Workplace Champions
Workplace Champions
Brett Knowles & Jack Sweeney
Workplace Champions: The strategies of talent-minded business leaders are exposed inside the realm of mid-sized businesses when business journalist Jack Sweeney and performance thought leader Brett Knowles spotlight innovations in human capital management (HCM). The Workplace Champions Podcast is all about inspiring business leaders as they learn from the failures, Ah-ha! moments, and workplace successes of other small and medium business leaders. It’s no secret that small and mid-sized businesses adapt more aggressively and innovate more nimbly than firms many times their size. And yet, in the realm of employment these companies are less visible and vastly less reported upon than large enterprise business, but their combined influence is large and growing larger as a new class of workplace champions emerge.
Ep 27:  Why Hiring Could be a GPT Sweet Spot
Brett & Jack discuss how the hiring function is expected to become the sweet spot for Chat GPT and other AI offerings as the technology emerges as a powerful tool for finding and qualifying talent for organizations. This episode features the workforce insights and commentary of CFO Jonathan Carr of Armis, CFO Céline Dufétel of Checkout.com, and CFO Dan Fletcher of Planful.
Mar 24, 2023
43 min
Ep 26: The Year of HR Slogans
Brett and Jack discuss the social application Workplace by Meta, and how social media continues to play an important role in human capital communications. Meanwhile, the different finance leaders share their insights on talent recruitment, retention strategies, and the increasing use of AI in various industries. Knowles emphasizes the importance of clear communication and the potential impact of AI and machine learning on accounting functions. Overall, the episode highlights the evolving role of finance leaders in managing and developing human capital. This episode of Workplace Champions features the workforce insights and commentary of CFO Wailun Chan of Grafana Labs, CFO John McCauley of Calendly, and CFO Jim Young of Coalition.
Feb 17, 2023
52 min
Ep 25: The Chatbot Chill: Why Business Will Be Anything But Usual
Our resident thought leader Brett Knowles explains how artificial intelligence is already being used to predict employee turnover, job satisfaction, and other key metrics, allowing managers to take proactive steps to improve employee engagement and retention. Brett & Jack discuss how AI-powered performance management systems are already tracking employee performance and are providing feedback and guidance to help employees improve. This episode features the workforce insights and commentary of CFO Tom Fennimore of Luminar Technologies, CFO Steven Mitchell of Redgate Software  and CFO Jared Poff of Designer brands.
Jan 20, 2023
49 min
Ep. 24: Managers admit to “quiet firing”
Brett & Jack discuss what might be a popular response to employees "quiet quitting" or what among managers has been dubbed "quiet firing" - the withdrawal of coaching, support and career development to an employee, which results in pushing the employee out of an organization. This episode’s featured Workplace Champions share their different perspectives on how to manage their organization’s talent as a collective unit. Brett believes that human capital pain points are challenging finance leaders to carefully reconsider how to best manage employees and forfeit dated models that may have treated employees as just another asset that can depreciate overtime. This episode features the workforce insights and commentary of CFO Brian Gladden of Zelis, CFO Razzak Zallow of Floqast, CFO Kevin Rubin of Alteryx  and CFO James Moylan of Ciena.
Dec 23, 2022
43 min
Ep 23: The Friday Elon Slept Late
Brett & Jack discuss the workforce rantings of Elon Musk and the new Twitter owner's November 16th deadline for employees to decide whether to leave or stay. Is Musk's leadership style solely responsible for the turmoil at Twitter or are there other contributing factors? This episode's featured Workplace Champions expose how leaders seek to optimize work environments to empower people to do their best work. While Jack views the talent mind set of each of the three featured finance leaders as the upshot of extensive leadership experience, Brett points out there may be a method behind the Musk "madness." This episode features the workforce insights and commentary of CFO Anat Ashkenazi of Eli Lilly, CFO Ambereen Toubassy of Airtable, and CFO Evan Goldstein of Seismic.
Nov 23, 2022
47 min
Ep 22: Hires, Fires and a Stable Economy | A Workplace Champions Episode
Brett & Jack discuss how hiring challenges have led certain organizations to be more tolerant of poor employee behaviors – a development that could be putting growing numbers of businesses at risk. Meanwhile, Brett points out that new hires continue to fetch bigger salaries creating an imbalance with existing employee salaries. Also, performance is not driven by talent alone. Brett says product issues are sometimes thought to be talent issues leading management to put in motion a string of misguided remedies. This episode features the workforce insights and commentary of CFO Asil Syed of Rippling, CFO Ambereen Toubassy of Airtable, CFO Bryan Morris of Demandbase.
Oct 14, 2022
40 min
Ep 21: The Employee Value Proposition
Brett & Jack discuss why organizations must have a value proposition for their employees.  This episode each of our featured Workplace Champions gives us different perspectives on what they've done to help attract human capital to their organizations. Again, the question management teams need to be asking:  What's the value proposition that will help us attract the best talent? This episode features the workforce insights and commentary of CFO Claire Bramley of Teradata, CFO Rajesh Gupta of OakNorth Bank, and CFO Mark George of Norfolk Southern.
Sep 9, 2022
44 min
Ep:20: Keeping Leadership in Step with Workforce Priorities
Brett & Jack discuss how the economy's is sending the hiring environment mixed signals and how the inefficiencies of the recruitment function continue to be a drag on industry aspirations for building a more productive workforce. This episode features the workforce insights and commentary of CFO Adam Swiecicki of Brex, CFO Manish Sarin of Sprinklr, CFO Jason Keen of Mills Nebraska, and CFO Komal Misra of Starry
Jul 31, 2022
37 min
Ep 19: It's About the Team
Brett & Jack discuss how employee teams may hold the key to improving employee morale and retention, and why the growing popularity of remote hiring is likely to lead many more managers to leverage the powers behind objectives and key results (OKRs). Featuring the commentary and insights of workplace champions CFO Ryan Van Hatten of Prophix, CFO Danielle Murcray of Attack IQ, CFO Ryan Gwillim of Brunswick Corporation, and CFO David Barnes of Trimble.
Jun 30, 2022
50 min
Ep 18:  The Hard Truth About Retention
Brett & Jack discuss how growing numbers of businesses are facing an employee retention crisis as they battle escalating workforce attrition and struggle to fill job vacancies. As the crisis grows in certain industries, more finance leaders are sounding the alarm on escalating business risk and dedicating more time to solving the current talent equation. Featuring the commentary and insights of workplace champions CFO Efrain Rivera of Paychex, CFO Anisha Sood of First Choice Health, CFO Will Johnson of Iterable, and CFO Adriana Carpenter of Emburse.
May 13, 2022
50 min
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