In this episode of the WhatWorks podcast series, Nick Benaquista, SVP, People and Capability Partner, Chief Administration Office and Strategic Growth at Mastercard, shares how Mastercard has transformed HR from a static, siloed, overlapping model towards the product and consulting-oriented model of Systemic HR . Now in year 2 of the ongoing transformation, the company is continuing to change HR roles, jobs, operating models, and skills, and is using technology and AI to elevate the employee exp...
Oct 23, 2024•21 min
White collar robots have arrived: digital twins, digital assistants, and AI-powered agents. In this podcast I discuss what I learned about at Unleash, Sana, and Spotify this week. My big message is this: AI in HR is even more powerful than we expected. And AI platforms and tools are transforming HR right this minute – across every domain in HR. Digital Twins in the insurance industry. AI-powered L&D and change management solutions. AI-powered candidates battling it out with AI-powered select...
Oct 19, 2024•23 min
Delta Air Lines understands the importance of its employees, managers, and leaders, so the company has built one of the airline industry’s most advanced “skills-first” strategies. Built on its investment in SAP technology ( Talent Intelligence Hub ) and a focus from the top, the company fully embraces an agile cross-functional career model, all built around skills . In this episode Tim Gregory, Managing Director of HR Innovation and Technology at Delta, walks Kathi Enderes through the company’s ...
Oct 14, 2024•19 min
I just finished a long meeting with 15 senior HR leaders in Silicon Valley, so in the context of AI, I discuss the themes of forgiveness, growth, and leadership these organizations are facing. And these issues are acute right now. 2025 is shaping up to be a “Year of Redesign” throughout business, and as we do this we have to rethink about how we think about people. Are we ready to support, forgive, and help our people adapt? Leadership trust is at an all time low , so we definitely have some wor...
Oct 11, 2024•20 min
This week we are so excited to launch Galileo Professional , the personal AI platform designed for HR professionals, consultants, vendors, and investors in the global Human Resources industry. As you’ll hear in my introduction, Galileo Pro is Your Personal AI Assistant for everything HR. For $39 per month you now have access to the most trusted corpus of HR research in the world, including every research study, maturity model, case study, vendor profile, and benchmark we’ve done for 26+ years. T...
Oct 08, 2024•13 min
In this week’s podcast I give you some insights on HR tech in 2025, perspectives on jobs, and what you’ll be dealing with in 2025. We just had two weeks of HR Tech announcements and next week you’ll see a big one from us! (The biggest product announcement in my career, to be a little hyberbolic!). Topics include: the verticalization of AI, whey OpenAI will compete with Microsoft, how agents will change our jobs, and the implications of the low unemployment rate on pay equity, DEI, talent density...
Oct 05, 2024•19 min
Aimbridge manages 1100 hotels around the US and employs more than 45,000 employees. In this podcast, Conrad Riddle, VP of HR Shared Services at Aimbridge Hospitality, discusses how the company empowers employees (“Uberizing the Workforce”) and delivers a flexible, highly engaged workforce with dynamic workforce scheduling. The company leverages UKG Workforce Management to give employees a centralized app that lets an employee manage their schedule dynamically. As you’ll hear, Ambridge employees ...
Oct 02, 2024•21 min
In this week’s podcast I go through the 30 HR Technology AI Trailblazers in some detail. You’ll hear about all the companies in the Trailblazer Report , as well as some of my personal thoughts on their leadership teams, centers of innovation, and differentiating capabilities. My keynote at HR Tech was 75 minutes long and you can hear it or get access to the materials if you join our corporate membership (or come back to HR Tech 2025 next March !). For those of you in Europe, I will be speaking a...
Sep 27, 2024•45 min
This podcast details what Workday’s new AI platform, Workday Illuminate , and also describes Workday’s momentum coming out of Rising. I also discuss why Salesforce slams Microsoft, the new tsunami of Agents, including Microsoft, Salesforce (who is charging $2 per conversation), SAP, Workday, UKG, ServiceNow, and others. I also discuss the near-term job disruption we’re seeing from Agents and what you should do to prepare. Then I discuss the strikes at Boeing and why “growth at any cost” is such ...
Sep 20, 2024•24 min
In our latest WhatWorks podcast, Samantha Garvie , HR Safety and Compliance Director at Rowley’s Wholesale, speaks with Kathi Enderes from The Josh Bersin Company. Rowley’s Wholesale , a Michigan-based distributor of automotive and industrial products, has been in business for over 100 years and is currently in its third generation of ownership. With 125+ employees across three locations, the company utilizes UKG-Ready for its HRIS system, covering benefits, timekeeping, payroll, succession plan...
Sep 18, 2024•21 min
This week Klarna, a buy-now pay-later company in Sweden, announced plans to terminate its Workday and Salesforce relationships and build it themselves. A bunch of tech pundits are big fans, but I have my doubts. As you’ll hear in the podcast, many big companies (much bigger than Klarna) have tried this, only to retreat to vendor solutions. And I do question the business strategy of putting high-powered engineering talent on mature, enterprise products like HCM and CRM. Obviously AI is getting sm...
Sep 13, 2024•19 min
Agentic AI is the next big wave in AI, where AI systems and chatbots can take actions on our behalf. These agents can perform tasks such as composing emails, creating documents, building courses, and even recruiting. They can be seen as virtual employees or teammates that can be trained and managed. These agents will change the technology landscape and the stack of tools in our organizations. They will require onboarding, training, and governance to ensure they are effective and secure. And Agen...
Sep 06, 2024•20 min
In this podcast I discuss the ever-changing role of Labor in our economy, our companies, and our own personal lives. The word “labor” is really an old-fashioned idea, but we still have the US holiday, so I wanted to unpack what it now means. As you’ll learn Labor Day is a time to think about hiring, pay, development, and diversity as well as productivity, labor unions, the impact of tips and income inequality, and the enormous role of HR as an ombudsman between “labor” and “management.” And yes,...
Aug 30, 2024•20 min
In this WhatWorks podcast I interview Andy Bradshaw, the CEO of SHL . SHL is one of the world’s largest psychometric assessment vendors, bringing together psychology, skills assessment, and other forms of measurement to identify the capabilities, and potential of an individual at work. These highly scientific assessments are widely used for pre-hire screening, job-fit analysis, development planning, leadership development, and succession planning. But in a world of AI, where large HR platforms a...
Aug 28, 2024•23 min
In this week’s podcast I describe the HR Career Navigator and the role of HR skills and capabilities in HR and business transformation. Then, as we approach HR Tech season, I give you my three steps to evaluating HR Tech vendors. Additional Information Introducing The HR Career Navigator Why Is It So Hard To Be A Chief HR Officer (CHRO)? Research Shows That High Growth Large Companies Have Distinct HR Skills...
Aug 23, 2024•16 min
This week I recap the idea of a “Corporate Learning Architecture” and give you some of my historic perspectives on why this is so important in the age of AI. A Learning Architecture is a constrained approach to corporate L&D that gives employees a clear and memorable approach to learning, and also gives you the “freedom within a framework” to use AI without creating chaos. We are in the middle of deep interviews, case studies, and vendor research on the impact of AI on L&D, so as I discu...
Aug 17, 2024•35 min
In this episode, Susan Podlogar , former CHRO at MetLife, talks with Kathi Enderes about the transformative impact of an AI-based talent marketplace (powered by Gloat ). You’ll learn what a talent marketplace is, how to implement, and why these solutions are rapidly growing around the world. Podlogar explains how they implemented this solution and how it unleashes energy for individuals and the organization. MetLife’s talent marketplace democratizes access to projects, mentoring, and roles, fost...
Aug 09, 2024•23 min
The NYT published an article explaining how hard it is to be an HR professional. “The job has become an exasperating ordeal. People hate us .” While many people don’t know this, HR is a complex, difficult, and highly strategic profession. And given that HR professionals are caught between leadership and employees, it can often be very frustrating. Despite the challenges, HR is more important than ever. I hope this podcast (and the NYT article) is an inspiration for HR professionals to build your...
Aug 05, 2024•16 min
In this conversation, I discuss three main topics: the battle in the enterprise chatbot space, the transformation of talent acquisition, and the new “sticky” state of the job market. How to make sense of enterprise AI Copilots? Workday and Salesforce team up, Apple Intelligence is coming, how do you make sense of it all? In talent acquisition, there is a shift from a thin model focused on speed and efficiency to a thick model focused on growth and strategic decision-making (Systemic Talent Acqui...
Aug 01, 2024•24 min
In this podcast I summarize a series of high-level meetings I’ve had with HR leaders in the EU, where companies are very focused on preparing for tectonic shifts in employee expectations, skills, and work rules. While articles and podcasts continue to talk about “the future of work,” I believe that narrative is over. The industrial work model has ended and the future has arrived, and I describe it clearly in this episode. Takeaways The industrial model of work is decomposing, and the traditional...
Jul 26, 2024•28 min
Today I broadcast again from Ireland, where I discuss why I disagree with SHRM’s position on DEI, how DEI is undermined and why it remains important, the unfortunate decline in civility in the American workplace, and how we afford the $2 Trillion investments in #AI. (Read our research report Elevating Equity to understand the real-world business case for DEI and pay equity.) Keywords DEI, equity, fairness, civility, values at work, political discourse, ROI of AI, SHRM Takeaways Equity is a cruci...
Jul 19, 2024•26 min
In this podcast I discuss the recent layoffs at UKG and Intuit and how AI played a role quite different than we expected. In both cases the CEOs tell us that AI is the future and that they need large amounts of capital to invest in this new capability, thus they are “pre-replacing” human capital with technology. In addition to this, as I discuss, both companies (Intuit in some detail) describe how “underperformers” were the first to go. So these are somewhat strategic moves to “re-hire” their te...
Jul 13, 2024•15 min
This is the inaugural podcast in our new WhatWorks Series, focused on stories and case studies of the world’s most interesting and creative HR teams. In this podcast, Kathi Enderes, SVP and Global Analyst, interviews Allan Calonge , CHRO, and Levi Loverkamp , Chief Workforce Planning Officer, describe how Bon Secours Mercy Health’s systemic HR integrates cross-functional collaboration, data-driven decisions, and career pathways through a partnership with Guild. Led by CHRO Joe Gage, the HR team ...
Jul 08, 2024•20 min
In this podcast I discuss the four huge transformations taking place in corporate learning & development, all driven by AI. Join me in the discussion here and you can learn more in The Josh Bersin Academy , where we just launched our AI in HR Course and two mobile-learning micro-courses on AI use cases and Generative AI best-practices. Outline: The learning and development industry is going through a significant reinvention driven by AI and other emerging technologies. AI is disrupting the t...
Jul 06, 2024•22 min
In this podcast I walk through a few of the findings from our CHRO Insights® research, explaining why the CHRO role has become more complex and difficult than ever. This podcast episode discusses the challenges, issues, drivers, success factors, and derailers of being a head of HR or CHRO. I share early insights from a massive research project that studied 47,000 heads of HR from various industries and sectors. The research reveals that many CHROs did not come from their own company, indicating ...
Jul 01, 2024•19 min
Arist , a fascinating new company in corporate learning, is reinventing how we develop, deliver, and consume content. And yes, these guys are bringing Autonomous Learning to companies today, in a very special format. In this podcast I interviewed Michael Ioffe, Ryan Laverty, and Maxine Anderson, the three founders. Not only is the technology fascinating, this is also an example of how a strong, integrated management team can build a business quickly. Arist was founded in 2019 and is quickly beco...
Jun 29, 2024•28 min
In this episode I explain what’s happening in the Chatbot or “Intelligent Agent” market as vendors produce Copilots and we start to figure out how they’ll work together. I discuss our own plans for Galileo and explain how SAP Joule is partnering with Microsoft to integrate these agents. It’s early days and vendors like ServiceNow, Workday, and others are actively working here. Then I give you some insights on our massive new research program in corporate L&D. Yes, AI is the big disruptor hit...
Jun 21, 2024•20 min
In this podcast I describe the new, transformed role of HR Business Partner. This pivotal position, which was defined 25+ years ago as an “HR Generalist,” has now become pivotal to a company’s successful people strategy. If you want to learn more, check out our most popular course in the Josh Bersin Academy, the HR Consulting Masterclass , or call us for advice. Of all the things we deal with in business, none are as important as having the right level of management, leadership, and HR expertise...
Jun 14, 2024•22 min
Globalization Partners (G-P), a company specializing in global employer of record services (EOR), discusses the complexities and opportunities in the global employment market. They emphasize the importance of compliance, automation, and the human touch in their approach. In this podcast I interview Nicole Sahin, Founder and CEO, and Nat Nataranjan, Chief Product Officer. The EOR space is massive: including providers like G-P, Deel, Oyster, Remote, Papaya Global, Rippling, and others. In this int...
Jun 05, 2024•23 min
Given this week’s political news, I wanted to share my thoughts on “Citizenship,” the way we as employees and individuals work together to help our company and our society make decisions the benefit everyone. We live in a world of shatteringly fast change, with two global wars, a rising sense of mistrust of political systems, and enormous changes to our working and family lives. Despite all this change, and the difficult decisions we must make, there is a process for continuous improvement. And ...
Jun 01, 2024•22 min
