,” she said. A study of people without diabetes who started GLP-1 medications for obesity found that nearly 70% discontinued treatment within a year. Given the high cost of these medications, those findings raise important questions about long-term value, she says. Many people who stop taking GLP-1s regain weight, yet employers may still face significant, ongoing costs associated with coverage. As a result, HR leaders and CFOs are increasingly weighing how to offer these medications in a way that supports employee health while remaining financially sustainable.It’s important to note that coverage is not a strategy. Coverage answers the single question about who gets access, but strategy answers a more difficult question which is, “What happens next?”The Public Health Story“About 40% of adults are living with obesity and with the changes in definition to obesity, some might say that it’s even higher,” said Meneses. “One in 10 adults are living with severe obesity. Those rates are roughly three times higher than what they were in the 60s.” The public health story behind pharmacy spend doesn’t typically show up labeled as obesity, she says. “It’s usually arriving to you in rising claims, high-cost claimants, chronic condition burden, leaves of absence, disability, and the benefits complexity that just keeps on multiplying,” she said. Yasmine Meneses, manager of consultant relations & dietitian at Nutrium, led the virtual session (company photo)This is where GLP-1s enter the picture. A successful benefits strategy has to account for a workforce with a wide range of experiences and access points. Some employees receive GLP-1s through the employer's health plan, while others obtain them through self-pay, direct-to-consumer providers, or other channels. Still others may be considering whether the medications are right for them.HR’s approach can’t focus only on employees whose prescriptions are covered by the company’s health plan. Instead, benefits strategies should be designed to support employees across the full spectrum of GLP-1 use and decision-making, recognizing that workers will engage with these medications in different ways. “That’s why the individual coverage decision here is never the whole answer,” said Meneses.“The goal for you as an HR team member is not to become a clinical decision maker. That’s not on your work description and that’s not something that you should be worrying about,” said Meneses. “The goal is to build a benefits architecture that is consistent, explainable and fair.”Before making decisions about GLP-1 coverage, HR leaders should be able to answer three questions: What support is available before an employee starts the medication? What support is provided while they're on therapy? And what support is in place after they stop? It's equally important to consider employees who never use GLP-1s but still need effective weight-management and metabolic health resources.“GLP-1 therapy sits inside a broader model of care that includes healthy diet, physical activity, behavioral support, and professional guidance, and with that intensive behavioral intention interventions should be offered alongside the medication, and that is in order to enhance treatment outcomes,” said Meneses.Support From Nutrium CareMeneses says Nutrium’s approach reflects that broader philosophy. Rather than treating GLP-1s as a standalone benefit, Nutrium Care integrates them into a comprehensive nutrition strategy designed to support employees before, during, and after medication use.“The infrastructure you build for GLP-1 users should be the exact same infrastructure serving employees who need metabolic health support, chronic condition management support, or simply a structured entry point into better habits,” she said. Nutrium offers a dual-path model which covers care complexity and offers various steps. Everyone starts at the Health Foundations Review, which is the same front door for all and includes an initial assessment with a registered dietitian. The program starts with phase one: building the foundation through nutrition education and habit formation. A registered dietitian then determines whether GLP-1 therapy may be appropriate for consideration by a clinician. In phase two, members follow either a GLP-1 or non-GLP-1 health journey, while receiving the same standard of care. The final phase, graduation, focuses on long-term maintenance, autonomy, and relapse prevention—the stage where the program’s long-term success is often determined. “So that communication, that story needs to land clearly, and the reason for that is internal word of mouth is either your best enrollment tool and your best friend or your biggest credibility factor,” said Meneses. “We really need to make sure that we’re clearly stating how these are equal and not different.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Nutrium, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Kristen Kwiatkowski is a professional freelance writer covering a wide array of industries, with a focus on food and beverage and business. Her work has been featured in the Bucks County Herald, Eater Philly, Edible Lehigh Valley, Cider Culture, and The Town Dish.(Photo by skynesher/iStock)
Caregiving as Workforce Infrastructure: The Non-Negotiable Investment Hiding in Plain Sight
BY Jessica Swenson July 16, 2026Caregiving isn’t just a family issue. It affects employees’ physical and mental health, financial well-being, and workplace performance. As family needs become more complex, employee expectations evolve, and costs continue to rise, the entire caregiving ecosystem is under increasing strain. How can employers strengthen their caregiving benefits and better support the employees who rely on them?This question was asked and answered by Jess Brown, VP of marketing for Cariloop, during a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s June virtual conference on benefits and total rewards. As a long-term caregiving industry advocate and a working parent, Brown has a comprehensive view of the issue. She believes caregiving should be a part of a company’s infrastructure strategy rather than a niche benefit. “It’s important to recognize that as employee expectations continue to rise and benefit budgets continue to shrink, employers are being asked to do something really difficult. You need to provide meaningful support without simply adding another expensive point solution to the ecosystem,” she said. Family-based caregivers spend an average of 27 hours each week fulfilling care responsibilities for their loved ones, says Brown, on top of coordination, research, transportation, medication management, and any full or part-time paid work. In-home non-medical senior care can be upwards of $100,000 per year, she says. Childcare is considered affordable by the Department of Health and Human Services only if it doesn’t exceed 7% of household income.These time, health, and financial pressures can cause a ripple effect that not only impacts employees, but also businesses. Citing a 2025 AARP study, Brown shared that 56% of employees reported going to work late, leaving early, or taking unplanned time off, and roughly 20% shifted from full-time to part-time status. “When it comes to choosing to care for the ones you love and showing up for work, people are always going to choose their family,” she said. Jess Brown is the VP of marketing at Cariloop (company photo)She encourages employers to foster a culture of care by being open and vulnerable about their caregiving journeys. This can help employees feel safer and be willing to do the same. Brown also urges employers to prioritize multi-generational caregiving in addition to parenting and childcare. In her view, this type of care is a long-term priority that will persist for generations.She offers three key suggestions as companies head into their annual benefits planning season. First, review any backup care program you may have in place. Traditional models built upon prepaid, exclusive-provider networks may have you prepay for a bank of days, charge a premium cost for additional days during the contract period, and limit choices for employees seeking care for their families. She no longer sees this model as viable due to changing preferences and a shrinking supply of professional caregivers.Second, acknowledge that caregiving is more than just backup care to offset a disruption. With the largest generation in the workforce, millennials, now shouldering care for both their children and parents, it is increasingly important to help them plan ahead.“When you’re investing in caregiving benefits, it’s important to think about how you’re avoiding disruptions in the workplace, but it’s also important to recognize that there will always be disruptions because of caregiving, so you can invest in programs that support employees when those disruptions arrive,” Brown said. “But really the foundation of those programs should be the fact that you want to help employees build a safety net, plan ahead, and have a plan B ready to go if and when those disruptions come knocking on their front door.”And third, she suggests asking targeted questions to understand your workforce’s actual caregiving needs. This helps you better prepare for disruptions and reduce surprises when caregiving absences must occur.Once caregiving benefits are evaluated and implemented, Brown says that companies can use a few different approaches to measure their ROI: business performance, clinical outcomes, and dollar-for-dollar savings. She recommends that employers identify their top priorities before they define how they’ll measure success, and cautions that ROI measurement is typically a collaborative process.It can be difficult to attribute business outcomes to one specific program, so she recommends using a cohort analysis that compares utilization data between employees who have and have not used caregiving benefits. This helps build a directional story. Measuring clinical ROI helps connect “caregiving support to measurable health, well-being, or clinical outcomes,” said Brown, such as earlier engagement with benefits, fewer instances of burnout, increased use of preventive care, and the reduction of physical or mental health issues caused by stress. A simpler option is to directly compare dollar-to-dollar costs to determine any savings within a specific time frame or between vendors. She encourages leaders to get into the weeds with benefits providers to understand their support and enable a more thorough comparison. Brown reiterated that employees can be directly affected by a lack of caregiving support, which makes this type of care a strategic lever for employers. “Caregiving is not a niche issue,” she said. “It’s a strategic workforce force issue that really does impact the entire infrastructure of your employee experience. Every employer has employees who care for other people, and when those employees lack support, it has a direct impact on how they show up for work.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Cariloop, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Jessica Swenson is a freelance writer and proofreader based in the Midwest. Learn more about her at jmswensonllc.com.(Photo by dusanpetkovic/iStock)
How Teams Lose Time and Money to Benefits Navigation, and How to Get It Back
BY Christopher O'Keeffe July 14, 2026Health benefits remain one of the most significant investments organizations make in their employees, but according to Ben Howard, co-founder of Sheer Health, offering comprehensive coverage is only part of the equation. During a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s Manhattan conference, Howard shared that many of the challenges employees experience stem not from the quality of their benefits, but from the complexity of understanding and using them.Howard opened by asking attendees how many had encountered employees seeking help with confusing medical bills, prescription costs, or questions about insurance coverage. He suggested that these situations have become commonplace for HR teams, particularly as healthcare benefits have grown more complex. Rather than discussing benefit design or cost containment strategies, he focused on what happens after an employee receives an unexpected bill or encounters a confusing insurance decision.Throughout the presentation, Howard described what he called the gap between coverage and care. Employees may have access to comprehensive health plans, but they often struggle to determine what services are covered, what they will owe out of pocket, whether a claim was processed correctly, or what steps to take after receiving a denial. As a result, questions that begin with insurance carriers or healthcare providers frequently find their way to HR departments. “A benefit stops feeling like a benefit, and the confusion has to go somewhere,” he said. From Reactive Assistance to Proactive NavigationHoward illustrated this challenge through several common scenarios. During open enrollment, employees may select plans without fully understanding deductibles, provider networks, or long-term costs. During major medical events such as cancer treatment, fertility care, or the management of chronic conditions, patients often face multiple insurers, providers, approvals, and billing systems simultaneously. Even routine prescriptions can generate unexpected expenses when employees are unaware of preferred medications or pharmacy programs available through their health plans.Ben Howard, co-founder of Sheer Health, led the sessionThe problem is rarely inadequate benefits, says Howard. More often, employees lack the information they need to navigate the healthcare system, especially when making decisions under stress. Healthcare has become a navigation problem as much as an access problem, he says, with benefits creating value only when employees know how to use them. That makes proactive benefits navigation, rather than reactive support, increasingly essential.Traditional benefits assistance often begins only after an employee identifies a problem. A claim has been denied, a medical bill appears incorrect, or an explanation of benefits raises new questions. Employees then begin contacting insurance companies, providers, or HR departments in an effort to understand what happened.Howard described an alternative approach in which claims and benefits information are reviewed as they are processed, allowing potential issues to be identified before employees spend significant time trying to resolve them independently. Rather than waiting for employees to report problems, the goal is to identify billing discrepancies, explain insurance decisions in plain language, and assist with appeals before confusion escalates.Measuring Time Alongside CostWhile much discussion surrounding employee healthcare focuses on financial costs, Howard encouraged attendees to consider the amount of time consumed by navigating the healthcare system.He reported that since 2023, Sheer Health has helped members recover nearly $20 million through reimbursements and savings, resolved more than 75,000 insurance-related questions, and saved members more than 25,000 hours that otherwise would have been spent dealing with claims, paperwork, and insurance companies. These hours represent time returned both to employees and to HR teams that would otherwise become involved in resolving benefits questions, he says. Closing the session, Howard returned to the theme that framed the presentation from the outset. “The hardest part of healthcare was never really the paperwork,” he said. “It’s the confusion that paperwork creates.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Sheer Health, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Chris O’Keeffe is a freelance writer with experience across industries. As the founder and creative director of OK Creative: The Language Agency, he has led strategy and storytelling for organizations like MIT, Amazon, and Cirque du Soleil, bringing their stories to life through established and emerging media.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)
AI Skills in Action: Beyond the Buzzwords
BY Paul Kersey July 13, 2026If artificial intelligence has left HR leaders feeling both excited and overwhelmed, they’re far from alone. Companies see enormous potential in the technology and are racing to prepare their workforces for what comes next. The challenge is that no one agrees on the best way to get there.Dr. Ken Matos, the director of market insights at HiBob, spoke with PBS News correspondent Megan Thompson during a From Day One webinar on the matter. As Matos sees it, employers are still in the early stages of adopting AI. Expectations are high, but plans are still vague, as businesses experiment with a wide range of approaches to AI use and employee training. “What’s problematic is that hole in the conversation where it’s a very confident ‘yes, we’re going to do this,’ and a very panicked, ‘I don’t know what doing this really means.’”The hole shows up clearly in HiBob’s survey of 1,200 corporate decision makers, says Matos. Question after question, what emerges is a consensus that AI is important and that workers must be prepared to use AI tools, but there is rarely any agreement about best approaches for use or training. The survey shows that 75% of decision makers agree that even non-technical jobs will require at least moderate AI proficiency, he says. But when it came to what that training actually looked like, there was little consensus. HiBob’s survey listed nine different approaches to upskilling employees, from external seminars to hands-on practice labs and sandbox experimentation, and adoption was remarkably even across them, ranging from 23% to 30%. In other words, most employers were trying two or three methods, but there was no clear playbook for which ones to useThere’s also a conundrum over just who should be in charge of that training. Again, respondents came back with a wide range of answers, from managers to technology vendors to unions to public schools. The leading answer, by a narrow margin, was direct supervisors. But only 36% of respondents thought that those same supervisors were qualified to do the teaching. “Managers of today were not hired because of AI skill,” Matos said, “and those who are promoted are not necessarily good managers who are able to teach.”The AI Skills That Matter MostSo what skills should employers be developing? Matos says that adaptability tops the list. Until now, workers could count on computers to produce the same output from the same input. If the result was different, something had likely gone wrong. AI changes that equation. Even the engineers who build these models can't always predict how they'll respond. As models evolve behind the scenes, the same prompt can produce a different answer than it did yesterday. Employees need to be comfortable working with that uncertainty, adjusting to shifting systems and unexpected outcomes.Kenneth Matos, Ph.D., the director of the Insights Lab at HiBob, led the session (company photo)The second is understanding how AI itself works. This is more than just writing good prompts. It starts with knowing what tasks AI is good at and where humans need to take control. “AI is absorbing a lot of the explicit knowledge” Matos observes, referring to discrete information you might find in a book or a spreadsheet. But there is also tacit knowledge which involves experience and understanding people. AI will lack this sort of knowledge, he says. The third piece will be safety and ethics. “So much of AI usage is envisioned as individual AI people going forth and just doing things and spinning up vibe-coded apps and other applications,” Matos said, but they need to think about what data is in the system. Employees who use AI should pay attention to what data an application really needs, what is and isn’t safe, and what the consequences will be if there’s a breach.Coaching For AI: Learning TogetherIf direct managers are going to be doing the bulk of the training, then companies should rethink just what training means. Matos says that they should adapt a coaching mindset instead. He encourages managers to guide and learn with their subordinates. “You’re not supposed to go and tell them what to do or how to do it because you know it better. You’re there as a critical thinking sounding board to reflect back what they’re saying, to ask them questions.”With that in mind, employees may use AI to generate a report, but they shouldn’t send it to a supervisor until they understand what it’s saying. And rather than acting on every insight AI produces, teams should identify one or two key findings, verify them, and build from there.AI will change workflows and processes, but Matos recommends that this process not be rushed into. His first step? “Map your workflows, don’t even worry about AI yet,” he said. Once you have your actual processes documented, “then you can start saying, ‘Where does AI actually help make this faster, smoother, more integrated?’”“One of the challenges with AI is that no one really understands AI,” Matos said. The uncomfortable truth is that a lot is still unknown about the functions and capabilities of this technology. Accepting that will mean proceeding a bit more slowly with adopting artificial intelligence, but it will free managers to explore the technology along with the rest of their teams. The companies that commit themselves to really learning this technology, balancing bold experimentation and methodical application, will be best positioned to thrive.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, HiBob, for sponsoring this webinar. Paul Kersey is a former attorney and freelance writer who has covered events for Bloomberg News and other outlets. Paul is based in Chicago, IL.(Photo by Kindamorphic/iStock)