The Human Element | CHRO & HR Leadership Podcast

Barb Bidan | CHRO & AI in Human Resources Expert
  • 5.0 (3)
  • Business
  • Complete

AI is reshaping leadership, strategy, and the very role of HR. In each episode, the host Barb Bidan explores how AI drives innovation and leadership in HR with actionable insights for the future of work. The Human Element is brought to you by Harper, Wisq’s always-on AI HR Generalist transforming how work gets done. Powered by deep HR intelligence, Harper delivers instant, accurate, and empathetic support—from policy questions to performance coaching—so your people get answers fast and your teams stay focused. Learn more at Wisq.com.

  1. HR in the age of AI: Eliminate, then elevate

    3d ago

    HR in the age of AI: Eliminate, then elevate

    Summary Jens Hovgaard Jensen, Vice President of People and Culture at ECCO Americas, joins host Barb Bidan on The Human Element for a candid conversation about HR's future in the age of AI. Drawing on a career built from turnarounds and carve-outs at Maersk, Girteka Logistics, and ECCO, plus ten years as an officer in the Royal Danish Life Guards, Jens makes a provocative case: HR should actively eliminate its own transactional work with AI before someone else does it, treat restructuring as a chance to lead with humanity, and stop over-planning the workforce in favor of higher-value analytics. It is a practical, occasionally uncomfortable listen for HR and people leaders who want to move from administrative function to true business partner. Chapters 00:00 Welcome and Jens's path from the Royal Danish Life Guards 02:35 The military through line: plan, then pivot 06:35 Closing 75 stores across three countries 07:45 Why ECCO gave people notice in November 10:45 HR sawing the branch it sits on 16:15 From transactional HR to true business peer 19:55 Where AI is already quietly removing HR work 23:00 Plan less, elevate the workforce analytics 29:25 The broken benefits model and vendor AI roadmaps 32:35 Lightning round and the final word Takeaways Treating people with dignity during a restructuring is also good business. ECCO told staff in November about January store closures and saw low turnover, not a wave of early exits."Working yourself out of a job" is a career accelerator, not a risk. Eliminating your own repetitive work tends to get you promoted into bigger problems, not pushed out.HR should drive its own AI adoption before someone else does. The transactional, administrative identity is exactly the work AI should absorb.Never spend more than 20 to 30 percent of your time planning. You need the other 70 percent for execution, and over-granular workforce plans rarely survive contact with reality.The real AI prize in HR is the analytics humans could never do well before, from predicting attrition to running M&A due diligence to challenging your own assumptions. Connect with the Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jensjensen42/ Website: https://us.ecco.com SponsorWisq is the AI platform for HR. We built Harper, the world's first AI HR teammate — designed to handle the judgment-heavy work that has historically consumed HR teams: job changes, performance concerns, leaves of absence, onboarding, and employee relations issues. Where HCM bolt-ons and chatbots deflect the easiest questions, Harper resolves full cases, end-to-end. The result is an HR function with the capacity and strategic bandwidth to focus on the work that moves the business. Companies get Harper live in weeks, not quarters, with implementation support built on deep HR domain expertise. Wisq serves HR leaders at leading companies across industries, helping them raise the bar on employee experience and expand what their teams are capable of. For more information, visit wisq.com.

    37 min
  2. AI is an accelerant, not destination

    Jun 30

    AI is an accelerant, not destination

    Summary RJ Jadhav, Vice President of Human Resources at Lumen Technologies, joins host Barb Bidan to reframe how HR leaders should think about AI, transformation, and the role of their function. RJ has spent his career inside the most transformative companies in tech — fifteen years at Microsoft, the hypergrowth years at Google Cloud, and now at Lumen, where he's helping rewire a legacy network company into a digital services company built for the AI economy. In this conversation he unpacks why AI is 70% culture and 30% tools, why business impact has to be the goal long before AI, and why HR has earned the right to lead the AI charter inside the enterprise. Takeaways Transformation needs three things at once — leadership behaviors, designed systems instead of interventions, and a real business anchor. Pull one lever in isolation and the other two drift.AI is not the destination. Business impact is. Start with where the business is going, then let AI accelerate moonshots you'd otherwise rule out as too slow or too expensive.AI is 70% culture and 30% tools. AI amplifies whatever culture already exists — good or bad. Treat it as a tool rollout and it will surface every cultural weakness you have.The most underestimated AI metric in the C-suite is protected leadership capacity — the space to think, reflect, and produce ideas muscle memory cannot.Stop using AI as a productivity hack. Start using it as a leadership system that coaches your judgment in real time. Chapters 00:00 Cold open and welcome 00:55 Meet RJ Jadhav, VP of HR at Lumen Technologies 02:00 The through-line across Microsoft, Google Cloud, and Lumen 04:30 Microsoft's established engine vs Lumen's existential rewire 05:50 One year in — moments that prove the transformation is real 08:30 AI as accelerant, not destination 09:10 Lumen's three-year people strategy and the business-first sequence 11:00 The most underestimated AI unlock — protecting leadership capacity 13:00 From productivity hack to leadership system 15:30 AI as a 24/7 coach 16:30 AI fluency as the only new HR skill 18:00 Why HR should lead the AI charter 20:30 The Chief AI Enablement Officer role 21:30 Three focus areas — redesign, talent, culture 22:30 The work-design framework — automate, agentify, human 24:00 Skills for the next generation of HR leaders 26:00 AI is 70% culture and 30% tools 27:00 Goal Pro — 70,000 goals aligned to the North Star 31:00 Barb's recap of the conversation 32:00 Lightning round 34:00 Top takeaways 36:00 RJ's parting words — the judgment test Connect with the Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rj-jadhav/ Website: https://www.lumen.com/en-us/home.html  SponsorWisq is the AI platform for HR. We built Harper, the world's first AI HR teammate — designed to handle the judgment-heavy work that has historically consumed HR teams: job changes, performance concerns, leaves of absence, onboarding, and employee relations issues. Where HCM bolt-ons and chatbots deflect the easiest questions, Harper resolves full cases, end-to-end. The result is an HR function with the capacity and strategic bandwidth to focus on the work that moves the business. Companies get Harper live in weeks, not quarters, with implementation support built on deep HR domain expertise. Wisq serves HR leaders at leading companies across industries, helping them raise the bar on employee experience and expand what their teams are capable of. For more information, visit  https://www.wisq.com

    38 min
  3. Teach a man to fish: HR AI adoption strategy that sticks

    Jun 26

    Teach a man to fish: HR AI adoption strategy that sticks

    Summary On The Human Element, Barb Bidan talks with Jennifer Erfurth, Global Head of HR at the cybersecurity company OPSWAT, about what it actually takes to run an AI-first people function rather than just talk about one. Jennifer canceled a planned Workday rollout, built AI agents on top of BambooHR, rewrote her employer value proposition to lead with AI, and kept her human HR team in place as the safety net. She breaks down the three bets behind the approach: what to build, who to hire, and how to drive adoption without forcing it. She is also candid about the parts that are still messy, including a chatbot that hallucinates an HR contact named "Aaron," and why 25 years of experience is the thing that keeps AI honest. The throughline: going AI-first is not about replacing the human function, it is about deciding what AI handles and what stays human. Built for CHROs, VPs of People, and anyone leading AI adoption in HR. Chapters 00:00 Meet Jennifer Erfurth and OPSWAT 02:30 Building an AI-first people function from scratch 04:30 Change management and what's in it for me 07:30 Running HR like a product, launch at 80% and iterate 08:00 The AI-first EVP and screening for AI fluency 12:30 Why they scrapped Workday and built on BambooHR 15:30 Tier zero AI and tier one human HR 17:00 The skills-inventory app built in an hour 21:00 Bringing an existing team along, learn, organize, recognize 23:30 The future of the CHRO role 25:00 Lightning round 27:30 Barb's takeaways and the last word Takeaways Build the knowledge base before the agents; OPSWAT spent six months on its before turning on a single agent.Build can beat buy. An engineer built a skills-inventory app in under an hour, replacing tools like Eightfold and Fuel50.An AI-first EVP attracts the talent you want and filters out the talent you don't.Drive adoption by teaching people to self-serve rather than forcing the tool on them.Keep a human in the loop; the AI can be right five times and wrong the sixth, and experience is what keeps it honest.Connect with the GuestLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/globalhrexecutive/Website: https://www.opswat.com/ SponsorWisq is the AI platform for HR. We built Harper, the world's first AI HR teammate — designed to handle the judgment-heavy work that has historically consumed HR teams: job changes, performance concerns, leaves of absence, onboarding, and employee relations issues. Where HCM bolt-ons and chatbots deflect the easiest questions, Harper resolves full cases, end-to-end. The result is an HR function with the capacity and strategic bandwidth to focus on the work that moves the business. Companies get Harper live in weeks, not quarters, with implementation support built on deep HR domain expertise. Wisq serves HR leaders at leading companies across industries, helping them raise the bar on employee experience and expand what their teams are capable of. For more information, visit wisq.com.

    30 min
  4. AI Governance is a relationship, not a document

    Jun 23

    AI Governance is a relationship, not a document

    SummaryOn The Human Element, Barb Bidan sits down with Joshua Horenstein, who runs both the HR and legal functions at Innophos. Joshua argues that AI governance fails on the org chart, not in the policy document. He walks through his manufacturing-pilot mindset for rolling out AI, names the two reasonable worst cases most HR leaders aren't watching for, and explains why the friction between the CHRO and the GC is the engine of good policy, not a problem to fix. For HR leaders, CHROs, and the chief legal officers who work alongside them. Chapters00:00 Introduction00:45 Joshua's dual hat: CHRO and chief legal officer at Innophos03:15 The first governance question, what type of AI are you deploying04:45 The pilot-to-policy mindset from manufacturing05:45 AI governance as the rules of the road07:30 Two reasonable worst cases: productivity backfire and dormant data leak10:45 Sandboxing AI in an industrial company13:45 The CHRO and CLO tension as the policy engine16:45 Curiosity beats the playbook in HR leadership23:15 AI as your shadow partner, the two-year forecast26:15 The biggest flaw in current AI governance models Takeaways AI governance is the rules of the road, not a 50-subpart document. Flexible top-level rules outlast rigid policies that age before they're signed.The internal AI data leak (a dormant folder permission surfaced by an AI tool) is almost as dangerous as the external one, and almost nobody is auditing for it.The friction between CHRO and CLO is the engine of good AI policy. Siloed functions produce one-sided answers.Sandbox the AI like a chemical pilot. Cordon off the data, open the spigots gradually, watch for leaks.Never let AI make a termination, promotion, or compensation decision. Humans own the outcome.Connect with the GuestLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshhorenstein/Website: https://innophos.com SponsorWisq is the AI platform for HR. We built Harper, the world's first AI HR teammate, designed to handle the judgment-heavy work that has historically consumed HR teams: job changes, performance concerns, leaves of absence, onboarding, and employee relations issues. Where HCM bolt-ons and chatbots deflect the easiest questions, Harper resolves full cases, end-to-end. The result is an HR function with the capacity and strategic bandwidth to focus on the work that moves the business. Companies get Harper live in weeks, not quarters, with implementation support built on deep HR domain expertise. Wisq serves HR leaders at leading companies across industries, helping them raise the bar on employee experience and expand what their teams are capable of. For more information, visit https://www.wisq.com (00:00) - Introduction (00:45) - Joshua's dual hat: CHRO and chief legal officer at Innophos (03:15) - The first governance question, what type of AI are you deploying (04:45) - The pilot-to-policy mindset from manufacturing (05:45) - AI governance as the rules of the road (07:30) - Two reasonable worst cases: productivity backfire and dormant data leak (10:45) - Sandboxing AI in an industrial company (13:45) - The CHRO and CLO tension as the policy engine (16:45) - Curiosity beats the playbook in HR leadership (23:15) - AI as your shadow partner, the two-year forecast (26:15) - The biggest flaw in current AI governance models

    31 min
  5. AI Can Fake Identity. It Can't Fake Humanity

    Jun 18

    AI Can Fake Identity. It Can't Fake Humanity

    Description In December 2024, Christine Aldrich's recruiting team caught their first deepfake candidate. Twelve months later, nearly 1 in 6 applicants at Pindrop shows signs of data manipulation — and every HR leader Christine knows has a story. In this episode of The Human Element, host Barb Bidan sits down with Christine Aldrich, Chief People Officer at Pindrop (the company building identity verification and deepfake detection technology), to talk about what hiring really looks like when you can no longer assume the person on the other end of the camera is who they say they are. They cover the velocity of the deepfake hiring problem, why the two reflex responses (ban AI / go back in-person) are both wrong, the lightweight tactic any recruiting team can deploy on Monday morning, and why the future of recruiting belongs to the people who let technology verify identity so humans can focus on what only humans can do. Takeaways Why December 2024 was the inflection point for deepfake candidates in hiringThe Pindrop data behind the "1 in 6" stat — and what it really means for your funnelWhy banning AI in your application process filters out your best candidates while letting fraudsters throughHow recruiter bias training collides with deepfake detection — and how to resolve the conflictThe three-minute consistency check any recruiter can start using on MondayHow to run identity verification in the background so candidate experience doesn't sufferWhy "AI fluency" is now a behavioral attribute at PindropThe most overrated tool in fighting candidate fraud (hint: you've been on it today)What recruiting looks like when AI takes the bottom of the skill stackChristine's closing reframe for every HR leader on the drive home Chapters (00:00) Cold open and intro (01:15) Christine's path: Michigan, Ford, Dunkin' Brands, and four startups (04:00) The first fraudulent candidate (December 2024) and the velocity of the problem (05:45) The 1-in-6 stat and what data manipulation actually looks like (06:30) What a deepfake candidate looks like in a real interview (09:00) AI usage vs. AI fabrication — where Pindrop draws the line (11:00) Why this isn't just a tech industry problem (12:30) The collision between recruiter bias training and fraud detection (16:00) The lightweight tactics any team can start using Monday morning (18:00) Verification in the background — preserving candidate experience (21:30) AI as both threat and defense — and why treating it as only one is the mistake (23:30) How Pindrop's own team uses AI in the recruiting process (25:30) The candidate side of the verification conversation (28:00) Lightning round: first red flag, the recruiter tactic, the most overrated tool (29:30) "AI can fake identity. It can't fake humanity." (31:00) Barb's takeaways and Christine's final word Connect with the Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chriskaszubski/Pindrop: https://www.pindrop.comSponsorWisq is the AI platform for HR. We built Harper, the world's first AI HR teammate — designed to handle the judgment-heavy work that has historically consumed HR teams: job changes, performance concerns, leaves of absence, onboarding, and employee relations issues. Where HCM bolt-ons and chatbots deflect the easiest questions, Harper resolves full cases, end-to-end. The result is an HR function with the capacity and strategic bandwidth to focus on the work that moves the business. Companies get Harper live in weeks, not quarters, with implementation support built on deep HR domain expertise. Wisq serves HR leaders at leading companies across industries, helping them raise the bar on employee experience and expand what their teams are capable of. For more information, visit  https://www.wisq.com

    33 min
  6. How to Onboard Your AI the Right Way

    Jun 9

    How to Onboard Your AI the Right Way

    Summary On The Human Element, Barb Bidan talks with Q Hamirani, Chief People Officer at HighLevel, about treating AI as a teammate you onboard rather than a tool you install. Q draws on building people functions at Airbnb, Paper, and now a 2,000-person fully remote AI company to argue that the real constraint on AI adoption is human cognitive capacity, not technology. He shares how he trained an AI compensation model to stop and validate at three checkpoints so a human always owns the outcome. The throughline: the people leader's job is not to implement AI, it is to decide what stays human. Built for CHROs, VPs of People, and anyone leading AI adoption in HR. Chapters 00:00 Meet Q Hamirani, CPO at HighLevel 02:20 Backing into HR from an engineering mindset 06:10 AI as a teammate, not a tool 11:00 Defining what a digital teammate owns 13:05 The real bottleneck is human capacity 16:40 Multi-modality: surveys, songs, and websites 21:00 Three stops that keep AI out of the black box 24:40 Accountability as culture, not compliance 27:30 Bolting AI onto broken work 30:40 Lightning round and the last word Takeaways - Onboard AI like a teammate with a loose job description and a clear owner, not a tool you install. - The binding constraint on AI adoption is human cognitive capacity, not budget or technology. - Break AI processes into blocks with human validation stops so nothing runs as an end-to-end black box. - Accountability does not change in an AI world; a human still owns the outcome. - The people leader's job is to decide what stays human. Connect with the GuestLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hamirani/Website: https://www.gohighlevel.com/ SponsorWisq is the AI platform for HR. We built Harper, the world's first AI HR teammate — designed to handle the judgment-heavy work that has historically consumed HR teams: job changes, performance concerns, leaves of absence, onboarding, and employee relations issues. Where HCM bolt-ons and chatbots deflect the easiest questions, Harper resolves full cases, end-to-end. The result is an HR function with the capacity and strategic bandwidth to focus on the work that moves the business. Companies get Harper live in weeks, not quarters, with implementation support built on deep HR domain expertise. Wisq serves HR leaders at leading companies across industries, helping them raise the bar on employee experience and expand what their teams are capable of. For more information, visit wisq.com.

    36 min
  7. When Doing Great HR Work Isn't Enough

    Jun 2

    When Doing Great HR Work Isn't Enough

    SummaryIn this episode of The Human Element, Chief People Officer John Foster (Tala) makes the case that the biggest risk for HR leaders isn't doing bad work — it's doing great work that the organization isn't ready to receive. John shares the framework he calls scratch OD, his argument for why AI won't fix performance management but will replace it, and the career moment when a boss told him to take his foot off his throat. Essential listening for people leaders who want to use the AI era to redesign, not just optimize. Chapters00:00 Introduction: John Foster, Tala, and the Gamut framework02:30 AI as restructuring work, not optimizing it05:30 Organization market fit: the Cambrian explosion analogy09:30 Applying AI at Tala: rethinking software development and workflows11:30 Performance management's 10-second reinvention15:30 Using AI as a thinking partner for organizational rethinking19:00 Scratch OD: the chef framework for HR design23:00 The change agent's trap: empathy for overwhelmed leaders26:30 When HR is correct but not effective28:00 The winning organization in 2026: customer-centric and modular30:00 Lightning round: Trader Joe's, Ford, and what HR most often skips Takeaways Being entirely right about the work does not make you effective at changing the organization.Scratch OD starts with the ingredients — what people actually need from work — not with which best practice to borrow.AI makes individual performance clarity at scale possible for the first time, shifting the model from top-down judgment to individual empowerment.The organizations that thrive in the AI era will be customer-centric and modular, not defined by their product or technology.If you can imagine what you want to build and describe it in detail, you already have an entry point into using AI to construct it.Connect with the GuestLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnfoster-gamut/Website: https://tala.co/careers/ SponsorWisq is the AI platform for HR. We built Harper, the world's first AI HR teammate — designed to handle the judgment-heavy work that has historically consumed HR teams: job changes, performance concerns, leaves of absence, onboarding, and employee relations issues. Where HCM bolt-ons and chatbots deflect the easiest questions, Harper resolves full cases, end-to-end. The result is an HR function with the capacity and strategic bandwidth to focus on the work that moves the business. Companies get Harper live in weeks, not quarters, with implementation support built on deep HR domain expertise. Wisq serves HR leaders at leading companies across industries, helping them raise the bar on employee experience and expand what their teams are capable of. For more information, visit wisq.com. (00:00) - Introduction: John Foster, Tala, and the Gamut framework (02:30) - AI as restructuring work, not optimizing it (05:30) - Organization market fit: the Cambrian explosion analogy (09:30) - Applying AI at Tala: rethinking software development and workflows (11:30) - Performance management's 10-second reinvention (15:30) - Using AI as a thinking partner for organizational rethinking (19:00) - Scratch OD: the chef framework for HR design (23:00) - The change agent's trap: empathy for overwhelmed leaders (26:30) - When HR is correct but not effective (28:00) - The winning organization in 2026: customer-centric and modular (30:00) - Lightning round: Trader Joe's, Ford, and what HR most often skips

    33 min
  8. The Moments That Make or Break Your HR Function

    May 26

    The Moments That Make or Break Your HR Function

    Summary In this episode of The Human Element, Barb talks with Heather Oxley, CHRO at Perficient, about what it looks like to run HR for a firm whose entire business is helping other companies transform. Heather walks through three areas where she's deploying AI across the talent life cycle: project staffing, learning and development, and recruiting. Her central argument is that the value of AI in HR isn't primarily about cost reduction — it's about bringing clarity to the decisions that define the function. She also names the one thing AI should never touch. Chapters 00:00 Host Intro: HR at a Firm Built on Transformation01:30 Heather's Role at Perficient and the AI-First Mandate03:30 AI in Project Staffing: Beyond Skills and Availability09:00 The Leapfrog Moment for Smaller Teams12:30 Learning as Career Navigation, Not Content Delivery17:00 90% Voluntary Adoption in Two Weeks19:30 AI in Recruiting: Where the Legal Stakes Are Highest22:30 Closing the Candidate Black Hole and Debiasing Panels24:30 The Fork in the Road: Cost Reduction vs. Decision Clarity26:00 Lightning Round: The Line AI Should Never Cross Takeaways AI in recruiting should augment human judgment, not replace it, especially as legislation in New York, California, and Colorado continues to evolve.Using agents to close the loop with every candidate who doesn't advance is one of the highest-value, lowest-risk uses of AI in HR.The fork facing HR leaders today is cost reduction vs. decision clarity, and most organizations are defaulting to cost.Moments that matter (offers, terminations, promotions, hard conversations) should always involve a person, not an agent.The HR leaders who matter in this era are the ones who prove the function can be as agentic as any other part of the business.Connect with the GuestLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heatheroxley/Website: https://www.perficient.com/ Sponsor Wisq is the AI platform for HR. We built Harper, the world’s first AI HR teammate — designed to handle the judgment-heavy work that has historically consumed HR teams: job changes, performance concerns, leaves of absence, onboarding, and employee relations issues. Where HCM bolt-ons and chatbots deflect the easiest questions, Harper resolves full cases, end-to-end. The result is an HR function with the capacity and strategic bandwidth to focus on the work that moves the business. Companies get Harper live in weeks, not quarters, with implementation support built on deep HR domain expertise. Wisq serves HR leaders at leading companies across industries, helping them raise the bar on employee experience and expand what their teams are capable of. For more information, visit https://www.wisq.com. (00:00) - Host Intro: HR at a Firm Built on Transformation (01:30) - Heather's Role at Perficient and the AI-First Mandate (03:30) - AI in Project Staffing: Beyond Skills and Availability (09:00) - The Leapfrog Moment for Smaller Teams (12:30) - Learning as Career Navigation, Not Content Delivery (17:00) - 90% Voluntary Adoption in Two Weeks (19:30) - AI in Recruiting: Where the Legal Stakes Are Highest (22:30) - Closing the Candidate Black Hole and Debiasing Panels (24:30) - The Fork in the Road: Cost Reduction vs. Decision Clarity (26:00) - Lightning Round: The Line AI Should Never Cross

    28 min
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About

AI is reshaping leadership, strategy, and the very role of HR. In each episode, the host Barb Bidan explores how AI drives innovation and leadership in HR with actionable insights for the future of work. The Human Element is brought to you by Harper, Wisq’s always-on AI HR Generalist transforming how work gets done. Powered by deep HR intelligence, Harper delivers instant, accurate, and empathetic support—from policy questions to performance coaching—so your people get answers fast and your teams stay focused. Learn more at Wisq.com.

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