Brand Worlds Are the Next Marketing Frontier
BY Grace Turney April 29, 2026Chad Reynolds spent 25 years traveling the world to understand consumers. He interviewed people in their homes, in markets, in unfamiliar cities, only to return and watch those hard-won insights get second-guessed in a conference room. The problem was never the ideas; it was the room itself.“I always dreaded entering this room,” Reynolds recalled, describing the classic focus group setup. “It wasn’t the people, I love people. It was just, they had no real context for what we were trying to solve. It was luck of the draw.”That frustration became the foundation for Vurvey Labs, the AI company Reynolds founded and now leads as CEO. During a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s Silicon Valley marketing conference, Reynolds laid out a sweeping vision for what he calls “people models,” or AI systems built not from scraped internet data, but from millions of real human voices, emotions, and behaviors. His argument: companies that keep treating AI as a productivity tool are missing the bigger opportunity entirely.Real, Synthetic, and SurrealReynolds frames the current AI landscape as operating across two modes: the “real” world, where human beings live, feel, and act irrationally, and the “synthetic” world, where AI agents and simulated environments do what they’re programmed to do. Most companies, he says, are stuck at one pole or the other.The more interesting territory, he says, lies between them—a space he calls “surreal.” Borrowing from the artistic movement that sought to surface unconscious, dreamlike states, Reynolds uses the term to describe a mode of thinking and building where human experience and artificial intelligence genuinely synthesize.Chad Reynolds, CEO & Founder of Vurvey Labs, led the thought leadership spotlight in Silicon Valley “Surrealism actually started as a writing movement, not painting,” he said. “When you think about how we experience the world in different ways, to truly take advantage of what AI can do, you have to live in that surreal space, because that’s where all the messy stuff happens. Where a consumer likes something one minute, and completely changes their mind the next.”Most AI systems, Reynolds says, are optimized for language but not for people. Large language models are trained on internet data that skews toward the average, producing what he calls “the mean,” the top of the bell curve. “That’s great,” he said, “but I want the edges. I want the whole bell curve. That’s where the gold lives—in the people who see the world differently.”Building a Haystack of NeedlesVurvey Labs takes a different architectural approach. The company, whose name is short for “video survey,” holds a patent on a video-based survey method that pushes questions to the phones and devices of more than 3 million people around the world. Their responses, including not just text but also video and emotional expression, feed into what Reynolds calls a “people model” rather than a conventional language model.From that foundation, the platform generates synthetic consumer populations, not single AI personas, but thousands of distinct individuals drawn from real behavioral and contextual data. The goal is to move consumer insight beyond the familiar archetype of “Jane,” a persona trapped in a PowerPoint deck, and into something dynamic.“What if Jane could talk back?” Reynolds said. “What if it wasn’t just Jane, but thousands of other Janes with all different types of lived experience, from all over the world, who could give you feedback?”The platform is already in use at scale. Unilever, an early adopter, has rolled it out across more than 30 markets and all major categories—generating AI populations of consumers for brands like Dove and Hellmann’s, says Reynolds. Rather than restricting consumer insights to research teams, the approach lets product, marketing, and innovation staff across the company test and develop ideas directly with simulated consumer segments.“We always talk about being consumer-centered or consumer-obsessed,” Reynolds said. “This has been an amazing way for companies to have their senior leaders say: here is the consumer. We’re distributing them to everybody in the company.”Focusing on Audience Specificity and PreferencesOne of the more striking applications Reynolds shared was what Vurvey Labs calls the “neuroverse,” a population of neurodivergent consumers built from recruited participants across the autism spectrum, with ADHD, dyslexia, and other conditions, including non-verbal individuals and those who contributed via sign language.The motivation, Reynolds says, goes beyond inclusion as a value. More than 53% of Gen Z identify as neurodivergent, he noted. For any brand targeting that generation, ignoring the neurodivergent population means missing roughly half the audience, and potentially designing communications that simply don’t land.During this past year’s Super Bowl, Vurvey Labs ran the entire ad lineup through the neuroverse population in parallel with the general public. The results diverged significantly. The Budweiser commercial ranked first in USA Today’s Ad Meter among the general audience. Among the neurodivergent population, it scored far lower. The gap, Reynolds says, is precisely the kind of signal that traditional focus groups and even most AI tools would never surface.“It wasn’t to critique the ad,” he said. “It’s just to understand, as you’re trying to design stories, how do you actually engage the entire audience? You don’t need to be relevant for everyone, but you should understand how to be more accessible and how to deliver a message that lands.”The same logic drives other niche populations the company has built, including a database of nearly 47,000 contractors for a major home improvement retailer, enabling that company to test concepts, loyalty programs, and product ideas with a hard-to-reach audience at scale and in real time. Simulation as Standard PracticeReynolds predicts that within three to six months, the word “simulation” will become ubiquitous in business conversations—a shift as significant as when “cloud” or “platform” entered the mainstream lexicon. The analogy he reaches for is Sim City: a world you build, control, and test inside before committing to it in the real one.“Rather than the rest of the world having access to it, you and your team have access to it,” he said. “You can test ideas. You can build things. You can explore the future.”He was careful to frame the technology not as a replacement for human research, but as a complement to it. Vurvey Labs runs ongoing validation studies, comparing what its populations surface against findings from interviews with actual humans. What has surprised even Reynolds’ team is that the AI populations sometimes raise themes that humans don’t explicitly name – but immediately confirm when those themes are reflected back to them.“They just didn’t want to talk about them,” he said. “So what can we learn by understanding what’s in the subtext of what our consumers are saying? Can we actually increase what we’re discovering?”The design school metaphor Reynolds keeps returning to captures the spirit of what he’s building: a system where you put your idea on the wall and let a diverse, critical audience tear it apart, not to discourage creation, but to sharpen it. The difference is that the audience now numbers in the thousands, spans the globe, and is available at any hour.“For us to get somewhere new,” Reynolds said, “we need people models to exist. It’s less about a tool, and more like entire worlds we’re building.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Vurvey Labs, 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.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)
Stop Chasing AI, Fix Your Content Foundations First
BY Kristen Kwiatkowski April 28, 2026Chasing AI at scale can just as easily create problems at scale. That’s why you need to focus on your content foundations first before putting AI to good use. There is pressure as AI raises expectations, but a clear gap remains: most content foundations were not built to scale. The good news is that this creates an opportunity. With the right foundation in place, AI can deliver on its promise. These topics were explored during a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s Silicon Valley marketing conference, in a conversation between Misti Vogt, SVP of engagement at Orange Logic, and Kathleen Cameron, senior digital asset operations manager in marketing operations at Google.“Everyone is being pushed to adopt AI faster,” said Vogt. “From your perspective, what do marketing leaders need to understand before they invest further?”Cameron highlighted that the importance of understanding the underlying architecture and making sure those foundations and governance are in place are key components. “You’re going to want to string all of that data together from all of your different tools and that's where you’re going to get a lot of that benefit from those AI tools to get either the analytics or understand how to make those quick changes to those assets to improve performance out in the market,” said Cameron. Without those foundations, you’re making things up as you go without the benefit of the data, Cameron says. As for the difference between an organization that experiments with AI and one that builds the foundation to benefit from it, Cameron says the two can exist in parallel. Experimentation is valuable, but organizations also need to account for regulatory compliance, which requires a more careful approach. You can experiment in a controlled environment and figure out where AI can benefit you. If you don’t have a strategy, look at what your information architecture is.Misti Vogt, SVP of engagement at Orange Logic, spoke with Kathleen Cameron, senior digital assets operations manager, marketing operations at GoogleMeanwhile, there is a strong push to deploy AI widely while personnel budgets are being cut, but information security teams are urging caution, saying it is not ready for broad use yet, Vogt says. That leaves operators stuck in the middle. “So, this is where experimentation and creating those guardrails allows you to continue to move forward while you're making sure that the security team has all the information they need to feel comfortable,” said Vogt.“I think we’re all feeling the friction of the tools evolving so quickly,” said Cameron. “I’ve had the experience of tools changing throughout my career, but not at this speed. And we want to embrace new tech, and I think we just need to do it more responsibly and thoughtfully,” she said. When people come to Vogt with questions about AI, she first asks what problem they are trying to solve. Once that is clear, the path forward becomes more focused and manageable.How Content Is Created and ManagedAs for what assumptions marketing teams should rethink, particularly around how they create and manage content, Cameron says the way content is produced is changing rapidly. It is important to examine every component, including copy, video, and photography.She emphasized the need for caution, especially when it comes to existing agreements and rights holders, in order to protect the brand and its reputation. Teams also need to stay alert to new regulations as they emerge.“Every piece of content that exists for your business should understand when it was created, why it was created, how much it cost to create, which teams engaged with it, how it went to market, and how it was recomposed,” agreed Vogt. “Throughout the entire content journey, there’s a lot of value there, regardless of the audience or channel,” said Vogt. “Localization is a big one. I think everyone in this room has some kind of localization effort underway, and many are working with third-party localization agencies, but the rules are pretty similar. As long as we track those rules and can dynamically compose the elements, it starts to streamline the process and allows creatives to do what they love to do, which is be creative.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Orange Logic, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Kristen Kwiatkowski is a professional freelance writer covering a wide array of industries, with a focus on food and beverage and business. Her work has been featured in the Bucks County Herald, Eater Philly, Edible Lehigh Valley, Cider Culture, and The Town Dish. (Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)
How to Support Employees Through Rapidly Changing Times: Top HR Priorities
BY Kristen Kwiatkowski April 27, 2026When priorities shift, structures evolve, or new expectations take hold, employees are often left figuring out what to do first and how to keep up. That’s where HR can make the difference, helping turn uncertainty into something people can actually navigate.Janine Yancey, founder and CEO of Emtrain, an online compliance and culture training with workforce analytics company, provided insight on this topic during a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s Silicon Valley conference. She offered insight into four distinct ways that HR professionals can help their team adjust to rapidly changing times. Business transformation, especially when technology begins to automate roles once handled entirely by people, forces employees to adapt quickly. At the same time, HR leaders are navigating a mix of new workforce technologies, reorganizations and reductions in force, gaps in management skills, and growing pressure on culture and engagement.The Top HR PrioritiesNew technology is the first top HR priority, especially with AI. As more companies utilize AI, it’s important to ensure your team is proficient with AI tools and determine what the work ratio looks like and what the outcomes are. Go to other departments and teams to shadow, assist, and observe what’s going on in these other teams.Once you feel confident that your team is proficient with the new technology, the next step is to see how the employee roles might shift, says Yancey. “My recommendation is to be proactive,” she said. Yancey recommends that HR leaders assess what their teams can do differently with new technology in place, then evaluate each role to redesign the organization accordingly and bring that plan proactively to the C-suite. “For decades, HR leaders have been wanting to be the true business partner to the executives,” said Yancey. “And there is no year like this year that gives us all an opportunity to do that.”The next priority is to understand the capabilities of your managers—they’re the glue that basically holds the organization together, says Yancey. “Can the managers lead a diverse, multigenerational team?” asked Yancey. “Do they know how to develop? Do they know how to coach?”Managers who appear to have the strongest leadership skills, based on employee feedback, are often those with the fewest compliance issues. Strengthening these outcomes can be supported through targeted management training.Janine Yancey, founder and CEO of Emtrain, led the sessionManagement training can also help leaders more accurately identify compliance issues and address them effectively with their teams. As organizations invest in management and leadership development, the focus should be on both measuring and building leadership capabilities so managers, leaders, and individual contributors can operate in the most productive and effective way possible, she says.It’s important to try to ask periodic questions in annual management and compliance training. Ask people what’s happening on their teams and map the employee sentiment to behaviors and teams. This will help you know what’s really going on among the teams.Finally, a culture of respect often requires additional attention during periods of business transformation. It’s important to be intentional about integrating programs so they work together in a more holistic way. For example, initiatives like annual culture surveys, leader and manager training, and coaching and development should be viewed as part of a connected system that provides a clearer picture of what’s really happening across the organization, says Yancey. It’s also essential to use data to identify which managers need the most support. With better insights, HR leaders can be more strategic about where they focus their time and effort, ultimately driving stronger outcomes.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Emtrain, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight.Kristen Kwiatkowski is a professional freelance writer covering a wide array of industries, with a focus on food and beverage and business. Her work has been featured in the Bucks County Herald, Eater Philly, Edible Lehigh Valley, Cider Culture, and The Town Dish. (Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)
Beyond AI Literacy: Three Ways People Teams Can Lead AI Transformations
BY Carrie Snider April 22, 2026Leaders know they need to adopt AI. But how to actually make that shift can be unclear. At the From Day One Live 2026 event in Silicon Valley, Tigran Sloyan, CEO and co-founder of CodeSignal, outlined how organizations can move beyond basic awareness to true AI fluency.His core point: AI isn’t just another tool. It’s a technology transformation, which is something every company has faced before.“Every time we’ve created new technology, we have to teach humans how to use that technology, and that essentially became a job,” he said.History backs this up. The printing press technology reshaped work. The same happened with typewriters and computers. Tasks evolved, and people learned new ways of working. AI is simply the next chapter. “The next phase of AI will do the same thing for the jobs today, where many of the jobs today become tasks of tomorrow.”For people teams, that raises a pressing question: how do you prepare a workforce for something that’s changing this fast?The Role of People TeamsTigran Sloyan, CEO & co-founder of CodeSignal, led the sessionHR and people leaders are at the center of this shift, whether they feel ready or not. According to Sloyan, their role comes down to two priorities: First, define how AI applies to their specific organization. Second, use AI to improve workflows, making work better, faster, and more efficient The challenge is speed. AI adoption is happening quickly and unevenly across organizations.“Doing both of these things is incredibly difficult,” Sloyan said, “because the timeline is highly compressed.” Structure matters. His framework breaks the process into three steps: assess, develop, and deploy. Here’s the three steps to lead AI transformations. Step One: Assess SkillsBefore you can train people, you need to understand where they stand.Sloyan compared AI assessment to learning how to drive. A written test might confirm basic knowledge, but it doesn’t prove someone can actually operate a car. “Imagine how much worse the streets would be,” he said. To get a license, a person must actually get behind the wheel and show the instructor their skills.The same applies to AI. Multiple-choice quizzes can measure familiarity, but they don’t capture real capability. Instead, organizations need practical, hands-on evaluation.“At its core, assessing skills starts from: Can you simulate it?”For example, instead of asking recruiters what they know about AI, place them in realistic scenarios: Gathering job requirements, sourcing candidates, closing hires. Then observe how they actually use AI in those moments.The same approach works across functions. Sales teams can practice negotiations. Customer service teams can handle simulated interactions. The goal is simple: see in-the-moment performance, not just knowledge. Because across any workforce, AI ability varies widely, even in companies pushing adoption aggressively. Without proper assessment, you’re guessing.Step Two: Develop AI Literacy at ScaleOnce you know where people are, the next step is helping them improve at scale. Many organizations struggle because employees aren’t starting from the same place, and they don’t learn at the same pace.“Instead of assuming that everybody is going to be learning at the same pace, you have to continuously measure,” Sloyan said.Hands-on learning becomes critical. Simulations allow employees to practice real tasks while building confidence and skill. More importantly, they create measurable progress.AI literacy isn’t one-size-fits-all. What it means for a recruiter differs from what it means for an engineer or a salesperson. It depends on the role, the company, and the context. That’s why ongoing measurement matters. It ensures no one falls behind—and highlights where additional support is needed.Step Three: Deploy AI Across the Talent LifecycleThe final step is continual learning. AI skills are always changing. As technology evolves, so must the workforce. That means embedding learning into the entire employee lifecycle, not treating it as a one-time initiative. Assessment feeds development. Development feeds application. And the cycle repeats.At CodeSignal, this process is supported by an AI assistant named Cosmo the corgi, which guides employees through assessments and hands-on learning. While the tool itself may vary by organization, the principle is what matters: make learning continuous, interactive, and adaptable. Because even once employees reach proficiency, the target keeps moving.Ultimately, says Sloyan, AI reshapes how people work. Organizations that succeed won’t be the ones that simply adopt AI tools, but the ones that invest in helping their people adapt alongside them. That starts with understanding skills, building them intentionally, and reinforcing them over time. Technology transformations have always required humans to evolve. AI is no different. The difference now is speed and the opportunity for people teams to lead the way.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, CodeSignal, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Carrie Snider is a Phoenix-based journalist and marketing copywriter.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)
Are Your Employee Rewards Costing More Than You Think?
BY Christopher O'Keeffe April 21, 2026Employee-recognition programs are intended to boost morale, strengthen retention, and reinforce culture. But many organizations may be unknowingly reducing the impact of those efforts through the way rewards are delivered.At From Day One’s Boston benefits conference, Tray Ross, VP of growth at Corporate Traditions, said common incentives such as gift cards, bonuses, and other cash equivalents often create avoidable tax consequences, payroll complexity, and employee frustration. His message to HR leaders: appreciation programs should feel rewarding to employees while remaining efficient and compliant for the business.Ross says he frequently hears from HR leaders who begin the year energized to launch or refresh employee-recognition initiatives. “They get super pumped that this is going to be the year they roll out an employee recognition program or revamp it,” he said. But once rewards begin reaching employees, confusion can follow when the value is reduced through taxation or the program becomes harder to understand than expected. “Employees don’t understand,” he said. That disconnect can turn a positive gesture into a frustrating experience while creating extra work for managers and payroll teams.The Hidden Cost of Cash Rewards and an Overlooked Opportunity Many organizations underestimate the real cost of taxable rewards, says Ross. Employers may choose to gross up the value so employees receive the intended amount, or allow taxes to reduce what employees ultimately receive. He added that when taxes are passed through to employees, “they don't see the entire value or benefit.”Ross pointed to de minimis fringe benefits as a lesser-known tax-code opportunity that may allow certain modest, infrequent tangible gifts to be excluded from payroll tax obligations. “These particular types of gifts can be excluded from payroll tax,” he said.He referenced occasions such as holidays, birthdays, work anniversaries, and service awards as examples of moments where organizations may have more flexibility in how they recognize employees.The Importance of ChoiceRoss acknowledged that many organizations default to familiar branded merchandise because it is easy to approve and easy to repeat. “You guys have enough t-shirts that have your company logo on it, or sweaters, umbrellas, and mugs.”But he says that appreciation becomes more meaningful when employees can choose items they actually want. “They don’t want another umbrella. They want to be able to get what they want off of their Amazon wish list.”Programs built around catalogs or e-commerce-style selection tools, he says, can still remain compliant while improving the employee experience.Recognition systems should also reflect the realities of today’s workforce, whether employees are remote, hybrid, or in-office. Ross said ease of use matters for both employees and administrators. “You want to keep it easy and simple.” The right program, he says, should scale from a single team to an enterprise-wide initiative without creating unnecessary training or operational burden.Ross summarized what effective recognition partners should deliver: practical compliance support without losing the emotional value of appreciation.“The best recognition partners keep the compliance under control, but the gratitude visible, by allowing employees to get what they want.” For employers balancing budget pressure, employee expectations, and tax complexity, that combination may be the real key to successful recognition.Appreciation should not create hidden costs or unnecessary headaches, says Ross. “We want you to win, and tax free gifting is the best way to make it happen.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Corporate Traditions, 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 Josh Larson for From Day One)
The Employees You Don’t Hear From: Why Backup Care Breaks Down at Work
BY Kristen Kwiatkowski April 16, 2026Family care needs aren’t just occasional. Many employees are ongoing caregivers for children, parents, or other relatives. When support falls short, stress rises and PTO gets stretched. So why does backup care break down, and how can employers fix it?This was the topic of discussion at a From Day One webinar titled, “The Employees You Don’t Hear From: Why Backup Care Breaks Down at Work,” led by Jess Brown, vice president of marketing for Cariloop.Employers are turning to solutions such as Cariloop, an employer-sponsored caregiving benefit that helps to provide solutions for working parents and caregivers, and other avenues that help caregiving employees with their multifaceted needs. Caregiving Support IssuesDee Brown, TV personality, freelance reporter, and session moderator, stated that the system isn’t working the way that we had hoped it would. “73% of the workforce is caring for someone and nearly half say finding last minute care is very difficult. Additionally, 48% of employers offer caregiving support but only 36% offer backup child care,” said Dee Brown. As a caregiver, she can relate to the need for caregiving options all too well. The state of caregiving is a multifaceted problem and system under intense pressure due to an increased demand and lessened supply, says Jess Brown. She stated there are two types of caregiving supply including family caregivers and professional caregivers. Family caregivers are individuals caring for their family members and this has a direct impact on employment as these individuals are often pursuing a full-time job while handling caregiving duties. Professional caregivers for adult care have been facing shortages and 48 states have reported shortages, according to AARP. “More professionals are leaving the field than are entering the field,” said Jess Brown. Jess Brown is the VP of marketing at Cariloop, a comprehensive caregiving solution for employees (company photo)“The good news is that data is showing us that new licensed child care centers are slowly coming back and rebuilding a little bit year over year,” said Jess Brown. However, waitlists are an issue for parents seeking child care centers and there is an average of 6 months to 2 years on a waitlist. In addition, the cost issue is problematic as well since higher demand than supply equals higher cost, she says.Beyond caring for children, many people aren’t prepared to care for aging parents, making it a daunting responsibility that employers should take seriously.There have been changes in workforce participation in the past few years, says Jess Brown. Women’s workforce participation rates have reduced whereas men’s have started to slightly increase. This may be due to women opting out of the workforce or not being able to work due to caregiving duties.Employers should pay close attention to employees’ caregiving responsibilities, as added stress can impact productivity and drive costs tied to absenteeism and turnover. Care demands can lead to leaves of absence, burnout, mental health challenges, and exhaustion.There are also early signs of backup care breaking down. Employees dealing with issues at home may be distracted at work and more prone to burnout. More visible signals include missed work, increased claims related to family needs, and employees leaving the workforce altogether, says Jess Brown.Why Caregiving Support Benefits Matter There are three core areas of caregiving benefits. The first is backup care, an employer-subsidized benefit that provides temporary solutions when regular care falls through, helping reduce unplanned time away from work. The second is caregiver support, which addresses broader challenges across all life stages, from navigating a parent’s new health diagnosis to finding child care. Lastly, caregiving benefits can include access to discounts and resources, such as marketplaces and child care centers.Traditional backup care models often fall short because, while they help employees search for care, supply is limited, says Jess Brown. The provider networks employers select may also not meet the specific needs of employees and their families. In addition, she said, “we need to invest in programs where 100% of the dollars allocated to sponsoring caregiving costs go directly to the care provider.”Return on investment is an important consideration with caregiving benefits. It includes soft ROI, such as reducing stress that can lead to health issues for employees, and hard ROI, such as measurable improvements in clinical outcomes. Dollar-for-dollar savings should also be part of the equation, says Jess Brown.As for how employers should get started considering the impact of caregiving benefits, they can compare leave claims between those who used caregiving benefits and those who didn’t. Survey data can also be consulted to come up with information regarding caregiving benefits and unplanned leave. The best way for employers to evaluate new or updated caregiving programs is to take advantage of their benefit consultants and ask the right questions regarding planned investments and desired returns.Providing the Benefits That Matter MostWhen asked how these benefits can be used when they matter most, Jess Brown emphasized the need for strong promotion. Employees can’t use programs they don’t know about, and access must be quick and seamless.For organizations new to caregiving benefits, impact can be measured through cost savings if a program is already in place, or by tracking reductions in missed work if one is not. Surveys and year-over-year analysis can also provide insight, she says. Companies that get these programs right tend to see stronger retention. Success often comes from refining offerings to fit both employee needs and budget, sometimes even resulting in cost savings.Jess Brown also noted a disconnect that can exist between the care networks offered and what’s actually available or comfortable for employees to use. In some cases, people don’t even identify themselves as caregivers, which limits uptake.Finally, she stressed that caregiving challenges aren’t solved overnight. Employers need to invest in support and be patient in seeing results. Employee sentiment can be tracked through engagement surveys and qualitative feedback, alongside honest, transparent communication.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Cariloop, for sponsoring this webinar. Kristen Kwiatkowski is a professional freelance writer covering a wide array of industries, with a focus on food and beverage and business. Her work has been featured in the Bucks County Herald, Eater Philly, Edible Lehigh Valley, Cider Culture, and The Town Dish.(Photo by jacoblund/iStock)
Building Meaningful Support From Maternity Leave Through Return to Work
BY Grace Turney April 14, 2026As soon as Lauren Smith returned from maternity leave after her first child, she encountered a question that still makes her shake her head: “Is your baby sleeping through the night?” She had just come back after four months away. Her baby was barely old enough to begin sleep training. “That’s impossible,” she remembered thinking, “unless you have one of that very small percentage of babies that do.”It sounds like a small moment, a well-meaning but clueless question from a colleague. But for Smith, senior director at Maven Clinic, it represented something fundamental about how companies misread the return-to-work experience for new parents. They think the hard part is the leave itself.They’re wrong.That insight anchored a From Day One webinar titled, “From Maternity to Return to Work.” Shern-Min Chow, journalist and founder of Smart Media Content, moderated the conversation with Smith, who drew on more than seven years at Maven, during which she also had two children, to share what meaningful postpartum and return-to-work support actually requires.Fragmented Care Is a Core ProblemFor HR leaders, the challenge of building family benefits often resembles what Smith called “a game of Whack-a-Mole,” pulling one lever to address breastfeeding support, another for mental health, another for parenting resources, none of them connected. The experience for employees on the receiving end is just as disjointed, she says.Lauren Smith is a senior director at Maven Clinic, the world’s largest virtual clinic for women and families (company photo)“When your baby is born, frankly, that’s when the healthcare system forgets about you,” Smith said. New parents are left to navigate on their own between OB-GYNs, pediatricians, mental health providers, HR teams, and managers. And that’s before even accounting for complications like preeclampsia or a NICU stay.The consequences are predictable: avoidable emergency room visits, extended leaves, and what Smith called “quiet attrition,” employees who reduce hours or leave entirely because they never felt like they had a plan.Her prescription is a single integrated platform where employees can access postpartum care, mental health support, lactation consulting, pediatric guidance, and return-to-work resources in one place. “You have to ensure that those benefits span clinical, emotional, and practical needs and are not a one-size-fits-all solution,” she said. “Having a benefit like Maven checks a lot of boxes, but it doesn’t just check a box.”Mental Health Doesn’t Announce ItselfOne in seven women report severe depressive moods postpartum—a figure most HR professionals know. What’s less understood is that symptoms can last up to a year and frequently appear in people who have never experienced anxiety or depression before. Among Maven’s own members, nearly a quarter report experiencing anxiety when they join the platform, and the numbers include fathers and non-birthing partners.Smith recounted filling out a pediatrician’s intake form after her son was born, and encountering a mental health questionnaire. “I kept thinking, there is no way I am going to tell this pediatrician that I’ve known for an hour about any of my mental health needs,” she said. She checked boxes to move the process along.That same instinct, to hide vulnerability rather than ask for help, plays out in workplaces every day. The antidote, she says, isn’t just offering mental health resources. It’s proactive outreach: a manager, an HR contact, or an onboarding buddy who reaches out and says, simply, ‘How are you doing?’ “Without that, it feels like, as the individual, you are the one knocking on the door,” Smith said.Return to Work Is a Phase, Not a DateManagers often believe that once they’ve secured paid leave and childcare assistance, they’ve done their job. Smith pushes back hard on that framing. “Women are juggling physical symptoms during pregnancy and then postpartum physical recovery, emotional health challenges, breastfeeding logistics, and just overall identity and career questions,” she said. “Can I be on a promotion track, and how do I do all of this?”When those challenges go unaddressed, women come back without a plan—and they are far more likely to reduce hours or leave entirely.What does a real return-to-work plan look like? Smith said it starts before the employee leaves. A strong pre-leave transition should align on dates, clarify flexible-return policies, build a genuine coverage plan, and (crucially) discuss career path and performance expectations before the leave begins. “It really sets the stage on, we value you as an employee,” she said.That support shouldn’t end when the employee walks back in the door. Maven originally offered three months of postpartum support, which Smith called groundbreaking at the time. “Very quickly after we realized there was a huge gap in needing to extend that even further.” The platform now supports families through the first year postpartum and beyond.The Business Case Is ClinicalFor HR professionals who need to make the case to a CFO or board, Smith offered a direct framing: addressing maternity spend is not a perk—it’s a risk management and equity strategy.Maternity-related costs rank in the top five expenditures for most employers she has worked with. A vaginal birth versus a C-section represents a cost difference of $10,000 to $12,000. A NICU admission can run $30,000 to $70,000 per case. Across more than 25,000 births studied over a decade, Maven has found a 15-20% lower C-section rate and a 28% lower NICU admission rate among its members.In one case study, a Fortune 10 company enrolled nearly 2,000 families in Maven’s maternity and return-to-work program, says Smith. The result: 95% of members returned to work, more than half specifically crediting Maven, and the company saved over $1.2 million annually from increased productivity and reduced attrition.Identity-Matched Care Builds TrustMaternal mortality rates in the U.S. have doubled over the last decade, and Black women face disproportionately higher risk of complications and death during childbirth. Many arrive in the healthcare system already carrying distrust, Smith noted, and with good reason.Maven addresses this through what it calls care matching: using clinical data and personal preferences to pair members with specialists who share their background, identity, and language. A Black female member, for example, would be matched with a Black female care advocate, OB-GYN, doula, mental health provider, and career coach. “What that really does is build trust in a system that has a lot of distrust in it,” Smith said.Across Maven’s provider network, 40% of providers identify as BIPOC and 11% as LGBTQ+, and care is delivered in 35 languages. About 6% of mental health providers in the U.S. identify as Black; at Maven, they account for more than a quarter of mental health specialists.The platform also uses virtual doulas, a concept that sometimes raises eyebrows. But with 36% of U.S. counties lacking an OB-GYN, and maternity wards closing in underserved areas, in-person care is often simply unavailable. Two appointments with a virtual doula have been associated with a 40% decrease in C-section rates at Maven.Leave Equity Matters TooDuring Q&A, Smith was asked about disparities between leave offered to birthing and non-birthing parents. She didn’t hedge. “I am a big fan of equity when it comes to leave,” she said. Shorter leaves for non-birthing parents signal that their caregiving role is secondary, creating long-term effects on family involvement and gender equity at work.Research from Maven finds that 90% of non-birthing parents report parenthood-related anxiety. Same-sex couples, adoptive parents, and parents through surrogacy face the same caregiving challenges as birthing parents and deserve policies that reflect that reality.The thread running through Smith’s advice is consistent: stop treating maternity and postpartum support as a checklist and start treating it as the high-variance, deeply personal medical and emotional experience it actually is. The employers who do that, she says, end up with not just healthier employees, but also stronger teams, better retention, and a measurable return on investment.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Maven Clinic, 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 JLco - Julia Amaral/iStock)
Future-Proofing Benefits For A New Generation
BY Ade Akin April 10, 2026Claire Marrow had just stepped out of a driverless car in San Francisco when her smartphone buzzed with an urgent referral from her doctor. Two weeks earlier, Marrow, who was training for a marathon, had taken three six-hour flights in four days when her knee began to ache and swell. Her doctor ordered an immediate ultrasound to determine if her flare-up was the result of running or a blood clot caused by sitting in a pressurized cabin for 18 hours. When Marrow called the hospital to schedule the scan, the response was “fax us the details.” “I guess this really was shocking to me,” Marrow, the head of clinical consulting at Hinge Health, shared during a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s half-day NYC benefits conference. “I’m riding in a driverless car, but I still need to own a fax machine. This doesn’t make sense.”The contrast captures the central challenge facing HR and benefits leaders today. Millennials and Gen Z now make up over 50% of the workforce as workforce demographics shift dramatically. That figure is projected to reach 74% by 2030 as employee expectations collide with healthcare systems still reliant on fax machines and CD-ROMs. The New Generation’s Healthcare ExpectationsMillennials and Gen Z generally expect a fundamentally different healthcare experience. They grew up Googling their symptoms before consulting with doctors, and want seamless digital access, remote communication with providers, online scheduling, and the flexibility to choose between in-person and virtual care. “Before I was at Hinge Health, I spent four years as a physical therapist at the on-site clinic at Google,” Marrow said. “For every exercise I gave them, they would say, ‘What is this exercise doing for me? Don’t you think I have this diagnosis?’ They had obviously already Googled their condition.” She notes that this trend has intensified with the rise of AI tools: “It’s not just Google anymore. It’s ChatGPT and other AI tools that they’re also using for that.”The Fragmentation ProblemDr. Claire Morrow, Doctor of Physical Therapy and Head of Clinical Consulting at Hinge Health, led the sessionThe healthcare industry remains stubbornly fragmented despite the tremendous technological leaps that have occurred in other industries. Marrow illustrates the problem with a personal story about a knee injury her husband suffered. “He was running when a German Shepherd ran into the side of his knee, dislocating his kneecap,” she said. The injury led to an odyssey through the system: urgent care, a two-week wait for an orthopedist, imaging at one facility, and physically picking up a CD of the MRI to bring it to a surgeon at another hospital.“The rest of the world is moving forward, and we need to think about moving forward with the rest of the world,” Marrow said. “Surgery and medications are often still chosen as quick fixes, but MSK [musculoskeletal] care can be incomplete. We tend not to always think about the whole person.”The Shift to Unified CareMarrow has watched the digital health revolution unfold as a physical therapist for over 13 years, including six years spent at Hinge Health. Digital tools now make it possible for patients in rural areas to rehab after knee replacement surgery without having to drive 45 minutes to a clinic in some city twice a week.However, the technological revolution has also created new problems, such as silos between digital and in-person care.“We need to move from fragmented care to unified care,” Marrow said. “I can’t believe I’m saying that’s the future, that we’ll all talk to each other, because it almost seems obvious. But we really need to choose digital solutions and healthcare solutions that speak to each other.”She says a unified care model would provide a digital front door where members can connect with care coordinators who can triage their condition, provide recommendations, and make warm handoffs to pre-vetted providers, digital or in-person.AI as the Enabler, Not the ReplacementAI is being deployed at Hinge Health to automate tasks to free up clinicians so they can focus more on connecting with patients.“We have an AI-powered care team assistant that we're naming Robin,” Marrow said. “There’s an art to naming your AI agents, and I think we nailed it.” Robin can triage pain flare-ups, gather information, and summarize it for physical therapists, reducing response times from days to same-day care plan adjustments. The automation has improved care team response times by 47%.“Our goal is to ensure that our highly skilled care teams have the time to provide the skill and compassion needed to support each member’s needs," she said. “We’re not replacing that in-person experience. We’re enabling it.”The company’s TrueMotion technology uses computer vision to guide members through exercises, while a recently launched movement analysis tool uses augmented reality to measure the range of motion in the lower back. “We’re starting to replicate some of those interactions from in-person care,” Marrow said. “That doesn’t mean we’re replacing that connection. We’re just making it so that the time a member is not with a physical therapist is much more meaningful.”Future-Proofing BenefitsMarrow’s recommendation for HR leaders looking to future-proof benefits packages is to embrace unified care models that meet the expectations of a digital native workforce.“You’re empowering members. They’re able to get information and make their own decisions,” she added. “You’re building trust in AI. This is really where the future is going. AI has tremendous potential for healthcare, but we need to build that trust.”The transition won’t happen overnight, but as Marrow says, the alternative—continuing to rely on fax machines while employees expect driverless cars—isn’t really an option.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Hinge Health, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Ade Akin covers artificial intelligence, workplace wellness, HR trends, and digital health solutions.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)
How Employers Are Using LSAs to Support Business Goals
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza April 09, 2026“We make a point to design our benefits programs to be dynamic and inclusive,” said Zach Mann, the senior benefits program manager at Zillow. “This allows us to meet the needs of our employees, regardless of where they live or what chapter of life they’re in.”Of course, this is often easier said than done. Flexible and adaptive programs are made difficult by the pressures of inflation, shrinking budgets, and by old systems that don’t keep up with employee needs.So, Zillow sought out a new program that can flex with the times. Mann shared this story during a From Day One webinar on how employers are using lifestyle savings accounts, or LSAs, to affect business goals. The discussion, which included insights about LSA platform Forma, was moderated by the company’s own senior customer success manager, Kate Deeny.Mann found a flexible solution in an LSA—a flexible, employer-funded benefit that allocates a specific amount of money employees can use within a defined list of expenses. The employer identifies the amount and the boundaries.At the time, Mann was hearing about other companies cutting their well-being benefits in half, and Mann knew he would likely face similar pressure at Zillow. Leaders spoke about "2026 Global Lifestyle Benefits Benchmark: Insights to Design High-impact Benefits" during the webinar (photo by From Day One)To get buy-in from leaders for the switch from an old reimbursement system to an LSA for well-being benefits, he would have to make a data-driven case. It was easy to see how the old way was taxing the workforce: “Managers were spending almost 3,000 hours trying to approve or understand our policy to approve those expenses,” he said. “On top of that, our HR operations and benefits teams were trying to answer all those questions.”So, the company moved from a gym membership and equipment reimbursement to a $1,000 lifestyle spending account. Employees could then use a single Forma card to cover their gym memberships—no more filing monthly reimbursements, no more filling inboxes with process and coverage questions. Mann likes the flexibility and the option to change the program as-needed, expanding it to cover things like gym clothes or meal subscriptions. The LSA is now one of Zillow’s most utilized benefits, says Mann. “Employers are really getting sophisticated and strategic by thinking of LSAs not just as a perk, but as a strategic benefits infrastructure,” said Danielle Ross, Forma’s head of marketing and the author of the company’s 2026 global lifestyle benefits benchmark report.Many are dealing with the same obstacles that Mann did at Zillow—stipends that get lost in the payroll shuffle, programs that demand a lot of time and input from managers and benefits leaders, and lack of visibility into how those reimbursements are being used. Benefits teams also struggle to juggle the number of point solutions that comprise their benefits ecosystem.As an alternative to traditional reimbursement programs, LSAs are “an efficient structure to help direct benefit budgets toward programs that matter for you, with the built-in flexibility that employees are looking for,” Ross said.LSAs have global capabilities too. Around 50% of employers offering LSAs do so in more than one country, according to Forma’s report. Some employers use them to provide healthcare in countries where they don’t yet have a relationship with carriers, others use it to extend financial support for childcare needs, and in markets with high commuting costs, employers can offer commuter assistance.It’s a common misconception that LSAs are just a nice-to-have tack-on perk, Ross said. “The magic happens when you’re able to ladder-up toward a C-suite priority.” Funds can even be directed toward upskilling, return-to-office incentives, cost-savings, employee well-being, and more. So when leaders knock on the door asking the benefits team how they’re supporting a specific business priority, Ross says, benefits teams can point to their LSA.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Forma, 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 Milan Markovic/iStock)
AI-Ready Workforce: Bridging the Gap Between AI Adoption and Performance
BY Jessica Swenson April 08, 2026“There are really powerful ways that AI can augment, support, and accelerate human decisioning around who to hire and who to move forward, as opposed to AI tools that make decisions for us,” said Andy Nelesen, market director, talent acquisition solutions at SHL. “I would encourage you to explore some of those solutions, systems, and opportunities that really design in the human judgment piece from the start.”With rapidly increasing applicant volumes and AI-driven transformation across the hiring process, talent acquisition teams are now faced with identifying how to effectively balance technology adoption and high-quality decision-making at scale while maintaining applicant trust. This was the topic of a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s March virtual conference.Both candidates and TA teams are using AI to streamline the job search and hiring process, says Nelesen, but he thinks the current benefits may be one-sided. “It feels like AI has been a real dream for candidates and a bit of a nightmare for talent acquisition teams, in terms of getting these new technologies fully enabled and delivering value.”As candidates use AI to contextualize, polish, and submit their resumes, shrinking TA teams can be left with candidates who aren’t aware they’ve applied for a specific job. Similar career documents generated by AI make it more difficult for hiring teams to screen and differentiate applicants. “When AI is polishing up all of these resumes, they sure look the same.” Nelesen said. Andy Nelesen, the global leader of SHL’s suite of talent acquisition products, led the thought leadership spotlight (company photo)Additionally, there are increasing concerns that what recruiters are learning from AI-generated documents may not be real. He suggests that employers require candidates to demonstrate their skills during the interview process, not just claim them. “All of this is making things much more difficult, obviously, for the talent acquisition function, especially at the selection portion of the hiring funnel.”That said, TA teams are also using AI in the hiring process, and candidates “want reassurance that those tools are capturing their skills and capabilities accurately and fairly.” SHL research shows that 59% of workers believe AI is increasing bias and 66% believe employers should reveal when AI is used in the hiring process. So how can organizations leverage these emerging tools while simultaneously ensuring a positive candidate experience?Nelesen cautions against relying too heavily on AI without also incorporating governance, transparency, change management practices, and human oversight. “It’s really easy to get overly focused on the automation capability,” he said, acknowledging that poor implementation of AI can inadvertently scale risks by amplifying existing bias and causing inconsistency.Successfully integrating technology into the hiring process requires companies to understand how candidates will engage with the tools, along with their expectations and fears, which he expects to result in intentional strategies for technology selection.“I think we should over-index on the human side of the equation,” Nelesen said, “rather than just being wowed by the promise that AI can deliver in terms of driving scale and efficiency.”As organizations continue to embrace AI, they will need to prioritize AI readiness among their candidates. SHL research shows that only 48% of employees believe their workplace is AI ready, but this is a metric best measured through behavior—not just employee perception.Based on data collected from millions of employees around the world, SHL developed a behavioral framework that predicts high performance in an AI-enabled environment. Factors like AI literacy, analytical ability, continuous learning, and AI promotion break down into competencies such as AI output evaluation, value creation, critical thinking, and decision-making amid uncertainty. Rather than getting too caught up in tool-specific, rapidly changing skillsets, he says that hiring for these foundational, lasting skills like critical thinking, adaptability, and embracing new technology can be more meaningful. Even better? Combine the two. “I’m not saying that we should walk away from hiring profiles that are steeped in job-specific skills. There are ways to layer in these AI-readiness skills on top of those skills.”The research also shows that new graduates and tenured professional pools bring different, complementary sets of AI-readiness skills to the table. Nelesen encourages leaders not to dismiss either population outright based on perceived limitations—instead look for ways to integrate these teams for maximum impact.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, SHL, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Jessica Swenson is a freelance writer and proofreader based in the Midwest. Learn more about her at jmswensonllc.com.(Photo by Thai Liang Lim/iStock)
The Business Case for Comprehensive Family Health Benefits in 2026
BY Paul Kersey April 06, 2026Starting a family, caring for children, and navigating the changes that come with midlife are all challenges that affect employees. These experiences can feel overwhelming and may even push valuable workers out of the workforce. But comprehensive family health benefits can make a meaningful difference, improving physical and mental well-being while helping to reduce health costs and strengthen employee retention. This was the subject of a From Day One webinar about “The Business Case for Comprehensive Family Health Benefits in 2026,” Isha Vij, SVP of growth at Maven Clinic. Vij spoke with Sarah Begley, VP of member content at Atria, about what comprehensive health benefits are and how they benefit both employees and employers.Supporting Employees Through All StagesMaven Clinic offers a more comprehensive approach to family health benefits, taking a broader view of care that can be especially useful for employees planning to start families. Its emphasis on counseling and coaching helps employees feel more supported and may reduce reliance on more costly medical interventions, says Vij. Isha Vij, SVP of growth at Maven Clinic, led the webinar (company photo)The value of coaching is apparent at the very beginning of building a family. “We joke here at Maven, everybody knows how not to get pregnant, right? It’s drilled into your brain, and you know exactly how not to do it,” Vij said. “But the reality is when you want to start a family and you want to conceive, most people don’t even know where to start.”That lack of knowledge can lead to frustration and pressure to pursue medical interventions, which can be physically and mentally taxing as well as expensive. Early guidance can make a meaningful difference. From there, a comprehensive family health benefit can provide guidance throughout pregnancy, helping identify potential issues during gestation and improving the likelihood of a complication-free delivery. Maven reports that the mothers it serves are 15% less likely to require cesarean sections, and their babies are 27% less likely to need neonatal intensive care, says Vij. Family Care Goes Beyond PregnancyThe challenges of parenting don’t end with delivery, and support shouldn’t either. Vij, originally from southern Asia, described working with a pediatric nutrition specialist to help introduce her infant to Indian food.“She was in my pantry. She was in my fridge. She was looking through everything with me and telling me this is appropriate for an eight month old, these spices that you use in your cooking are totally appropriate, these other ones, you need to wait until she’s a year old,” Vij said. Maven’s program also includes sleep coaches for those restless nights, along with mental health support. This can be especially valuable for men, who may also struggle with the changes that come with parenthood and want to better support their partners, says Vij. The Advantages of Comprehensive HealthThe value of this holistic approach to family health for workers should be clear, but the advantages flow to employers as well. From fertility coaching to pregnancy support, making it easier for would-be parents to conceive and deliver healthy children means less time spent at doctors’ offices and hospitals, and fewer medical complications. The savings in health care costs are substantial; Maven reports saving an average of $9,600 per pregnancy.This wrap-around coverage is extremely useful for retaining talent too. Recruiting and training new employees is costly and disruptive. Many workers will become parents during their careers, and they value employers who support them. Anything that boosts morale and stabilizes the workforce benefits managers. Vij says that 94% of Maven’s beneficiaries return to the workplace after giving birth, a rate higher than the national average. “Women are powerhouses,” Vij said. “You want them in the workforce, and you want them to be productive and contributing.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Maven Clinic, for sponsoring this webinar. Paul Kersey is a former attorney and freelance writer who has covered events for Bloomberg News and other outlets. Paul is based in Chicago, IL.(Photo by Goodboy Picture Company/iStock)
How Leading Employers Turn Financial Stress into Measurable Engagement
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza April 01, 2026HR leaders have long relied on engagement surveys to monitor workforce health, but when it comes to financial matters, many are still figuring out the best ways to measure the need, and the impact.“Financial wellness is still a topic many of us are trying to get comfortable talking about,” said Julia Fearn, director of channel partnerships at SoFi at Work, during a From Day One webinar on how employers are tuning financial stress into measurable engagement.Contrast this with growing demand from the workforce. “Employees are more and more asking for their employer to help them,” she said. “But employers aren’t yet comfortable with that.” While 66% employees want some sort of financial well-being support from their companies, only 23% of employers offer it.Even without direct conversations, financial strain leaves a trail. It shows up in increased 401(k) hardship loans, low retirement plan participation, and sometimes in direct deposits, whether into checking or savings.At the same time, benefits leaders are doing everything they can to stretch a dollar. Rising healthcare costs are consuming a larger share of the benefits budget, limiting the ability to expand and experiment with new offerings.Julia Fearn, director of channel partnerships at SoFi at Work, led the session (company photo)“What we’re hearing this year is that the vast majority of benefits leaders are looking to reallocate or maximize efficiency of what they’re spending,” Fearn said. “What can I squeeze out of the ecosystems that I already have to make sure we’re maximizing what’s already there?”Some employers are offering emergency savings programs, which can help employees cover unexpected expenses, like a $2,500 car repair, without borrowing against their retirement savings. And employers are also experimenting with how to drive participation too. Incentives, Fearn said, can be effective if they’re designed for long-term behavior change.“Providing incentives and checkpoints does drive behavior,” Fearn said. Short-term rewards, like winning a FitBit or a gift card do work, but only for a short period of time. Longer-lasting incentives, like employee matching, are more effective because they reinforce ongoing behavior, not just one-time actions. “It doesn’t have to be a huge dollar amount to have a very meaningful impact,” she said, noting that even a $100 match on a $500 contribution can meaningfully shift behavior.For employers, the payoff of financial well-being programs can extend beyond the individual to broader workforce shifts. The key question, Fearn said, is: What are you trying to achieve, and how many people can you impact? In some cases, financial wellness benefits have led to measurable reductions in turnover. According to Fearn, one healthcare organization saw a 21% drop in turnover within the first year of launching a student loan contribution program. A consumer goods company reduced turnover from 13% to 6% after introducing a similar benefit. Notably, even though only 9% of employees enrolled, the impact was felt across the broader workforce.“From a benefits perspective, there’s been a lot happening in the last few years, when it comes to supporting physical and emotional well-being,” Fearn said. “Though there’s a lot of alignment in terms of what employers are doing and what employees expect, we’re seeing one of the biggest disconnects around financial well-being.”Closing the financial wellness gap requires employers getting comfortable with a topic many still feel is taboo, but the payoff is there, what begins as stability in one person’s retirement account can affect the stability of the whole workforce.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, SoFi at Work, for sponsoring this webinar. Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is an independent journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about business and the world of work. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Inc., and Business Insider, among others. She is the recipient of a Virginia Press Association award for business and financial journalism. She is the host of How to Be Anything, the podcast about people with unusual jobs.(Photo by Nanci Santos/iStock)
The Autoimmune Blind Spot: How Employers Can Tackle a Growing High-Cost Population
BY Ade Akin March 27, 2026Ellen Rudolph was climbing the corporate tech ladder until she found herself battling a chronic health mystery that left her almost completely bedridden seven years ago. Instead of enjoying the prime of her health and career, she experienced a host of debilitating symptoms that doctor after doctor couldn’t give her any straight answers about. “After a long, winding journey, I eventually learned I had an autoimmune disease,” Rudolph, now the co-founder and CEO of WellTheory, said. “For me, it wasn’t until I really got to the root cause of my symptoms and embraced an anti-inflammatory diet and lifestyle that I was able to reclaim my health.”Rudolph went viral after sharing her story on social media, reaching over 25 million views. She cultivated a community of over 85,000 followers who were navigating similar journeys, which made it clear she wasn’t alone in her struggles with autoimmune disease. The Autoimmune Association states that approximately 50 million people in the U.S. have an autoimmune disease, a number that is quickly rising. People with autoimmune disorders represent roughly 15% of the workforce.During a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s NYC half-day benefits event, Rudolph made her case for why employers must pay attention to this costly and underserved patient population during, sharing insights from her personal struggles with an autoimmune disorder. The Autoimmune Disease Blind SpotAn autoimmune disease is a condition that leads to the body mistakenly attacking healthy cells, organs, and tissues, causing damage and chronic inflammation. There are more than 100 autoimmune conditions, including rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, lupus, and Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. Thyroiditis alone is estimated to cost U.S. employers over $70 billion annually. Autoimmune disease is the third most common cause of chronic illness in the U.S., even more common than type 2 diabetes today. Research suggests environmental factors play a significant role in the dramatic rise in cases. “The research points to the role that environmental factors, such as the Western diet, environmental toxins, stress, and viruses, play in triggering autoimmune disease,” Rudolph said. The prevalence of autoimmune conditions has seen “steady increases with no signs of abating.” To make things worse, 76% of people who have been diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder were misdiagnosed at least once, as was the case with Rudolph. “The reality of these conditions is that they are invisible. You don’t need to look sick to be sick, and so often, they can fly under the radar, both in terms of the claims data, but also in terms of just your workforce more broadly,” Rudolph said.One of the biggest challenges regarding diagnosing autoimmune disease is that, unlike other chronic conditions like cardiovascular disease or type 2 diabetes, which fall under well-defined ICD-10 codes, autoimmune diseases are fragmented across different buckets based on the organ affected. This fragmentation creates what Rudolph calls “the autoimmune horizontal,” which increases the risk of misdiagnosis. The High Cost of Specialty Drugs Driving Autoimmune SpendAutoimmune disease is one of the fastest-growing areas of drug spend. Costs have increased 459% over the last decade, with specialty drugs for these diseases driving 50% of high-cost specialty drug spend.“The reality is that these are drugs costing about $45,000 per patient annually,” Rudolph said. “If you recognize a lot of these drugs, then autoimmune disease is already a top cost driver for your organization.”The autoimmune epidemic is also a women’s health crisis, with approximately 80% of patients diagnosed being women. Some conditions are as much as 16 times more common in women. Autoimmune diseases like lupus disproportionately impact minority populations, with Black and Hispanic women diagnosed at three times the rate of non-Hispanic White women.The current standard of care is failing these patients. They typically undergo lengthy diagnostic journeys that take five doctors over four and a half years on average just for an accurate diagnosis. The process includes batteries of tests, ping-ponging from specialist to specialist, and trips to the ER, creating tremendous waste in the system.Once diagnosed, the standard of care relies heavily on biologics, but about 40% of patients end up switching prescriptions due to side effects or lack of efficacy, leading to a trial-and-error process, which leads to more medication, more doctor visits, and more lost time at work.“One of the fundamental challenges with the standard of care today is that it’s focused on masking symptoms rather than treating the underlying root causes of these conditions,” Rudolph said. “So, to treat autoimmune disease requires this fundamental paradigm shift in how we think about these conditions and really looking at the underlying issues, rather than just trying to fix what's above the surface.”A Root Cause Assessment Approach to Autoimmune CareRudolph’s battle with autoimmune disease inspired the creation of WellTheory, a virtual care platform that's purpose-built for patients with autoimmune disorders. The platform provides evidence-based dietary and lifestyle interventions that address root causes. These offerings are packaged into specialized care management programs delivered in a digital, scalable format.The WellTheory experience starts with a root cause assessment that includes a deep dive into a member's health history, nutritional, and behavioral patterns to uncover underlying triggers. Each member is matched with a dedicated care team of autoimmune experts, including a licensed registered dietician, board-certified health coach, and care coordinator.Members receive continuous one-on-one care through video calls, unlimited messages, access to customized nutritional resources, whole-body care plans, interactive educational content, and curated community support. The program has been featured in four peer-reviewed, third-party published papers that demonstrate its effectiveness.“Our intent is not to disrupt or duplicate the care that they’re already receiving away from their providers, but really fill the gap of care that’s missing outside of the four walls of the doctor’s office,” Rudolph said.The results are compelling: 91% of members report meaningful symptom relief within 12 weeks, and 61% report a noticeable shift in symptoms of depression and anxiety. Members stay engaged for an average of 270 days, engaging with the platform 13 times per month on average.Employer Benefits: The ROI of a Root-Cause ApproachBeyond health outcomes, WellTheory delivers significant cost reduction. An independent third-party actuarial analysis found the program delivers $5,200 in savings per engaged autoimmune patient annually and $9,400 in savings per patient on biologics.“We offer a less expensive, lower risk, and more effective way to manage autoimmune disorders than the status quo,” Rudolph added. The analysis also showed a 71% reduction in imaging services, a 64% reduction in ER visits, and a 38% reduction in hospital stays. A case study with a Fortune 100 tech company revealed that autoimmune disease was driving 25% of their total medical and pharmacy spend. After implementing WellTheory, an independent actuary found a 2.2x net ROI in year one due to reductions in ER visits and hospital stays. Another partnership with a large school system delivered a 5-to-1 ROI.“So we know that employers are under mounting pressure to see that cost reduction in year one, and we really stand behind our outcomes by putting our fees at risk in that first year,” Rudolph said.Behind the data are members like Joanne, a retired school counselor diagnosed with Hashimoto's and Crohn's disease over 10 years ago. Joanne was hospitalized for over 100 days after a routine procedure went awry. She was still struggling with severe fatigue and muscle wasting that left her essentially bedridden when she came to WellTheory. Her goal was to reclaim her energy so she could chase after her grandchildren.Joanne went from barely being able to walk around the block to being able to stay on her feet for two to three hours straight in four months, allowing her to walk her daughter down the aisle.Joanne expressed her gratitude in a video shared during Rudolph's presentation. “Working with WellTheory has definitely impacted my quality of life for the better,” she said. “I definitely now have more energy. I feel like I’m able to do more things. It’s given me the confidence to get back my life.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, WellTheory, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Ade Akin covers artificial intelligence, workplace wellness, HR trends, and digital health solutions.(Photo by Josh Larson for From Day One)
Stop Adopting AI, Start Building a Hybrid Intelligence Team
BY Christopher O'Keeffe March 24, 2026“Our attention span is actually down to two seconds now. Not three seconds, sorry to say so,” said Dr. Thomas Zoëga Ramsøy, founder and CEO of Neurons. That constraint is reshaping the fundamentals of marketing. Brands now have only a fleeting moment to capture attention and communicate value, even as the systems around them become more complex and more demanding, he shared during a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One Atlanta Marketing conference. The pressure is not just about attention. It’s also about time, resources, and decision-making. “We don’t have the luxury of the time or the budgets to actually wait for that data to come in,” he said. As timelines compress, the traditional cycle of testing and refinement becomes harder to sustain, forcing teams to make faster decisions with less certainty.Against that backdrop, generative AI has been widely adopted as a way to increase speed and output. But Ramsøy pointed to research suggesting that the impact is inconsistent. “The net effect, the net improvement, or the net change of using generative AI as approaches to advertising, is zero, actually doesn’t have an effect,” he said. In other words, while some outputs improve, others decline, and the overall result is often neutral.That matters because the baseline performance of marketing is already under strain. Ramsøy said that “80% of ads are failing, or at least falling short of their purpose.” Whether the goal is brand building or conversion, most campaigns struggle to deliver meaningful impact, and AI alone is not correcting that problem.The Gap Between Engagement and MemoryPart of the challenge is a disconnect between attention and memory. Campaigns can generate strong engagement while failing to build brand recognition. Audiences may remember the story or the visual, but not the company behind it. In a landscape defined by overload and shrinking attention, that gap becomes even more costly.To address this, Ramsøy proposed a more integrated approach to AI—one that moves beyond individual tools and toward a system. His framework organizes AI into three roles: predictive, suggestive, and generative. Predictive systems estimate how audiences will respond to content, suggestive systems interpret those results and recommend improvements, and generative systems create new variations based on those insights.“We have achieved over 90% accuracy compared to eye tracking,” he said, describing how predictive models can forecast visual attention and other responses. When combined with recommendation and generation, these systems allow teams to iterate more quickly and with greater direction.Dr. Thomas Zoëga Ramsøy of Neurons led the session in Atlanta Ramsøy emphasized that this approach is not about replacing human creativity. “We focus on not replacing the creative person, but to inform them and inspire them,” he said. In practice, that means enabling more experimentation and exploration, not less.“What we see is that people are expanding the space that they are experimenting with even within a short time frame,” he added. “What if we do this? What if we do that?” The ability to test ideas quickly can open up new creative possibilities while grounding decisions in data.As AI continues to reduce the cost and friction of execution, Ramsøy says that the real shift is happening elsewhere. “Execution is becoming really easy these years,” he said. “But at the same time, judgment and confidence in going to market is becoming the new currency.” In a world where content can be generated instantly, the ability to decide what is worth making becomes the true differentiator.The future, in his view, is not about adopting more tools, but about building systems that combine human judgment with machine insight. In a landscape where execution is increasingly commoditized, the advantage will belong to organizations that use AI to think more clearly—not just produce more.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Neurons, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight.Chris O’Keeffe is a freelance writer with experience across industries. As the founder and creative director of OK Creative: The Language Agency, he has led strategy and storytelling for organizations like MIT, Amazon, and Cirque du Soleil, bringing their stories to life through established and emerging media.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)
The Competitive Advantage of Unlearning: Why Workforce Development Fails Without It
BY Kristen Kwiatkowski March 17, 2026Continual learning is a necessity, but you can’t adequately learn the new things you need without unlearning the things you don’t. When you fail to unlearn, workforce development will fail.Stephanie Shuler, chief people officer at LifeLabs Learning, discussed this topic during a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s February virtual conference. She shared insights on the topic, “The Competitive Advantage of Unlearning: Why Workforce Development Fails Without It.”“This concept of unlearning is really interesting and important to me, because underneath all of our L&D and workforce investments, there’s this quiet failure that we really don’t talk enough about,” said Shuler. “We’re in this age right now where we’ve maybe never had as much learning coming at us at one time, more platforms, more certifications, leadership programs, sprints and academies, and yet, the behavior inside a lot of our organizations does not appear to be changing or having lasting, meaningful change at the same speed that our strategy expects or demands.”Additional pressures result from the influx of AI offerings and learning and development become more skill-based with little regard for behavioral conditions that are important to make these skills stick. “In order to have transformation, you need not just for skills to be learned, but for them to stick and be adopted,” she said. “The issue is not whether people know how to do it, or whether there’s enough training, it’s about whether we’re able to recognize the skills and norms that we’re not training on, and those are the skills and norms that no longer serve us as an organization,” she said. “Do we have the courage to stop doing what once worked, even if it creates friction?”Additions and Subtractions in L&DProblems arise when strategies are revised faster than the systems and norms that support them. New learning often builds on old foundations, optimized for the past rather than the future. Learning alone adds knowledge, but true transformation requires both addition and subtraction.Stephanie Shuler, CPO at LifeLabs Learning, led the virual session (company photo)A company can deliver an engaging, informative workshop, yet if the results don’t materialize or fail to create impact, the training may be judged ineffective. In reality, the old learning wasn’t unlearned, preventing the new knowledge from taking hold. “Unlearning is not just simply a mindset, it’s really a system skill,” said Shuler. “You can learn new skills, but you can’t translate those new skills into sustained behavior until you’ve acknowledged what is no longer going to serve you,” she said. There must be performance expectations up front along with feedback systems and recognitions for a managed transition. Additionally, traditional training can stall because the behaviors and systems are contradicting themselves. In addition to training, there must be transformation. Shuler used the example of AI. Companies are training their teams on AI concepts, but even though the training is completed, there must be additional layers to ensure the best possible outcome of the training completion. “Teams are using AI and they’re drafting faster, but then they’re going back to the same processes and the same workflows and standards, so you don’t really get any fundamental shifts from that.”Before launching a learning and development program, it’s crucial to examine the metrics that matter. Ask what drives career growth and what motivates performance so your programs align with real impact. Focus on what will actually stick. “The goal is going to be whether or not the skills are going to show up in how people work, especially when pressure hits,” said Shuler. “If it’s not repeatable, then it’s not going to stick, and if it doesn’t stick, it's not going to drive change.”Workshops are going to help reinforce new ideas, but it’s the systems that decide if the new ideas succeed and are put into motion. “It goes beyond training and the workshops, it goes toward design and culture questions that L&D absolutely should be a part of.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, LifeLabs Learning, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Kristen Kwiatkowski is a professional freelance writer covering a wide array of industries, with a focus on food and beverage and business. Her work has been featured in the Bucks County Herald, Eater Philly, Edible Lehigh Valley, Cider Culture, and The Town Dish. (Photo by BeritK/iStock)
The Illusion of Choice: The Steps CHROs Must Take Before AI Decides for Them
BY Christopher O'Keeffe March 11, 2026Cliff Jurkiewicz opened his session with a simple image: two doors at an airport gate. One reads “Pilot On Board.” The other reads “AI Pilot.” “I want to know what door you’re walking through,” he said during a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s Washington, D.C. conference. For Jurkiewicz, the VP of global strategy and executive evangelist at Phenom, the scenario is more than a metaphor. He’s a longtime pilot himself, and aviation analogies come naturally. But the thought experiment illustrates a deeper point: many organizations still believe they have time to decide whether artificial intelligence belongs in their HR strategy. In reality, he said, that decision is already being made.“We think we have unlimited choice. We have time,” Jurkiewicz said. “We really don’t right now.”Flying With Outdated InstrumentsThroughout his talk, Jurkiewicz returned to the parallels between aviation and enterprise technology. Modern aircrafts are heavily automated, he says. Pilots today spend less time manually operating controls and more time monitoring systems and making high-level decisions. Enterprise organizations, however, often operate with far less modern infrastructure.Many HR technology environments have grown through years of mergers, acquisitions, and incremental upgrades. The result is a stack of disconnected tools layered on top of aging systems. Jurkiewicz described one hiring workflow where a candidate’s journey—from job search to onboarding—moves through multiple separate platforms, each requiring its own integrations. “So that was one, two, three, four, five, six, seven different systems and twenty different integrations,” he said. “And you haven’t even added your third-party software yet.”Cliff Jurkiewicz, the VP of global strategy & executive evangelist at Phenom, led the thought leadership spotlight The problem, he says, is not that any individual tool is flawed. It’s that organizations are trying to modernize old infrastructures instead of redesigning them. “What we’re talking about now is really slapping iPads on old cockpits and calling it a modern infrastructure,” he said. “And it’s not.”Amplifying the Human Value of WorkDespite the anxiety surrounding AI, Jurkiewicz emphasized that its role in HR is not about eliminating human work. Instead, AI should remove repetitive tasks so people can focus on more meaningful responsibilities.“How do we amplify the human value of work?” he asked. “How do we get rid of the busy work, the things that we shouldn’t be doing?”Tasks like interview scheduling, applicant ranking, and document processing can increasingly be handled by AI-driven systems. But removing administrative work does not eliminate the need for people. Instead, Jurkiewicz sees a shift in how HR functions are structured.“What is happening is a realignment of work,” he said.In that realignment, areas such as talent strategy, learning and development, and compensation planning will likely grow. These functions rely heavily on human judgment, insight, and relationship-building—areas where technology can assist but not replace people.Technology alone will not determine whether AI adoption succeeds. According to Jurkiewicz, the most important factor is culture. “The first thing we start with is culture,” he said. “Culture is the one driver of AI fluency that guarantees its success.”Organizations that successfully build AI capability typically start small, experimenting with tools across teams and measuring the outcomes. Often, high-performing teams are paired with struggling teams so both groups can test and learn from new workflows. These bottom-up experiments frequently reveal a surprising pattern. “Leadership happens to be the biggest blocker to building AI fluency,” he said. Managers and individual contributors often adopt AI tools more quickly because they see immediate benefits in their daily work.Another shift Jurkiewicz believes will accelerate is closer collaboration between HR and IT. As AI becomes embedded across enterprise workflows, workforce strategy and technology infrastructure can no longer operate independently. “People plus technology is going to be what drives outcomes in your organization,” he said.Some companies have already begun restructuring around this idea. Moderna recently combined HR and IT under a single leadership role focused on productivity and transformation. Even when formal restructuring isn’t possible, Jurkiewicz encourages organizations to align the two departments around shared success metrics.Looking Beyond EfficiencyWhen discussing AI adoption, many companies still frame the business case around efficiency. Automating administrative tasks can certainly reduce workload, but Jurkiewicz says that efficiency is only part of the story. “Efficiency is finite,” he said. “Revenue is infinite.”When organizations free employees from routine work, new opportunities often emerge—new markets to explore, new products to develop, and new ways to deliver value. Those opportunities, he said, often represent the real return on investment.Jurkiewicz closed his session by revisiting the language commonly used to describe human involvement in AI systems. Many technology leaders talk about keeping a “human in the loop,” meaning that people remain responsible for reviewing automated outputs. “You’re going to hear this term ‘human in the loop’ a lot,” he said. “It is wrong.”Instead, he prefers a different phrase.“The term they should be using is human in the lead,” Jurkiewicz said. “When you say human in the lead, it means I’m putting you in charge of the outcomes.”In aviation, pilots follow a simple rule: aviate, navigate, communicate—fly the plane first. For Jurkiewicz, the same principle applies to organizations navigating the AI era. Technology may provide powerful new instruments, but it is still people who determine where the journey goes.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Phenom, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Chris O’Keeffe is a freelance writer with experience across industries. As the founder and creative director of OK Creative: The Language Agency, he has led strategy and storytelling for organizations like MIT, Amazon, and Cirque du Soleil, bringing their stories to life through established and emerging media.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)
Thriving Through Change: Mindsets for the Future of Work
BY Jessica Swenson March 10, 2026“Regardless of what kind of change processes you have in place, an organization’s culture needs the right mindset for change in order for any of them to be effective,” said Carissa Romero, PhD, the co-founder of Paradigm. “Specifically, an organization needs a mindset focused on learning, innovation and growth, known in research as a growth mindset.”In a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s February virtual conference, Romero discussed how companies can embrace a growth mindset to improve their ability to adapt, perform, and thrive during rapid change.The “change muscle” of an organization, as Romero calls it, represents how people feel about change and how that influences employee engagement and productivity. This can be a broader reflection of the company’s readiness to learn, adapt, and thrive through uncertainty.In today’s business environment, with ongoing economic shifts, multigenerational workforces, and rapid AI adoption reshaping how work is done, the pace and volume of change is not likely to slow down. Romero says that this reality “forces [talent and culture leaders] to reexamine two things: the type of talent and the type of culture that is going to enable high performance.”Referencing a World Economic Forum report on key workforce skills, Romero says the abilities to adapt and to leverage interpersonal and leadership skills are increasingly critical as companies globalize and become more diverse. Capabilities like resilience, flexibility, agility, empathy, social influence, and active listening ensure that people can adapt and collaborate during ongoing shifts in the workplace.Carissa Romero, co-founder of Paradigm, led the session (company photo)Even more important than individual skills, says Romero, is organizational culture. This is where a growth mindset comes in—embedding this mindset into an organization helps employees learn and embody “the belief that change is possible, the idea that people, teams, and organizations can adapt and get better.” She cited research from the 1980s and 1990s showing that “when people approach work with a growth mindset, they perform better.” This happens because rather than focusing on proving themselves, she says, people with this mindset tend to focus on continuous learning. They see challenge and change as “essential parts of the learning process” rather than signs of failure or inability.Early mindset research assumed that a person’s mindset was an internal trait that they carried with them; it influenced their approach to work across environments and organizations. More recent research challenges that assumption by showing that workplace culture can influence the individual’s mindset. “I think the fact that cultures bring out these mindsets is really good news for organizations,” said Romero, “Because that means the goal is not to identify every single individual’s mindset and try to shift them to be more growth or to try to hire a bunch of growth mindset folks. The goal is to really then create an environment that helps people show up and lead with that growth mindset.”When employees know that their leaders believe people can improve and grow, it gives them a sense of psychological safety that promotes innovation, collaboration, and experimentation, driving learning and long-term performance. “Companies that are able to successfully shift their culture to be a bit more growth-oriented, you are going to see more of these benefits unlocked.”Romero offers four key strategies for leaders looking to make this shift in their organizations. First, embrace humility. Leadership behavior sets the tone, and leaders who exhibit humility about their challenges or mistakes can help employees be more open to risk-taking and experimentation.Next, reinforce growth behaviors like new decision strategies, learning processes, research, or experimentation through feedback and recognition. She shared the story of an oil rig experiencing significant financial loss and safety incidents. Leaders sought a shift from a culture of machismo to one where employees could admit and learn from their mistakes.“What they did is start giving out rewards and celebrating really big failures.” she said. This change in culture led to an 84% decline in accident rates while increasing productivity, efficiency, and reliability. “Adapting to failure is not something that happens despite high performance. It is actually a critical driver of being able to innovate and achieve high performance.”Effective mentorship is another key approach. “What do the best mentors do differently than everyone else? They do two things simultaneously. They set very high standards because they believe it is possible for people to meet those standards, but they give people the support to actually meet those standards.”By setting high expectations, even in times of rapid change, and then offering coaching and resources that help people meet those expectations, you provide tangible support that “can help teams see challenges not as risks to avoid, but really as opportunities to grow.”Lastly, to create a culture of continuous learning, shift beyond training programs and skill-building to system-level change. This type of change “happens when organizations pair growth-oriented leadership behaviors with the right infrastructure.”By building environments where culture, leadership, and systems work together to reinforce growth mindset behaviors, companies can boost their organizational resiliency and give employees the freedom to grow through innovation and collaboration.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Paradigm, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight.Jessica Swenson is a freelance writer and proofreader based in the Midwest. Learn more about her at jmswensonllc.com.(Photo by Pakorn Supajitsoontorn/iStock)
Finally, Leadership Development at Scale: Equipping Every Manager With an AI Personal Trainer
BY Kristen Kwiatkowski March 06, 2026Fostering team engagement and a positive work culture starts with empowering managers. Standard training often falls short, which is why personalized AI-driven programs for each manager are key to driving real impact in employee engagement and team development.Jennifer Dulski, CEO and founder of Rising Team, highlighted how personalized AI training can help managers and their teams during a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s Washington, D.C. conference. “The great news is that with AI, we now can finally do this,” said Dulski. “We can give every single manager a personalized plan that’s targeted to their own needs and context. We can give them consistent practice over time.”This is what Rising Team’s training accomplishes with its AI personal leadership trainer, aRTi. “It essentially takes every manager, gives them a personal leadership trainer, creates a plan based on intake of what they need, which is also customizable,” Dulski said. The training features a wide array of activities, such as one-on-one practice and skill learning as well as team building that’s personalized to fit the needs of each manager.aRTi starts the training by asking a variety of intake questions involving topics such as number of direct reports, years as a manager, managing duty that is easiest to perform, and overall goal of employee training, says Dulski. The manager is then asked how much training time is requested and the AI trainer creates a growth plan that the manager can follow exactly or alter if they choose to do so.Jennifer Dulski, CEO and founder of Rising Team, led the session in D.C.Over time, the AI gets to know the manager and the training preferences. The training sessions can be added to the manager’s calendar, and aRTi will even practice training scenarios with the manager. “So the scenario I picked is I need to tell Ted that I’m giving him a lower rating on his performance review than he gave in his self-rating, involving all kinds of hard situations, like I need to tell him he’s not getting promoted when he expected a promotion, or if I’m managing up and I want to ask my manager how do I get on track for a promotion,” said Dulski. “All of these conversations can be practiced here.”Dulski practiced the scenario with the AI system for the audience and showed how the role play session can help managers practice their conversation before putting it into motion. aRTi will prompt the user to improve their conversation, if needed, and provide a score and tips on how to improve in future conversations. The score is based on effectiveness of achieving the objective, clarity in doing so, and empathy used along the way. aRTi then recommends phrasing to use and a plan for future conversations.The next step is putting aRTi to work with your team via live practice sessions. “That’s another part of this process, and it gets all kinds of insights about the team that managers just wouldn’t get on their own because they don’t know what questions to ask,” Dulski said. “We get everyone’s strengths and we know what makes people want to jump out of bed in the morning,” she said. “I know how to put people on projects, and we know exactly how each person likes to receive feedback.”With the help of aRTi, going through these training sessions provides managers with insights as to how employees want to receive feedback, encouragement, and appreciation.“All of this comes together into giving every single manager a personalized leadership trainer, coach, role play partner, and team building facilitator and the amazing thing is it works,” stated Dulski. “The data is super clear on this and within six months, you’re getting massive, statistically significant lifts on manager effectiveness.”And when a manager is effective their team members feel valued and heard, which can lead to improved productivity and retention within an organization.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Rising Team, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Kristen Kwiatkowski is a professional freelance writer covering a wide array of industries, with a focus on food and beverage and business. Her work has been featured in the Bucks County Herald, Eater Philly, Edible Lehigh Valley, Cider Culture, and The Town Dish. (Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)
Building Trust in Hiring: Creating an Exceptional Candidate Experience
BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza March 05, 2026“Ninety-one percent of recruiters and hiring managers have spotted or suspected candidate deception at some point,” said Will Leahy, VP of customer success at applicant tracking platform Greenhouse, citing the company’s 2026 AI in Hiring Report. That deception can be as little as fudging skill proficiency to falsifying references to adopting a deepfake likeness or false persona.This presents a challenge to today’s good-faith job seekers, who aren’t only competing against other qualified applicants, they’re now going head to head against bad actors willing to game the system and lie. The challenge for recruiters is remaining vigilant without treating sincere candidates with undue suspicion.This problem—and new solutions—was the topic of conversation during a From Day One webinar on how employers are building trust in hiring while also improving the candidate experience.The ‘AI Doom Loop’Candidates are using AI to apply for more roles, while at the same time employers are using AI to manage the swell of applications. “It’s not uncommon for a recruiter to post a role and, within 48 hours, have over 900 applications,” said Leahy’s co-panelist Erin Walsh-Beguin, senior director of global recruiting operations at GoDaddy. Employers are struggling to sort through the slop without losing great candidates along the way.Will Leahy, VP of people success at Greenhouse, spoke during the session (company photo)The result is an “AI doom loop.” “Candidates are leveraging AI to get themselves out there at an exponentially higher rate, which is causing an extraordinary amount of application influx, and quite a bit of it is spam,” Leahy said. “On the other side of the house are recruiters trying to navigate that and leveraging AI to the best of their ability to try and cut through that noise.”With each side trying to stay several steps ahead of the other, “it creates a doom loop, and no one’s happy, no one’s having a good time, and no one’s satisfied,” he said.To find the best candidates—who are actually real people—recruiters are trying things like identity verification. “Eighteen percent of recruiters that we talk to have had an experience where there was a deep fake in the room,” Leahy said. Greenhouse’s new partnership with CLEAR lets employers verify a candidate’s identity at whatever point they choose. Once that’s out of the way, “you can bypass suspicion and have a real human conversation,” he said.Real human conversations and sincere interactions are invaluable in this moment, when employers and candidates are becoming increasingly distrustful of one another. Walsh-Beguin likes to hold onto those moments by “sending notes, emails, and touching base,” she said. And a lot of that can be aided with automation. But avoid the temptation to over-automate and send blast-emails or status updates that are impersonal or uninformative. “It doesn’t take that long to send out a check-in and say, ‘Hey, thank you for hanging in there. We’re doing our best,’” she said. Transparency matters: Telling candidates upfront what they can expect in the hiring process, how AI will or won’t be used, and when they might hear from you again—these things don’t take much time or technical know-how. Behind the scenes, new applicant tracking tech is helping employers surface the best, most qualified, and most-likely-to-be-real candidates. Greenhouse’s new Talent Mapping feature works like an email inbox’s spam filter, sorting through suspicious applications to find strong matches and those most likely to be irrelevant or fraudulent. And like a spam filter, red-flagged candidates aren’t thrown out, but set aside for human review.The recruiter sets the parameters and reviews the results. “You are going to continuously teach the AI that the parameters that you used did yield the correct match, and you can override it again,” Walsh-Beguin said. That human intervention is key. “Ethical utilization of AI is something everybody has to ensure they’re following through on.”“Any amount of automation that allows more humanness to enter the conversation” is worthwhile, said Leahy. This goes for sophisticated talent mapping as well as simple transcription and summarization features, which lets him focus on the candidate rather than note-taking. “That’s automation making my life easier but also making it more human.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Greenhouse, for sponsoring this webinar. Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is an independent journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about business and the world of work. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Inc., and Business Insider, among others. She is the recipient of a Virginia Press Association award for business and financial journalism. She is the host of How to Be Anything, the podcast about people with unusual jobs.(Photo by Ridofranz/iStock)
From Claims to Connections: Driving Value Through Proactive Member Engagement
BY Grace Turney February 26, 2026When Marissa Bloomer talks about a Spanish-speaking client receiving a $78,000-a-month cancer injection administered in a hospital, she pauses for effect. That same medication could be administered by a culturally appropriate oncologist at a nearby office—for just $5,000 a month. “We said, let’s hold the phone here,” recalled Bloomer, VP of population health at Curative. “We’re not paying $78,000 a month for a shot. Where can we find the same drug at a different provider?”That story captures everything wrong, and everything fixable, about the way most American employers design health benefits. At From Day One’s Washington, D.C. conference, Bloomer led a thought leadership spotlight on a deceptively simple idea: coverage is not the same thing as care, and the gap between the two is costing employers billions of dollars and costing workers their health.The Trap of the High-Deductible PlanMarissa Bloomer, VP of population health at Curative, led the sessionThe numbers Bloomer opened with were familiar to most HR leaders in the room, but their implications were stark. Some 27% of covered workers are now enrolled in a high-deductible health plan, and the average deductible for single coverage on an employer-sponsored plan has increased by 47% over the last decade. “These really are not benefits,” Bloomer said. “These are barriers.”The downstream effects compound fast. Preventable conditions now represent a $1.34 trillion burden in untreated illness, with $55 billion lost annually from missed preventive screenings alone, she says. Workers on high-deductible plans face a 25% higher risk of diabetes complications, not because their plan doesn’t technically cover screenings, but because they can’t afford the initial out-of-pocket cost to find out they need one. “I’ve seen it,” said Bloomer, a registered nurse with 25 years in the health insurance industry. “Missed preventive screenings are the number one cause of people crashing into diabetes.”The cycle is self-reinforcing: confusion and unaffordability lead to deferred care, deferred care leads to worsened health, worsened health leads to lower productivity and higher costs. And employers respond by raising deductibles again. “We set ourselves up to fail,” Bloomer said. “High-deductible health plans were designed to manage expenses. But we ended up creating the most expensive outcomes, and we’re not treating employees as a whole.”The $0 Model as a Clinical StrategyCurative’s answer is structural. Its plan eliminates copays and deductibles entirely for in-network services, and Bloomer emphasized that this isn’t a generous perk; it’s a clinical tool. “A $0 copay and $0 deductible is a clinical strategy intended to keep employees healthy,” she said. Remove the financial hurdle, and utilization rises. Utilization rises, and conditions get caught earlier. Conditions caught earlier cost a fraction of what they cost when they reach the crisis stage.But Curative’s model adds a layer that most zero-cost plans skip: health literacy. “I truly believe if you teach people how to use their plan in plain language, they get it,” Bloomer said. Her team operationalizes this through what the company calls the baseline visit: a one-hour onboarding appointment every new member completes at the start of their plan year.The baseline visit unfolds in two back-to-back 30-minute sessions. The first, with a care navigator, is essentially Benefits 101: how to use the member portal, how to find a doctor, how to order a colorectal cancer screening directly through the app. The second is with a clinician (a physician, nurse practitioner, or physician’s assistant) who reviews the member’s health history, flags overdue screenings, and makes personalized recommendations. A member turning 45 with a family history of colon cancer, for instance, gets steered toward a colonoscopy rather than a Cologuard test.“We’re able to actually physically show and put in the member portal: this is what we want you to do this year,” Bloomer said. That roadmap then drives ongoing outreach, such as calls during Breast Cancer Awareness Month to members who haven’t completed mammograms, or emails during Colorectal Cancer Awareness Month to those who haven’t been screened.The outcomes are striking. Curative reports a 98% completion rate for the baseline visit. It identifies 94% of chronic conditions during that initial appointment. And in a controlled study, members who engaged with a registered nurse after the baseline visit saw their medical cost spend reduced by 62.5%. “I’ve never seen that in my 25 years in the healthcare industry,” Bloomer said.Connections, Not ClaimsBloomer was pointedly critical of traditional case management, which she called “dialing for dollars.” Predictive analytics flags a high-risk member; a call center employee asks if they want to enroll in a disease management program. “Those things don’t work,” she said. What works is intervening at the moment of need, with a real clinician who already knows the member’s history.That philosophy shapes how Curative deploys AI as well. As of November, its care navigation team uses an AI tool to handle first-response emails—currently resolving about 60% of inbound messages, sometimes within minutes. The system is trained to recognize frustration signals (all-caps text, profanity, etc.) and hold those for human review. Thanks to this use of technology, care navigators spend less time on routine queries and more time on the outbound, proactive outreach that actually changes health outcomes.Bloomer closed with a framework she calls the five principles of a person-first health plan: data-driven decision making, proactive and predictive (rather than reactive) support, scalable innovation and personalization, a human-centric experience, and integrated healthcare ecosystems. The throughline is that benefits should be built around the full human being: financially, clinically, and emotionally.For HR leaders evaluating their own plans, she offered questions worth sitting with. Does your plan design create financial stress for the employees who need care most? How are people actually engaging with their primary care physicians and chronic care programs? And is your vendor teaching health literacy, or just providing a card?“Coverage doesn’t equal access,” Bloomer said, returning to where she started. “Connection is really the best ROI.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Curative, 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.