HR Happy Hour Network

Take a Different Seat: What Are We Really Looking for at HR Tech Events?
Host: Chris Havrilla, Podcast Host & Founder of AI Alchemists™
Guests: Joanna Clark and Matthew Brown

Summary
What are you looking for when you walk into an HR technology conference? A new solution? The latest AI announcement? A vendor shortlist? A glimpse at where the market is headed?
In the debut episode of Take a Different Seat, host Chris Havrilla starts with that seemingly simple question and invites two experienced HR technology leaders to examine it from very different seats.
From the buyer perspective to the vendor and customer experience side, the conversation explores what really happens when organizations, technology providers, and practitioners come together at industry events. The answer turns out to have far less to do with collecting product information and much more to do with understanding the problems organizations are actually trying to solve.
The discussion digs into the growing disconnect between buyers and sellers, the pressure to adopt AI, and the danger of applying new technology to processes built for yesterday’s work. Instead of starting with a product or feature list, the group makes the case for starting with the business problem, asking better questions, and staying curious long enough to understand what a solution will actually mean inside a specific organization. As the conversation progresses, another important gap emerges: the difference between what technology looks like in a demo and what it takes to make that technology successful on day one. Buyers may not always know what questions to ask, while providers can easily allow their own talking points to drive the conversation. The challenge for both sides is to move beyond the pitch and get closer to the realities of the work, the organization, and the people who will ultimately use the technology.
And by the end of the episode, the original question has changed. Instead of asking people at the next industry event, “What are you here to see?”, perhaps the better question is: “What do you need to learn more about?”

Topics Include
Why the same HR technology event looks very different depending on the seat you're sitting in
How buyers can move from shopping for solutions to understanding the business problem
Why AI is exposing old processes rather than automatically fixing them
The disconnect between technology demos and the reality of implementation
Why learning, curiosity, and better questions matter more as technology changes faster


Thank you for joining the show today! Remember to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts!

Workhuman is a proud supporter of the HR Happy Hour Network.
Here’s a wild stat: 6 in 10 employees have never been meaningfully recognized for a work anniversary. Think about that. Five, 10, 20 years of someone’s life — and too often, the moment falls flat. Workhuman’s Service Milestones® makes recognition more personal, memorable, and impactful. Milestone tracking happens automatically through your HRIS, the right colleagues are inspired to share stories and congratulations, and employees get access to rewards they actually want.
Ready to make your milestones meet the moment with Workhuman? Click the banner on this episode’s page or follow the link in the show notes to learn more.

The HR Happy Hour Network Welcomes "Take a Different Seat"
Hosts: Steve Boese & Trish Steed
Guest: Chris Havrilla, Podcast Host & Founder of AI Alchemists™

Summary
The HR Happy Hour Media Network is welcoming a new show to the network: Take a Different Seat, hosted by longtime technology strategist, analyst, advisor, and product leader Chris Havrilla.
In this introductory conversation, Steve and Trish sit down with Chris to talk about the idea behind the new series, the experiences she brings to it, and why perspective matters more than ever as organizations navigate AI, technology, work, and increasingly consequential decisions. The premise behind Take a Different Seat is simple: better decisions begin with better questions, and better questions emerge when we are willing to see a problem from perspectives beyond our own. Rather than beginning each episode with a predetermined answer, Chris will start with a consequential question, bring together different perspectives, challenge assumptions, and see whether the conversation leads to an even better question.
Chris also shares how her career across research, advisory, product strategy, and technology has shaped the new show. Her experience spans organizations including Deloitte and Oracle, where she worked through the rapid evolution of generative and agentic AI and saw firsthand how technological change creates new legal, ethical, operational, financial, and human questions for organizations. Together, they explore why context matters when making technology and workforce decisions, why organizations cannot simply hand responsibility for consequential decisions over to AI, and why leaders need to become more comfortable examining issues from more than one seat.
As Chris puts it, sometimes the most valuable outcome isn't finding the answer. It's discovering the question you should have been asking in the first place.

Topics include:
The idea behind Take a Different Seat and what listeners can expect
Why perspective and intellectual humility are becoming essential leadership skills
How better questions can lead to better organizational decisions
Chris's experience across AI, product strategy, research, and advisory work
Why AI is creating new questions around accountability, transparency, and decision-making


Thank you for joining the show today! Remember to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts!

Workhuman is a proud supporter of the HR Happy Hour Network.
Here’s a wild stat: 6 in 10 employees have never been meaningfully recognized for a work anniversary. Think about that. Five, 10, 20 years of someone’s life — and too often, the moment falls flat. Workhuman’s Service Milestones® makes recognition more personal, memorable, and impactful. Milestone tracking happens automatically through your HRIS, the right colleagues are inspired to share stories and congratulations, and employees get access to rewards they actually want.
Ready to make your milestones meet the moment with Workhuman? Click the banner on this episode’s page or follow the link in the show notes to learn more.

From Low-Wage Work to Career Opportunity: Building Better Talent Pathways
Host: Steve Boese
Guest: Connor Diamond-Yauman, Co-CEO of Merit America

Summary
In this episode of At Work in America, Steve is joined by Connor Diemand-Yauman, for a conversation about economic mobility, workforce development, and creating stronger pathways from low-wage work into sustainable careers.
Connor shares the story behind Merit America and the realization that helped inspire its work: access to education alone does not necessarily create opportunity. The conversation explores their work with adults in low-wage jobs and why human coaching has become such an important part of its model. While learners may initially come for credentials in areas such as IT support, project management, cybersecurity, or semiconductor technology, Connor explains that many ultimately identify coaching as one of the most transformational parts of their experience.
Steve and Connor also discuss the rapidly changing labor market and the challenge of preparing people for jobs and skills that continue to evolve. Rather than trying to perfectly predict the future of work, Connor argues that agility is becoming one of the most important capabilities for workforce development organizations, employers, and workers alike.
For HR and business leaders, the message is clear: expanding economic opportunity requires opening the aperture on how we define qualified talent, taking thoughtful risks on people who may not fit traditional hiring profiles, and creating real pathways for people to turn their skills and potential into meaningful careers.

Topics include:
Why access to education does not automatically translate into career opportunity
How workforce programs can keep pace with a rapidly changing labor market
Why some perceived talent shortages may actually be workplace or business model problems
The disconnect between removing degree requirements and actually changing hiring practices
How employers can broaden their definition of qualified talent


Thank you for joining the show today! Remember to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts!

Workhuman is a proud supporter of the HR Happy Hour Network.
Here’s a wild stat: 6 in 10 employees have never been meaningfully recognized for a work anniversary. Think about that. Five, 10, 20 years of someone’s life — and too often, the moment falls flat. Workhuman’s Service Milestones® makes recognition more personal, memorable, and impactful. Milestone tracking happens automatically through your HRIS, the right colleagues are inspired to share stories and congratulations, and employees get access to rewards they actually want.
Ready to make your milestones meet the moment with Workhuman? Click the banner on this episode’s page or follow the link in the show notes to learn more.

The Crossroads of HR: AI, Judgement, and the Future of the Profession
Hosts: Mervyn Dinnen
Guest: David D'Souza, Writer, keynote speaker, and advisor

Summary
In this episode of HR Means Business, Mervyn is joined by David D’Souza, former Director of Profession at the CIPD, for a wide-ranging conversation about the future of HR and the capabilities professionals will need to navigate what comes next.
David reflects on how the profession has evolved and why HR’s value cannot be defined by HR alone. Rather than beginning with programs, best practices, or what the function believes organizations should do, he argues that HR must begin with the problems the business is trying to solve and understand how people, skills, structure, and culture can help address them.
The conversation also explores the growing role of AI in HR and why automation creates both opportunity and responsibility. As technology takes on more transactional work, skills such as situational judgment, evidence-based decision-making, curiosity, adaptability, relationship building, and critical thinking become even more important.

Key Takeaways
HR must start with the business problem
Human judgment becomes more important as AI grows
Curiosity and adaptability will be essential HR skills
Workforce planning must become more agile
HR needs to enable change, not become the point of resistance

Thank you for your continued support of the show and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts!

Workhuman is a proud supporter of the HR Happy Hour Network.
Here’s a wild stat: 6 in 10 employees have never been meaningfully recognized for a work anniversary. Think about that. Five, 10, 20 years of someone’s life — and too often, the moment falls flat. Workhuman’s Service Milestones® makes recognition more personal, memorable, and impactful. Milestone tracking happens automatically through your HRIS, the right colleagues are inspired to share stories and congratulations, and employees get access to rewards they actually want.
Ready to make your milestones meet the moment with Workhuman? Click the banner on this episode’s page or follow the link in the show notes to learn more.

Compliance Is Cool: Using AI to Make Employment Law Easier
Hosts: Steve Boese and Trish Steed
Guest: Kimball Dean Parker, CEO at SixFifty

Summary
In this episode of At Work in America, Steve and Trish welcome Kimball Dean Parker, CEO of SixFifty, for a conversation about how technology and AI are changing the way organizations manage employment law and compliance.
Kimball shares the story behind SixFifty and why employment law became such an important problem to solve. With regulations varying across states, cities, and counties — and changing constantly — staying current can quickly become overwhelming, particularly for organizations hiring across multiple locations. The conversation explores how AI and automation can help organizations manage everything from employee handbooks and hiring documents to required posters, training, and other compliance workflows. Kimball also explains why combining AI with established legal workflows can create more predictable and reliable outcomes rather than simply asking generative AI to produce an answer from scratch.
The conversation also looks beyond risk reduction. When organizations have greater confidence in their compliance infrastructure, they can hire talent in more locations, respond more quickly to regulatory changes, and give HR leaders back time that would otherwise be spent managing administrative complexity. The group offers a practical example of where AI can create immediate value for HR: taking repeatable, time-intensive compliance work off people's plates while allowing HR professionals to focus more of their time on people, strategy, and the business.

Topics include:
Why employment law compliance becomes increasingly complex as organizations expand across locations
How technology can help organizations stay ahead of changing employment regulations
The importance of combining AI with structured, established processes
How stronger compliance infrastructure can support multistate hiring and business growth
How automation can give HR leaders more time for strategic work
Why compliance may be one of the most practical places for organizations to begin using AI

Thank you for joining the show today! Remember to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts!

Workhuman is a proud supporter of the HR Happy Hour Network.
Nearly every HR leader knows the feeling: Teams are stretched thin, priorities keep shifting, and it's getting harder to see what's really going on beneath the surface. That's the subject of Workhuman's new documentary, Spotlight: The Leadership Reset, an investigation into why managers are losing visibility into their teams, and what it takes to see clearly again. Featuring Harvard’s Professor Amy Edmondson, crisis leadership expert Dr. Syra Madad, and bakery-owner-turned-business-leader Joanne Chang. The Leadership Reset premieres September 29th. Register for free today at workhuman.com/spotlight.

This episode of At Work in America is sponsored by Paychex, an industry-leading human capital management company that combines scale, trusted expertise, and innovation to help businesses succeed. SixFifty, by Paychex helps your business stay ahead of constantly changing laws and regulations with HR compliance software. Curated by experienced attorneys and powered by AI, SixFifty helps turn the impossible job of staying compliant with employment laws across every state into something simple, automatic, and stress-free. SixFifty is available both as a standalone solution and as an integrated offering within Paychex’s HCM platforms. To learn more about how you can make faster, more confident compliance decisions, head to sixfifty.com