HR Happy Hour

HR Happy Hour 216 - Keeping HR Data Secure Recorded Friday June 19, 2015 Hosts: Trish McFarlane, Steve Boese Guest : Roland Cloutier, VP, Chief Security Officer, ADP This week on the show, Steve and Trish were joined by ADP's Chief Security Officer, Roland Cloutier, for a fascinating discussion on organizational and employee data security.Roland discussed the primary issues and concerns that HR and business leaders have with data security, the best ways for HR leaders to engage with their solution providers and their internal teams when navigating issues of data security, and offered insights on how to continue to secure critical employee information in an environment of multiple systems, platforms, and data integrations. This was an extremely lively and fun show, (don't let the dry-sounding topic fool you), about an important and timely issue facing all HR and business leaders today - keeping your employee and organizational data secure in an environment where threats to that data's security and integrity are just about everywhere. Thanks to Roland and the team at ADP for making this important topic understandable, relatable, and yes, even kind of fun. Every HR leader's job is employee data security, and as such, you don't want to miss this discussion.  

HR Happy Hour 215 - Operation Rob Lowe Recorded Wednesday June 10, 2015 at the Globoforce WorkHuman Conference Hosts: Steve Boese, Trish McFarlane This week on the show Steve and Trish recorded the HR Happy Hour Show live at the first ever Globoforce WorkHuman Conference in Orlando, Florida. The event was definitely fun, definitely interesting, and definitely different, as it was much less about any specific technology but rather about work, workplaces and people's relationships with work and their colleagues. From Improv sessions, to TED-style talks, to what was a (surprisingly to me anyway), really engaging and energetic keynote from actor Rob Lowe - this event left Steve and Trish with plenty to discuss.  So tune in to the show to hear Steve accuse IBM of stealing his 'Culture-Strategy-Talent Triangle' concept, Trish then agree with Steve and then reverse the heat and disagree with him at the end, and what Rob Lowe had to say about the secret to building great work teams. Hint: It was more about 'Talent' than culture or strategy. And of course you can listen to and subscribe to the HR Happy Hour Show on iTunes, or via your favorite podcast app. Just search for 'HR Happy Hour' to download and subscribe to the show and you will never miss a new episode.

HR Happy Hour 214 - Catching up with QUEsocial Recorded Wednesday June 3, 2015 Hosts: Steve Boese, Trish McFarlane Guest: Josh Schwede, EVP, QUEsocial This week on the show, recorded live from the HireVue Digital Disruption Conference in Park City, Utah, Steve sat down with Josh Schwede, EVP from QUEsocial, named one of 2014's "Awesome New Startups for HR" at the HR Technology Conference. QUEsocial has created an innovative platform for delivering employer branding and recruiting content to an organization's recruiting team and employees, enabling organizations to ensure branding consistency, increase reach, and to ,monitor and measure results. Josh gave us an update of what has been happening since last year's HR Tech Conference, shared how some QUEsocial customers are leveraging the platform, and also shared his perspective on some of today's HR Tech trends. Additionally, Josh and Steve talked some Chicago sports - Blackhawks and Bulls mainly, and how (of course), just about anything you need to know about HR and Talent Management can be learned from sports. This was a fun conversation with one of the coolest guys in HR Tech - hope you enjoy the show! Remember: You can find and subscribe to the HR Happy Hour Show on iTunes and on all major podcast player apps on Android. Just search for 'HR Happy Hour'.  

HR Happy Hour 213 - Try Again Recorded Wednesday May 27, 2015 Hosts: Steve Boese, Trish McFarlane Featuring: Ben Eubanks This week on the show Steve and Trish (calling in from an undisclosed location in Arkansas), talked about the the most valuable brands in the world, how work and workplaces are pretty much forever changed, and the how it isn't really cool to let someone know they are a loser when they didn't even know they were competing in the first place.  Additionally, Trish made a big and very exciting announcement, Ben Eubanks dropped by with the next installment of Ben's HR Book Review, and Steve showed incredible ignorance of the quality of the fish that one can catch in Arkansas. And of course you can listen to and subscribe to the HR Happy Hour Show on iTunes, or via your favorite podcast app. Just search for 'HR Happy Hour' to download and subscribe to the show and you will never miss a new episode. This was a really fun show. Thanks to everyone for listening and subscribing!

HR Happy Hour 212 - LIVE from Cornerstone Convergence 2015 Recorded Wednesday May 13, 2015 Hosts: Steve Boese, Trish McFarlane Guests: Denise Domian, SVP Human Resources, Bon-Ton Stores Jason Corsello, VP, Corporate Strategy, Cornerstone OnDemand This week on the show Steve sat down live at the Cornerstone Convergence 2015 Conference in Los Angeles with Denise Domian, SVP of Human Resources from Bon-Ton Stores, a national chain of department stores with 275 locations and more than 26,000 employees to talk about some of the challenges facing the modern HR leader today, and how Denise and her team at Bon-Ton are leveraging new technologies and strategies to help meet these challenges. Denise shared some great insights on how a deliberate focus on company culture, linking culture to strategic actions, and creating an environment where employees are empowered to connect and collaborate has led to some substantial and positive business outcomes. Additionally, Jason shared news of some recent and new Cornerstone OnDemand innovations to help enable organizations to gain more insights from their Talent Management data and to make more informed talent decisions based on making better predicitions from their data. The next wave of Talent Management technology is all about how to create value and generate positive outcomes from their people data. This was a really fun event and a really fun show. Thanks to Denise, Jason, and the team at Cornerstone for hosting the HR Happy Hour Show this week!

HR Happy Hour 211 - The NBA Playoffs Prediction Show Recorded Monday April 20, 2015 Hosts: Steve Boese, Trish McFarlane Featuring: Ben Eubanks Fresh off the fun that was the HR Happy Hour Oscars Preview Show a few weeks back, Steve and Trish take a a look at and make their predictions for the just-started 2015 NBA Playoffs, in HR Happy Hour Show style. Translated: As in the Oscars show, one of your fearless hosts knows probably too much about the NBA, while the other brings a unique style and perspective to making their selections and predictions as to which NBA team will be raising the championship trophy in June. Let's just say things like local cuisine, team tie-ins to 'Keeping Up With the Khardashians', Las Vegas wagering, and where people we know reside all play an important role in the selections. NBA fan or not, you will not want to miss Steve and Trish's takes on the NBA playoffs. Additionally, Ben Eubanks stops by with Ben's HR Book Review, Steve and Trish discuss what states are actually in the 'midwest', and we all learn if actually having seen an NBA basketball precludes someone from betting on basketball games. Hint: It probably does not. This was a really fun show, and we hope you have as much fun listening as we did recording the show  

HR Happy Hour 210 - LIVE from Equifax Forum 2015 Recorded Live from New Orleans on Wednesday April 14, 2015 Hosts: Trish McFarlane, Steve Boese Guests: Dann Adams, Mike Psenka, Scott Collins, Equifax Workforce Solutions This week on the HR Happy Hour Show, Steve and Trish recorded a special show LIVE from the Equifax Workforce Solutions Forum 2015, an annual event for Equifax customers and community. We were joined by Dann Adams, Mike Psenka, and Scott Collins from Equifax for a fun, informative, and wide-ranging conversation on some of the most important challenges facing HR leaders today - managing compliance in a complex environment, the continuing need to stay on top of evolving ACA requirements, and how modern technology solutions and approaches are enabling HR leaders to move from simply collecting data, to gaining valuable business insights from that data. Additionally, we learned about how two Equifax customers, Tyson Foods with their amazing support of disaster-hit areas, and Team Rubicon, who have engaged significant numbers of returning veterans in their disaster relief efforts are doing incredibly valuable and important work in the communities they serve. The Equifax Workforce Solutions team not only has developed a powerful set of HR technologies, they also understand the importance of true partnership - with their customers, their employees, and their communities. This was a fantastic, fun, and very informative event, and many thanks to everyone at Equifax for the warm hospitality. We hope you enjoy the show as much as we did recording it!     

HR Happy Hour 209 - Castlight and Enterprise Healthcare Management Recorded LIVE from the Health & Benefits Leadership Conference April 9, 2015 Hosts: Steve Boese, Trish McFarlane Guest: Maeve O'Meara, VP Products Castlight Health US organizations spend about $620B annually on employee health and benefits programs and up to 30% of this enormous spend is wasted according to some estimates. For most employers, health and benefits is a Top 3 cost, but most have also only managed these as costs, i.e., as needing to be controlled, managed down, and to be shifted more to employees in the form of greater employee contributions towards care and benefits. But for many organizations, employee benefits have moved from a cost to be managed towards an important asset to be leveraged for employee well-being and organizational success. Today on the show, Steve was joined by Maeve O'Meara, VP Products from Castlight Health, an HR technology solution provider that has created a platform for what is becoming known as 'Enterprise Healthcare Management'.The Castlight platform helps employees access and utilize benefits and health programs and provides them better information, educational resources, and transparency to guide them in actively managing their care. For employers, the platform provides rich analytics about employee use of benefits, trends that are impacting and indicative of workplace challenges and tools to better predict what will happen next with employee benefits utilization. This leads to better experiences for employeesm and better outcomes for employers. Thanks to Maeve and Castlight for joining us!  

HR Happy Hour 208 - LIVE From Ultimate Connections 2015 Recorded Wednesday March 25, 2015 Hosts: Steve Boese, Trish McFarlane Guest : Cecile Alper-Leroux, Vice President of Product Strategy and Product Management, Ultimate Software This week on the HR Happy Hour Show, Steve and Trish recorded LIVE from the Ultimate Software Connections 2015 Customer Conference in Las Vegas. Our guest was Cecile Alper-Leroux from Ultimate, one of the most interesting, influential, and engaging leaders in the HR Technology industry. And quite frankly, Cecile is one of the HR Happy Hour Show's favorite guests too. On the show, Cecile talked with Steve and Trish about designing HR technologies from a person-centric viewpoint, the importance of creating technologies that are simple to use while still providing the depth of functionality that most organizations need, and finally around some really interesting and innovative concepts like thinking about the organization's health more holistically and 'culture as a service.' Additionally, Steve talked about a $175 million journal entry, Ben Eubanks makes a cameo appearance, and Trish shared some 90s music memories. This was a fun and engaging show - many thanks to Cecile and to everyone at Ultimate Software for hosting the Happy Hour once again! And make sure to subscribe to the HR Happy Hour on iTunes or your favorite podcast app - just search for 'HR Happy Hour' and you will be sure to never miss a show.    

HR Happy Hour 207 - CHRO Corner with Laurie Zaucha, Paychex Recorded Friday March 20, 2015 Hosts: Steve Boese, Trish McFarlane Guest: Laurie Zaucha, Paychex This week on the show, the HR Happy Hour launched a new series, the CHRO Corner, that will feature the most interesting and influential leaders in Human Resources today. Our first guest in this new series is Laurie Zaucha, VP of HR and Organizational Development at Paychex, a leading provider of HR software solutions and services having over 500K customers and upwards of 13,000 employees. On the show, Laurie shared her insights on the role of technology in the modern HR organization, what HR leaders should be considering when evaluating technology, how Paychex has adopted several innovative and collaborative programs for candidate attraction as well as internal employee engagement, and finally some thoughts on what are some of the most important focus areas for the HR leaders of the future. Laurie is one of the most progressive HR leaders in the industry, and she shared some amazing insights on leading HR in the modern organization. Additionally, Laurie talked about moving and shaping the culture of an organization, Steve tried to sound (reasonably) intelligent interviewing his former boss Laurie, and we all realized once again the benefits of post-production editing. This was a fun and interesting show with one of the most innovative HR leaders in the technology industry.  Thanks to Laurie and everyone at Paychex for being part of the HR Happy Hour fun,

HR Happy Hour 206 - Live from Benefitfocus OnePlace 2015 Recorded Wednesday March 11, 2015 Hosts: Trish McFarlane, Steve Boese Guests: Shawn Jenkins,  Shan Fowler This week on the HR Happy Hour Show, Steve did a live show from the Benefitfocus OnePlace 2015 event in Orlando, Florida, (Trish was on assignment this week at the Peoplefluent event in Miami). On the show Steve was joined by Shawn Jenkins, President, CEO, and Co-founder of Benefitfocus and Shan Fowler, Benefitfocus' Director of Marketplaces. Benefitfocus provides robust, modern, and powerful technologies for the management, communication, and the employee experience with their benefits programs -both for employers as well as carriers and exchange providers. On the show, Shawn and Shan shared some of the history of Benefitfocus, and how Benefitfocus' offerings help employers and providers to meet their goals of engaging, educating, and providing the most effective benefits programs for their employees and enrollees. One of the most important ways that average employees interact with workplace technologies is how they interact with their employer's benefits technology. These employee experiences are critically important ones, impacting employee's engagement, well-being, and helping them to take care of themselves and the welfare of their families, and modern tech can help organizations in numerous ways. This was a great show, and many thanks to Shawn and Shan for being a part of the fun.

HR Happy Hour 205 - The Health & Benefits Leadership Conference Preview Recorded Thursday March 5, 2015 Hosts: Trish McFarlane, Steve Boese Guest: Jennifer Benz This week on the HR Happy Hour Show, Trish and Steve were joined by Jennifer Benz, Founder and CEO of Benz Communications, and Program Chair for Human Resource Executive's Health & Benefits Leadership Conference, to be held April 8 - 10, 2015 at the Aria in Las Vegas. On the show, Jennifer shared some of the most important themes and challenges facing Benefits and HR leaders today - health care plan design and reform, employee and financial wellness, and the importance of educating and effectively communicating with employees on important benefits, wellness, and welfare issues. On the show, Jen shared a preview of how the Conference can and will help you as a leader in making these critically important benefits-related organizational decisions that impact employee engagement, reputation, and retention. We also lamented again (well, mostly Steve), about the terrible winter weather, Steve shared a slightly disturbing tale of a former neighbor and his snowblower, and Trish offered to talk about Benefits plan design with anyone at any time. We also talked about how cool the word 'formulary' is.  Also, listeners of the show who attend the Health & Benefits Leadership Conference can use the registration discount code BOESE15 (all caps), to receive $75 off the current registration rate. Thanks to Jen for such a fun and interesting show!

HR Happy Hour 204 - Customer Success and Advocacy Recorded Tuesday March 3, 2015 Hosts: Trish McFarlane, Steve Boese Guest: Howard Tarnoff This week on the HR Happy Hour Show, Trish and Steve were joined by Howard Tarnoff, Senior Vice President for Ceridian HCM, and the person responsible for launching and overseeing the Ceridian's award winning Customer Success Program "XOXO". On the show, Howard shared some of the pretty unique approaches to Customer Success and Advocacy that Ceridian has put in place - creating ways for customers to connect and share information and best practices, highlighting success stories for both organizations and individuals, and engaging customer advocates at numerous points along the HR buying journey. Everything has changed about how organizations and individuals conduct product and market research, how they find and engage with trusted advisors and colleagues, and how they expect the relationship between solution provider and customer to evolve. Innovative approaches like Ceridian's "XOXO" customer success program represent how modern, empowered, and mutually beneficial provider/customer relationships have adapted to meet these changes. We also lamented (yes, again), about the terrible winter weather, we previewed some upcoming events on Steve and Trish's calendars, and dropped the first hint about an exciting HR Happy Hour announcement that is coming soon. This was a great show, and many thanks to Howard for being a part of the fun.

HR Happy Hour 203 - The HR Happy Hour Oscars Preview Recorded Thursday February 19, 2015 Hosts: Trish McFarlane, Steve Boese I know what you are thinking - what in the hell are Steve and Trish thinking doing an Oscars preview show? For a second we thought the same thing ourselves, but once we sort of 'found' the topic on the show, (the Oscars stuff starts in after about five minutes or so after Steve had to talk NBA trades for a few moments), we had a fanstastic time talking movies, actors, and of course making some Oscars predictions. Since Steve (admittedly), actually saw an amazingly low number of Oscar nominated movies and performances, we ended up having to get a little more creative in devising new ways to evaluate the contenders. Without giving away too much, let's just say the movie Mr. Mom plays a big role in the assessments, as well as which actor did a better job playing The Incredible Hulk. Luckily, Trish was much more prepared to talk movies and actors or else this could have been a disaster. This was a really fun show, I hope the HR Happy Hour fans that are also movie fans or just plan to watch the Oscars on Sunday night will enjoy the show. Once the show goes live, we will post it to the HR Happy Hour page on Facebook, (yes, we have one of those, I always forget to mention it), where we hope you will leave your Oscar predictions as well. Remeber to subscribe to the show in podcast form on iTunes, or for Android devices using Stitcher Radio (or your favorite podcast app). Just search the iTunes store or your podcast app for 'HR Happy Hour' to add the show to your subscriptions.

HR Happy Hour 202 - Zenefits and Disrupting HR Tech Recorded Tuesday February 17, 2015 Hosts: Steve Boese , Trish McFarlane Guests: Parker Conrad,  Co-founder and CEO, Zenefits In the latest HR Happy Hour Show, we were joined by Parker Conrad, Co-founder and CEO of emerging HR technology solution provider Zenefits. Zenefits has a innovative and unique approach to how it provides technology solutions to their customers - the HR and Benefits administration software is completely free for companies to use, Zenefits earns its revenue from commissions from insurance providers when customers elect to use Zenefits as their broker. It is a disruptive model on many levels. But beyond that model, Parker shared Zenefits approach to building, supporting, and helping customers succeed with HR technology. One interesting concept Parker shared was the idea of how solutions should only gradually expose complexity to customers, i.e., the most common and generally simplest approaches should be on the surface, and only when more complex options are absolutely needed they should be revealed. This was a fascinating conversation with the CEO of one of the fastest growing enterprise technology companies in any domain - not just HR. As always, you can listen to the current and all the past on our HR Happy Hour website, and by subscribing to the show in podcast form on iTunes, or for Android devices using your favorite podcast app. Just search for 'HR Happy Hour' to add the show to your subscriptions.