Shows
Your Work Friends | Fresh Insights on the Now and Next of WorkProductive. Profitable. People Not Included? AI Displacement. Org Redesign. Universal Basic Income.Send a textProductive. Profitable. People Not Included?Companies are getting more productive and profitable — while quietly employing fewer people. This week we unpack the growing gap between AI productivity, disappearing jobs, and the uncomfortable question: if the work changes, what replaces the paycheck?Companies are getting more productive. Profits are rising.So why does it feel like workers are disappearing from the equation?This week on Your Work Friends, Francesca and Mel break down two signals shaping the future of work.Fi...
2026-03-1044 minYour Work Friends | Fresh Insights on the Now and Next of WorkHR's Biggest Moment is Right Now: The Only Question is Who is Going to Take It ft/ Hacking HR's Enrique RubioSend a textHR’s Biggest Moment Is Right Now. Who’s Going to Take It?AI isn’t just another HR tech tool.It’s becoming infrastructure.In this episode of Your Work Friends, Mel Plett and Francesca Ranieri sit down with Enrique Rubio, Founder & CEO of Hacking HR (a 2M+ global HR community), to unpack the biggest signals reshaping HR, People Operations, and leadership right now.The stakes?HR can either shape how work changes — or watch it get shaped for...
2026-03-0337 minYour Work Friends | Fresh Insights on the Now and Next of WorkBuild Your Personal Brand Now ft/ Goodstory's Gina ClementiSend a textPersonal branding isn’t about LinkedIn clout—it’s about career clarity, visibility, and opportunity.In this episode of Your Work Friends, we’re joined by Gina Clementi, founder of Goodstory, to break down what a personal brand actually is—and why it’s becoming one of the most critical career assets in today’s job market.As layoffs rise, AI reshapes work, and careers become more fractional, being good at your job is no longer enough. You need to be known for something.In this conver...
2026-02-0339 minYour Work Friends | Fresh Insights on the Now and Next of WorkPeople Are Not OK: And Business Can’t Pretend AnymoreSend a textPeople are not okay.And if people aren’t okay—neither is your business.This week on Your Work Friends, we slow down and say the quiet part out loud.In just the last two weeks, we’ve watched:AI leaders at Davos predict massive workforce disruption—without clarity on what comes nextCareers become less predictable, five-year plans feel pointless, and the safety net quietly disappearHiring shift from polished resumes to proof of skills—mid-career, mid-gamePolitical and social instability spill directly into the workplace, whether leaders acknowledg...
2026-01-2724 minYour Work Friends | Fresh Insights on the Now and Next of WorkCulture Under Pressure: The 5 Behaviors That Decide If You Scale—or StallSend a textMost strategies don’t fail because leaders don’t know what to do—they fail because organizations can’t behave their way into it.Pressure doesn’t break culture.It exposes it.Most organizations don’t fail because leaders lack strategy or intelligence. They fail because, under pressure, the behaviors required to execute quietly collapse—long before the numbers move.In this episode of Your Work Friends, we break down the five observable behaviors that predict whether a company will scale, stall, or slowly undermi...
2026-01-2145 minYour Work Friends | Fresh Insights on the Now and Next of WorkNew Week, New Headlines: The 2026 Job Market - Hot Jobs, Labor Shortages, and the End of Happy HourSend a textFrom AI-reshaping careers to widening talent gaps, 2026 is shaping up to be a year of labor “stuckness.” We analyze the fastest-growing jobs, high-pay trade shortages, teen gap-year programs, and the quiet end of happy hour.Here’s the deal—2026 isn’t a boom year.It’s not a crash either.It’s a labor lockdown.In this episode of Your Work Friends, we break down the biggest signals shaping the U.S. job market right now—and why so many people feel stuck, cautious, and qu...
2026-01-1431 minYour Work Friends | Fresh Insights on the Now and Next of WorkCollective Intelligence: Why Team Performance is Set Before the Work Even Begins w/Carnegie Mellon Professor Anita Woolley PhDSend a textSmart people don’t automatically make a smart team.In this episode of Your Work Friends, we talk with Dr. Anita Woolley, professor at Carnegie Mellon University and one of the world’s leading researchers on collective intelligence, about what actually drives team performance—and what most leaders get wrong.Anita breaks down why high-performing teams aren’t about talent density, charisma, or motivation, but about coordination, goal clarity, and participation—most of which is decided before the...
2026-01-0745 minYour Work Friends | Fresh Insights on the Now and Next of WorkOwnership Works: When All Employees Own a Piece of The Upside w/ Anna-Lisa MillerSend a textWhy are we still treating wealth-building at work like a VIP perk?Senior executives have long enjoyed equity as part of their compensation. But what happens when everyone gets a piece of the upside?This week, we sit down with Anna-Lisa Miller, Executive Director of Ownership Works, a nonprofit partnering with companies and investors to expand broad-based employee ownership - creating real financial stability for workers and driving stronger business performance for employers.📈 Here’s the wild part:Shared ownership isn’t a feel...
2025-12-0945 minYour Work Friends | Fresh Insights on the Now and Next of WorkCode Red: Zapier's Approach to Move from AI Fear to AI Integration w/ Zapier's Brandon SammutSend a text“With AI you can delegate a bunch of the work, but you cannot delegate the accountability.”This week on Your Work Friends, we sit down with Zapier’s Chief People & AI Transformation Officer Brandon Sammut to break down how Zapier hit 97% AI adoption without traditional L&D, why they declared an internal “Code Red,” and how culture—not tools—is the real engine of AI transformation.We get into Zapier’s AI fluency rubric for new hires, their “clear the lane” discipline tha...
2025-11-2548 minYour Work Friends | Fresh Insights on the Now and Next of WorkAI Ambition: Balancing Innovation with Trust, Connection and Human Relationships w/McKinsey NA CHRO Wendy MillerSend a textHere’s the deal—AI promises a lot.Efficiency, productivity, transformation. Every week, something new.But work also runs on things like trust, connection, and human relationships. So the real question isn’t just how fast we adopt AI—it’s how we balance ambition with reality, timelines, people, and humanity.In this episode, we sit down with Wendy Miller, Chief HR Officer for North America at McKinsey & Company, to talk about what balancing AI ambition and reality actually looks like on the ground. We...
2025-11-1139 minYour Work Friends | Fresh Insights on the Now and Next of WorkBe Bold: The Surprising Science of Everyday Courage w/ Ranjay GulatiSend a textHere’s the deal—fear isn’t the villain. Left alone, it just drives. In this episode, we sit down with Harvard Business School professor and Thinkers50 honoree Ranjay Gulati, author of How to Be Bold: The Surprising Science of Everyday Courage to talk about acting through fear—at work, in leadership, and in a world that feels permanently uncertain. We get into why uncertainty hijacks the brain, what separates risk from true unknowns, and how everyday people “hack” fear with rituals, reframes, and the right support squad. For leaders, we...
2025-10-2842 minYour Work Friends | Fresh Insights on the Now and Next of WorkNew Week, New Headlines: AI Joins Your Performance Review, and Sam Altman Says Your Job Wasn’t RealSend a textFirst: AI is now sliding into your performance reviews.Forbes says it’s here to “remove bias” and “automate feedback.”We say… careful what you outsource. Because when algorithms start coaching humans, you risk losing the part that actually makes feedback work — connection, trust, and care.Then: OpenAI’s Sam Altman claimed that if AI wipes out your job, maybe it wasn’t real work to begin with.Uh, scuzi? We unpack the arrogance behind that take, the history of who decides what “real work” even means, and the danger...
2025-10-2218 minYour Work Friends | Fresh Insights on the Now and Next of WorkCreating Meaningful Community in the Workplace w/ DeMario BellSend a textEver felt like you’re on your own at work—even in a “great culture”?That’s because culture isn’t the same as community.One happens whether you shape it or not. The other takes intention, safety, and a shared purpose.In this episode of Your Work Friends, we sit down with DeMario Bell—community strategist, speaker, and founder of Gatherful, who’s spent over a decade building communities across higher ed, startups, and global enterprise, including leading Culture Amp’s 100,000+ member HR community.
2025-10-1541 minYour Work Friends | Fresh Insights on the Now and Next of WorkNew Week, New Headlines: Open Enrollment Alert: 2026 Health Costs Surge, 4-in-5 Workers ‘Career Catfished,’ and AI Actress Tilly Norwood Sparks a New Labor FightSend a textThis week on Your Work Friends, we break down three headlines every professional should know:Career Catfishing: Monster’s 2025 report found 4 in 5 U.S. employees say they were misled about their job. We unpack what’s driving the trust crisis between workers and employers—and what good hiring should look like now.Open Enrollment 2026: Get ready for the biggest jump in healthcare costs in 15 years. We explain why premiums are spiking, how to protect your paycheck, and what to ask HR before you pick your plan.AI Actress Tilly...
2025-10-0824 minYour Work Friends | Fresh Insights on the Now and Next of WorkThe Doors You Can Open: Unlocking Opportunity Through Sponsorship at Work w/ Rosalind ChowSend a textEver felt like your hard work wasn’t enough?That’s because the biggest career breaks don’t always come from effort alone—they come from the people who open doors for you.In this episode of Your Work Friends, we sit down with, Carnegie Mellon Professor, organizational psychologist and author Rosalind Chow to unpack the power of sponsorship. Not mentorship (that’s important too), but sponsorship—the behind-the-scenes advocacy that shapes reputations, gets your name in the room, and changes who gets ahead.We talk abo...
2025-09-2333 minYour Work Friends | Fresh Insights on the Now and Next of WorkNew Week, New Headlines: 42,000 Manufacturing Jobs Lost. 72-Hour Work Weeks Exploding. Immigration Raids Threatening America’s Skill BaseSend a textNew Week, New Headlines: your fast-track through the now + next of work.This week we’re covering three stories shaping how you work, earn, and lead:42,000 US manufacturing jobs lost. Since April, durable goods have shed tens of thousands of jobs—what tariffs, automation, and uncertainty really mean for the economy.72-hour work weeks exploding. Silicon Valley is doubling down on extreme hours while Europe, New Zeland (even NVIDIA) tests the 4-day week. What each bet reveals about strategy and speed vs. resilience.Immigration raid...
2025-09-1620 minYour Work Friends | Fresh Insights on the Now and Next of WorkNew Week, New Headlines: Dying at Work, The Job Market Flatlines, Hugging Your Job & Google’s 20,000 ApprenticeshipsSend a textNew Week, New Headlines: Burnout turns deadly at Microsoft, the U.S. job market flatlines, “job huggers” cling to stability, and Salesforce cuts while Google opens 20,000 apprenticeships. What it all means for how you work, earn, and lead.This week we’re covering four stories shaping how you work, earn, and lead:Dying at Work. A Microsoft employee died on campus at 35. What it reveals about the way we normalize overwork, and the guardrails leaders should be setting now.The job market flatlines. August added only 2...
2025-09-0922 minYour Work Friends | Fresh Insights on the Now and Next of WorkNew Week, New Headlines: Your Rights at Work Just Changed, Women Shut Out of IPOs, Canva’s Millionaires & OpenAI’s MissSend a textNew Week, New Headlines: your fast-track through the now + next of work.This week we’re covering four stories shaping how you work, earn, and lead:Your rights at work just changed. From overtime pay to union protections, the federal floor is gone—and what that means depends on where you live and who you work for.Women are missing from IPOs. 88% of companies going public this summer had one or no women on their boards, and 93% had one or none in the C-suite. What that...
2025-08-2718 minYour Work Friends | Fresh Insights on the Now and Next of WorkThe Future of HR: Developing the Next Generation of HR Leaders w/ JP ElliottSend a textThe future of HR isn’t just about people, it’s about how business, technology, and strategy come together.In this episode of Your Work Friends, we sit down with JP Elliott, host of The Future of HR Podcast and creator of the Next Gen HR Accelerator, to talk about how HR is evolving inside the world’s biggest companies. JP has partnered with leaders at Amazon, American Express, Verizon, and more, and he brings a clear perspective on what it takes to build HR functions that win.W...
2025-08-1937 minYour Work Friends | Fresh Insights on the Now and Next of WorkLeading Through the Age of Outrage w/ Karthik RamannaSend a textOxford professor Karthik Ramanna joins us to unpack how to lead with humility and temperance in the age of outrage—so you can build trust, lower the temperature, and keep your team thriving in polarized times.Outrage is everywhere—at work, online, even in our group chats. So how do you lead when everyone’s on edge? In this episode, we sit down with Oxford professor and Age of Outrage author Karthik Ramanna to talk about the leadership trait almost no one is talking about (but everyone needs): temperance.We get in...
2025-08-1344 minYour Work Friends | Fresh Insights on the Now and Next of WorkNew Week, New Headlines: The Job Market Is Shrinking, Will the Modern Worker Act Kill Full-Time Work, and Is Religion at Work Getting a Green Light?Send a textThis week, we’re breaking down three headlines that could reshape the American workplace:📉 The job market cool-down continues, with new JOLTS data showing longer unemployment durations and more people dropping out of the job hunt altogether.⚖️ The Modern Worker Employment Act could redefine what it means to be an “employee”—and put traditional full-time roles at risk.✝️ A new Trump-era memo gives federal workers the green light to evangelize at work. Is this the start of a new wave of religious expression in corporate spaces?From layoffs to labor laws to religion in the bre...
2025-07-3021 minYour Work Friends | Fresh Insights on the Now and Next of WorkNever Not Working: The Hidden Cost of Always Being On w/ Malissa ClarkSend a textIs your brain still working even when you're not? You're not alone—and it's probably costing you more than you think.In this episode of Your Work Friends, we sit down with Dr. Malissa Clark—organizational psychologist and author of Never Not Working—to unpack how hustle culture, job insecurity, and digital overload are making it harder than ever to truly disconnect.We talk through the 4 types of workaholism, the science behind why your body never gets to rest, and what recovery can actually look like (especially if mindfulness makes you wa...
2025-07-2448 minYour Work Friends | Fresh Insights on the Now and Next of WorkWhy Work Should Be a Product—Not a Job w/ Dart LindsleySend a textWhat if we stopped designing jobs like checklists—and started designing them like products employees want to buy?In this episode of Your Work Friends, we talk with Dart Lindsley, CEO and co-founder of 11 Fold, the creator of Multi-Sided Management and he's the host of the Work for Humans podcast, Dart breaks down why it’s time to stop treating employees like “inputs” and start treating them like customers—with all the same thoughtfulness, strategy, and design we use in product development.We explore:Why the “job description”...
2025-07-1547 minYour Work Friends | Fresh Insights on the Now and Next of WorkNew Week, New Headlines: 20+ AI Jobs You Didn’t See Coming & Why Companies Are Ditching HRSend a textThis week on Your Work Friends, we’re diving into two hot topics shaking up the future of work. 1️⃣ The surprising new jobs AI is creating and why your taste and creativity might be the most valuable skills you bring to the table.First, we explore 22 new jobs AI is expected to create — and why your taste (yes, your vibe, your style, your point of view) could become your biggest career asset in an AI-driven world. We’re talking about AI auditors, world designers, and why creativity is about to pay off big...
2025-06-2416 minYour Work Friends | Fresh Insights on the Now and Next of WorkMore Human: How the Power of AI Can Transform the Way You Lead with Jacqueline CarterSend a textAI isn't replacing leaders.But it is revealing what kind of leader you really are.In this powerful conversation, we sit down with Jacqueline Carter—author, of "More Human" researcher, and senior partner at Potential Project—to unpack what it actually means to be a more human leader in the age of AI.We dive into:✅ The 3 skills every modern leader needs (and why only 16% are ready)✅ How AI can amplify—not replace—your awareness, wisdom, and compassion✅ The surprising ways tech is quietly eroding trust, c...
2025-06-1848 min