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The Hidden Costs of GLP-1s and How HR Can Rethink Employee Health

BY Kristen Kwiatkowski January 15, 2026

Obesity affects nearly half of U.S. adults, making it one of the most urgent and widespread health challenges facing the country today. To address this concern, some individuals have turned to glucagon-like peptide-1 medications, otherwise known as GLP-1s. Access to GLP-1s and other weight loss treatments is quickly becoming a sought-after employee benefit. But with the costs of GLP-1 medications and other health aspects surrounding these weight loss aids, are there other ways that employers may rethink this health treatment route? The answer is a resounding yes.During a From Day One webinar titled, “The Hidden Cost of GLP-1s and How HR Can Rethink Employee Health,” Yasmine Meneses, manager of consultant relations and dietitian, and Manuela Abreu, head of nutrition and community and dietitian, at Nutrium explored this topic in detail and discussed ways that HR teams can rethink employee health as they uncover GLP-1 hidden costs. In their roles at Nutrium, an employer-focused nutrition benefit and health and wellness platform, Meneses and Abreu draw on their expertise to discuss GLP-1 medications and alternative approaches to weight management.The current state of metabolic health in the U.S. helps explain why GLP-1 medications have emerged as a treatment for obesity. Obesity rates are now three times higher than they were in the 1960s, rising from 13% to 40% today, Meneses says, underscoring how obesity and weight management increasingly affect the workplace. “It’s no longer just a public health concern but truly a major employer issue and an issue that we’re dealing with every day. For employers, this impact isn’t abstract.”Some of the results of this HR concern include medical claims, chronic condition management, leaves and disability, absences from work, productivity, rising pharmacy spend, and complexity managing these. “It’s not just a population trend, it’s an operational reality.” It was that pressure that set the stage for GLP-1s. “Employers have been searching for solutions that can truly drive meaningful change at scale,” said Meneses.Understanding What GLP-1’s Can DoManuela Abreu, the head of nutrition and community at Nutrium, spoke during the session (company photo)Abreu delved into what GLP-1s are, as some may not be too familiar with this type of medication. GLP medications were initially designed for Type 2 diabetes, not weight loss, she says. Ozempic and Wegovy are some medication names and all belong to the class of GLP-1 receptor agonists. In other words, they don’t replace the naturally produced GLP-1 hormone, but instead they amplify its action so it activates the same biological effect, but do so in a stronger, more long-lasting way. Every time we eat, GLP-1 is released from our gut and completes the job by telling our body food is coming in, energy is available, and we can start regulating our intake. It’s a constant conversation between gut and brain. “This shows that eating behavior is not driven entirely by willpower,” said Abreu. When the GLP-1 receptors are activated, it helps the body release insulin and improve glucose control, slows how quickly food leaves the stomach, and helps people feel fuller longer. The effects of GLP-1 were clinically compelling with amazing clinical results. For the first time, a medication delivered truly dramatic results for people living with obesity. The speakers noted that weight loss was both rapid and significant, with study outcomes surpassing those of any previous weight loss drug. Individuals and employers alike saw tremendous promise. Still, medication alone does not address the root causes of obesity.Hidden Health Costs of GLP-1sThere can also be hidden health costs associated with GLP-1s. In controlled studies, for example, participants aren’t relying on medication alone; they are also receiving nutrition support, medical supervision, and ongoing coaching.In real life, individuals might not have this type of support. Further, some people experience side effects, such as nausea, fatigue, and GI discomfort, and still have to deal with life’s daily tasks. “So this reality check makes long-term consistency much harder than it looks on the papers,” said Abreu. Another difference between the controlled environment and real life is the willingness to stay on the medication. When the medications cease, so do the physiological aspects. “So this is what we started seeing in real-world situations: about 70% of patients discontinue within the first year, and when they stop, up to two-thirds of the weight that was lost is regained.” Employers are learning the type of weight loss also matters. The employee taking GLP-1 medication may not get the right protein intake and they don’t just lose fat, they lose muscle mass, too. Less muscle means a lower metabolic rate and when the metabolic rate drops, weight maintenance becomes more difficult. Therefore, regaining weight becomes easier and employers are paying for a type of weight loss that makes long-term outcomes harder. “The bottom line is that medication without the right support is extremely fragile,” said Abreu. Aspects such as how to build protein intake, deal with unexpected events, and address stress or emotional eating aren’t covered. The root cause of obesity isn’t treated. How GLP-1 Hidden Health Costs Increase Overall Cost Meneses took over the cost segment portion of the chat and showed how hidden costs of GLP-1s can really increase the overall cost of using this medication. “The instability in health outcomes also creates instability in the entire system,” said Meneses. The GLP-1 landscape is changing constantly. New medications and new pricing make it difficult for the benefits team to deal with the complexity. When GLP-1 was originally used just for Type 2 diabetes, this was easier for employers to gauge costs. However, with weight loss usage and GLP-1s, the picture is less clear. Access pathways expanded and employees often perceived GLP-1s as being more affordable for employers to provide than is the case. Three new pricing models for GLP-1 use include the following: direct-to-consumer, where the member purchases the medication straight from the manufacturer and they receive a discounted price; compounded GLP-1s, such as semaglutide and tirzepatide, which may be offered at a fraction of the cost but aren’t regulated or consistent; and, discount programs, such as GoodRX and TrumpRX (starting January 2026), which connects consumers to lower cost medications via discount. As pathways multiply, expectations of employees are increasing. They wonder why employers don’t cover GLP-1s or only cover them for certain employees. Hidden economic costs often enter the discussion at this point.  Hidden economic costs can include organizational volatility, discontinuation waste, unequal employee experience, and productivity impacts. Volatility arises when employees start, stop, or adjust GLP-1 use, making it hard for HR to manage a consistent program and often triggering repeated costs. Discontinuation waste occurs when employees stop due to side effects or cost, then later restart, creating added administrative burden. Unequal experiences can emerge if eligibility is limited, raising fairness concerns. And productivity may suffer if nutritional gaps lead to low energy, irritability, or reduced focus.GLP-1 use isn’t linear. Some employees have it covered by their employers, some get it straight from the manufacturer, and some are stopping the medications altogether. This is why there’s movement toward a two-path operating model. Understanding the Two-Path Operating ModelAbreu details the two-path operating model by highlighting Nutrium’s framework. The program works whether the employer offers GLP-1s freely or in a more restricted form. “Regardless if your employer is covering GLP-1s, restricting them, or does not offer them at all, we keep hearing the same question, “How can we support everyone safely, consistently, and in a way that actually leads to sustainable results?” The Nutrium team works directly with employers and thousands of members as they pursue their individual health journeys. There are scalable, one-on-one personalized appointments with a registered dietitian and evidence-based guidance, says Abreu. It’s tailored to fit the individual’s health needs. By using patient data and behavior signals from Nutrium technology, the dietitians can detect health issues or warnings and step in before small issues become larger. The approach is prevention first for early intervention and protecting long-term metabolic health. “Our philosophy is simple,” said Abreu. “Medication can help, but long-term health comes from nutrition habits and consistent support.” In practice, this comes down to a unified system that turns into two clear pathways, one for employees already using GLP-1 and one for employees who don’t. HR teams can make more confident decisions about GLP-1s by first defining their philosophy and clarifying their organization’s stance. From there, building a dual-path system ensures all employees are considered and that the benefits strategy remains fair, predictable, and scalable.However, GLP-1s should not stand alone. They are most effective when paired with nutrition and behavior support, alongside a strong non-medication option for employees who choose a different path. Employers should also track outcomes, including long-term weight maintenance, and partner with providers grounded in evidence and shared value.Ultimately, the speakers agreed, GLP-1s can be powerful tools and highly attractive benefits, but lasting metabolic health depends on building a comprehensive approach that goes beyond medication alone.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Nutrium, 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 Eater Philly, Edible Lehigh Valley, Cider Culture, and The Town Dish.(Photo by Varlay/iStock)

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Solving the Healthcare Cost Crisis: Reducing Spend Without Cutting Benefits

BY Grace Turney January 13, 2026

When Liz Hill joined Advance Auto Parts as director of benefits two and a half years ago, she faced a challenge many HR leaders are familiar with: healthcare costs were increasing faster than wages, and employees were questioning the value of their medical plans. For a workforce of 60,000, around 70% male, with an average age of 46, and spread across 4,300 locations, the situation was especially dire. “I’ll never forget the first conversation I had with a frontline manager,” Hill said during a From Day One webinar. “I asked what he wanted me to know about the medical plan. He said, ‘Oh, the medical plan, that’s for our older, more mature workforce.’” Hill saw that perception as a red flag. Younger employees were opting out entirely, viewing the high deductibles as too risky when they felt healthy. In 2025, Advance Auto Parts faced healthcare trend increases of 13%, which was well above the industry average of 9%. Hill knew she needed a new approach, and one that wouldn’t shift costs to employees or disrupt their existing coverage. The Provider Quality Problem The solution came from an overlooked option: helping employees choose better doctors. Research shows that the single biggest factor in a patient’s health outcomes and total cost of care is the individual provider they see. Yet most employees choose doctors by word of mouth or checking online reviews, and neither method necessarily correlates with cost efficiency or high-quality care. Lauren Chucko, the SVP of account management at Garner Health, spoke during the session (company photo)Lauren Chucko, senior vice president of account management at Garner Health, illustrated this with a striking example. Two spine surgeons, who were both quite popular among employees, had dramatically different outcomes. The first had patients who frequently experienced complications and needed revision surgeries. The second surgeon used minimally invasive techniques, had lower complication rates, and his patients spent significantly less—$69,000 in total claims versus $172,000, with zero out-of-pocket costs for members. Traditional provider evaluation methods, which merely average the previous year’s costs, had ranked the first doctor higher. But Garner’s database of 300 million patients, applying 550 different clinical metrics, revealed that the second doctor was actually superior across multiple measures: fewer unnecessary surgeries, lower complication rates, and more appropriate use of outpatient procedures.A Multi-Pronged Strategy Hill approached this challenge systematically, using what she called a “multi-pronged strategy.” This included operational improvements like carving out subrogation, pharmacy changes, and tightening leave of absence processes. But the largest opportunity was in value-based care. Rather than switching to a narrow network or committing to a specific carrier, Hill chose Garner’s plan-agnostic approach. The company maintained its full Anthem Blue Cross network but added a powerful incentive: employees who used Garner’s top-rated providers would have their out-of-pocket costs reimbursed up to $2,000 for individuals and $4,000 for families. “For a highly price-sensitive population like mine, that’s substantial,” Hill said. The plan was intentionally placed on Advance Auto Parts’ middle-tier option, which increased the deductible from $1,500 to $2,500 but offered the Garner reimbursement. The message was clear: use better doctors, save money. These innovative, outside-the-box solutions are exactly what’s needed to reduce spending while cutting costs in healthcare, without compromising the quality of care. The Importance of CommunicationHill’s team knew the success of these policy adjustments hinged on communication. They didn’t just announce the change; they orchestrated what one colleague called a “communication wheel” that kept turning through multiple phases. Before open enrollment, they trained the entire HR team, not just benefits specialists. During enrollment, they made creating a Garner account part of the required enrollment process in their benefits administration system. This was a crucial step that Hill credits with high adoption. They mailed customized materials to all 4,300 store locations, and ran content on TVs in stores and distribution centers. They also made a crucial naming decision: the plan became the “Anthem Silver Plus Garner Money Plan.” As Hill noted, “When you ask employees what medical plan they’re in, they often don’t know. So let’s call the plan what it is.” The approach worked. Despite having a passive enrollment system where employees could simply stay in their existing plan, 44% of the workforce enrolled in the Garner plan. More impressively, 53% of those enrolled created Garner accounts, well above the 30% benchmark. Hill’s advice for other benefits leaders is straightforward: dig into the data to build confidence in the methodology, communicate relentlessly through every available channel, and don’t be afraid to push vendors to customize solutions for your unique workforce. Most importantly, she emphasized, “When you make this decision, you’ve got to be all in from a communications perspective.” Editor's note: From Day One thanks our partner, Garner Health, for sponsoring this webinar. Grace Turney is a St. Louis-based writer, artist, and former librarian. See more of her work at graceturney17.wixsite.com/mysite.(Photo by MonthiraYodtiwong/iStock)

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Evolving HR Systems into Engines of Action: How to Build a More Connected User Experience

BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza January 08, 2026

HR teams are under immense pressure to deliver a great employee experience, often with tools and processes that haven’t meaningfully evolved in years. The challenge of improving the employee experiences is not a lack of data on their employees. In fact, HR has access to more information than ever before, from engagement surveys and performance reviews to benefits uptake and attendance records. The problem is that this information is scattered across incompatible systems. When connections can’t be made, HR leaders miss the patterns forming right in front of them, like the early signs of burnout and disengagement or escalating turnover that could be stopped.During a From Day One webinar, HR leaders explored how employers are finally beginning to turn their HR systems into engines of action–tools that don’t just store information, but actively connect workers and improve the employee experience in real time.“We’ve inflicted an awful lot of digital friction on ourselves,” said Miriam Connaughton, chief people and experience officer at Simpplr. Employees must wade through disparate platforms, multiple log-ins, and poorly designed interfaces to find the information and tools they need to carry out basic tasks. “How do you make that user experience more seamless–more simplified–so you’re not forcing them to search through the tech morass to find what they need?” At the same time, some HR teams try to layer antiquated processes into outdated software, said Julie Develin, a senior partner at UKG. Too often, organizations digitize outdated workflows instead of rethinking how work should actually be done.If HR were to do one thing in 2026, Connaughton suggested that it should be a radical simplification of the employee tech experience. That means fewer clicks, clearer pathways, and systems that anticipate needs instead of requiring employees to hunt for answers.Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza, journalist and From Day One contributing editor, moderated the discussion (photo by From Day One)Talent acquisition and onboarding have been the most obvious places for HR to focus on process improvement, followed by basic employee fact-finding (like FAQ chatbots), but AI-powered HR tech is now mature enough for the complex task of what Connaughton and Develin call “performance enablement.” This means helping managers become better coaches and employees set goals that align with the company’s. “It’s the whole performance cycle and everything that goes with it.”This matters because HR technology has long lagged behind consumer technology. Employees aren’t using the same smartphone they had 10 years ago, yet many HR systems feel frozen in time. HR has grown accustomed to stability and wary of experimentation, so instead of trying a new process or new tech, they do nothing at all. “The cost of doing nothing has weighed on a lot of organizations,” Develin said. When HR tech systems don’t work, low adoption is often blamed on employee aptitude or even obstinance, but low usage is seldom a skills problem–it’s usually a design problem. “You know your tech is not good when your HR team is using the gum-and-duct-tape method to make it work,” Connaughton said.But artificial intelligence is changing HR’s habits. Today, AI has already proved it can automate routine tasks and reduce administrative burden, and leaders are quickly warming to its use. But, the panelists said, we should be thinking bigger: Its greater promise is employee personalization. Great consumer brands learn their customers and tailor the experience accordingly, so why can’t HR tech do the same? For a frontline worker, that might mean opening an app to instantly see their schedule, request a change, or receive a notification that PTO has been approved. For a manager, it could mean timely nudges about performance management or insights into team workload before burnout sets in. As Develin put it, when the experience works and employees feel cared for, they don’t just do the work–they engage.Done well, modern HR systems become the engine of the employee experience. Employees don’t have to think about where to go or whom to ask, like the best consumer tech, the experience just works.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Simpplr, 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 A9 STUDIO/Shutterstock)

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Rethinking Pharmacy Benefits: Cutting Costs, Improving Care

BY Christopher O'Keeffe January 06, 2026

Rising prescription drug costs have become one of the most persistent pressure points in employer-sponsored health care. For many organizations, pharmacy spending now accounts for as much as a quarter—or more—of total health care costs, with limited visibility into what’s actually driving those increases. As new drug categories emerge and traditional pricing models grow more complex, employers are increasingly questioning whether higher costs are inevitable—or structural.That challenge was the focus of a recent From Day One webinar about “Rethinking Pharmacy Benefits: Cutting Costs, Improving Care.” The session explored how pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) shape prescription costs, where traditional models fall short, and how more transparent approaches may help employers rein in spending while improving access to care.Session moderator, Abigail Abrams, the director of content operations at Atria, set the stage with a reality many employers already recognize: pharmacy benefits have grown rapidly, often faster than other components of health care spend.Alissa Johnson, senior director of clinical strategy at SmithRx, pointed to several forces behind that trend. One is innovation. “One of the greatest things that have happened is tremendous innovation,” she said, noting that the United States develops “around 80% of the world’s new drugs.” New treatments have expanded what’s clinically possible, but often at a higher price.Another factor is where care is delivered. Many treatments that once required hospital or outpatient infusions are now available as self-administered injections or oral medications taken at home, says Johnson. While that shift can improve convenience and outcomes, it also moves more spending into the pharmacy benefit, increasing employers’ exposure to drug costs.The Transparency Problem in Traditional PBM ModelsAlissa Johnson, PharmD, MBA, BCPS, the senior director of clinical strategy at SmithRx, led the session (company photo)Traditional PBM pricing structures can obscure true costs. Johnson described the industry as one in which a single drug can have multiple price points, from list prices to discounted rates and negotiated rebates.“There’s just a lot of different mechanisms to not have the PBMs be transparent, or offer visibility into what the actual drug costs are,” she said. Vertical integration, where PBMs may also own pharmacies, specialty distributors, or have financial ties to manufacturers, can further complicate incentives.Johnson likened discount-based pricing to a misleading retail analogy. A drug might appear inexpensive because it’s offered at a steep percentage discount off a high list price, even if a lower net-cost alternative exists elsewhere. “What you really want to know is how much you’re paying at the end of the day,” she said.A recurring theme throughout the session was the importance of shifting from discount-based metrics to cost-based ones. Johnson encouraged employers to start by insisting on access to their own claims-level data. “Your data is yours,” she said.One simple but powerful metric, she says, is per-member-per-month (PMPM) pharmacy spend. By dividing total drug costs by the number of covered members, employers can track real spending trends without getting lost in rebate guarantees and contractual fine print.Johnson shared examples of employers that switched from legacy PBMs to more transparent models and saw significant reductions in both plan costs and employee out-of-pocket expenses. In one case, she said, PMPM costs dropped from $65.57 to $48, while average out-of-pocket spending fell from $12.90 to $6.Cost transparency isn’t just a financial issue—it also affects whether employees can access and adhere to their prescribed treatments. Johnson emphasized that when medications are unaffordable, people simply don’t take them, which can lead to worse health outcomes and higher medical costs over time. “If patients can’t afford their drugs, they won’t fill them and they won’t take them,” she said.She also addressed the role of utilization management tools like prior authorization. While such measures can be important safeguards, Johnson says that they can become unnecessary barriers when approval rates are effectively universal. In those cases, she says, removing prior authorization can reduce friction for both patients and providers without increasing risk.High-Cost Categories: GLP-1s, Biosimilars, and What’s NextJohnson also shared insights on drug categories drawing heightened employer attention, including GLP-1 medications for diabetes and weight loss. Johnson described them as “a drug class of interest for a long time,” given their effectiveness and growing list of potential indications. At the same time, she cautioned that broad utilization makes guardrails and data visibility essential.Another area of focus was biosimilars, lower-cost alternatives to biologic drugs used to treat conditions such as autoimmune diseases. Johnson urged employers to ask not just whether their PBM offers a biosimilar-first strategy, but how effectively it’s implemented.“Not all biosimilars are created equal,” she said, noting that some still cost thousands of dollars per month while others are available for a fraction of that price. Conversion rates, she added, can be a more meaningful measure than policy statements alone.Throughout the session, Johnson returned to a consistent message: employers don’t have to wait for regulatory reform or litigation outcomes to demand more clarity. Asking the right questions now, about data access, net costs, sourcing options, and reporting cadence, can reveal whether a PBM’s incentives are truly aligned with controlling spend and supporting employee health.As the webinar concluded, the message was less about any single solution and more about a shift in mindset. Transparency, Johnson suggested, isn’t an abstract ideal—it’s a practical tool for understanding where pharmacy dollars go and how benefits strategies can evolve to meet both financial and human needs.Editor's note: From Day One thanks our partner, SmithRx, for sponsoring this webinar. 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.(Photo by nortonrsx/iStock)

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Building Resilience: Staying Agile Through Workforce Disruptions

BY Stephanie Reed January 05, 2026

Agility in business is no longer optional. Organizations that adopt agile ways of working see measurable gains in operational performance, including speed, predictability, and target achievement, while also improving employee engagement through clearer missions, greater empowerment, and stronger customer focus. But agility comes with constant change, requiring organizations to build real responsiveness and resilience.“How do I survive in this world where change is coming hard and fast, creating a real sense of loss on a number of levels, and my response to it may not always be productive and constructive?” asked Kenneth Matos Ph.D, director of market insights at HiBob. Matos spoke during a From Day One webinar about “Building Resilience: Staying Agile Through Workforce Disruptions.” Matos brings psychological expertise to the design of agile organizations, offering HR leaders, managers, and teams practical tools to adapt and thrive amid constant change. Drawing on organizational psychology and his experience at HiBob, he helps managers and employees drive sustainable growth and productivity.Creating Structural SupportBuilding an agile culture and organizational resilience requires structural support, says Matos. This includes company policy and managerial practices. You want your organization to remove friction so employees can adapt easily, he says. Matos suggests starting with clear guiding principles rather than rigid policies. Policies should provide context by explaining their purpose, not just prescribing what to do and what not to do. He also emphasizes the value of scalable platforms for cross-team collaboration, which are often more cost-effective and impactful than investing in single-purpose technologies. Scalable tools can expand or contract as needs change, making it easier to evolve processes and communication without being constrained by the technology itself.Kenneth Matos, Ph.D., the director of market insights, HCM at HiBob, led the session (company photo)Another way to boost structural support is through HR incorporating flexibility into workflows and employee journeys. “It might make a lot of sense to have a meeting at the end of the day to close out what you’ve been doing, but it also might get in the way of having a really diverse workforce of people who might have caregiving responsibilities,” he said. Creating internal marketplaces for projects and learning can reduce the need to hire externally by making it easier to redeploy existing talent. Matos also points to job architecture as a critical area for structural support, emphasizing that it should be treated as an ongoing, evolving process rather than a fixed framework. “Are these roles still making sense as we launch a new product? Are these roles still making sense if we go into a new area or we’re shrinking as an organization?”Learning and development should also become demand-driven. Matos suggests finding people who want to complete specific tasks and giving them the learning resources to fulfill those tasks. This makes new skills more likely to stick. Additionally, performance systems should be reviewed more frequently. An effective system has the rewards and structures that check against what employees want to accomplish.  Lastly, says Matos, organizations must adopt agile budgeting. “I think one of the mistakes that HR often makes is that we don’t realize how much of what we do is defined by things like the financial process,” Matos said. “So the fact that budgets get reviewed once a year sets the limits for the reward process that we do and how we think about learning.”The Importance of Personal DevelopmentPersonal development helps employees shift from change resistance as an instinctual response, says Matos. For example, when asked how teams can decompress during uncertainty, Matos emphasizes that the key aspect is allowing people to be heard using feedback.Inviting teams to reflect on their current challenges, successes, and what could be done differently helps replace doubt with clarity and confidence. Managers play a critical role by supporting personal development and normalizing role evolution, celebrating past accomplishments while reinforcing that employees are resilient, adaptable, and capable of change.“Asking people, say on a weekly basis, ‘what did you learn this week? What did you learn this month?’ Can just help them stop and go, ‘Right, I’m supposed to still be learning things, not just executing this job over and over again like a cog in a machine.’”Establishing a shared narrative can ease transitions by encouraging open conversations between employees, leaders, and peers about stepping into new roles. Previews, pilots, and trials also help employees gradually acclimate to organizational change. Most importantly, supporting employees’ livelihoods requires honest discussions about their role in the organization, future growth opportunities, and where they envision their careers heading.These discussions should reinforce resilience and adaptability as positive growth indicators. “Markers of an agile workforce is that they have fluid professional narratives,” Matos said. “They don’t see themselves as bound to a particular title or job track, but as having a collection of skills that they can apply to a variety of different purposes and goals that change with the context around them.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, HiBob, for sponsoring this webinar. Stephanie Reed is a freelance news, marketing, and content writer. Much of her work features small business owners throughout diverse industries. She is passionate about promoting small, ethical, and eco-conscious businesses. (Photo by NanoStockk/iStock)

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The Agentic HR Operating Model: Moving Beyond Chatbots to AI-First HR

BY Ade Akin January 02, 2026

AI is generating both excitement and concern in the workplace, and especially in HR. Tools like Wisq’s AI HR generalist, Harper, promise to automate tasks and slash workloads by more than 80%, yet many organizations find their AI experiments deliver only incremental results instead of the transformative change they hoped for, says Clayton Holz, the head of product at the agentic HR platform Wisq.AI can transform HR departments if deployed pragmatically, Holz shared during a From Day One webinar about “The Agentic HR Operating Model: Moving Beyond Chatbots to AI-First HR.” Success requires proactively navigating around fundamental limitations, redesigning processes, and rethinking organizational structure, he says. “You are going to have to do work,” Holz said. “But I can clearly see a world in which, in the HR domain, AI is doing a lot of the tier zero, tier one, maybe some of the tier two work, and then augmenting your work further up the pyramid.”The Reality Check on AI AgentsTransforming HR departments with AI starts with a clear understanding of the technology’s current capabilities and limitations. Holz outlines several fundamental constraints HR leaders must work around. First, AI models are probabilistic, not deterministic. “A model with no supporting safety algorithm is going to be consistent anywhere from 60 to 90% of the time,” he said, adding that out-of-the-box AI tools like Copilot often perform worse on HR-specific tasks. Clayton Holz, the head of product at Wisq, led the webinar (company photo)Second, artificial intelligence struggles with complex, multi-turn instructions, sometimes leading to “hallucinations.” Models are trained to be sycophantic, which conflicts with HR’s need to be consistently fair and empathetic. “AI is more than willing to go ahead and make a decision on behalf of your organization that might not be present in the source material,” Holz said. Third, AI doesn’t magically drive behavior change. For example, AI can’t do much if employees aren’t motivated to create individual development plans. “AI is not suddenly going to change that motivational gap and change people's behavior,” Holz said. “It might make the experience of doing it different and better, but it's not necessarily going to change their behavior.”Holz advises that the best use cases for artificial intelligence are scenarios where “people just keep doing what they were doing before, and AI is there so they don’t have to change any behavior at all.”Building the Bridge With ITA major hurdle many HR teams face is getting their IT departments on board with the decision to give AI a larger role. Holz says HR teams should be proactive and data-driven when communicating with IT departments. “Vague asks are going to be difficult for them to prioritize,” he said. Holz advises HR leaders to articulate their needs to IT teams using three key dimensions: care (employee experience), compliance (risk reduction), and cost (time savings).He recommends building bridges by helping IT teams to understand the unique nuances of HR work, such as the rules governing a leave of absence. “The best examples that I’ve seen, honestly, are when someone in IT has recently gone on a leave of absence, because then they have empathy for some of the things that you’re dealing with,” Holz said.Redesigning HR Processes for AIThe core of Holz’s advice for HR leaders centers on the methodologies used to redesign processes for the implementation of AI. He suggests a hands-on workshop approach, starting with a subject-matter expert interview to map out multi-step processes like handling a request for promotion in detail, including the back-and-forth and waiting periods. Once that’s out of the way, the next step is to codify each step of the process. This systematic breakdown makes the workflow shape visible. “This is a great opportunity for redesign,” Holz said. “We’re looking for places where we can remove, combine, reorder, and standardize steps.”Finally, each step of each process should be evaluated and placed on a two-by-two grid. One axis measures the level of risk involved if the step is incorrectly done, while the other measures the amount of human judgement required. Doing so creates a clear opportunity map for applying AI to processes:Low-risk, low-judgment tasks: Examples include tasks like sending a reminder email or retrieving a standard policy document. These are prime candidates for full automation.High-risk, high-judgment tasks: These are important tasks like granting final approval on a sensitive employee relations case. Such tasks should be primarily handled by human experts, while AI serves as an assistant that helps to curate information or generate drafts. Tasks in the middle: These include tasks such as the initial assessment of a promotion request against set criteria. Most of these tasks can be handled by AI, but a human review step should be built in for quality assurance. For example, in the case of a promotion request, the approval routine might be automated, while a human communicates the final decision to the employee after evaluating the AI’s recommendation. Preparing Policies for an AI TeammateHolz says company policies must be AI-ready to operate the technology effectively. Ambiguous policies that are confusing to humans will be even more problematic for artificial intelligence. He highlights some of the most common issues organizations face, including outdated handbooks, over-reliance on jargon, and vast amounts of unwritten “tribal knowledge” governing discretionary decisions. Holz recommends archiving old policy documents, using plain language, and running policies by focus groups consisting of new employees to test for clarity. “If they don’t get it, it’s likely that AI is also not going to get it consistently,” he said. He also recommends codifying the unwritten rules that govern discretionary decisions, like what counts as a “close family member” for bereavement leave. This codification is essential to offload repetitive work to an AI agent. One of the most profound shifts in attitudes Holz proposed regarding AI is to view it as a team member, instead of a tool. “They’re going to need a manager, they’re going to need onboarding, they’re going to need supervision, they’re going to need performance feedback,” he said.Holz predicts the slow, consensus-driven policy management model will hinder the effectiveness of AI systems adopted and sees forward-thinking companies shifting toward a hub-and-spoke model with clear, centralized policy owners. “This is going to be a big [shift], allowing you to move much more quickly and get more out of AI going forward,” he added.The Future of HR Service DeliveryHolz envisions a not-too-distant future where AI handles the majority of HR service delivery, freeing humans up for tasks that require more human skills. “I think all of [those transactional requests] could be done in part or entirely by AI,” he said. The shift toward AI-driven HR may also encourage organizations to standardize policies that were once open to broad interpretation. “I could see policies becoming more black and white, candidly, or black and white for large shares of the population, so that decisions can be made in a more programmatic and consistent way,” he said.Holz’s message to HR leaders is that AI has the potential to transform processes, but that requires a proactive, process-oriented, and collaborative approach. The teammate of the future is waiting to be onboarded. Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Wisq, for sponsoring this webinar. Ade Akin covers artificial intelligence, workplace wellness, HR trends, and digital health solutions.(Photo by CL Stock/Shutterstock)

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Measurably Improving Culture: It Takes a Shared Language, Culture Skills and Analytics

BY Paul Kersey December 31, 2025

As a former HR attorney, Janine Yancey says that she hasn’t actually run into that many truly bad people. There are a handful of “bad eggs,” as she puts it, but most of the cases she handled involved decent folks who were struggling to manage workplace demands and the many different personality types they have on their teams.“It’s just people being people. They have different perspectives on situations. They’re optimizing for different outcomes. They’re thinking about different things. They have different communication styles, which leads to conflict,” she said. “It’s just hard sometimes to interact.”Her background led her to think of corporate culture a little differently; it's not just the history and values and mission, it’s the shared language and people skills that a company promotes. A healthy corporate culture can head off many workplace issues, and companies can instill that healthy culture intentionally. Now, the founder and CEO of Emtrain, an online compliance and culture training company, Yancey shared insights on measurably improving culture during a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s LA conference.Focusing on Actions, Not PeopleLeaders often assume good intent, Yancey says. But they also need to recognize how employees’ moods and pressures shape performance and interactions. Even strong managers are affected by stress and tight deadlines, and conflicts can arise between coworkers who are simply trying to do their best.Janine Yancey, the founder & CEO of Emtrain, led the thought leadership spotlight With that in mind, Yancey says HR professionals should avoid categorizing people as bad actors. It’s more constructive to focus on specific actions or habits that cause problems. When you do that, you can be more clinical and less judgmental. Interventions can take the form of teaching skills rather than correcting character faults. “You’re not judging somebody and calling them a toxic person or toxic manager, you’re saying, hey, you’ve got an area of opportunity, and we can help develop this skill a little bit.” Yancey describes a color scale for workplace interactions: green for those handled well, yellow for moments shaped by stress or bad habits. As an attorney and compliance specialist, she distinguishes yellow from orange, which involves legally protected groups and potential litigation. Red marks situations that are clearly illegal.New Issues Create Workplace StressEmtrain has been gathering employee feedback through its training program, and Yancey notes trends HR should watch for. One key trend is generational differences: younger workers prioritize work-life balance more than older employees.For example, Yancey describes a hypothetical law firm meeting where a senior attorney scolds a younger associate for being unavailable after hours on a time-sensitive project. Younger workers are more likely to view this as out of line, valuing work-life balance, which can heighten conflicts over after-hours availability and task flexibility.Another potential conflict arises with AI implementation. While AI can save time, such as generating programs previously done by junior tech staff, it can also disrupt job roles and interdepartmental relations. IT workers may find themselves verifying AI-generated code rather than creating it.With AI, departments will work together in different ways, says Yancey. And some workers will inevitably begin to question their value to the company—what is the computer coder’s role now when AI can write programs itself based on specifications it gets from executives? This confusion and insecurity will place new stress on employees, and HR professionals will need to be ready to deal with the fallout, she says. Building a Culture With Soft SkillsProactive leadership can help a company build a culture with a shared language, a common set of values, and soft skills, all of which minimize conflicts and make it easier for workers to resolve them on their own.  As a litigator, Yancey’s own experience was that much of the time she was coaching employees about people skills. She suggests that companies start by creating their own matrix of social habits that best serve their employees. Emtrain’s own skills matrix is based on four central values: ethics, respect, inclusion, and belonging. “If you have a really strong culture of soft skills, compliance becomes a non-issue,” she said.Yancey suggests embedding these skills in regular compliance training. Additionally, tailored programs, especially online, can both reinforce culture and gather anonymous employee feedback, giving leaders insights to prevent conflicts and spot potential issues.“We’re all works in progress, trying to do better,” Yancey said. “As we practice with intentionality, then our actions start developing into skills.” A well-designed training program can help employees develop the skills they need to excel, and help your company develop the positive culture it needs to adapt and grow.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Emtrain, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Paul Kersey is a former attorney and freelance writer based in Chicago, IL.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)

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The Rules Are Being Rewritten: How Bold Leaders Win in the AI Era

BY Ade Akin December 22, 2025

The time between technological revolutions has shrunk from 50 years to a couple of decades, and AI is now rewriting what work looks like faster than organizations can adapt. The rapid pace of new technologies that significantly impact how companies operate is creating massive skill gaps that traditional hiring and training methods are ineffective at addressing. Recruiting and learning divisions within organizations are now coming together to improve talent acquisition and address skill gaps from within. Tigran Sloyan, the CEO and co-founder of CodeSignal, urges companies to move beyond passive learning and resume screening, and embrace AI-powered, hands-on learning programs and scalable assessments. “You want to answer the question, ‘What can we do? How can we leverage this, and how can it be good for humanity?’” Sloyan said during a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s LA conference. The Historical Pace of Change And Why This Time Is DifferentSloyan started his presentation by comparing the speed of technological breakthroughs since the development of the internet to the pace of tech advancement several centuries ago, when the printing press was invented. “It used to take us 50 years to experience a new, dramatic technological shift,” he said. “Forty years ago, we didn’t have web developers. Thirty years ago, we didn’t have cloud engineers. Twenty years ago, we didn’t have mobile engineers.” Each shift created new jobs and skills, but organizations had more time to adapt.Today, generative AI tools like ChatGPT, which has only been around for a few years, are transforming workplaces, garnering over 700 million active weekly users. Sloyan says the challenge is leveraging new technologies like AI to “transform how we find, discover, and develop skills that will shape this future.”Closing Skills Gaps With Hands-On, AI-Powered LearningTigran Sloyan, CEO & co-founder of CodeSignal, led the thought leadership spotlight Sloyan introduced CodeSignal as an “AI-native skills intelligence platform” built on the principle that people learn best when performing tasks. “Think about when you learn how to ride a bike, how you learn to drive a car. You get behind the wheel, and you actually try and practice,” he said. The same applies to job skills, but scaling hands-on learning programs has historically been challenging.Sloyan shared the example of Dropbox, which faced considerable AI skill gaps across its workforce. Dropbox’s executives recognized it couldn’t hire its way out of its problem because the skills required were too new to be widely available. The solution was to partner with CodeSignal to build a Gen AI Skills Academy. The academy offers employees three options: AI use lessons for non-technical roles like marketing, AI integration classes for building products using existing tools, and AI creation courses that teach how to build new AI systems. Sloyan says the key to the success of Dropbox’s Gen AI Skills Academy is its practice-based nature. He demonstrated a model where learners first practice prompting an AI model, then are tasked with teaching a simulated coworker named “Nova” how to do it. “Another way you learn well is by teaching other people,” he said.CodeSignal’s AI doesn’t only simulate conversations, it also provides personalized feedback through its “Cosmo” system. “Practice without feedback is not very helpful,” Sloyan said, comparing it to learning to drive a vehicle without an instructor. “With generative AI, we’re making it possible to actually scale this to an entire organization.” Dropbox applied this to thousands of employees, enabling them to learn, practice, and get feedback at scale.How AI Interviewers Are Opening Up the Hiring FunnelSloyan also shared how Coinbase created a more efficient hiring process thanks to CodeSignal’s AI interviewers that scale top-of-funnel recruiter screens to nearly 100% of its candidate pool. Coinbase had previously struggled sorting through a flood of applicants with its limited recruiting team, leading to as many as 95% of job applicants never hearing back from a human.“Almost every candidate that applies actually hears back and actually gets to have a conversation to talk about their skills,” Sloyan said. He showed a demo of “Milo,” an AI interviewer CodeSignal uses in its hiring process, interviewing a candidate.A common concern is that AI interviews might feel impersonal, but Sloyan says candidate feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. “Candidates are saying, ‘This is one of the best interviews that I’ve actually done,’” he said. The AI can be customized for tone to align with an organization’s legal and brand guidelines. Sloyan says the next step is moving toward AI avatars to create an even more immersive experience. He playfully demonstrated the concept with a candidate interview conducted by an AI avatar of Santa for an “elf” position.A Future Built on Skills, Not Just CredentialsSloyan kept returning to a central theme during his presentation: The future belongs to organizations that can discover and develop new skills proactively. AI is the accelerant, but the solution is timeless; learning by performing tasks reinforced by feedback. It’s the necessary response to a world where new jobs are created by new technologies every decade. “Technology keeps on moving faster and faster. Humans do not,” Sloyan said. “We’re still the same humans, and it’s this technology that needs to help us go through this process faster and be on the winning side of history.” Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, CodeSignal, 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)

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AI Disrupts Staffing: The Inevitable Transformation

BY Stephanie Reed December 19, 2025

AI may have entered HR through efficiency, but it’s staying for something bigger. As tools grow more sophisticated, their role is expanding from automating tasks to shaping how organizations understand people and make hiring decisions. According to John H. Chuang, CEO of Aquent, recruiting is where that shift is becoming most visible.During a live thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s Miami conference, Chuang spoke about the advanced capabilities of the latest AI technology and how it will eventually be integrated into every department in an organization. One way recruiting is being revolutionized is by AI processing voluminous data, he says. A recruiter alone is less efficient at digesting information from thousands of potential recruits. “I would argue that human beings are actually sort of not qualified to do the initial stage of sourcing because they cannot absorb data,” Chuang said. “What can absorb data? Computers. What can now understand computers? AI.” Beyond processing information at scale, AI also enables better matches by identifying specialized skills and technical nuances of roles that recruiters themselves may not be deeply familiar with, he says. For example, some clients are seeking very specific roles, such as cardiologists, medical coders, and construction supervisors. “Are you telling me that the average recruiter is going to know all the lingo and all the technical details in all these areas that are completely dispersed? No, they won’t. But AI can. And AI does know these things.”Another way AI is reshaping recruiting is through language. While recruiters may only speak one language, AI can process resumes across many, removing a common barrier to global hiring. Once the technology is properly trained, it also allows recruiting to scale efficiently, helping talent teams identify the best candidates faster. The return on investment is clear: the cost of an additional AI-led search is significantly lower than a human-led one, making large-scale recruiting far more cost-effective, says Chuang. John H. Chuang, CEO of Aquent, led the thought leadership spotlight At Skill & Aquent, Chuang described how the company is moving toward a recruiter-less model, driven by advances in AI. Agentic AI, an evolved form of the technology, acts as an intelligent assistant for processes that require flexibility, context, and real-time decision-making. “Recruiting will be absolutely unrecognizable in three years,” he said. A 2025 Deloitte report highlights how agentic AI is reshaping workplace processes, from understanding context and user intent to supporting scenario planning, forecasting, and risk assessment. It can even make autonomous decisions in areas like economic forecasting and competitive analysis. Chuang recalled that during an Aquent beta testing ahead of a January release, the team tasked agentic AI with finding a customer solution engineer, and the system took action on its own.The team set a goal to find a customer solution engineer. Agentic AI took action on its own.“We didn’t tell it what to do at all.” The technology created a strategy: create two job ads. One defined the technical aspects of the position, while the other highlighted the customer service aspect more. The system ran the job ads, continuously optimizing underperforming postings through four iterations as more matches came in. Once it reached a sufficient pool of candidates, the results were sent to a recruiter. “Guess how much time all the strategy development, the posting of jobs on five job boards, one’s internal database, and four iterations, how long this took? This took eight minutes.”While agentic AI may “supercharge” talent acquisition, Chuang emphasized that people remain essential to the process. Recruiters won’t have to read through too many documents. Instead, they can focus on interviews and negotiation.HR’s new role will be to help transform the organization, emphasizing the partnership between people and technology. Put simply, computers will accomplish what computers are best at, and people will accomplish what people are best at. “AI can do amazing things. And you haven’t even seen anything yet. It’s coming, and it’s going to be more amazing than you’ve ever seen.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Aquent, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Stephanie Reed is a freelance news, marketing, and content writer. Much of her work features small business owners throughout diverse industries. She is passionate about promoting small, ethical, and eco-conscious businesses(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)

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Global Hiring and Emerging HR Tech: A New Path to Solving the Talent Shortage

BY Grace Turney December 17, 2025

Noelle Pittock, senior director of onboarding and business operations at Remote, remembers the first time her team completed what was previously a six-to-eight-week performance review cycle in just 48 hours. The drastic change wasn’t only about speed; it ultimately saved 7,000 hours of work and achieved 95% completion rates. This breakthrough came from rethinking how technology could actually make work processes smoother instead of more complex.The talent crisis has reached a tipping point. According to research from Remote surveying nearly 4,000 business and HR leaders worldwide, 72% of companies missed a key business goal or deadline in the past year due to talent shortages. These weren’t product failures, they were people problems. Teams simply couldn’t find and onboard the right talent fast enough to meet critical deadlines.“The bottleneck isn’t that great candidates don’t exist. It’s that we’re looking in too narrow a place,” Pittock said during a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s December virtual conference. Opening Borders, Not Just Job PostingsThe data reveals an intriguing paradox: 74% of HR leaders say finding qualified local talent is more difficult than a year ago, yet 79% would hire more international candidates if it were as easy as hiring domestically. The willingness exists, but the infrastructure just isn’t there.Many companies are currently expanding their geographic reach, says Pittock. Some business leaders expect more than half of their 2026 new hires to come from outside their primary country. This isn’t a fringe strategy anymore; it’s becoming standard practice for businesses struggling with shallow local talent pools.Noelle, a senior director of onboarding & business operations at Remote, led the virtual session (company photo)Remote itself operates as proof of concept. The fully distributed company receives 30,000 to 35,000 applications per month across 90-plus countries, employing nearly 2,000 people without a physical office. “We haven’t faced a talent shortage by taking this globalized strategy,” Pittock said.What’s held companies back isn’t desire, but clarity. Nebulous local regulations and compliance concerns make the risks seemingly outweigh the rewards. Modern HR technology is trying to change that perception through global-first sourcing tools, AI-assisted screening, location-based compensation planning, and legal hiring mechanisms like employer of record services that handle compliance complexity.But finding talent is only half the challenge. HR teams also face an operational crisis managing the sheer volume of work across disconnected platforms. The average HR leader juggles 3.6 tools, with some using four to seven systems just for basic processes. These tools rarely communicate with each other, ultimately multiplying workload instead of reducing it. “When HR teams say they don’t have enough time, that’s not an exaggeration,” Pittock said. “That’s reality.”Automation That Actually Reduces WorkThe most effective teams aren’t just adopting new tools; they’re completely rethinking workflows. Remote’s approach offers a framework: simplify processes before automating them, consolidate platforms to eliminate data silos, and create automated workflows that don’t rely on institutional memory.In hiring, AI screening now helps teams navigate increased application volume. Candidates can use AI to tailor resumes quickly, flooding recruiters with applications. One in five talent acquisition professionals report seeing AI-generated applications with misleading information, says Pittock. Remote’s pilot program used AI to extract skills, summarize resumes, and generate consistent screening questions, allowing recruiters to focus on qualified candidates rather than sorting through virtual piles of paperwork.Onboarding presents another opportunity for automation. Remote onboards talent in over 100 countries by breaking the process into clear workflows with integrated systems, she says. Personal data automatically generates employment agreements in seconds and compliance checks verify identity remotely. By integrating AI directly into workflow platforms, Remote compressed reviews from six weeks to just two days. Managers complete reviews on day one using preliminary information and structured data. Leaders calibrate and finalize decisions on day two. The system achieved 85% employee satisfaction while completing reviews 15 times faster. “AI isn’t replacing judgment,” Pittock said. “It’s supporting it by handling drafting, summarizing, and formatting so managers can focus on substance.”Starting Small and Scaling StrategicallyFor HR teams ready to simplify their workload while increasing productivity, Pittock recommends four immediate steps: remove one manual task you touch often, consolidate data into fewer platforms, pilot global hiring for a single role where widening the search meaningfully improves your candidate pool, and add one lightweight automation ritual like weekly check-in reminders.The key is identifying what matters most to your team. “Take a pulse check with your HR leaders,” Pittock said.  “What’s the one most annoying thing they do every day that, if it disappeared overnight, would change how they work? Start there.”These changes require minimal investment but create foundations for sustainable, high-performing organizations that remain people-centric even as they automate. The goal isn’t replacing any of the human elements in HR’s, it’s about freeing professionals to focus on what actually requires their judgment, creativity, and care.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Remote, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Grace Turney is a St. Louis-based writer, artist, and former librarian. See more of her work at graceturney17.wixsite.com/mysite.(Photo by dem10/iStock)

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The Power of Purpose-Driven HR Technology Decisions

BY Christopher O'Keeffe December 16, 2025

The HR technology landscape didn’t arrive at its current complexity overnight. While many of today’s leaders may not have lived through three decades of platform evolution firsthand, the industry has—from the dot-com era’s monolithic systems to Web 2.0’s “all-in-one” platforms, through the SaaS boom that fueled a massive unbundling of tools, and now into an AI-powered cycle of rebundling and automation.During a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s November virtual conference, Alex Uhre, enterprise sales manager at Rippling, walked through this history to share how HR leaders can make smarter, purpose-driven technology decisions. “Companies above 1,000 employees on average have 177 SaaS technologies within their organization,” he said. Employees feel that burden acutely: “It creates this position that not only are employees a little bit frustrated about trying to figure out where to go, but we’re also finding that even when you do have these all in one systems for our administrators, they’re finding themselves hamstrung.”Against that backdrop, Uhre outlined a clear, three-pillar framework: buy for the employee experience, choose unification over integration, and adopt new systems with a methodical mindset.How We Got Here: The Four Cycles of HR Technology Uhre opened with a rapid but revealing history lesson.In the dot-com boom, he said, “desktop technology and desktop information and personnel records transitioned into this idea of the HR information systems that we know today.” These early monoliths centralized employee data and automated payroll, replacing paper systems with digital infrastructure.The rise of Web 2.0 expanded this further. “We saw this rise of ‘integrated technologies’ where it wasn’t just about the employee records. We wanted to see technology expand to more of the practical day to day things that HR was taking care of.” Recruitment, onboarding, and performance tools all moved under the umbrella of the “all in one.”Then came SaaS—and a structural shift. “We saw this unbundling of technology,” Uhre said, where organizations adopted “individual point solutions that provided exactly what they needed.” The gain in specialization created an explosion in total platform count.Now the pendulum is swinging again. “AI is here, massive automation is here,” Uhre said. “We can unify systems again. We can rebundle systems to give HR and business professionals holistic systems that provide exactly what they need.”The Three Pillar FrameworkToo often, Uhre said, HR tech is marketed around “what saves HR time.” But he encouraged leaders to rethink the goal altogether: “I’d love to shift this mindset from saving HR time to reducing friction for your employees.”An employee tech journey audit offers a practical starting point. “Talk to all of your individuals within your organization,” he said. “From the first day that they join your company, throughout the life cycle of their employment, where is it that they’re finding inefficiencies, and where can things be better?” And utilization is what determines value. “Utilization is the true test,” he said. Alex Uhre, an enterprise sales manager at Rippling, led the session (company photo)The proliferation of disconnected systems has created what Uhre called the modern “Frankenstack.” “APIs are great. Integrations are fantastic,” he said, “but they’re a bandage for what could be structural redesign.”The cost of this patchwork approach is significant: dual maintenance, data discrepancies, compliance risk, manual work, and fragmented reporting. “Efficiency comes from data talking to itself,” he said, “not having administrators check on APIs or check on integration.”Uhre shared the diagnostic question he urges leaders to ask vendors. First, “If you make a change to an employee, how many systems does that need to touch?” And, “Am I able to report on everything entirely in one single report?”Even at Rippling, the impact of unification is visible. “It should start and stop with as few systems as possible.”The third pillar, he says, rather than roll out new platforms in one sweeping change, Uhre advises leaders to identify a minimum viable rollout. “When you have a unified system, you are actually able to roll out individual pieces over time,” he said. He urged teams to start with high-impact, low-friction improvements: “Maybe it’s expense reporting, maybe it’s PTO requests, things like that.” He also emphasized the importance of measuring everything. “I would really ensure that you are measuring adoption and gathering feedback,” he said. “If it works, promote it. If it doesn’t, let’s fix it before we launch the next module.”Across every stage of the framework, Uhre returned to one theme: clarity.The Way Forward: Purpose-Driven Decisions in an Era of AI and ComplexityAs the industry enters another major inflection point—this time shaped by AI and automation—the lesson from Uhre’s session is clear: companies cannot afford accidental tech stacks.Unification, intentional design, and employee-first thinking are no longer differentiators; they are survival strategies.And while the tools have changed dramatically since the dot-com era, the goal has stayed the same: making work easier, clearer, and more connected for the people at the center of it.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Rippling, 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.(Photo by Thawatchai Chawong/iStock)

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Utilizing AI to Turn Employee Sentiment into a Strategic Advantage

BY Kristen Kwiatkowski December 15, 2025

AI’s role has grown far beyond automation, reshaping how organizations generate insight and intelligence. That expansion brings new risks, but also new opportunities to use AI in ways that are ethical, human-centered, and effective.That balance is familiar to Shawn Overcast, general manager of enterprise solutions at Explorance. The global feedback and insights platform operates in more than 50 countries across five continents and has long focused on using AI to surface human potential, not replace it.During a thought leadership spotlight titled, “Responsible AI as the Intelligence Layer: Turning Employee Sentiment Into a Strategic Advantage” at From Day One’s Miami conference, Overcast shared her company’s background with AI and detailed how using this tool can and should be done in a responsible manner.Explorance started doing research and development with the AI space regarding machine learning about eight years ago. “We were at this before AI was cool,” said Overcast. Explorance launched its AI-centric solution, MLY, three years ago. Short for machine learning that answers the question why, the tool was deliberately developed to inform decisions about people as well as the actions taken with them, Overcast says.MLY reflects Explorance’s approach to responsible AI. The employee sentiment analysis tool helps organizations make sense of open-ended feedback, turning employee comments into insight and competitive advantage without losing the human context.Challenges With AI“With great potential comes great risk and great challenge,” said Overcast. Some problems with AI, says Overcast, include bias, transparency, data fragmentation, skill gaps, and privacy. “The data, the algorithms within AI, are only as fair as the data that it’s trained on,” said Overcast. “So, if there is bias in our hiring models, in our promotion data, for example, then the AI algorithm will carry with it inherent bias.”Shawn Overcast, general manager, enterprise solutions at Explorance, led the sessionThe transparency challenge deals with the black box theory, which is the inability to trace back as to why we’re getting the results we are. It’s often hard to trace it back and it’s important to do so to understand the source.Another AI challenge is data fragmentation. “I’ve been at this for a long time and that has always been a problem,” said Overcast. “Working with data silos is a real thing, a real challenge in our organizations, but it also presents a real challenge with being able to integrate all of that together,” Overcast said.Skill gaps also present a problem with AI use. “This is a real challenge for some organizations, because it’s not necessarily what we hired for,” said Overcast. “We hired more for the people aspect of the role, or the process aspect of the role, but not necessarily how to adopt new technology quickly.”Lastly, privacy is an extremely important issue and ultimate challenge at times with AI. Employee information must be protected, and businesses have to be cautious about how the collected data is used.  As some of the challenges in contrast to what AI can provide, Overcast assures that these challenges aren’t ones that should cause us to step back, but rather insights that can help us do things with more thought. The 7 Principles of Responsible AIAs the HR team stands at the intersection of innovation and responsibility, it’s important to know how to pursue responsible AI. There are seven principles of responsible AI including the following: fairness and inclusion, transparency and interpretability, accountability and governance, accuracy and decision integrity, privacy and consent, purpose and human intent, and reliability and safety.“AI is not just a technology conversation, it is an ethical conversation, it is a mindset that we need to have, and these help us with quality control about the information we use to make decisions about people,” said Overcast.When pursuing fairness and inclusion, it’s important to make sure that AI amplifies every voice and that all employees are heard equally. Overcast offered an example about a global manufacturer that wanted to do a sentiment analysis across its manufacturing plants across the globe. With use of AI and multi-lingual analysis, it was discovered that a specific work group was having challenges with workload and wellness which was at a Spanish-speaking plant. In the past, if there weren’t Spanish-speaking employees on the main HR team, the data couldn’t be uncovered quickly as it had to be translated and analyzed separately. However, now with AI, it’s the same process regarding all employee comment data and the decisions are now made at the same time.As for transparency and interpretability, the black box problem exists. The data goes in, results come back; however, we don’t understand why and where the recommendation comes from. There are questions that may come up regarding the sentiment, the topic, or the tone. When using AI, it’s important that the recommendation is ultimately traceable back to the source comment. It’s vital to have trust in the data.The last responsible AI topic discussed by Overcast was privacy and consent. It’s vital to protect employee data and there are ways to do so with AI. For example, redaction provides a way to ensure employee data privacy. It’s important to ensure the organization is protected, too. Wherever you are in your AI journey, Overcast advises keeping the seven principles of responsible AI front and center. That includes educating teams on AI’s limitations and recognizing that, while powerful, it is not always accurate. Transparency and human oversight are essential, and responsible AI principles should guide every stage of how the technology is used.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 Eater Philly, Edible Lehigh Valley, Cider Culture, and The Town Dish. (Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)

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Beyond Bereavement: A New Approach to Supporting Employees Through Life's Hardest Moments

BY Jennifer Yoshikoshi December 09, 2025

The length of average bereavement leave is just five-and-a-half days, but the impact of grief goes far beyond a work week. According to research done at Empathy, a platform that offers support for individuals experiencing loss, the effects of grief can last on average 16 months or longer.  During a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s Midtown Manhattan conference, Sophie Ruddock, chief operating officer at Empathy and Nicole DuBois, chief HR officer at Graham Windham spoke about how companies can support employees experiencing loss. When employees feel grief, the negative impacts of it can show up in the forms of reduced productivity, absenteeism, burnout and reliance on other team members to pick up the slack. Data shows that “79% of employees considered quitting their jobs after a major loss, in part because of how their employers supported or didn’t support them,” said Ruddock. She added that 76% feared they would be fired due to their inability to fully bring themselves up to their regular work standards. Graham Windham has partnered with Empathy to provide its employees with bereavement benefits and the company has already seen the positive impact it’s making—boosting employee satisfaction and retention, says DuBois.  “When we can talk about what we bring, and that we care about our staff beyond what they produce and what their deliverables are, we actually care about them as humans,” said DuBois. “It makes all the difference from both a retention standpoint and a recruitment standpoint.”Topics about loss and how to support employees through this challenging time can often be taboo, “but it is also one of the most human topics,” said Ruddock. Another collective challenge was the pandemic. When unexpected crises hit, company leaders often retreat behind closed doors to find solutions for their teams. DuBois emphasizes that to truly empower and enable managers, they need that same level of support themselves.At Graham Windham, leaders are provided with training and coaching through an online platform. Any employee has the opportunity to be matched with a professional coach of their choice. This resource can serve as an additional support around navigating burnout, stress, challenging conversations and balancing work and life, says DuBois. “We know that pouring into our leaders is a critical thing for us to do if we're to sustain our workforce,” she said.DuBois says the company’s mission is to keep up with innovation and think “about ways to reinvent.” With that in mind, she discussed the conflicting feelings that currently surround the idea of incorporating artificial intelligence to the workforce. Nicole DuBois, CHRO at Graham Windham, shared the company's experience partnering with Empathy during the session titled, "Beyond Bereavement: A New Approach To Supporting Employees Through Life's Hardest Moments"As employees fear their jobs will be replaced by AI, DuBois assures her teams that rather than pushing people out of their positions, AI can be used to increase efficiency. “Some of these tools can become almost like a thought partner in our work,” she said. Empathy is also exploring the ways that AI can provide its members with faster support and resources for the various processes that are involved after the loss of a loved one, including planning funerals, writing obituaries, closing down personal accounts and more, says Ruddock. “I really think about how [AI] can actually drive a much more personalized experience for someone, and in our case, provide much more personalized guidance for someone that is experiencing loss,” Ruddock said. AI can be used to “help humans do what humans do best, and not replace the human experience,” allowing for people to take the time they need to manage grief rather than filling out complex paperwork. “Care in these moments must be continuous. It’s not conditional. It’s not time bound,” said Ruddock. “That’s where technology, alongside a deeply human strategy, can really complement it, and allow that innovation to be sort of human first, but complemented by technology. Not the other way around.”Jennifer Yoshikoshi is a local news and education reporter based in the San Francisco Bay Area.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Empathy, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)

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New Year, New Recruiting: Trends and Tech in 2026 to Optimize Hiring, Screening, and Beyond

BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza December 02, 2025

The HR tech industry continues to introduce new innovations to make hiring smarter, faster, and easier. Yet even as the number of applications per position grows, some talent leaders are rethinking how, and how much, they want to rely on this technology alone.During a From Day One webinar on recruiting trends and technology heading into 2026, talent leaders debated the ways in which tech will automate and augment the hiring process, and how to strike the right balance between human and artificial intelligence. They agreed on this: AI is here to stay, but so is the human touch. What Is Responsible AI?For Kim Stevens, director of talent acquisition at recruiting platform Employ, responsible AI can be defined simply: “It’s technology that supports people. It doesn’t replace them.” In practice, that means AI never overrides human judgment, and a person always makes the final call. It also means the technology can explain itself. When Employ’s AI screening tool flags standout candidates, it provides a clear rationale. This information helps keep the company audit-ready, a legal necessity–and some argue, a moral one.Mike Rockwell, VP of account management at Verified Fist, which conducts employee background checks, added that responsibility also includes security. “If you think about the most popular AI tools people are using, like ChatGPT, if you put something in there, everyone has it,” he said. Sensitive hiring information can’t be treated casually. Employers need to ensure the tools they adopt have the infrastructure to keep candidate data protected.Transparency with candidates is part of responsible AI use. If a company is relying on AI tools for recruiting, they should be upfront about it, Rockwell says. Job seekers who feel misled or entirely cut off from real human interaction aren’t likely to walk away with a positive view of the employer.Journalist and From Day One contributing editor, Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza, moderated the session (photo by From Day One)Erica Wallace, senior talent acquisition manager at HR management software BambooHR, says that some organizations still struggle to formalize internal guidelines. “We can’t say people are breaking the rules if we haven’t established what those rules are,” she said. At BambooHR, guardrails are built directly into internal tools. Even if a recruiter tries to ask the AI who they should hire, the system is designed to decline.Clarity also extends to the candidate experience. Some job seekers assume recruiters haven’t looked at resumes in years, Wallace joked. To counter that perception, her team tells candidates upfront if AI will be used in the interview process and gives them the option to opt out. Every AI-generated decision, from whether to advance a resume to the next round to any ranking of applicants, is still audited by a human.The panelists agreed that it’s always worth questioning whether technology is saving time or quietly creating more work. “That’s something we’re asking all the time,” said Wallace. Her rule of thumb: AI should only be introduced to solve a clearly named problem. Too many vendors, she said, are inventing products for problems that they don’t face. Adopting tech for tech’s sake is a reliable way to burn hours, not reduce them.Some tasks require a combination of the human touch and tech power. Fraud prevention, for instance, has pushed BambooHR back toward more in-person interviews to verify a candidate’s identity. Employ has also increased the amount of screening done by human recruiters. And Stevens cautioned against “over-engineering” the process by letting AI handle too much candidate messaging, especially deeper in the funnel where a personal touch matters most.What Employers Should Focus on in 2026As hiring teams plan for the new year, Stevens encourages leaders to think about candidate communication as a baseline requirement. With so many applicants across industries, it’s common for job seekers to hear nothing or receive only canned responses. “It is our responsibility as humans to treat other humans as such,” she said. AI can help clear the noise and reduce administrative work, but it shouldn’t replace meaningful interaction.That means reinvesting time in the humans doing the hiring. Spend more time with your recruiters, Stevens says. Help them become better interviewers, better communicators, and more empathetic guides in a challenging job market. AI can accelerate workflows, but it can’t build trust or make someone feel valued.Technology should enhance the human element, not erode it, panelists agreed. “We have an obligation to try the best we can to remain human and keep that human element, even with the advancements in technology and AI,” said Stevens. “One way to differentiate is to lead with kindness and empathy in everything you do,” Rockwell said. “There’s someone on the other end that’s trying to get a job because they need to pay bills, they need to feed their kids, they need to be sitting in a seat so they have a career. It’s really easy to forget about that when everything’s happening through a computer.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Employ, for sponsoring this webinar. Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is an independent journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about business and the world of work. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Inc., and Business Insider, among others. She is the recipient of a Virginia Press Association award for business and financial journalism. She is the host of How to Be Anything, the podcast about people with unusual jobs.(Photo by Take Production Studios/Shutterstock)

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Personalizing Onboarding at Scale With Hands-On, Continuous Learning

BY Tabitha Cabrera December 01, 2025

As organizations grow and adopt new technology, delivering onboarding that is both personalized and scalable has become increasingly challenging. Whatfix aims to solve that challenge by helping companies get more value from their digital tools throughout the entire application life cycle, supported by Gen AI. Its product suite includes a digital adoption platform, simulated application environments for hands-on training, and no-code application analytics.“How do we actually get our people to use the technology we invest in, especially in an age of constant updates, new tools and now with the explosion of AI?” asks Sunil Kumar, product marketing specialist at Whatfix. Kumar spoke during a From Day One webinar about “Personalizing Onboarding at Scale With Hands-On, Continuous Learning.”The company has been focused on this challenge since its founding in 2014, and it’s even more relevant in the age of AI. “AI is adding complexity for users rather than reducing it, because it’s centered on the application instead of the user,” said Kumar. Relationships cannot be built with the user if their first experience is one of friction, confusion and complexity. Even after training, many workers struggle to integrate new technology into their daily workforce, Kumar says. Users find it hard to seek help when the poor knowledge retention sets in. “They pause, they search, they ask around, and that’s a direct loss and productivity, not just from themselves, but even the person that they are asking that assistant from,” Kumar said. Getting the Most Out of TrainingSunil Kumar, a strategic product marketing leader at Whatfix, led the webinar (company photo)Kumar emphasized three essentials. First, organizations should leverage L&D technology to enable learning in the flow of work, creating experiences that give employees instant access to the information they need.Second, they should prioritize upskilling and reskilling to bridge skill gaps and improve agility, rather than treating training as a simple completion exercise. And third, they should embrace continuous learning by moving away from one-and-done events and adopting microlearning and ongoing reinforcement to strengthen knowledge retention. “When you execute this strategy, the user is truly at the center,” Kumar said. Restructuring the Onboarding ProcessOne company was able, by using Whatfix, to reduce 19 learning modules to one onboarding course resulting in a 95% automation so that delivery teams could now focus on selling rather than doing manual work, Kumar says. This was done by creating interactive on-demand training in the flow of work, and they were able to create personalized assistance that was specific to the users. Additionally, this client had a global team spread across Europe and the U.S., and they implemented language translation to eliminate the need for manual translation, says Kumar. By implementing these strategies you “create a habit and kind of a rhythm, and it makes work more satisfying when one has the right tools. If you don’t have the tools, it can be emotionally frustrating,” he said. A core value at Whatfix is the importance of userization, the idea of making technology intuitive for users rather than expecting users to become tech savvy.It’s important for companies to keep up with technology, but by making it user friendly, employees face a shorter learning curve during training. Whatfix addresses this challenge by providing technology designed to be intuitive and user savvy, Kumar says. Editor's note: From Day One thanks our partner, Whatfix, for sponsoring this webinar. Tabitha Cabrera, Esq. is a writer and attorney, who has a series of inclusive children's books, called Spectacular Spectrum Books. (Photo by metamorworks/Shutterstock)

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Hiring Reimagined: Driving Trust and Compliance in the Age of AI

BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza December 01, 2025

Companies are increasingly feeling a kind of FOMO (that is, fear of missing out) when it comes to artificial intelligence in hiring, says Adam Vassar, head of talent science and learning design at CodeSignal, the AI-driven skills assessment platform. Just six months ago, many employers were still taking a wait-and-see approach to AI adoption, and some were playing defense against job seekers who were using AI to complete assessments and interviews.Not anymore. Vassar says his clients are asking to pilot new programs. “They’re less afraid about being the first one to make a mistake, and more concerned about the fear of missing out and being left behind,” he said. “It’s been exciting to implement these products, see what problems we can solve, and get real data behind it. The possibilities are limitless.”Vassar joined California-based employment attorney Heather Bussing for a From Day One webinar about fostering trust and ensuring compliance in the age of AI. Together, they outlined how the technology is being deployed, and the risks employers should be aware of. Artificial Intelligence Enters the Recruiting Workflow Companies are deploying AI at three key points in the hiring process, says Vassar.First, top-of-funnel screening. Recruiters are overwhelmed by hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of applications per role and are automating early phone-screen interviews to manage the largest end of the funnel. Second are skills simulations. Companies are building high-fidelity simulations to test on-the-job abilities, giving hiring managers stronger signals about candidate fit.Adam Vassar, head of talent science & learning design at CodeSignal, spoke with moderator Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza during the webinar (company photo)And finally: interview training. AI is being used to train human interviewers by enforcing consistent, structured practices. “We’ve been teaching humans for years,” Vassar said. “Now we’re prompting AI to follow those rules–and they’re much better at it.” And together, they’re getting pretty good.Vassar is adamant that none of this is designed to, nor could it, replace recruiters. Rather, it gives recruiters a team of AIs they can delegate to, freeing recruiters for the higher-order work of decision-making, judgment, and relationship-building. Recruiters are overworked and under-resourced. New tools help them move faster and potentially improve hiring quality.The Legal Questions, and What MattersMany employers still hesitate to adopt AI because they worry about legal exposure. But the risks aren’t new, Bussing says. They’re the same ones that apply to humans: bias and discrimination.“All the data used to train these systems is based on what humans have done, and it is going to be biased too,” she said. “We just need to keep holding AI to the same high standard.”That means employers must regularly audit hiring outcomes–job offers, promotions, and retention rates–through a human and an AI lens. Do your outcomes reflect your applicant pool? Are certain groups over- or under-represented? Some jurisdictions, like New York City, require regular audits; Illinois requires notifying candidates when AI is used; Maryland requires notice and consent before using video analysis.But disclosure requirements have limitations, and employers should be aware, lest they consider it a box-checking exercise with no impact to the candidate. “If you look at the power dynamics in hiring, it’s not a real choice,” Bussing said. A candidate can refuse AI screening, but that may mean giving up the chance at the job.Ensuring Fairness With AI in RecruitmentEmployers can take steps to create more equitable processes. Asking for diverse candidate slates is one step, and assembling diverse interview panels is another. “We are naturally designed to prefer people who look like us and feel like us,” Bussing said. If employers want better diversity, or simply a more diverse skill set, they need recruiters and hiring managers who know how to look for it. Beyond legal compliance, Vassar added, there’s a moral obligation.In this spirit, CodeSignal has adopted its own rigorous fairness standards regardless of jurisdiction. To test itself, the company asks candidates to voluntarily disclose demographic data so it can evaluate outcomes by gender and other factors. “We want that data. We starve for that data,” Vassar said.CodeSignal created its own version of the “Pepsi Challenge”: a blind comparison of AI interview outcomes versus human interview outcomes using the same rubric. Vassar expected wide gaps. “But we found alignment,” said Vassar. In some cases, the overlap between humans and AI was about 85%. This is a good sign, he says.“Humans still need to be in the loop,” Bussing said. “And we have to call out the reality of the situation, not pretend we can come up with a magic formula, and presto: change.” The future of hiring will hinge on disciplined oversight: humans checking the machines, machines checking the humans, and both held to the same rigorous standards. The goal isn’t to make hiring perfect, but to make it fairer and more consistent. A better outcome for both employer and candidate.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, CodeSignal, for sponsoring this webinar. Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is an independent journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about business and the world of work. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Inc., and Business Insider, among others. She is the recipient of a Virginia Press Association award for business and financial journalism. She is the host of How to Be Anything, the podcast about people with unusual jobs.(Photo by SmileStudioAP/iStock)

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From 8 Weeks to 48 Hours: Reimagining Performance Reviews for Real-Time Impact

BY Stephanie Reed November 25, 2025

The standard performance review cycle is an exhaustive process of manual writing, calibration, and the collection of outdated feedback over a drawn-out 6-8 week period. Disillusioned with the process, people leaders at Remote identified its main obstacles: process bottlenecks, a feedback disconnect, and a fragmented process. The company went on to develop a quicker and more effective process: a 48-hour performance cycle. Madeline Grecek, director of global people enablement at Remote shared insights on the innovative process during a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s November virtual conference. She shared how new technology can refine or transform traditional HR strategies and encourage more holistic organizational collaboration.From 8 Weeks to 48 HoursThe traditional performance cycle is flawed despite painstaking effort: there are blind spots, manual writing takes up too much of a manager’s time, and data tends to be fragmented, says Grecek.  Madeline Grecek, director of global people enablement at Remote, led the session (company photo)Remote now runs a performance cycle in just 48 hours. The first day is for reviews and promotion requests; the second is for calibrations that lock in promotion decisions. A combination of the company’s AI-powered tool called Perform, monthly Slack reviews, and an HRIS platform that aligns company and culture goals created this substantial shift in time management.  According to Grecek, moving to continuous reviews is easier than it sounds since monthly snapshots build on time already being spent. “So take one of your one-on-ones. If you have weekly ones, you have four a month. If you have two, you have one a month that you can reinvest into a performance conversation, which you should be doing regularly anyway,” she said. By the end of 6 months, organizations will have saved time and produced more accurate reviews.At Remote, 95% of employees completed their reviews in one day, says Grecek. This is significant, because effective performance reviews boost employee engagement and productivity. “We saved over 7,000 hours by doing this. It was unbelievable. This is the future of performance management,” she said. The Future of Performance ManagementThe 48-hour performance cycle shifts from the traditional annual review cycle. It is a more systematic process with continuous feedback, real-time insights, and data-driven decision-making. “We wanted it to be a data-driven decision mechanism and an engine that could actually help us understand at any moment in time where our organization was in terms of performance health,” Grecek said. Monthly snapshots record ongoing progress, continuous feedback provides richer context, AI facilitates insight-led reviews, real-time performance insights reveal trends, and unified data contribute to a seamless experience. The results are comprehensive and aligned. Streamlined workflows facilitate low-effort continuous engagement, real-time pulses hone in on top performers and underperformers to foster proactive intervention, and transparency helps employees always know their progress. A real-time performance engine integrating AI consolidates and corroborates monthly data points and traces the progress of all employees within an organization. It also uncovers trends in data that may be missed with manual data analysis. Managers can then choose what data is relevant and critical in reviews, says Grecek. “You can mitigate performance issues earlier. You don't need to wait until performance time. And you can imagine that that does translate into cost savings for a business.” Managers can then predict and forecast promotions earlier and stage early interventions when performance is at risk. “We have close to 1,900 employees. We are across 90 plus countries. We are fully remote and we are asynchronous. So you can imagine, this is a lot to undertake, and I feel like, if we can do it in our organization, any organization can do it.”Editor's note: From Day One thanks our partner, Remote, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Stephanie Reed is a freelance news, marketing, and content writer. Much of her work features small business owners throughout diverse industries. She is passionate about promoting small, ethical, and eco-conscious businesses(Photo by BartekSzewczyk/iStock)

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A CHRO’s Playbook for Overcoming Tensions Lurking in the Workplace

BY Paul Kersey November 19, 2025

An employee cries in the car on the way home, overwhelmed by the fear of losing their job. Another worries about bringing workplace stress into family life. Across organizations, HR professionals and managers are noticing a clear drop in morale—one that is taking a tangible toll on their teams.“Employees and employers alike are disengaging, retreating into what researchers call Cold Work, a culture of quiet tension, mistrust and emotional fatigue,” said Steve Koepp, co-founder of From Day One and moderator of a webinar titled, “A CHRO’s Playbook for Overcoming Tensions Lurking in the Workplace.”There are many issues that are tied up in the trend, among them conflicts between flexibility and accountability, complications from the Covid lockdowns as workers return to the office, and concerns about the use of artificial intelligence. But the overarching themes are distrust and alienation.As Matt Dietly, employee experience lead at WongDoody, describes it, subtle, hidden tensions are driving managers and employees apart. They rarely break out into open confrontation, but “it feels like employees and employers are freezing each other out, clinging to survival, sort of waiting for the other side to blink, and it’s giving us so many Cold War vibes that we’ve christened the moment Cold Work,” he said. Employers and employees have always had conflicting interests, Gunny Scarfo, co-founder of Nonfiction Research, observes. Those conflicts have emerged in many different ways: unionization in the early 20th century, stagflation and wages in the 1970s, and outsourcing 20 to 30 years ago. But this time the conflict is less connected to a specific grievance. It’s more general: “they don’t care, so I don’t care,” Scarfo said. Leaders spoke about "A CHRO’s Playbook for Overcoming Tensions Lurking in the Workplace" (photo by From Day One)This mindset is pretty widespread: a Nonfiction Research poll of workers and managers shows that 44% agree that “both are more focused on trying to survive individually than trying to aspire,” said Scarfo. Cold Work manifests itself in many ways. From the financial tech employee who says, ‘I’ve hardly spoken with my boss in the last year,’ to the manager who told his team ‘good news, no layoffs this year’ only to cut staff later on. But they all speak to the absence of camaraderie between managers and employees. In many instances, work has become transactional, we’re not necessarily on the same team anymore.Root Causes and Presenting IssuesIn this atmosphere of mutual distrust, there are a few presenting issues, the speakers shared. From frequent changes in technology and tools to ongoing debates over where work gets done, the workplace is experiencing heightened stress, uncertainty, and a growing disconnect between employees and management.Companies can mandate a return to the office, but if they do “the workplace must deliver value, and that office experience must be seamless, so the return to work should be intuitive, frictionless, motivating.  And that’s the responsibility of the employer,” said Joe Duffy, senior business development manager, EMEA at WongDoody.Further, there is a tension between flexibility and accountability. Workers want the freedom to work in a way that makes sense for them, while employers prefer predictability and consistency, says Duffy. But micromanagement leads workers to believe that they are not valued or trusted. Employers often “tend to think of a request for flexibility as some sort of directive to do less work, to be less productive,” said Tarik West, SVP of people at Blue Acorn iCi.An End to Cold WorkRigid, inflexible work drains productivity and eats into profits. Focus groups and anonymous feedback systems can help pinpoint problem areas. It’s worth exploring creative ways to balance flexibility with accountability—they don’t have to be at odds. Even small gestures, like allowing an afternoon off during the week in exchange for making up time at home over the weekend, can build goodwill.But attitude is more important than any particular program. The key is to restore trust and confidence, and the only way to do that is with transparency. Dealing with things head-on is best over the long run, even if nothing can be done to address a worker's objections. “There will always be fixed points in the business, things that we can’t do, and you can’t be afraid to share bad news,” said West. After all, the issue is really trust above all else, and the best way to regain it is to be honest and open. With frank communication and a little flexibility distrust should abate, putting workers and managers back on the same side.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, WongDoody, for sponsoring this webinar. Paul Kersey is a former attorney and freelance writer based in Chicago, IL.(Photo by Prostock-Studio/iStock)

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Beyond ‘Thank You’: How Recognizing Small Wins Transforms Culture and Engagement

BY Katie Chambers November 18, 2025

“Has anyone ever been visited by the Sunday scaries?” asked Brie Harvey, head of market research for Achievers Workforce Institute. Yes, indeed, responded many in her audience. Many workers feel burned out, overworked, and underappreciated. Fortunately, employers have an opportunity to transform their culture through impactful employee-rewards strategy, Harvey said during a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s Boston conference.  Despite employers spending nearly $200 billion annually on rewards and recognition, less than half of employees feel valued at work. Harvey shared insights from the Achievers’ 2025 State of Recognition Report, exploring the evolving landscape of employee rewards, and uncovered the most common reasons why many well-intended investments in traditional rewards programs fall flat and fail to drive cultural and behavioral outcomes.Harvey’s team conducts primary research around workforce trends and how organizations can build people centric high performing cultures. Employees in today’s market tend to move jobs often, Harvey says, joking that her own impending 10-year work anniversary is “the modern equivalent of 30.” Keeping employees engaged and valued is key to keeping them. “When employees feel appreciated for their unique contributions, it’s transformative, not just for the business, but for the overall quality of people’s lives,” Harvey said. Achievers Workforce Institute’s study found that employees who feel valued are nine times more likely to feel a sense of belonging, six times more likely to envision a long-term future with their company, and three times more likely to be engaged.Recognizing employees is the simplest way to improve employee engagement. While four out of 10 HR leaders claim that recognition has impacted strategic outcomes, Harvey says, 77% of employees still don’t feel meaningfully appreciated, even those who work at an organization with formal recognition programs. Harvey and her team have developed a checklist of qualities of the most impactful recognition programs: High recognition quality + quantityMeasure business impact strategicallyProvide personalized rewards at scaleStrong executive buy-in and participation Continuous education and promotionLeader and manager empowerment Designate program championsWidespread access“When things fall flat, which sometimes they do, we can pretty much always trace it back to missed opportunities from this list,” Harvey said.High Recognition Quality and QuantityHarvey emphasizes the importance in leaders understanding the difference between praise and recognition. “Praise is a vague pat on the back that doesn’t leave people with an understanding of what they did that was good and literally no one wants more praise…not even Gen Z! Recognition, on the other hand, should contain detailed information about exactly what a person did and why that behavior matters to the bigger picture,” Harvey said. “When employees say they want more feedback, most of the time, they mean they want more clarity about whether the work they’re doing is correct and matters on some level.”Brie Harvey, head of market research for Achievers Workforce Institute, Achievers, led the thought leadership spotlight on effective recognition Having a sense of progress fuels motivation and feelings of pride, joy, and confidence. “Recognition shouldn’t be reserved for big milestones and outcomes. It should be about noticing meaningful effort and celebrating the small wins that lead to big outcomes,” she said. “Specificity is key.” In terms of quantity, “nothing in life works without consistent effort over time,” Harvey said, recognition included. Achievers found that recognition must be received at least monthly to be impactful. To reach optimal frequency, Harvey suggests encouraging peer-to-peer recognition, promoting meaningful non-monetary recognition, and fostering a rewards agnostic culture. “Leaders and managers can’t do it alone. Organizations have to enlist the help of frontline employees to call out the good work they see being done around them.” And the numbers don’t lie: Employees who receive monthly peer recognition are twice as likely to feel a sense of belonging, and engagement increases by 43% when employees receive just one non-monetary recognition per month, says Harvey. While pay raises are important, 75% of employees say they would pick feeling valued over a bump in compensation.Meaningful Rewards Lead to Positive Business and Personal Impact  Achievers’ own rewards program is a prime example of meaningful rewards, says Harvey. In addition to frequent recognition, the company provides points for new hire referrals, completing wellness challenges, and participating in training and development, then allows employees to spend their points, often worth thousands of dollars when accrued, in a digital catalogue featuring a myriad of products.Employees are empowered to choose whatever reward is uniquely meaningful to them. For example, Harvey once used her points to cover the cost of her hair and makeup, dress alterations, jewelry, additional attire, and photographer at her wedding. She shares that another worker used the program to adopt a French Bulldog. In other words, a reward should feel like a reward to you. Achievers’ research shows that employees with expansive rewards options are 70% more likely to recommend their employer as a great place to work, 75% more likely to feel productive, and 120% more likely to feel a strong sense of belonging at their organization. The rewards are the “delivery mechanism,” Harvey says, for a culture of appreciation. Along the way, it’s important to keep tabs and measure the impact of your rewards program to gauge its effectiveness and adjust as needed. “How you measure success should evolve along with your business needs and priorities,” Harvey said. Once a rewards program is ingrained in your culture,  she says, you can start to home in on how it’s impacting business outcomes.Harvey highlights two tips for measuring the impact of recognition: isolating variables to move beyond simple correlations and focusing on metrics that matter to stakeholders beyond HR.These factors are crucial to attaining stakeholder support and future budget for rewards. “Mislabeling the tool of recognition as a nice-to-have vitamin instead of a performance-enhancing steroid is enormously costly to not just the bottom line, but overall employee well-being,” Harvey said. To demonstrate the potential highly personal impact of rewards on employee well-being, Harvey shares that she also used her own company rewards points to fund her final vacation and time spent with her late husband, who passed away from glioblastoma. “Shortly after my husband’s first surgery, he insisted on trying to find me the perfect bike upgrade so we could pack in as many adventures as we could for as long as we could. I used my points to get a bike, and we were able to log hundreds of miles all over California before our time together had to come to an end,” Harvey said. “Every time I see this bike, I think about not just my husband’s resilience, but how grateful I am to work at a place where I feel so valued and meaningfully rewarded.” Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Achievers, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. 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.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)

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Students Feel Ready for the Workplace. Managers See a Gap. What Now?

BY Kristen Kwiatkowski November 17, 2025

How prepared are students really for the post-graduate job market?  Nearly 98% of students feel confident in their professional communication and 85% feel they’re ready to learn new tools on the job; however, 60% of employers have fired a Gen Z employee, according to a recent study.“Clearly there’s a disconnect between the actual skill-readiness and the perceived skill-readiness,” said Stéphanie Durand, VP of strategic partnerships at CodeSignal, a skills assessment and AI-powered learning tool company. Durand shared insights on this solvable disconnect during a thought leadership spotlight titled, “Students Feel Ready. Managers Disagree. What Now?” at From Day One’s Midtown conference. New innovations that occur daily increase pressure on candidates to have the right job skills. At the same time, employers may rely on traditional hiring methods, such as CVs and the applicant’s school, rather than focusing on actual skills. “This career readiness gap, as I like to call it, has a real impact,” said Durand.Especially amid advancements in AI and other workplace shifts, many entry-level hires feel unprepared, according to recent research. “You can imagine the type of pressure it causes from a performance perspective,” said Durand. The data shows it’s more around soft skills than technical skills, she says. “We keep talking about technical skills evolving every day and AI, but soft skills are actually a real gap.”Another impact of the career readiness gap, says Durand, is the cost of hiring and retraining as someone who may be less prepared will require more mentoring. The Reality of Being Lifelong Learners Stéphanie Durand, VP of strategic partnerships at CodeSignal, led the sessionAnother big change is that we’ve all become lifelong learners. In the past, we used to go to school, get a degree, and choose our career path. Today, skills are quickly evolving, says Durand.  “I think the average shelf life of a skill is 18 months,” she said. “This may have even gone lower with GenAI.”With this in mind, it’s important to continuously upskill to keep up with the skills and even go beyond what universities offer by providing avenues for employees to continuously learn, says Durand.However, Durand cautions that the learning options available to employees may not always be effective. “There’s too much training that is very off-the-shelf, video-based, theoretical, and really doesn’t align to the skills that employees need,” said Durand. Durand highlights the point by providing the example of learning to play an instrument or to play tennis and how you need to practice these skills to really learn them. Simply watching a video on the topic won’t be enough. How Companies Ensure a Ready-to-Work HireThere are three main ways that companies turn a ready-or-not hire into a ready-to-work hire: skills assessment, closing the skills gap, and AI leverage, says Durand. Skills verification is the first best practice, whether for hiring or evaluating your early talent that joins the team. Focus on core skills, not as much on specialized skills, because you may overlook some great hires otherwise. Next, try to avoid multiple choice questions, as these may not really give you an objective assessment of a skill. You should also ensure that when using an assessment that it’s fair and consistent. Durand states that any assessments that are validated by I/O psychologists may be good options. Once you’ve assessed your future hires and noted any skills gaps, you want to close the skills gap. This can be accomplished by hands-on, practical learning interventions rather than multiple choice questions as the former provides a good way to close the skills gap and evaluate potential hires, says Durand.AI can also be a game changer, Durand says. Using an AI tutor enhances learning by providing active feedback, helping individuals prepare for job roles or improving experiential learning for new hires. Unlike passive videos, this approach guides users on how to improve specific skills and job duties.The Future Looks Bright“There’s a lot of uncertainty but also a lot of opportunity ahead,” says Durand.To illustrate the impact of hands-on learning, Durand shared a case study. eBay runs a program for potential interns where participants complete a coding skills assessment before and after the program, and the results are striking, with scores showing a significant jump after the hands-on experience.“Pairing the assessment of skills of your workforce, really being intentional about the type of learning you deploy, and then reassessing again is really where we see eBay as an example, but a lot of companies are going in that direction, too,” said Durand. There is so much happening in universities and in the workplace that gives Durand hope and confidence, including competency-based education, real-world experiences that prepare students for employer expectations, and helping future graduates understand the language of the corporate world.Editor's note: From Day One thanks our partner, CodeSignal, 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 Eater Philly, Edible Lehigh Valley, Cider Culture, and The Town Dish. (Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)