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What We’re Learning from Real AI Deployments in HR

BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza July 30, 2026

Dina Siclovan’s HR team was spending far too much time on emails. As the director of team member experience at Breeze Airways, she knew that while the company would keep growing, the size of her team would not. “We spent a lot of time just answering repetitive questions, even though the information already exists on our intranet. There are hundreds of policies, and many answers depend on the context,” she said during a From Day One webinar. “So we saw a need.” For many helming an HR department today, “the strategic work is often done in the leftover hours,” Jim Barnett, CEO and co-founder of HR tech platform Wisq. AI can now handle the repetitive tasks that gobble up valuable hours, but Barnett believes it can do even more.Together, Siclovan and Barnett—plus Wisq’s AI-powered HR teammate Harper—have changed not only the way Breeze’s HR team gets done, but the work that’s theirs to do. Context Is EverythingHR is seldom short on documentation. Any given team might have reams of policies about employee leave and PTO, performance reviews, performance improvement plans, rewards and recognition, benefits packages, and payroll. Then there’s the information on individual employees, like location, performance, team structure, skills, and tenure.But it’s usually just that: Reams of paper (digital or otherwise) with little relation to each other and plenty of room for error and interpretation. So when a long-tenured employee is moving from one city to another and in the midst of that has a medical emergency that requires complex surgery—what do you do? Situations like this may be governed by a policy, but they’re handled under precedent and case specifics. Jim Barnett, the CEO and co-founder of Wisq, the Agentic HR Platform, spoke during the webinar (company photo)“The AI opportunity is so large and so diverse,” Barnett said. “It’s not talking to a bot about whether you have President’s Day off. These workflows are complex and compliance-ridden with lots and lots of risk. You have to have HR reasoning because you want to get this right, and it’s going to get more complex over time.”There’s also opportunity in finding gaps in all those policies. When their AI agent Harper started identifying patterns in employee questions at Breeze, Siclovan realized that in some cases no process, policy, or guidance existed. AI is equipped to assist there too, says Barnett. The right AI agents are capable of fielding context-dependent questions, identifying patterns, finding policy gaps, and now—building the processes that underlie the policies. “There should be both manual and automated learning loops,” he said. As questions come in, “patterns emerge, which can trigger an alert that there’s a missing policy. It’s really important that you put these learning loops into your system so it can get smarter and grow and get better over time.”Barnett said he often finds that HR teams are operating on ambiguous and conflicting policies, but “your system should be able to fix this for you.” AI can tell you what the workflows are and recommend what that flow should be, and then it should tell you the integrations you need. It can even help you build a business case and line up the resources to build it. But it’s smarter than to take an idea and run with it. Harper knows “when to escalate, triage, and hand off to a human,” he said.The airline industry is heavily regulated at both the federal and state levels, so Siclovan can’t simply hand the reins to a disembodied agent. Breeze employs a complex and varied workforce of maintenance crew, flight attendants, and pilots distributed across airports around the U.S., plus the folks, like her, in corporate headquarters. “Essentially, HR has to support the operation that runs 24/7, and we work a standard eight-to-five Monday-through-Friday schedule.”Siclovan’s team once spent a lot of time answering questions from all directions about benefits, payroll, recruitment, and onboarding, “and now they’re coaching leaders,” she said. “They’re solving team member relations issues. They’re helping with workforce planning and reorganization design.”This has been a successful partnership because, Siclovan explained, we started with a clear problem to be solved. “Ask yourself, ‘Where do you spend too much time? What questions are on repeat every day? What work doesn’t actually require human judgment?’ That’s where you start.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Wisq, for sponsoring this webinar.Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is an independent journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about business and the world of work. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Inc., and Business Insider, among others. She is the recipient of a Virginia Press Association award for business and financial journalism. She is the host of How to Be Anything, the podcast about people with unusual jobs.(Photo by S and V Design/iStock)

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How Marketeers Are Finally Solving an Age-Old Question

BY Jessica Swenson July 27, 2026

It’s no secret that marketing departments have long operated in a chaotic, reactive state, and the growing complexity, expanding market channels, and an increasingly fragmented audience base only amplify the problem. When marketers are unable to quickly answer unpredictable questions, this creates what George Huff, co-founder and CEO at Opal, calls an alignment tax—the hidden cost of extra meetings and late-night or off-hours work—which can make them seem disjointed and is very costly to businesses.“How do we help build confidence in the marketing function?” is the question he explored during a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s July marketing virtual conference about brand marketing and strategy.Huff believes that the volume of marketing and content demands will only continue to increase in 2026 and beyond, which could require organizations to produce as much as twice what they did in 2025. Aside from the increased capacity this involves, it also creates a need for additional organization and structure, which can get more difficult as organizations and programs grow.George Huff , the founder and CEO of Opal, led the virtual thought leadership spotlight (company photo)Despite mixed industry sentiment on AI use, he predicts that 50% of marketing content will be AI derived by the end of 2026. Some of Opal’s clients avoid AI while others are already running early pilots with agentic platforms. He and his team see the use of AI as a massive opportunity to “rethink some of the entrenched patterns within our organizations.”Huff acknowledges that as more employees gain access to AI tools, governance becomes more important—but he doesn’t foresee a single person using AI to create operational change on an organizational scale. Instead, he believes the most pragmatic next step for marketing organizations is what he calls a “multiplayer mode for marketing teams.” “Multiplayer to us is really about teams of people having agentic workflows and agents working together in the same spaces, and you have this visual home for plans, campaigns, and content.” Huff said, “And it really is integrated into how you work.” He emphasized the importance of evolving to integrate AI, but considering it as a part of your stack so you can maximize team alignment from the start.His team at Opal has created that shared space where teams can organize work in real-time around strategy, maintain a real view of the customer experience, and quickly inform partners and leaders about marketing initiatives, making alignment a low-friction activity. Users can import presentations into the platform or export content out into fully branded documents, including live data views, quickly answering questions that might have previously required extra meetings or late-night emails to answer, he says.With the existing space as a foundation, Huff sees future opportunity for organizations to leverage Opal’s structured historical context to make their experience even more comprehensive by adding an instructional layer.“When your team is working in a shared environment that has all the planning and the historical context, it's got strong instruction, and you’re bringing AI into that environment—that’s really the multiplayer vision, and that’s a massive step change from where we are. And I think it’s the right future for marketing as a function to go towards, because it allows you to do all the things you need to do.”In response to an audience member question about safely using AI for branded content, Huff outlined Opal’s process that allows teams to place guardrails on both the front and back ends of production. Marketers can encode brand requirements into their space, he said, ensuring that any AI-generated content remains grounded in the brand. For those who don’t use AI to generate content, the platform also allows externally drafted content to be compared to the encoded brand standards.“While there’s definitely fear, uncertainty, and doubt in the marketplace,” Huff said, “we think that it [AI] represents this opportunity to rethink everything in terms of how we work, and so that’s the future that we’re aiming at.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Opal, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Jessica Swenson is a freelance writer and proofreader based in the Midwest. Learn more about her at jmswensonllc.com.(Photo by JLco - Julia Amaral/iStock)

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Why Most GLP-1 Strategies Are Failing, and What to Build Around Them

BY Kristen Kwiatkowski July 22, 2026

GLP-1 use continues to grow as more individuals explore these medications for weight management. Along with rising interest come important questions about effectiveness, long-term outcomes, and cost. While some employer approaches have fallen short, others are finding more sustainable ways to provide access and support. How can companies develop a thoughtful GLP-1 strategy that delivers meaningful value for both employees and the organization?Yasmine Meneses, manager of consultant relations and registered dietitian at Nutrium, provided insight into this topic during a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s June virtual conference. Working among benefits teams and leaders, Meneses says GLP-1 medications are “one of the most discussed line items in pharmacy spend right now.” One of the most common questions employees ask is whether their health plan covers GLP-1s. It sounds straightforward, but the answer is often anything but. “The question isn’t just whether you cover it, it’s what you’re paying for around it to make it sustainable and get that ROI,” she said. A study of people without diabetes who started GLP-1 medications for obesity found that nearly 70% discontinued treatment within a year. Given the high cost of these medications, those findings raise important questions about long-term value, she says. Many people who stop taking GLP-1s regain weight, yet employers may still face significant, ongoing costs associated with coverage. As a result, HR leaders and CFOs are increasingly weighing how to offer these medications in a way that supports employee health while remaining financially sustainable.It’s important to note that coverage is not a strategy. Coverage answers the single question about who gets access, but strategy answers a more difficult question which is, “What happens next?”The Public Health Story“About 40% of adults are living with obesity and with the changes in definition to obesity, some might say that it’s even higher,” said Meneses. “One in 10 adults are living with severe obesity. Those rates are roughly three times higher than what they were in the 60s.” The public health story behind pharmacy spend doesn’t typically show up labeled as obesity, she says. “It’s usually arriving to you in rising claims, high-cost claimants, chronic condition burden, leaves of absence, disability, and the benefits complexity that just keeps on multiplying,” she said. Yasmine Meneses, manager of consultant relations & dietitian at Nutrium, led the virtual session (company photo)This is where GLP-1s enter the picture. A successful benefits strategy has to account for a workforce with a wide range of experiences and access points. Some employees receive GLP-1s through the employer's health plan, while others obtain them through self-pay, direct-to-consumer providers, or other channels. Still others may be considering whether the medications are right for them.HR’s approach can’t focus only on employees whose prescriptions are covered by the company’s health plan. Instead, benefits strategies should be designed to support employees across the full spectrum of GLP-1 use and decision-making, recognizing that workers will engage with these medications in different ways. “That’s why the individual coverage decision here is never the whole answer,” said Meneses.“The goal for you as an HR team member is not to become a clinical decision maker. That’s not on your work description and that’s not something that you should be worrying about,” said Meneses. “The goal is to build a benefits architecture that is consistent, explainable and fair.”Before making decisions about GLP-1 coverage, HR leaders should be able to answer three questions: What support is available before an employee starts the medication? What support is provided while they're on therapy? And what support is in place after they stop? It's equally important to consider employees who never use GLP-1s but still need effective weight-management and metabolic health resources.“GLP-1 therapy sits inside a broader model of care that includes healthy diet, physical activity, behavioral support, and professional guidance, and with that intensive behavioral intention interventions should be offered alongside the medication, and that is in order to enhance treatment outcomes,” said Meneses.Support From Nutrium CareMeneses says Nutrium’s approach reflects that broader philosophy. Rather than treating GLP-1s as a standalone benefit, Nutrium Care integrates them into a comprehensive nutrition strategy designed to support employees before, during, and after medication use.“The infrastructure you build for GLP-1 users should be the exact same infrastructure serving employees who need metabolic health support, chronic condition management support, or simply a structured entry point into better habits,” she said. Nutrium offers a dual-path model which covers care complexity and offers various steps. Everyone starts at the Health Foundations Review, which is the same front door for all and includes an initial assessment with a registered dietitian. The program starts with phase one: building the foundation through nutrition education and habit formation. A registered dietitian then determines whether GLP-1 therapy may be appropriate for consideration by a clinician. In phase two, members follow either a GLP-1 or non-GLP-1 health journey, while receiving the same standard of care. The final phase, graduation, focuses on long-term maintenance, autonomy, and relapse prevention—the stage where the program’s long-term success is often determined. “So that communication, that story needs to land clearly, and the reason for that is internal word of mouth is either your best enrollment tool and your best friend or your biggest credibility factor,” said Meneses. “We really need to make sure that we’re clearly stating how these are equal and not different.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Nutrium, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Kristen Kwiatkowski is a professional freelance writer covering a wide array of industries, with a focus on food and beverage and business. Her work has been featured in the Bucks County Herald, Eater Philly, Edible Lehigh Valley, Cider Culture, and The Town Dish.(Photo by skynesher/iStock)

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Aligning Brand Promises With Customer Experience

BY Grace Turney July 21, 2026

When Kentucky Fried Chicken ran out of chicken at its United Kingdom locations in 2018, the company didn’t hide from the blunder. It took out a full-page apology ad with its logo rearranged to spell “FCK,” admitted the mistake, and let the joke land. It’s the kind of recovery that sticks in Nizzi Karai Renaud’s mind years later as a great example of authenticity: not a flawless brand, but one that bridges the gap between what it promises and what it delivers, even when that means owning a very public mess.Renaud, Chief Brand Officer at Zazzle, the global print-on-demand marketplace headquartered in Menlo Park, California, explored that idea during a fireside chat at a recent From Day One’s July virtual conference. In a discussion moderated by marketing journalist Lisa Lacy, the two examined how brands earn consumer trust by keeping the promises they make, and why authenticity has become such an urgent topic across industries.Renaud traced the current consumer fixation on authenticity to a widening gap between what companies say, what they do, and what they actually value. “Authenticity is very unique in content, but universal in mechanism,” she said, noting that what feels authentic to Zazzle looks nothing like what feels authentic to a bank, even though the underlying test is the same everywhere. That test, she says, is whether a decision would still make sense traced back through a company’s history, or whether it only makes sense because it happens to be trending.Tone and alignment are related but distinct, Renaud added. A company’s tone, whether buttoned-up or unhinged on social media, is simply the outfit it wears. Alignment is the character underneath. She pointed to Duolingo’s owl mascot as an example of a chaotic tone that still tracks honestly with the app’s famously persistent reminders. Consumers forgive an unconventional outfit, she said, but not a character that doesn’t add up.Nizzi Karai Renaud, chief brand officer at Zazzle, spoke during the session moderated by journalist Lisa Lacy (photo by From Day One)At Zazzle, where customers design and personalize their own products, Renaud says every order is a promise either kept or broken. This makes authenticity as much an operational question as a marketing one. That philosophy shows up internally through what the company calls CHIA: creativity, heart, integrity, and amaze, a shorthand Renaud’s team uses when navigating difficult calls, including content moderation decisions and the rollout of Zazzle’s AI shopping agent, Z.Trust itself, Renaud says, is built over time through repeated interactions rather than a single standout moment, meaning brands should design for the hundredth customer interaction, not just the first impression. She recommended making fewer promises and keeping them consistently, while also planning in advance for the moments when a company inevitably falls short. Nothing collapses public trust faster than hypocrisy caught out in the open.Renaud also urged brands to hand storytelling over to their customers rather than narrating on their own behalf. She cited Lego’s fan-designed product line and GoPro’s use of customer-shot footage as examples of companies that let real users become their most credible advocates. The underlying psychological concept, she said, is “mattering,” a framework popularized by the late scholar Isaac Prilleltensky, built on the idea that people need to feel both valued and capable of adding value in return.As for brands that exemplify sustained trust, Renaud pointed to Costco, a company she described as a quiet master of brand integrity that has avoided reinvention or gimmicks in favor of relentless consistency. “Marketing can just be the mirror, not the mask,” she said. No amount of messaging can manufacture authenticity if the underlying operation doesn’t support it.In the end, Renaud’s advice circles back to a single idea: authenticity isn’t a campaign a brand launches, but a discipline it keeps. The companies that last, she suggested, are the ones willing to hold their values fixed while everything else, tone, channels, even the tools they build with, keeps changing around them.Grace Turney is a St. Louis-based writer, artist, and former librarian. See more of her work at graceturney17.wixsite.com/mysite.(Photo by skynesher/iStock)

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Caregiving as Workforce Infrastructure: The Non-Negotiable Investment Hiding in Plain Sight

BY Jessica Swenson July 16, 2026

Caregiving isn’t just a family issue. It affects employees’ physical and mental health, financial well-being, and workplace performance. As family needs become more complex, employee expectations evolve, and costs continue to rise, the entire caregiving ecosystem is under increasing strain. How can employers strengthen their caregiving benefits and better support the employees who rely on them?This question was asked and answered by Jess Brown, VP of marketing for Cariloop, during a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s June virtual conference on benefits and total rewards. As a long-term caregiving industry advocate and a working parent, Brown has a comprehensive view of the issue. She believes caregiving should be a part of a company’s infrastructure strategy rather than a niche benefit. “It’s important to recognize that as employee expectations continue to rise and benefit budgets continue to shrink, employers are being asked to do something really difficult. You need to provide meaningful support without simply adding another expensive point solution to the ecosystem,” she said. Family-based caregivers spend an average of 27 hours each week fulfilling care responsibilities for their loved ones, says Brown, on top of coordination, research, transportation, medication management, and any full or part-time paid work. In-home non-medical senior care can be upwards of $100,000 per year, she says. Childcare is considered affordable by the Department of Health and Human Services only if it doesn’t exceed 7% of household income.These time, health, and financial pressures can cause a ripple effect that not only impacts employees, but also businesses. Citing a 2025 AARP study, Brown shared that 56% of employees reported going to work late, leaving early, or taking unplanned time off, and roughly 20% shifted from full-time to part-time status. “When it comes to choosing to care for the ones you love and showing up for work, people are always going to choose their family,” she said. Jess Brown is the VP of marketing at Cariloop (company photo)She encourages employers to foster a culture of care by being open and vulnerable about their caregiving journeys. This can help employees feel safer and be willing to do the same. Brown also urges employers to prioritize multi-generational caregiving in addition to parenting and childcare. In her view, this type of care is a long-term priority that will persist for generations.She offers three key suggestions as companies head into their annual benefits planning season. First, review any backup care program you may have in place. Traditional models built upon prepaid, exclusive-provider networks may have you prepay for a bank of days, charge a premium cost for additional days during the contract period, and limit choices for employees seeking care for their families. She no longer sees this model as viable due to changing preferences and a shrinking supply of professional caregivers.Second, acknowledge that caregiving is more than just backup care to offset a disruption. With the largest generation in the workforce, millennials, now shouldering care for both their children and parents, it is increasingly important to help them plan ahead.“When you’re investing in caregiving benefits, it’s important to think about how you’re avoiding disruptions in the workplace, but it’s also important to recognize that there will always be disruptions because of caregiving, so you can invest in programs that support employees when those disruptions arrive,” Brown said. “But really the foundation of those programs should be the fact that you want to help employees build a safety net, plan ahead, and have a plan B ready to go if and when those disruptions come knocking on their front door.”And third, she suggests asking targeted questions to understand your workforce’s actual caregiving needs. This helps you better prepare for disruptions and reduce surprises when caregiving absences must occur.Once caregiving benefits are evaluated and implemented, Brown says that companies can use a few different approaches to measure their ROI: business performance, clinical outcomes, and dollar-for-dollar savings. She recommends that employers identify their top priorities before they define how they’ll measure success, and cautions that ROI measurement is typically a collaborative process.It can be difficult to attribute business outcomes to one specific program, so she recommends using a cohort analysis that compares utilization data between employees who have and have not used caregiving benefits. This helps build a directional story. Measuring clinical ROI helps connect “caregiving support to measurable health, well-being, or clinical outcomes,” said Brown, such as earlier engagement with benefits, fewer instances of burnout, increased use of preventive care, and the reduction of physical or mental health issues caused by stress. A simpler option is to directly compare dollar-to-dollar costs to determine any savings within a specific time frame or between vendors. She encourages leaders to get into the weeds with benefits providers to understand their support and enable a more thorough comparison. Brown reiterated that employees can be directly affected by a lack of caregiving support, which makes this type of care a strategic lever for employers. “Caregiving is not a niche issue,” she said. “It’s a strategic workforce force issue that really does impact the entire infrastructure of your employee experience. Every employer has employees who care for other people, and when those employees lack support, it has a direct impact on how they show up for work.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Cariloop, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Jessica Swenson is a freelance writer and proofreader based in the Midwest. Learn more about her at jmswensonllc.com.(Photo by dusanpetkovic/iStock)

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How Teams Lose Time and Money to Benefits Navigation, and How to Get It Back

BY Christopher O'Keeffe July 14, 2026

Health benefits remain one of the most significant investments organizations make in their employees, but according to Ben Howard, co-founder of Sheer Health, offering comprehensive coverage is only part of the equation. During a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s Manhattan conference, Howard shared that many of the challenges employees experience stem not from the quality of their benefits, but from the complexity of understanding and using them.Howard opened by asking attendees how many had encountered employees seeking help with confusing medical bills, prescription costs, or questions about insurance coverage. He suggested that these situations have become commonplace for HR teams, particularly as healthcare benefits have grown more complex. Rather than discussing benefit design or cost containment strategies, he focused on what happens after an employee receives an unexpected bill or encounters a confusing insurance decision.Throughout the presentation, Howard described what he called the gap between coverage and care. Employees may have access to comprehensive health plans, but they often struggle to determine what services are covered, what they will owe out of pocket, whether a claim was processed correctly, or what steps to take after receiving a denial. As a result, questions that begin with insurance carriers or healthcare providers frequently find their way to HR departments. “A benefit stops feeling like a benefit, and the confusion has to go somewhere,” he said. From Reactive Assistance to Proactive NavigationHoward illustrated this challenge through several common scenarios. During open enrollment, employees may select plans without fully understanding deductibles, provider networks, or long-term costs. During major medical events such as cancer treatment, fertility care, or the management of chronic conditions, patients often face multiple insurers, providers, approvals, and billing systems simultaneously. Even routine prescriptions can generate unexpected expenses when employees are unaware of preferred medications or pharmacy programs available through their health plans.Ben Howard, co-founder of Sheer Health, led the sessionThe problem is rarely inadequate benefits, says Howard. More often, employees lack the information they need to navigate the healthcare system, especially when making decisions under stress. Healthcare has become a navigation problem as much as an access problem, he says, with benefits creating value only when employees know how to use them. That makes proactive benefits navigation, rather than reactive support, increasingly essential.Traditional benefits assistance often begins only after an employee identifies a problem. A claim has been denied, a medical bill appears incorrect, or an explanation of benefits raises new questions. Employees then begin contacting insurance companies, providers, or HR departments in an effort to understand what happened.Howard described an alternative approach in which claims and benefits information are reviewed as they are processed, allowing potential issues to be identified before employees spend significant time trying to resolve them independently. Rather than waiting for employees to report problems, the goal is to identify billing discrepancies, explain insurance decisions in plain language, and assist with appeals before confusion escalates.Measuring Time Alongside CostWhile much discussion surrounding employee healthcare focuses on financial costs, Howard encouraged attendees to consider the amount of time consumed by navigating the healthcare system.He reported that since 2023, Sheer Health has helped members recover nearly $20 million through reimbursements and savings, resolved more than 75,000 insurance-related questions, and saved members more than 25,000 hours that otherwise would have been spent dealing with claims, paperwork, and insurance companies. These hours represent time returned both to employees and to HR teams that would otherwise become involved in resolving benefits questions, he says. Closing the session, Howard returned to the theme that framed the presentation from the outset. “The hardest part of healthcare was never really the paperwork,” he said. “It’s the confusion that paperwork creates.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Sheer Health, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Chris O’Keeffe is a freelance writer with experience across industries. As the founder and creative director of OK Creative: The Language Agency, he has led strategy and storytelling for organizations like MIT, Amazon, and Cirque du Soleil, bringing their stories to life through established and emerging media.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)

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AI Skills in Action: Beyond the Buzzwords

BY Paul Kersey July 13, 2026

If artificial intelligence has left HR leaders feeling both excited and overwhelmed, they’re far from alone. Companies see enormous potential in the technology and are racing to prepare their workforces for what comes next. The challenge is that no one agrees on the best way to get there.Dr. Ken Matos, the director of market insights at HiBob, spoke with PBS News correspondent Megan Thompson during a From Day One webinar on the matter. As Matos sees it, employers are still in the early stages of adopting AI.  Expectations are high, but plans are still vague, as businesses experiment with a wide range of approaches to AI use and employee training. “What’s problematic is that hole in the conversation where it’s a very confident ‘yes, we’re going to do this,’ and a very panicked, ‘I don’t know what doing this really means.’”The hole shows up clearly in HiBob’s survey of 1,200 corporate decision makers, says Matos. Question after question, what emerges is a consensus that AI  is important and that workers must be prepared to use AI tools, but there is rarely any agreement about best approaches for use or training.  The survey shows that 75% of decision makers agree that even non-technical jobs will require at least moderate AI proficiency,  he says. But when it came to what that training actually looked like, there was little consensus. HiBob’s survey listed nine different approaches to upskilling employees, from external seminars to hands-on practice labs and sandbox experimentation, and adoption was remarkably even across them, ranging from 23% to 30%. In other words, most employers were trying two or three methods, but there was no clear playbook for which ones to useThere’s also a conundrum over just who should be in charge of that training.  Again, respondents came back with a wide range of answers, from managers to technology vendors to unions to public schools.  The leading answer, by a narrow margin, was direct supervisors. But only 36% of respondents thought that those same supervisors were qualified to do the teaching. “Managers of today were not hired because of AI skill,” Matos said, “and those who are promoted are not necessarily good managers who are able to teach.”The AI Skills That Matter MostSo what skills should employers be developing? Matos says that adaptability tops the list. Until now, workers could count on computers to produce the same output from the same input. If the result was different, something had likely gone wrong. AI changes that equation. Even the engineers who build these models can't always predict how they'll respond. As models evolve behind the scenes, the same prompt can produce a different answer than it did yesterday. Employees need to be comfortable working with that uncertainty, adjusting to shifting systems and unexpected outcomes.Kenneth Matos, Ph.D., the director of the Insights Lab at HiBob, led the session (company photo)The second is understanding how AI itself works. This is more than just writing good prompts. It starts with knowing what tasks AI is good at and where humans need to take control. “AI is absorbing a lot of the explicit knowledge” Matos observes, referring to discrete information you might find in a book or a spreadsheet. But there is also tacit knowledge which involves experience and understanding people. AI will lack this sort of knowledge, he says. The third piece will be safety and ethics. “So much of AI usage is envisioned as individual AI people going forth and just doing things and spinning up vibe-coded apps and other applications,” Matos said, but they need to think about what data is in the system. Employees who use AI should pay attention to what data an application really needs, what is and isn’t safe, and what the consequences will be if there’s a breach.Coaching For AI: Learning TogetherIf direct managers are going to be doing the bulk of the training, then companies should rethink just what training means. Matos says that they should adapt a coaching mindset instead. He encourages managers to guide and learn with their subordinates. “You’re not supposed to go and tell them what to do or how to do it because you know it better. You’re there as a critical thinking sounding board to reflect back what they’re saying, to ask them questions.”With that in mind, employees may use AI to generate a report, but they shouldn’t send it to a supervisor until they understand what it’s saying. And rather than acting on every insight AI produces, teams should identify one or two key findings, verify them, and build from there.AI will change workflows and processes, but Matos recommends that this process not be rushed into.  His first step?  “Map your workflows, don’t even worry about AI yet,” he said. Once you have your actual processes documented, “then you can start saying, ‘Where does AI actually help make this faster, smoother, more integrated?’”“One of the challenges with AI is that no one really understands AI,” Matos said. The uncomfortable truth is that a lot is still unknown about the functions and capabilities of this technology. Accepting that will mean proceeding a bit more slowly with adopting artificial intelligence, but it will free managers to explore the technology along with the rest of their teams.  The companies that commit themselves to really learning this technology, balancing bold experimentation and methodical application, will be best positioned to thrive.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, HiBob, for sponsoring this webinar. Paul Kersey is a former attorney and freelance writer who has covered events for Bloomberg News and other outlets.  Paul is based in Chicago, IL.(Photo by Kindamorphic/iStock)

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Maintaining a Wellness-Forward Workplace Amid Change

BY Kristen Kwiatkowski July 07, 2026

Organizational success starts with the people who make it possible. When employees are healthy, supported, and engaged, they’re better equipped to collaborate, innovate, and perform at their best. Increasingly, workers recognize this too: research shows that most employees would rather work for an employer that prioritizes their well-being than receive a 10% pay raise. The message is clear—investing in employee well-being isn’t just the right thing to do; it’s a competitive advantage that drives stronger performance and better business outcomes, says Alexandra Powell, director of insights at Reward Gateway. Powell spoke about how employers can maintain a human workplace in the midst of change during a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s Manhattan conference. “In the midst of change and uncertainty, your people make all the difference,” she said.Employees Want Employers to Care About Their Well-Being“What we love to do is play in the space of how do you create an employee value proposition that’s going to get and keep top talent and what is it people are looking for?” she said.The answer lies in recent survey data that highlights a significant shift in employee priorities. According to research done by Reward Gateway, 58% of U.S. employees across industries said that working for a company that cares about their well-being is more valuable than receiving a 10% raise. That’s a notable increase from 44% in 2023, suggesting that employees are placing greater emphasis on workplace culture and support than on pay increases alone.Alexandra Powell, director of insights at Reward Gateway, led the session, "Maintaining a Human Workplace in the Midst of Change"There were other sentiments offered as well that seemed to be more important to employees than a 10% raise. “Ability to learn and grow, great relationship with my manager, and consistent, frequent praise,” said Powell.“We’ve also found that one of the most interesting differentiators in the data over the past few years is where people work,” Powell said. Among fully remote employees, 54% said a company that cares about their well-being is more valuable than a 10% raise, slightly below the overall average. That figure rises to 59% for fully onsite workers. Hybrid employees reported the highest levels, with 57% of those who spend fewer than two days a week in the office and 63% of those in the office three or more days a week saying they value an employer that prioritizes employee well-being over a 10% raise.How to Promote Workplace WellnessWhether an employee feels their employer cares about their well-being majorly impacts turnover and retention, says Powell. In fact, 1 in 5 workers say they are leaving if the company doesn’t care about their well-being, she says. So, how can employers let their team members know they matter to them? “Employee resource groups, pulse surveys, lots of things we can do to let people know that they matter to us and make it visible,” said Powell.Powell pointed to her company’s response during Covid as an example of making employee support more accessible. Her team created a centralized hub of benefits information that answered common questions, allowing employees to find resources on their own without having to contact HR or their managers.She also emphasized that employers should make their commitment to well-being visible. That can include initiatives like Wellness Wednesdays, expanded counseling services, wellness care packages, or well-being challenges with prizes. Why Recognition Is Essential to Employee Well-Being“Recognition is a powerful way to support well-being, so we combined the two over the years,” she said. “We do campaigns to recognize well-being and the first one we did was super powerful, as it was to recognize your manager that supports your well-being. I love this, because it’s getting stories told across the organization.” Another recognition initiative the company runs during Mental Health Awareness Month encourages employees to thank colleagues who support their well-being. Appreciation cards are available with the message: “Thanks for all you do to support my mental health.”“These recognition campaigns are something we can do to make sure people feel valued and seen, but also reinforce what’s already working [in the realm] of well-being,” said Powell.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Reward Gateway, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Kristen Kwiatkowski is a professional freelance writer covering a wide array of industries, with a focus on food and beverage and business. Her work has been featured in the Bucks County Herald, Eater Philly, Edible Lehigh Valley, Cider Culture, and The Town Dish.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)

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How to Hire for the Agentic Era

BY Ade Akin July 06, 2026

The role of software developers has been fundamentally transformed in the agentic era. What was once a linear path from requirements to deployment has evolved into an active process of agent orchestration, in which AI agents handle the heavy lifting of coding, testing, and maintenance. This shift has forced a complete rethinking of how companies identify and hire talent that thrives in this new landscape. Vivek Ravinsankar, the co-founder and CEO of HackerRank, delivered a thought leadership spotlight on this new challenge facing organizations at From Day One’s Manhattan conference. His session, “How to Hire for the Agentic Era,” laid out a roadmap for HR and talent leaders navigating a world where AI fluency is as vital as code correctness; a world where it has become more challenging than ever to maintain integrity in the hiring process.The Orchestrator's New RoleRavinsankar started his presentation by acknowledging the pervasive anxiety surrounding AI. Addressing the widespread concern regarding AI, he noted that anxieties about technology replacing workers have deep roots, citing a 1928 news report that linked rising unemployment to the advent of new machinery. Vivek Ravinsankar, co-founder and CEO of HackerRank, led the session titled, "Hire for the Agentic Era," in Manhattan Adapting to the AI revolution requires a fundamental shift in perspective. The software developer’s profession has transcended the boundaries of the conventional development cycle. “Today, AI agents can do all of this in a much better way than humans,” he said. “The job of a developer has now become an orchestrator of agents.” This evolution extends beyond the field of software engineering; Ravinsankar notes that a customer support person’s role today is to “build an agent that can respond to tickets as good or better than they can.”Rethinking the InterviewThe method used to evaluate candidates must evolve if the job has changed. Ravinsankar detailed a three-dimensional shift in how HackerRank’s customers, over 3,000 companies ranging from garage startups to Fortune 500 enterprises, are adapting their hiring processes.First, the type of questions asked has evolved. Companies are moving away from standard algorithmic puzzles toward “tasks on code repositories that mirror real-world work.” This gives candidates a tangible sense of the company’s work environment and allows employers to assess their skills.Second, the criteria evaluated have expanded. Historically, the focus was on a candidate’s ability to write correct code. In the current landscape, that is merely the baseline expectation. Ravinsankar says evaluation has shifted from code correctness to critical thinking, judgment, and AI fluency.Third, the candidate experience is also changing. Developers used to operate in an Integrated Development Environment (IDE), a space where programming code served as the primary focal point. That is evolving into what Ravinsankar calls an ADE, or Agentic Developer Environment, “where the agents are the spotlight.”The technical assessment candidates go through is also undergoing a paradigm shift. Ravinsankar mapped the historical progression from the abstract brain teasers of the 1990s to the algorithmic focus of the 2000s, followed by the adoption of online testing and collaborative pair programming. Ravinsankar notes that the current environment is defined by a clear move toward AI-driven interviews supported by a human-led screening process.The Integrity Challenge in an AI WorldRavinsankar also addressed the rising tide of integrity issues during his presentation. Trusting that a candidate is who they say they are—and that their work is their own—has become a paramount concern due to the proliferation of suspicious tools and the ease of impersonation.He identified three primary issues that compromise the integrity of the hiring process: leaked questions, the use of cheating tools, and impersonation. To combat question leaks, HackerRank scours the web, sending DMCA notices and providing alternate questions to its customers. He notes that the most popular site for leaked questions in the last three months was a website called Study X, highlighting the ever-changing nature of the threat.Ravinsankar spoke candidly about the use of questionable tools, asserting that integrity hinges on adherence to established guidelines rather than the simple presence or absence of AI. “Integrity is not about whether you use AI or not. Integrity is about whether you follow the rules,” he said. To support this, HackerRank’s platform provides employers with full visibility into a candidate’s session, including alerts if they navigate to third-party sites like ChatGPT.Lastly, Ravinsankar provided several striking metrics regarding candidate impersonation. According to Ravinsankar, analytics on flagged suspicious activity reveal that approximately 77% of cases involve video streams being toggled on and off, likely indicating that a candidate is searching for answers. Furthermore, multiple individuals appear in the frame in about 20% of these instances, while the candidate's identity changes entirely during the session in roughly 2% of interviews.“It’s like watching Benjamin Button,” he said, “the person completely changes.” Ravinsankar further observed that patterns in webcam use differ notably across various geographic regions and career levels, highlighting the necessity for a flexible, rather than uniform, strategy for maintaining hiring integrity.HackerRank has launched a new product called Chakra to address the twin challenges of evolving skills and rising integrity concerns. The name, which means “superpower,” reflects its mission. “It’s an AI interviewer that tries to find the superpower in every candidate,” Ravinsankar said. It marries the search for next-gen skills with a high-integrity process, representing what he believes is the new form of AI-led screen.Ravinsankar concluded on an optimistic note, reinforcing his belief that “the more capable AI becomes, the more valuable human labor will be.” Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, HackerRank, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Ade Akin covers artificial intelligence, workplace wellness, HR trends, and digital health solutions.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)

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Hiring Effectively in a Resource-Constrained World

BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza June 30, 2026

Despite the term “skills-based” being a regular part of HR parlance for the last three years, most companies are still trying to figure out what that means for their organization. Not all companies need to become a skills-based workforce, says Jennifer Burnett, an organizational psychologist and principal solutions architect at talent assessment technology platform SHL. But for large companies that struggle to define and find the talent they need, within the organization and without, it can be hugely beneficial.“Being a skills-based organization probably speaks more to the complexity of the organization, the maturity of their talent practices, and the role diversity,” she said during a From Day One webinar. Those with smaller workforce or with fewer role types may not find much use for a skills-based strategy.The good thing is, skills are “the common data element we’ve been looking for for a very long time in the HR and talent space,” Burnett said. But frankly, this isn’t something that “makes life easier from an HR or talent practice perspective.” This is a business initiative HR is uniquely equipped to support.Most organizations that have adopted a skills-based strategy have incorporated it into workforce planning or into hiring, and some might have applied it to learning and development, “but very few have linked it all together in a cycle, so it hasn’t produced a clean ROI yet,” said Allan Schweyer, principal researcher of the human capital arm of The Conference Board, a non-profit think tank that collects and analyzes data for influential enterprises around the world.Journalist and From Day One contributing editor, Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza, moderated the session with Burnett of SHL and Schweyer of The Conference Board (photo by From Day One)But there are early signs. Some companies report faster time-to-hire, while others tout internal mobility or increased engagement, he said. As for greater ROI, that will just take time. The practice hasn’t matured enough.Companies that succeed in operationalizing skills start small, usually with job descriptions, which can be easily governed, recorded, and replicated. “When you do start with hiring,” Schweyer said, “you’re forced to build a skills infrastructure, a skills library, job architectures, and assessment methods.” From there, employees can build skills profiles, the business can set up internal talent marketplaces, and both can work together on career pathing. Hiring today remains very resume-based, said Burnett, “and we often go from screening resumes into interviews where you’re trying to collect as much information with a variety of interviewers. When it’s a skills-based process, you put an objective assessment between the screening and the interviews. That can help you ask more targeted interview questions.”On the day a new hire shows up for work, you already know their strengths and what needs developing. “In traditional hiring, we don’t have that insight,” she said. “A lot of that information just stayed in the talent acquisition process.” This bleeds into learning and development, then promotions and internal mobility, compensation, and workforce planning more broadly.It takes more than a mandate from on high to make this work, they said. “Companies who are more mature in this space have shared with us that they underestimated the change in behaviors and mindsets required to make this shift,” Burnett said. Managers must balance data against subjective judgements they’re more accustomed to, and there’s more required from employees too, who need to keep their talent profiles up to date.Employees benefit from autonomy. “They’re actually involved in their own development and in identifying their next role,” she said. “That change in thinking—of talent as more versatile and longer-term,” that means that the company is making an investment in the employees, and in turn, the employee is making an investment in the company. Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, SHL, 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 ABRAHAM GONZALEZ FERNANDEZ/iStock)

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Healthcare Costs: Stop Shifting, Start Solving

BY Kristen Kwiatkowski June 24, 2026

What if we could improve employee benefits by fixing healthcare itself? One emerging model suggests it's possible to reduce total healthcare spending by 2% to 6%—not by shifting more costs onto employees, but by identifying problems early and providing evidence-based care before conditions escalate into costly claims, says Steve Parker, SVP at Mobile Health.Parker spoke during a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s Chicago half-day benefits conference on the subject. “I got into this business because I believe that when you take care of your people, they take care of your organization,” he said. This year’s benefits costs will increase by another 9%, predicts Parker. As a result, decision makers may have to tackle difficult issues regarding benefits, such as costs shifting to employees, higher premiums, higher deductibles, and network limitations. This all adds stress on the employees. People are more concerned about unexpected medical bills than other economic pressures, such as rising gas prices, he says.Steve Parker, SVP at Mobile Health, led the session titled "Healthcare Costs: Stop Shifting, Start Solving"People are also concerned about rising health insurance premiums and their ability to afford coverage. As healthcare costs climb, access to care often declines, particularly for services such as mental health, sleep care, and specialty treatment. The costs add up for everyone, employees, employers, and insurers alike.When health benefits are reduced or cut, people may refuse to visit their doctor or do so sparingly because they don’t have access or can’t afford it, he says. This could lead to productivity issues at work or employees not showing up at all because they are dealing with a medical issue. “If we keep making things more restrictive, health doesn’t improve, costs continue to go up,” said Parker.“We need to be transformational,” he said. “We need to make better care easier to access, not make traditional care harder to use.”How Technology Can Help the Shift“We can use technology to transform healthcare, fix healthcare, and fix healthcare benefits at the same time,” said Parker.Parker’s been working on a new technology concept at Mobile Health and there are four things technology can enable individuals to do that weren’t possible before. Technology can provide data, it can enable help to reach you where you are, it can link you up with a low cost care provider accessible to you, and it offers AI solutions that can help people improve their health. AI solutions must be implemented carefully. Not all AI is clinically grounded, it doesn’t know an individual’s medical history, and it can sometimes produce unsafe or inaccurate recommendations, he says. Mobile Health has been working to build AI that can help with these issues. The company has launched three different clients this year regarding this solution that have had significant success. For example, one is a government employer in a rural state where access to care is limited. In the first 60 days, the results showed 28% of their at-risk population were engaged in programs that can improve health and save money. Another client is a mid-market company that saw 88% of their at-risk people engaged in four months, says Parker. Digital care can help with health cost issues. It can provide people with an alternative to expensive, difficult to access care which can occur in the community, and it can also help to fix the supply chain problem.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Mobile Health, 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)

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Earned Wage Access: Innovative Strategies for Worker Well-Being and Organizational Cost-Effectiveness

BY Ade Akin June 17, 2026

There’s an invisible tax draining the budgets of companies that still rely on the traditional two-week pay cycle. The question is, what are these organizations going to do about it? That was the challenge posed by Steve Davis, the national sales manager at FIS, during a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s Chicago half-day benefits conference. Davis didn’t mince words during his presentation, pointing out that a staggering 62% of American workers live paycheck to paycheck. He says that this sobering reality isn’t just a personal hardship for employees, but rather a performance, leadership, and budget issue that’s hiding in plain sight. Davis says more than $300 billion is wasted annually replacing workers who left, in part, because an outdated payroll cycle failed to meet their financial needs. The Hidden Crisis in Your Break RoomThe unprecedented number of employees living paycheck to paycheck isn’t the result of bad choices. “Rent didn’t stop going up, fuel costs haven’t stopped going up, groceries haven’t stopped going up, and child care costs today are astronomical,” he said. Wages haven’t kept pace with rising costs of living, leaving two-thirds of the workforce in financial stress. Around 56% of these workers say their financial stress directly hurts their performance at work. And the problem isn’t restricted to lower-wage employees, with 44% of workers who earn over $100,000 annually having little to no money left after paying for their monthly expenses. “Tell me how many of your managers are in that number,” Davis challenged the room.Not a Loan, Not a Payday SchemeSteve Davis, national sales manager at FIS, led the session in Chicago Davis dismantled some of the misconceptions that have hindered the adoption of earned wage access (EWA) for years before exploring solutions. Earned wage access isn’t a loan or payday product, and it isn’t a compliance nightmare to roll out. It’s simply giving employees access to the money they’ve already earned.The mechanics that power EWA are simple: Wages accrue in real time against your payroll system. An employee requests access to a portion, typically capped at 50% of what they’ve earned during that pay period. The funds hit their account, often within minutes. The amount taken is automatically deducted on the next scheduled payday. “No manual work, no HR involvement, no cash flow exposure,” Davis said. The Hard Numbers That Win Over a CFODavis presented a slide he recommends putting in front of any CFO when making a case for EWA. Employers report a 10 to 29% reduction in employee turnover with EWA. He walked through a concrete example using a company with 1,000 employees and 35% annual turnover. With an average replacement cost of $3,500 per hourly worker, that’s $1.225 million in annual turnover costs. A documented 20% reduction saves the company $245,000 at no additional cost to the company, since the benefit itself costs nothing.The savings extend beyond higher retention rates. Employers see a 40% reduction in payroll inquiry calls and emails, significantly slashing the administrative burden of answering questions like, “When do I get paid?” Also, 96% of employers who offer EWA say it helps attract talent, transforming it from a nice-to-have into a competitive necessity.The Human Side of the SpreadsheetDavis also discussed what EWA looks like for employees. Without EWA, a worker who needs $200 before payday has limited options: a payday loan with an APR that can exceed 400%, a high-interest credit card cash advance, or simply missing the bill and incurring a late fee. All of these choices add financial worry to the employee’s mental load while they’re expected to focus on serving customers.With EWA, that same employee opens an app, accesses their own money, and handles the crisis without any debt, interest, or shame. “When an employee looks at their benefits package and sees earned wage access, they see an employer that trusts them with their own money,” Davis said. “That’s not a transactional signal, that’s a relational signal.”Davis also offered practical guidance for evaluating earned wage access vendors. With the market growing at an annual rate of 34.8% and projected to reach $23.6 billion by 2030, he argued that employers should look for four essential qualities. First, the solution should come at no cost to the employer. “In 2026, if a vendor is charging you a per-employee fee, ask them why their competitor isn’t,” he said. Second, it should integrate seamlessly with payroll and human capital management systems, operating behind the scenes without creating additional work for payroll teams while automatically handling deductions. Third, employers should expect measurable outcomes, including dashboards that track adoption rates, indicators of financial stress, and correlations with retention. “If a vendor can’t measure outcomes, they can’t prove value,” Davis noted. Finally, vendors should take full responsibility for compliance, particularly as earned wage access legislation is pending or already enacted in more than 16 states.Davis concluded with a direct challenge for the audience: “Before you leave this conference, identify one person on your leadership team and schedule a 30-minute conversation on EWA. Bring the ROI scenario. The data is in, the technology is mature, and the cost is zero. The only thing standing between your workforce and this benefit is the decision to move.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, FIS, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Ade Akin covers artificial intelligence, workplace wellness, HR trends, and digital health solutions.(Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)

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AI That Actually Works: Orchestrating Content, Context, and Workflows at Scale

BY Ade Akin June 09, 2026

Grant Hoffman was trained as a sketch artist before he became an AI solutions architect, and the most valuable lesson he learned during that time had nothing to do with drawing the subject in front of him. “If you are trying to depict something and it never seems to come out right, you draw the negative space around it,” he said during a From Day One webinar. “I don’t draw the camera, I draw the space around the camera, and by doing so, I draw the camera, because my brain has no concept of what the space around the camera is supposed to look like.”Hofmann, now the AI solutions architect at Orange Logic, believes that lesson also applies to enterprise AI projects. Companies often point AI at the tasks it’s needed for, assuming the algorithm will figure out the rest, but the real work lies in mapping the invisible scaffolding around the task: brand rules, legal guardrails, and the tribal knowledge that only lives in the minds of a few seasoned employees. Without that layer of context, AI creates blur instead of drawing the camera.That insight formed the core of the webinar’s conversation. Hoffman was joined by his colleague Misti Vogt, the SVP of engagement at Orange Logic, to lay out a five-step path for moving AI solutions from experiment to infrastructure, grounded in their work with organizations entrusted with managing millions of digital assets. Why Most AI Projects DisappointGrant Hofmann, AI solutions architect at Orange Logic, spoke during the webinar (company photo)Hofmann says the biggest reason some AI initiatives fail is that companies treat AI as a magic bullet when it actually operates on the law of averages.“These foundation models that most of us are building with are built on billions of parameters that represent relationships between a training data set that is mostly a single sum of human knowledge,” he said. “That is an average, and if we’re making assumptions based on the average, we are not capturing the nuance of how you or your organization really think about how to do a task.”That nuance covers everything from tone of voice to rights management. “The way that I ask people to see it is as a magnifying glass,” Hofmann said. “If your process is good and it’s well thought out and it’s well documented, adding a little bit of AI to the mix is going to make it look 10 times more successful. But if your process is shaky, or if it relies on a lot of tribal knowledge, that’s where your hidden 10x can go the opposite direction.” Hofmann called these friction points “qualitative bottlenecks,” tasks where human intuition has always helped create the path. Vogt highlighted the foundational challenge organizations face when creating AI workflows: “The machines can’t be expected to know your brand rules, the governance for your brand, your voice, your rights, your taxonomy. So you have to create an ecosystem and infrastructure where they can easily lean into that information and get what they need when they need it.”Vogt now calls this “enterprise content infrastructure.” Orange Logic has been building such platforms since 1998, and the company was recognized as a Leader by both Gartner and Forrester in 2025, she says.From Record to RevenueVogt described a fundamental shift in content platforms. “Digital asset management has moved from really a system of record into a system of action, which puts us a lot closer to the revenue side of the business,” she said. “What you can do today is start benchmarking, because what’s happening for our customers who are starting to deploy these agents? It doesn’t translate really well, because they didn’t benchmark on the former process.”Hofmann recommends identifying metrics that tie back to dollar-value outcomes: increased output, reduced legal review times, and lower tool bloat. “Cool factor doesn’t really hold water with the guy that signs the checks,” he added. “Before we fully get started, as we are in that scoping stage, we identify the metrics that we want to use in order to report, like, hey, this was really successful.” That discipline also prevents scope creep. “Being able to point to your metric for every new idea and say, 'How is this going to influence my metrics that I’m using to report value?’ Is this a good way to keep things on track?”Teaching Machines Your RulesHofmann offered a low-tech exercise called the “sticky note method” to teach how to extract tribal knowledge within an organization. “Start with a pile of sticky notes next to you. Whether it’s you or whether you’re sitting down with your expert, we watch them, or we do the task ourselves. Every time our eyes start shifting to a different part of the screen, every time we consult a piece of prior knowledge, every single little piece of that gets documented by writing it down on the sticky note.” By the time the task is completed, the team has produced the first drafts of prompts and workflows, while highlighting steps that need a human touch. The method echoes some of the lessons Hofmann learned during his art training. “That sort of assumption engine that makes my day-to-day so fast and easy can get in my way or kill my accuracy,” he said. Vogt agreed: “It forces you out of common thinking. It’s not just fitting AI into current business processes; it’s rethinking the business processes.”Crawl, Walk, RunHofmann and Vogt advocate for a phased approach to AI adoption that unfolds in three stages. The first, "crawl," focuses on using AI as a supportive tool, offering suggestions while humans guide and refine every action. In the "walk" phase, organizations introduce greater rigor by automating complete handoffs between steps and establishing clear benchmarks that make it easier to detect model drift, the point at which AI performance begins to decline. The final stage, "run," is reached when the system has been refined enough to consistently produce the desired output with minimal intervention.Hofmann says that remaining in the crawl or walk phase is perfectly acceptable. “Run is a place that’s earned, not assumed.” Both speakers emphasized the importance of people remaining at the forefront of all AI processes. “Focus on people,” Hofmann said. “It’s not a replacement for humans; it should be an elevator for them.” Vogt recalled telling an employee who feared automation, “If you are able to automate your entire job with agents, you will become the most valuable employee that we have. So, go for it, push the limits, challenge it, test it.”Hofmann ended the conversation with measured optimism. “The bad news is it’s harder than everyone thought it was going to be, but the good news is it’s also way easier than I think we think it is,” he said. “What I find is that AI projects are sort of this cascading explosion of success. It does not take a very long amount of time to go from our first successful AI project to starting to build an operating system that encompasses and enshrouds our business.” The secret to the success Hofmann has enjoyed is doing the human work first, drawing the negative space before you start drawing the camera. Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Orange Logic, for sponsoring this webinar. Ade Akin covers artificial intelligence, workplace wellness, HR trends, and digital health solutions.(Photo by imaginima/iStock)

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Activate Your Human Edge: Leading Brain-Friendly Change in the Age of AI

BY Kristen Kwiatkowski June 04, 2026

Recently, a student showed Dossier Harps her resume, saying it was completed using AI. Harps was impressed by the overall inclusions in the resume but noted one serious mistake. In the summary section, the student was said to have 20 years of experience. The problem? The student was only 20 years old. During a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s Minneapolis conference, Harps, facilitation manager at LifeLabs Learning, illustrated this story as an example as to how AI needs oversight and guidance for a variety of tasks. “Moments like this remind us that, while AI is powerful, humans still need discernment,” said Harps. “Humans still need judgment, humans still need coaching, and humans still need each other.”Harps also described a recent experience where she was in a pharmacy and customers waiting in a long line started to express discontent with the employees handling the checkout procedure. This made her think of incivility in the workplace, which has increased since 2020. This may be due to many individuals experiencing more stress, uncertainty, and emotional exhaustion which in turn can lead to empathy and patience eroding, says Harps. “So, when people ask me in my work, am I scared of AI, my answer is no,” said Harps. “I am not nervous about AI, I am nervous about incivility.”However, AI can cause discomfort and uncertainty for many individuals. For example, employees who have been doing their job for years without the help of AI and ultimately have to start using AI may feel discomfort and be unsure as to the direction they’re headed. “It could feel really scary, because when the way that we work changes, our sense of confidence, control, and our competence can get disrupted,” she said. Dossier Harps, facilitation manager at LifeLabs Learning, led the thought leadership spotlight in MinneapolisHarps discussed a concept offered by Robert Katz, a leadership researcher, which is a three skills approach to effective leadership which includes technical skills, human skills, and conceptual skills. Technical skills are what you know how to do, human skills are how you work with people, and conceptual skills are how you think strategically. Many organizations are focusing on technical AI skills, which are important, however, there needs to be more focus on human skills and conceptual skills and how they pertain to AI, she says. “We have to have the human skills, such as communicating influentially, understanding how different people learn and process, giving feedback, having courageous conversations when you notice emotional stress or incivility in your teams, building psychological safety and coaching people through uncertainty,” said Harps. “And conceptual skills are about seeing the bigger picture, like pattern recognition, systems thinking, and change implementation,” she continued.As with the seven stages of grief, an adaptation of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s five stages of grief, this concept can also apply in similar form to workplace change. Not everyone will be within the same stage and individuals in the workplace may be in different generations, have different ways of learning, and different experiences with technology. Trust is also a major component for organizations to consider. “Companies forget to acknowledge the emotions that build or break trust,” said Harps. “The major tenants of trust are credibility, reliability, and psychological safety and trust becomes especially important during times of uncertainty and change.”The first component of trust is credibility, and individuals want to know if the leader is competent to lead them through change. Next is reliability and can you depend on that person. In addition, psychological safety is also important with trust and individuals want to be able to ask questions and be honest with the leaders in their organizations. “So, once we understand the emotional side of change and the importance of trust, the next question is how do leaders practice this in real life?” said Harps.Being a great leader isn’t just about being a good person and that’s all. A great leader has to be intentional, deliberate, and exhibit mindful behaviors and actions. “Great leadership happens on purpose,” she said.Harps describes a model they teach at LifeLabs Learning called CAMPS, which is based on the concept that the brain constantly scans for threats or rewards. Under the CAMPS model, the features include certainty, autonomy, meaning, progress, and social inclusion. “What I love about this framework is that it reminds us that understanding and addressing the human experience is the greatest differentiator in the age of AI,” said Harps.   As individuals navigate AI and uncover how this technology will evolve in the years that follow, keeping one factor in mind along the way is essential. “I do believe that the most underrated leadership skill in the age of AI is the ability to inspire hope.”“People are searching for something deeply human to hold on to, which is truth and hope,” continued Harps. “The truth is things are changing, and things will continue to change, and we have to evolve and change with the times to be prepared for the future of work, but hope says we can learn, we can adapt, we can grow, we can move forward, and that is the real human edge in the age of AI. It’s not just mastering the new technology, but leading people through uncertainty and confusion with compassion, trust, and hope.”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. (Photos by Josh Larson for From Day One)

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Translating Global Strategy Into Local Impact

BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza June 03, 2026

There’s too much lag between strategy and execution of global campaigns, says Kelly Heilpern, chief strategy officer at Ammunition. Organizations can spend months, or even a year, developing a global strategy based on timely data that’s stale by the time campaigns roll out.“The brands getting it right,” she said, “are the ones who have figured out how to make those decisions faster, without sacrificing strategic integrity,” and that requires collaboration and trust: among marketing, sales, and the agency partner. The challenge is that truly global campaigns require some degree of tailoring to local markets, and effective localization cannot be handed down from on high. Quick decisions have to be made, with local input. During a From Day One webinar on translating global strategy into local impact, Heilpern and her colleagues discussed how they designed and tested a campaign for one of the world’s largest building products manufacturers across five new markets with unique concerns. Bringing DensDeck to EuropeGeorgia Pacific was ready to bring a stalwart product to a new market.DensDeck, a roofboard that acts as a fire-resistant thermal barrier, is common across North America—it’s in everything from “airports to stadiums, hotels, and high rises,” said Mallory Faust, the director of brand strategy for Georgia-Pacific Building Products—but it’s relatively new in Europe. Leaders from Ammunition spoke about "Translating Global Strategy Into Local Impact" (photo by From Day One)Expansion of solar rooftops and data center construction has developers focused on resilience in building design, “putting more pressure on roofing systems to perform better and be more durable,” and opening a huge market opportunity for Georgia Pacific, she says. They chose five geographies: the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, the UK, and Spain. The challenge for Faust is not just introducing a new product within an existing category, “we’re trying to establish the category,” which meant they had to start with education. “We realized pretty quickly that we couldn’t take a North American approach and just drop it into Europe.”Barriers to adoption vary widely by market: Some buyers need technical proof of performance while others are more price sensitive or prefer a reference from someone they trust. So Georgia Pacific and the Ammunition team brought in local stakeholders “from the outset, so they feel like they have ownership and autonomy,” said Renaye Edwards, Ammunition’s global COO and managing director.They gathered a coalition across product, technical, and regional teams for a weeklong intensive planning session. “A lot of different perspectives went into identifying where the opportunities existed, as well as what the barriers to adoption would be within each market,” Faust said.Right away, the collaboration paid off. The first strategy for the UK market was a “Mind the Gap” campaign—the idea being that DensDeck could close the quality “gap” in roofing systems. But in sales conversations, the tagline was being interpreted as not falling through physical gaps during installation. “Testing is such an important part of the process,” Heilpern said. “That would have been a huge miss for us to deploy this campaign that didn’t connect the way we intended it to.”Pitfalls of Localization, and How to Avoid ThemBut how local is too local? After all, time is of the essence. “The overall positioning really shouldn’t change what DensDeck is: a solution that helps protect the contents inside of a building and extend the life of a roof,” said Faust. “But global consistency doesn’t mean that every market should operate the exact same way.”Some tweaks are simple: Images also have to be localized since roofs in Spain look very different than roofs in the Netherlands. Others require a little more research, like which small proof points to play up—mitigating fire risk might perform better in one area while longevity will perform better in another. Localization also costs money, which isn’t always abundant. If the budget is slim, don’t roll it out in every market at once, Edwards said, but “identify those markets where you have the right to win” and you’re past the education stage with your market. “Once you’ve done that,” she added, “you can test and learn very quickly,” proving your strategy before going back to the business for more funds.Winning requires differentiation, which is often made through an emotional appeal. Easier said than done for roofboard, but by no means impossible, said Heilpern. “[Builders] are accountable for the performance of their roof. We can speak to them as consumers who are making very important decisions and make them feel seen, make them feel heard, and make them feel like there’s a product that solves a problem that keeps them up at night.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Ammunition, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is an independent journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about business and the world of work. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Inc., and Business Insider, among others. She is the recipient of a Virginia Press Association award for business and financial journalism. She is the host of How to Be Anything, the podcast about people with unusual jobs.(Photo by Cecilie_Arcurs/iStock)

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Turning Executive Potential into Measurable Performance

BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza June 01, 2026

It’s a common mistake to place the weight of an executive hiring decision on the interview, says Bert Hensley, the CEO of executive search firm Morgan Samuels.Interviewing isn’t inherently wrong, but it is overvalued, he shared during a From Day One webinar on executive recruitment. Naturally, we tend to favor people who resemble us in background, philosophy, working style, and that’s what interviews often reveal, but the C-suite doesn’t benefit from homogeneity. Companies would be well advised to pause and look backward, at the candidate’s career, and forward, at the candidate’s potential.But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Even before candidates are brought in, the hiring team must be in agreement on what success looks like—in great detail, Hensley says. A CFO candidate must have acquisition experience, sure. But how many deals? Of what size? And in what geographies? And on top of that, when they get to your company, what should they be prepared to accomplish? “Be crystal clear on the specific things this human being has got to get done in the next 24 months for us to say, ‘Wow, they were a great success.’”Bert Hensley, chairman and CEO of Morgan Samuels Company, pictured, spoke with journalist Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza during the webinar (company photo)This becomes a scorecard everyone on the hiring team will use. “Otherwise, you’ll end up hiring people that are eminently well qualified for what they’ve done, but not necessarily what you need,” he said.Candidate evaluation begins with a retrospective look at their career, asking “not just what they’ve done, but how they’ve done it,” Hensley said. And anything on their resume is fair game. He goes back as many as 10 or 15 years to probe at how a candidate reduced turnover or cut costs, asking, “how did you think through the problem? Give me the framework of analysis that you used. What data told you this was a problem?”Unique to the process at Morgan Samuels is the written self-assessment, which was born from an unusual request many years ago. The vice chair of a global banking company asked Hensley to subject candidates to a lengthy, written self-assessment of their accomplishments. Hensley assumed the request would never fly among those making upwards of $2 million per year and working 100-hour weeks. “I was completely shocked at how easy it was to get the candidates to do it,” he said.The self-assessment helps companies avoid arrogant candidates, “which is really just a cover for extreme insecurity,” Hensley said, and can hurt a company. Arrogant people are more likely to conceal problems or fail to disseminate information that should go around, and “if you get a self assessment back and it says, ‘I did this, I did that, I did this,’” then you’re not looking at a team player. “The best leaders are those who talk in terms of ‘we.’”When it’s time to look forward, candidates are handed a real problem to solve using real company financials (under an NDA, of course). The transparency and the accountability benefit both sides. Candidates can’t later plead ignorance about a debt problem or a customer retention issue, and they can start planning their first actions in the role, being very frank about the resources they need.You may be surprised who wobbles at this stage. Hensley said he’s seen heavily credentialed candidates with enviable pedigrees request millions of dollars to build teams “without any proof of concept of how he would gradually grow the sales team.” They ask for blank checks, but won’t bother to make a plan for using the cash. This is what Hensley calls a “presider,” who simply issues orders from a distance. “We’re always looking for world-class operators who will roll up their sleeves and get stuff done.” Executives often fail because they’re not suited to the company culture, he said. It’s worth it to take the time to assess their working style, their leadership style, and even their emotional makeup. “Are they a drill sergeant just barking orders, or are they going to be collaborative? Are they going to inspire your workforce and collaborate with the team?”It’s easy to overvalue great performance in the interview, or even a big stumble, but “your entire decision should not be based on one score. We’re talking about human beings, who are very complex.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Morgan Samuels Company, 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 milorad kravic/iStock)

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Why Delegation Breaks Down and What It Takes to Build Accountability at Scale

BY Kristen Kwiatkowski May 28, 2026

Delegation sits at the center of how managers create clarity, ownership, and accountability in the flow of work. It’s vital that leaders know how to delegate tasks to their team members and do so as often as possible.Kelli Wingo, facilitator at ThinkHuman, shared how to build accountability on the frontline teams by delegating effectively during a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s May virtual conference.It’s not uncommon for people to take on tasks they should have delegated, only to have those tasks take longer than expected. As they work through them, they often find themselves thinking about other, more valuable ways they could be spending their time. “As you are learning how to better support and develop frontline workforce and tools, training, investment, and engagement are all great, so keep doing them,” said Wingo. “But tools, training, investment and engagement are only effective if they are in service to how a leader can create accountability in the flow of work.”There are three key things that delegation makes possible for you as a leader. First, you as a leader create a vision for the team. “The second thing is to orchestrate a team that is successful and empowered in achieving its goals,” said Wingo. “When we’re doing what we’re capable of doing, that is so much greater than just doing what we’re told to do,” said Wingo. The third key benefit of delegation is that it enables your team to do more with less.What Prevents Leaders From Delegating?Kelli Wingo, facilitator at ThinkHuman, led the virtual session about delegation and accountability (company photo)Most of us understand the mechanics of delegation and accountability, so what’s holding us back? There are some blocks that prevent individuals from delegating. Some leaders feel they can do the task better themselves. Wingo shared how this mindset can be overcome.“One way of looking at this is it’s an opportunity for growth or care, to invest in your team members,” said Wingo. “If your team members see that you are really invested in their growth, their professional growth, getting them into their stretch zone, then a certain level of respect comes from that,” said Wingo.When leaders want all the shine and recognition, they can begin to see their team’s successes as their own, said Wingo. This is where the leader steps into a coach role and helps their team grow. Leaders also may resist admitting they are wrong, which can become a barrier to effective delegation. This comes back to the importance of responsibility and accountability. Acknowledging and understanding these blocks can help us with a mindset shift. “So we want to go from I can do it faster and better myself, to my job is to help the people around me rise,” said Wingo.The Delegation ProcessThere are a few steps in the delegation process. First, clarify the task that needs to be completed. From a longer list, narrow it down to the top three to five tasks to delegate. As a leader, your role is to set the vision and have your team execute. Next, decide who on your team should own each task. It’s also important to step back and assess whether all tasks are truly necessary or if some have continued simply out of habit or routine.And once you delegate tasks to your team, you don’t want to just hand off the task list and then leave it at that. You want to have specific timelines, check-ins, and other safeguards in place to ensure that your team members execute each task in a proper, timely manner. Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, ThinkHuman, 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 Cecilie_Arcurs/iStock)

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From Advice to Action: How Financial Coaching Drives Impact For Employers

BY Ade Akin May 27, 2026

Many of the employees Greg Palmeri talks to have already suffered in silence for years before calling him. “A lot of times people will come to us when their financial situation is so bad that it’s almost too hard to fix,” Palmieri, a senior manager of financial planning at SoFi, said. “You wish you had talked to them a year ago, before they made that big financial decision.” That all-too-common moment of crisis illuminates a yawning gap in workplace benefits. According to WTW’s Global Benefits Attitude Survey, 66% of employees say they want more financial well-being support from their employer, yet only 23% of companies are currently providing it. During a conversation at a From Day One webinar titled “From Advice to Action: How Financial Coaching Drives Impact For Employers,” Palmieri and his colleague, Trevor Smith, SoFi’s business development director, explored how personalized financial coaching can bridge that 43-point gap, moving employees from reactive panic to proactive planning and giving employers a measurable stake in their people’s financial health. The Front Lines of Financial AnxietyWith nearly two decades of experience, Greg Palmieri hears firsthand the financial anxieties employees carry into coaching conversations, often long after the stress has taken root. The questions, he says, shift with economic cycles but often circle back to the same core anxieties.Greg Palmieri, senior manager of financial planning at SoFi, spoke during the webinar (company photo)“When we were in the pandemic era, a lot of people had more time on their hands, and they were more detail-oriented about their finances and wanted a more complex view,” Palmieri said. “Now I find that a lot more people are dealing with debt and trying to juggle that debt—what’s the best way to pay it down? Should they be saving for retirement while paying down debt?”Palmieri says the triggers that prompt employees to finally book an appointment with a financial coach are almost always reactive rather than proactive. A job change, a home purchase, a new child. He notes that people often seek planners “when their financial situation is so bad that it’s almost too hard to fix.” He often wishes they had sought his help earlier. “A lot of people will come to us after the fact. They didn’t really know they could even talk to someone before some of these big financial decisions,” Palmieri added. Three Personas, One ApproachPalmieri described three broad personas that often emerge on planning calls: the worrier, the juggler, and the optimizer. The worrier struggles to make it to their next paycheck. The juggler manages competing priorities, such as student loans, equity compensation, and saving for a home, and does reasonably well, but lacks clarity on what to tackle first. The optimizer has the resources but needs help refining their strategy, particularly around tax-efficient retirement planning.Despite these differences, Palmieri’s approach begins the same way. “The first question I’m really going to ask someone is, what are they looking to accomplish from that call?” he said. “I like to come in with an open mind and try to understand. Basically, people have no clue what they want to accomplish, which is perfectly fine.”That investigative conversation, asking about goals, then about the data behind them, is what Palmieri views as the real craft of financial planning. “Everyone can kind of Google search it, but trying to understand, does this person know their finances? How do they think about money? Tailoring that advice to that person is what separates a good planner from an exceptional planner,” he said. Accountability Over a Sales PitchA recurring concern Smith hears from HR leaders is whether financial planning benefits are simply a vehicle for product sales. SoFi’s model, he emphasizes, is built differently. Planners carry no sales quotas. Their performance scorecard is based on three metrics: appointment availability (50%), Net Promoter Score (30%), and compliance with regulatory standards (20%). “There are no sales goals or anything,” Palmieri said. “They’re 100% salary. They get a bonus, but that bonus is tied to how well SoFi does, not how many products they sell.” This framework appears to be working, says Palmieri. The show rate for scheduled appointments has climbed from roughly 60% in the early years to 80% today, and 25% of all calls are from returning members. “Some people don’t necessarily have a complicated situation. It’s a budgeting or a debt thing, and they want to be held accountable,” Palmieri said. “They want someone to talk to, a nonjudgmental person, understanding, like, hey, your debt was at $8,000 last time we spoke, you’re doing good, you’re at $6,000. Or, wait a second, now we’re at $10,000. What’s going on here?”The Human Element in a Digital AgeDigital tools now handle the first wave of financial curiosity. Smith sees a pattern where younger employees often start their financial planning journey with budgeting apps or AI chats, and eventually graduate to a live planner when they need the high-touch, one-on-one conversations they can’t get from a screen.“AI is an interesting point. I actually help train AI models here at SoFi,” Palmieri said. “But it’s still hard to get actual financial advice. It coaches you, it educates you. What I think a lot of people want is, ‘What should I do?’ They want specific [advice]: pay $5,000 toward your credit card debt, keep $10,000 in savings, contribute 10% toward your 401(k). All the frameworks are online. They want to know exactly what to do and walk away with it.”To address HR leaders weighing the benefits of investing in employee financial wellness, Smith points to a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau finding that such programs can deliver a three-to-one return on investment by reducing stress-related absenteeism and productivity loss. He says the immediate business case lies in the 43-point gap between what employees want and what most companies currently offer. “This is against the backdrop where 88% of folks are worried about basic living expenses, and employees with financial stress are twice as likely to be job searching.”When Greg Palmieri thinks about the return on his work, he doesn’t measure it in balance sheets. He thinks about one member who found her way out of nearly $50,000 in credit card debt, got on track for retirement, and recently bought a home in the Bay Area. “She just says, ‘I couldn’t do that without you,’” Palmieri said. “I can only be there as a sounding board. They’re doing the hard stuff.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, SoFi, for sponsoring this webinar.Ade Akin covers artificial intelligence, workplace wellness, HR trends, and digital health solutions.(Photo by CHUBU/iStock)

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The Hidden Driver of Frontline Retention: Why Caregiving Support Is the Benefit You’re Missing

BY Jessica Swenson May 20, 2026

Sometimes, the hardest parts of your employees’ lives are the most invisible, especially for frontline workers. The variety of caregiving demands experienced by workers can have emotional, mental, financial, and physical tolls that aren’t visible to their employers, says Griffen Kelly, senior director of partnership development at Cariloop.By learning about and meeting the caregiving needs of their employees, he says, companies have the opportunity to elevate workplace culture while boosting employee loyalty and trust. “We’ve seen a shift from caregiving being a social need to being an economic need from an employer perspective,” Kelly said during a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s May virtual conference.The care economy is in crisis, he says. Forty-eight states are already reporting care shortages, and Americans over 65 are expected to soon outnumber those under 18 for the first time ever, causing demand to continue to grow faster than supply. Added to the already increasing demand for child care, this contributes to rapidly rising costs, long waitlists, and complex systems to navigate. According to Kelly, caregivers often spend an estimated average of 27 to 40 unpaid hours per week coordinating logistics, providers, and schedules.Still, these challenges can hide within organizations, and Kelly believes there are two key reasons. One is that many people don’t identify themselves as a caregiver because they feel they’re simply doing what is expected to meet family or social obligations. Griffen Kelly, senior director of partnership development at Cariloop, led the virtual thought leadership spotlight (company photo)The other possible reason is that people consciously avoid disclosing their care demands to avoid potential professional consequences. “There’s a certain stigma that can be associated with caregivers,” he said. “If I raise my hand and say I’m taking care of somebody, that might get me looked at differently at work. I might get passed up for that promotion because maybe I have too much on my plate and my manager is worried about my workload,” he said. Employee caregiving challenges often show up in the workplace through absenteeism, staffing instability, leave issues, and turnover. “For the most part, caregiving is reactionary,” said Kelly. “Typically, when you’re choosing between work and life, life is going to win out.” However, trying to balance work and caregiving with no support can lead to employee burnout, distraction, and retention issues. There is hope, says Kelly, especially if employers offer care support. Citing data provided by Cariloop, he states that over 75% of working parents are more likely to stay with employers offering care benefits, there can be significant reduction in unplanned absences, and many supported caregivers report improved productivity. Providing even modest caregiving support programs shows employees that you understand their struggles and demonstrates that they are supported by leadership. This not only helps them fulfill their responsibilities outside of work but drives workplace productivity.“Folks who do offer care benefits, however small, recognize that that is creating a culture of care from the top down. You’re showing that progression. You’re showing that buy-in from a leadership perspective,” he said. Cariloop sees a human-centered support model as “absolutely mission critical.” While digital tools are great for self-service, tracking of logistics, and broader needs, there is no replacement for one-on-one human relationships, personalized guidance, and emotional support.Their program focuses on direct coaching and caregiving advocacy to help families navigate an increasingly complicated caregiving landscape, including locating childcare services, making eldercare decisions, and long-term planning. It also offers backup solutions for immediate or near-term needs like emergency nanny coverage or temporary care support during crises. “Being able to offer flexible backup care is something that we have seen is a resounding need in the market,” said Kelly.The company’s approach also balances the needs of three key stakeholders—employers, employees, and care providers—by creating a more sustainable care ecosystem that includes flexibility and provider engagement.So, how can employers begin to implement a caregiving benefit program? Kelly recommends starting with your typical pulse surveys or other employee surveys. Be curious and ask questions to understand the unique and diverse needs of your teams. To evaluate potential ROI, he suggests aligning those metrics with employer priorities like utilization rates, improved return-to-work outcomes, reduced absenteeism, and better productivity. Kelly acknowledges that this type of support can be overlooked during benefits planning discussions, but encourages leaders that already offer the benefit to review utilization data, measure effectiveness, and seek opportunities to improve the value and engagement in your program.“There’s a lot of opportunity to drive a more valuable and sought-after benefit. Take a look under the hood, if you’re offering one of those benefits today, and see where maybe you can make some adjustments, where you can drive a more valuable benefit for your workforce.” He also emphasized the importance of meeting employees where they are and communicating effectively so they know what is available to them. By visibly and clearly demonstrating your investment in their support, you can strengthen employee confidence and dedication.“Our goal is always to make sure that we’re meeting employees in whatever way, shape or form is most conducive to them and their familial situation,” he said. “If you show that you’re invested in your employees and their caregiving needs, they will feel loyal and they will feel trusting in you as an employer.”Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Cariloop, for sponsoring this thought leadership spotlight. Jessica Swenson is a freelance writer and proofreader based in the Midwest. Learn more about her at jmswensonllc.com.(Photo by SeizaVisuals/iStock)

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Blow Your System Up—Optimistically

BY Kristen Kwiatkowski May 19, 2026

AI resistance isn't always about the tool, it’s about what the tool touches. Work is personal. Your accomplishments reflect real effort and real problem-solving. When AI enters the picture, people worry that what they built, and how they built it, might no longer matter.“That work means something,” said Rebecca Warren, senior director, talent centered transformation, at Eightfold, during a thought leadership spotlight at From Day One’s Live Seattle conference.It’s a fear a lot of people share: if AI can do my job, what does that mean for me? But the real truth is that the work moved. The skills didn’t disappear, but they in fact became foundational and moved underneath the AI strategy, says Warren. “AI shows up and it gets the credit or it gets the blame,” said Warren.Rebecca Warren, senior director of talent centered transformation at Eightfold, led the session “We say we want transformation, but then we defend the exact shape of the work that created the problems we’re trying to solve,” Warren said. “AI is not the transformation. It’s the moment of truth for whether your organization is actually built to, and ready to, transform, she says. Warren shared a “don’t pave cowpaths” example. Cows follow the same paths by habit and not because it’s the best route. Someone eventually comes along and paves the road that was traveled by habit. As a result, the bad route is permanent. “That’s what a lot of organizations are doing with AI,” said Warren. “They’re taking messy workflows, too many approvals, broken handoffs, duplicated work, and unnecessary meetings, and instead of asking, ‘Should they exist at all?’ they ask, ‘How do we automate it?’ ‘How do we make it faster?’ We just paved the cowpath. Faster wrong is still wrong.”“AI needs to force the question, ‘Why are we doing it this way?’” said Warren. “Don’t pave cowpaths, redesign the terrain.” Transformation is about what work survives. “Not everything is broken and not everything new is better, but the key is knowing the difference,” Warren said. It’s important to know when AI should be part of the conversation and when a human component is needed. For example, AI can handle administrative tasks, but there are times when human decision-making is essential, especially when ethics, trust, and nuance are involved. That’s where human judgment truly matters.In order for trust to occur, transparency must be present. People have to understand what’s changing and why. Without this, people build assumptions. “That’s why this is hard, and honestly, that’s good,” said Warren. “It should be hard because we’re not talking about buying a piece of software, we’re talking about redesigning how work moves, what people do, where to partner with AI, and what to change. That should feel heavy, that should slow you down, because sometimes the fastest way forward is to stop and ask what would need to be true for this to actually work.”It’s important to “slow down, build the guardrails, build the infrastructure, clarify the decision rights, and then move fast, not because caution is weakness, but because speed without design is just faster chaos,” said Warren.Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Eightfold, 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)