"I also enjoy the face to face with employees. And I think I really have chosen this field of benefits, this discipline, because I want to help employees maximize the benefits that are offered to them." Summer Martin, Human Resources Generalist, STRATA-G Solutions We're Only Human -- Episode 174 The episode features a conversation between Ben Eubanks and Summer Martin about Summer's journey in pursuing the Certified Employee Benefits Specialist (CEBS) certification. Summer shares her passion for educating employees on benefits and helping organizations enhance their benefits offerings. She dis ..read more

"My refrigerator broke one day and I didn't call a repair person. I didn't go to refrigerator repair school. I went to YouTube, found a person who had a similar problem, followed along, fixed the problem, moved on. And then we go to work and suddenly you can't do that anymore." JD Dillon, Chief Learning Officer, Axonify   We're Only Human - Episode 172 In this episode, Ben talks with JD Dillon, a learning leader and advocate for frontline workers and the use of technology to support learning outcomes. In the conversation, they discuss the concept of the modern learning ecosystem, emphasiz ..read more

"I would be remiss to tell our employees 'you have the power to question your doctors' if I didn't tell HR people 'you have the power to question your consultants and brokers' the exact same way." Melissa Cassidy, Human Resources Leader, Valpak We're Only Human -- Episode 171 In this podcast episode, host Ben Eubanks engages in a conversation with Melissa Cassidy, focusing on the topics of benefits, HR, and employee wellness. They discuss Melissa's background and her experience in the field. Melissa shares the challenges she faced when implementing a new benefit plan and the importance of gath ..read more

"So when it comes to training and learning as a viable solution for helping people be the best that they can be in the roles that they serve, I believe that that's always been important.  We've just not always been able to illustrate impact in the past the way in which we're able to now. That is because of the different types of tools and resources and knowledge that we've gained about the science of measuring the impact of training and learning." Kevin M. Yates, The L&D Detective We're Only Human -- Episode 170   It's an age-old problem: We're training people, but how do we know ..read more

"So it's really designed to be a two-way street and to create that conversation from the very, very beginning points. So we're setting the expectations for what employment is going to be like, especially as a leader at our company." Nicole Hirsch, Sr Recruiting Manager, Lattice We're Only Human -- Episode 169   Teaching hiring managers how to interview... It sounds like a foregone conclusion, yet data from the 2023 Lighthouse Research & Advisory Modern Screening Practices Study of more than 500 employers shows that it's not happening as much as it should. Employers put their reputatio ..read more

"Like a lot of people, it's something I fell into. I don't think there's anybody out there that woke up and said, "When I grow up, I want to be an HR tech/HRIS person. So I had a background in social work, counseling, and nonprofit, then got into it and then ended up working in an HRIS role implementing a learning management system. That was my first kind of true HRIS and I'd never worked with learning management before. I'd never worked in HR before. So it was a learning experience for me. But since then, I've grown in responsibility and different systems that I've worked with, and I've gotte ..read more

"Pay transparency is here (or coming) depending on where you're located and where you're hiring people. It's kind of like a snowball rolling down the hill getting bigger and bigger. It's something to really stop and think about and prepare for now, because it's not easy. I think the biggest thing around transparency is thinking about what your education plan is for your people." Megan Nail, Vice President, Total Rewards Practice at NFP We're Only Human -- Episode 167 In our research with employers, we find many of them believe that salary transparency puts more power into the hands of candidat ..read more

So we're looking at how the words are actually formed. When you're hiring for a technology manager, what does that mean? Are you looking for a technical technology manager? Are you looking for someone who grew up in the chops of software development, knows all of the full delivery life cycle, or are you looking for someone who's more project focused? If your job description isn't conveying those skills or that type of clarification in the job description, you're not gonna get the right person. You might get lucky.  But when you're hiring at scale, you know you can't do that time and time ..read more

" I do think that there is so much hidden talent inside our organizations, and we don't even realize it.  How do you find that? How do you leverage that? How do you build and develop that? This is what I find so interesting about the skills conversation. Everything that we've just been talking, about the potential and impact for any one of us is huge." Heidi Perloff, SVP, Global HR Strategic Initiatives and Delivery Solutions at The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. We're Only Human - Episode 165 Think about yourself and your work for a moment. Does your job title capture everything you are cap ..read more

And so that doesn't happen overnight. But over time, as people bought into it and we started to see over the course of one year, we gave the business back 1500 interviews. Imagine the extra time that was available for our product managers. They could do their job, and then when the quality of hire goes up with that, you start to get this [positive] cycle. You've now made a better hire, and because you started with listening, there's a high probability that [they're] gonna be successful and stay longer. Lance Sapera, Former VP Talent Acquisition, Talend We're Only Human -- Episode 164 How do yo ..read more