Is employee experience due for a reset? 

For much of the past decade, employee experience has been framed as a competitive advantage - a way to attract talent, boost engagement, and strengthen culture. Yet in today’s environment, shaped by economic pressure, evolving workforce expectations, and the rapid rise of AI, many organisations are re-examining whether their approach is still sustainable - or whether, in trying to improve employee experience, they may have inadvertently diluted it. 

So, in this episode of the Digital HR Leaders podcast, host David Green speaks with Jacob Morgan - author, keynote speaker, and Founder of The Future of Work Leaders - to explore what an employee experience reset looks like in 2026 and beyond.  

Drawing on insights from interviews with 100 CHROs, Jacob shares why this moment may mark a turning point for accountability at work, and what leaders must do to balance empathy with performance without undermining either. 

Tune in to learn more about: 

• Why 2026 may be a turning point for accountability in employee experience 
• Whether wellbeing programmes have diluted performance expectations 
• How leaders can balance empathy and high performance standards without appearing anti-employee 
• What the evolving power dynamic between employers and employees means in practice 
• How AI is redefining how work is measured, managed, and valued 
• Why HR must lead - not just manage - the responsible and ethical adoption of AI 

This episode is sponsored by Hibob. 

HiBob brings HR, Payroll, and Finance together into a single platform that employees actually use. With AI throughout, you move faster, work smarter, and empower your people to power your business.  

Sapient Insights recognises HiBob’s AI vision, citing the Bob AI Companion for making everyday work faster and easier. Fosway Group also names HiBob a 2025 9-Grid™ Core Leader, recognising the strongest AI vision among Core Leaders.   

HiBob. All-in-one HCM for HR, Payroll, and Finance.  

​​​Learn all about HiBob’s modern HR platform here 

Resources:  

The Eight Laws of Employee Experience 

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What can HR learn from private equity, where talent, culture, and leadership are part of the deal thesis from day one? 

In many organisations, the connection between people strategy and business outcomes is still taking shape. In private equity, however, that connection is immediate and unmistakable, with leadership quality, organisational design, workforce capability, and culture being central to the value-creation plan, with clear timelines, defined expectations, and measurable results. 

So, in this episode of the Digital HR Leaders podcast, host David Green speaks with Angela Geffre, Head of Human Capital at GrowthCurve Capital, to discuss what this looks like on the ground.  

Together, they explore what it really means to run HR in a private equity environment, and what the broader HR profession can learn from it. So tune in, and learn more about:  

• The key people questions to ask when assessing a new portfolio company
• How HR contributes to value creation during a 3–5 year investment horizon
• What truly drives performance and retention across industries and organisation sizes
• How HR must adapt when moving from large enterprises to fast-moving portfolio businesses
• How AI is reshaping products, operating models, and early-career pathways
• Why HR must lead the responsible and ethical adoption of AI, not just manage its impact 

This episode is sponsored by HiBob. 

HiBob brings HR, Payroll, and Finance together into a single platform that employees actually use. With AI throughout, you move faster, work smarter, and empower your people to power your business.  

Sapient Insights recognises HiBob’s AI vision, citing the Bob AI Companion for making everyday work faster and easier. Fosway Group also names HiBob a 2025 9-Grid™ Core Leader, recognising the strongest AI vision among Core Leaders.   

HiBob. All-in-one HCM for HR, Payroll, and Finance.  

​​​Learn all about HiBob’s modern HR platform here

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Most organisations say Strategic Workforce Planning is a priority. Far fewer are prepared for what that actually requires. 

Because the challenge isn’t just predicting how many people you’ll need. It’s understanding how work itself is changing, how skills are shifting beneath stable job titles, and how today’s hiring, reskilling, and entry-level decisions are quietly shaping capability and leadership risk years into the future. 

In this episode of the Digital HR Leaders podcast, David Green is joined by Vincent Barat, Founder and CEO of Albert, to explore whether organisations are thinking about Strategic Workforce Planning at the right level - and what it really means to make workforce planning truly strategic in today’s environment. 

Drawing on Vincent’s experience working at the intersection of business strategy, skills, and workforce dynamics, this conversation explores: 

• Why SWP is shifting from a planning exercise to a capability and risk discipline 
• What truly puts the “strategic” in Strategic Workforce Planning beyond headcount and budgeting 
• Where organisations most often struggle when trying to move from SWP theory to execution 
• How AI is reshaping skills and tasks beneath job titles, and the implications for reskilling and redeployment 
• Why reduced entry-level hiring today could create leadership and succession challenges tomorrow 
• The practical priorities HR and people analytics leaders should focus on right now 

This episode is sponsored by Albert.  

Albert is your strategic workforce planning co-pilot, built for global HR leaders who are done with Excel, chaos, and finance-led headcount cuts.  

Albert helps you decode complex people data, anticipate change, and make confident, cost-saving decisions on skills and hiring without hiring a single analyst.  

Discover how to handle the people side of your long-range plan with zero guesswork at albertapp.com/davidgreen 

Links to resources: 

The SWP Cookbook 

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People analytics has spent years building credibility through data. Now the pressure is different. Business leaders aren’t just asking for insight - they’re expecting direction. Where should we invest? What should we stop doing? What risks are we not seeing yet? 

But many teams still find themselves pulled back into reporting cycles, ad-hoc requests, and an overemphasis on metrics that don’t always lead to better decisions. 

So what shifts when people analytics starts operating more like a product and less like a project function? 

In this episode, David Green is joined by Ashar Khan, Head of People Insights and Solution Design at Autodesk, to explore how the function evolves from delivering data to shaping choices at scale. 

Join this conversation as they discuss: 

• The skills and mindsets modern people analytics teams need beyond technical expertise
• What an effective people analytics operating model looks like in practice 
• The core capabilities required to bridge HR technology and HR strategy 
• Where “metric fixation” leads organisations toward false confidence and poor decisions 
• Why the assumption that AI automatically means “fewer people” misses the bigger picture 
• Practical advice for CHROs building or redesigning a people analytics function today 

This episode is sponsored by Worklytics. 

How productive is your organisation, really? Worklytics makes it clear - with privacy-first insights from everyday work data. See how meeting volume, manager effectiveness, collaboration health, and AI adoption are impacting your team’s focus, efficiency, and outcomes - so you can make smarter decisions, faster. 

No surveys. No assumptions. Just clear insight into work. Right now, Worklytics is offering podcast listeners a free 30-day trial of their productivity analytics dashboard. 

Learn more at worklytics.co/productivity 

Link to resources: 

• The Strategic Workforce Planning Handbook  
• David Edwards’ Dark Artistry Newsletter 

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AI is changing tasks. Skills strategies are evolving. And yet visibility into capability, cost, and risk across the workforce often remains fragmented. 

So how do organisations move from reacting to workforce change, to planning for it in a way that actually shapes business outcomes? 

In this episode of the Digital HR Leaders podcast, host David Green is joined by David Edwards, strategic workforce planning practitioner, advisor, and author of The Strategic Workforce Planning Handbook, to explore what it really takes to make strategic workforce planning work in practice. 

Join this conversation as they discuss: 

• Why workforce planning can feel “deceptively threatening” inside an organisation  
• What changes when leaders shift from thinking about headcount to thinking about capability, capacity, cost, and risk over time  
• What goes wrong when people analytics and workforce planning operate in parallel 
• Why looking beyond permanent employees reveals hidden workforce risk 
• How AI is forcing organisations to rethink work design, not just skills strategies 
• The stakeholders' strategic workforce planning really needs 

This episode is sponsored by Worklytics. 

How productive is your organisation, really? Worklytics makes it clear - with privacy-first insights from everyday work data. See how meeting volume, manager effectiveness, collaboration health, and AI adoption are impacting your team’s focus, efficiency, and outcomes - so you can make smarter decisions, faster. 

No surveys. No assumptions. Just clear insight into work. Right now, Worklytics is offering podcast listeners a free 30-day trial of their productivity analytics dashboard. 

Learn more at worklytics.co/productivity . 

Link to resources: 

• The Strategic Workforce Planning Handbook  
• David Edwards’ Dark Artistry Newsletter 

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AI was supposed to make work more efficient. So why are people busier than ever? 

As organisations move into 2026, many leaders are realising that while technology has changed quickly, the fundamentals of how work gets done haven’t kept up. Activity is increasing, output is accelerating in places - yet coordination, focus, and decision-making often feel harder than before. 

So what’s actually going on? 

In this episode of the Digital HR Leaders podcast, David Green is joined by Philip Arkcoll, Founder and CEO of Worklytics, to unpack this very question.  

Join this dynamic duo, as they discuss: 

• What the data reveals around where organisations were getting stuck in 2025, and how the way we work is changing in 2026 
• What collaboration and activity data reveals that traditional HR metrics often miss 
• Why decision-making, not output, is becoming the primary bottleneck in AI-enabled organisations 
• How increasing spans of control are reshaping the role, and load, of managers 
• The emerging divide between teams and individuals who are benefiting from AI and those who aren’t 
• What HR and people analytics leaders can do to measure, diagnose, and redesign how work actually happens 

This episode is sponsored by Worklytics. 

Worklytics helps leaders understand how work actually happens with data-driven insights into collaboration, productivity and AI adoption.  

By analysing real work patterns - from meetings to tool usage - they empower teams to work = 

Learn more at worklytics.co/ai  

Link to resources: 

• 5 Ways Work Will Change in 2026 

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Why are so many HR leaders experiencing “what just happened?” moments at work - and what does it really take to respond to authoritarian leadership with courage instead of fear? 

That’s the question Kristen Kavanaugh, Leadership Strategist, former Head of DEI and Talent Management at Tesla, explores in this episode of the Digital HR Leaders podcast. 

In this episode, host David Green sits down with Kristen to unpack what happens when fear quietly becomes the operating system inside organisations, why authoritarian leadership styles are becoming increasingly normalised, and how HR leaders can reclaim their agency in environments shaped by power, pressure, and public leadership behaviour. 

Tune in and learn: 

• Why fear-based leadership creates short-term gains but long-term damage 
• Why HR leaders often underestimate the agency they actually have 
• How Kristen’s Agency Loop framework helps leaders navigate tension, misalignment, and difficult decisions 
• What courageous leadership looks like as AI reshapes roles, skills, and power at work 
• Why HR has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to shape a more humane future of work This episode is sponsored by Worklytics. 

Worklytics helps leaders understand how work actually happens with data-driven insights into collaboration, productivity and AI adoption.  

By analysing real work patterns - from meetings to tool usage - they empower teams to work = 

Learn more at worklytics.co/ai  

Link to resources: 

• Courage over Fear: Harness the Power of Agency to Lead in Uncertain Times 

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Why do organisations keep repeating the same mistakes when it comes to hybrid work - and are they now doing the same with AI? 

That’s the question Brian Elliott, one of the most respected voices on the future of work, explores in this episode of the Digital HR Leaders podcast. 

In this episode, host David Green sits down with Brian to unpack why the hybrid and return-to-office debate continues to create tension between leaders and employees, despite years of data and experience, and the striking parallels between how organisations handled hybrid work and how many are now approaching AI adoption. 

Tune in and learn: 

• Why the hybrid and return-to-office debate continues to divide leaders and employees 
• What the evidence says about making hybrid work effective for both people and the business 
• The similarities between hybrid work decisions and today’s AI adoption challenges 
• How AI is changing entry-level roles and long-term talent pipelines 
• The biggest barriers organisations face when trying to change long-established ways of working 
• Why leadership behaviour ultimately determines whether change sticks 

This episode is sponsored by Worklytics. 

Worklytics helps leaders understand how work actually happens with data-driven insights into collaboration, productivity and AI adoption.  

By analysing real work patterns - from meetings to tool usage - they empower teams to work = 

Learn more at worklytics.co/ai  

Link to resources: 

• Five leadership lessons for "tough" CEOs 
• The burnout age 
• The job market and AI 

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As we begin a new year, it’s natural to reflect on what’s changed - and what’s quietly no longer fit for purpose. 

AI investment is accelerating at pace, and autonomous and semi-autonomous agents are moving from experimentation to everyday work. And yet, many organisations are still operating with leadership models, workforce structures, and planning assumptions designed for a world where humans were the only actors in the system. 

In this episode of the Digital HR Leaders podcast, David Green is joined by Sandra Durth, Partner at McKinsey & Company, to explore what happens when work is no longer just human-to-human, but human-to-agent - and what that means for the future of organisations. 

Drawing on McKinsey’s latest research, Sandra shares her perspective on: 

• How AI-human symbiosis is reshaping the very definition of work 
• Why traditional hierarchies and leadership models are starting to break down 
• What “agentic leadership” really looks like in practice  
• The implications for performance, management capability, and strategic workforce planning 
• The biggest opportunities - and the biggest risks - HR leaders need to be paying attention to right now 

Links to research: 

The agentic organization: Contours of the next paradigm for the AI era 

Six shifts to build the agentic organization of the future 

Rethink management and talent for agentic AI 

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Can AI fuel a people-first transformation at global scale? At UPS, the answer is a resounding yes. 

While many companies view AI through the lens of automation and efficiency, UPS is taking a radically different approach: treating AI as an enabler of human growth, not a replacement for it. 

In this episode of the Digital HR Leaders podcast, host David Green is joined by Danelle McCusker, Senior Vice President and Global Head of Talent, Learning and Culture at UPS, to explore how the company is redefining what workforce transformation looks like in the age of AI. 

With over half a million employees and a deeply rooted culture of promotion from within, UPS faces a unique challenge: how to prepare its people for a future defined by emerging technologies - while preserving trust, purpose, and opportunity. 

Join them as Danelle and David explore: 

• Why UPS is designing AI implementations to relieve frontline burdens and elevate the value of human work - not eliminate it. 
• How a pilot with Valence’s AI coach Nadia is creating access to consistent, personalised development for employees well beyond the executive tier. 
• The role of psychological safety and experimentation in successful AI adoption 
• How HR and technology teams are partnering to drive cultural and capability transformation 
• What other HR leaders can learn from UPS’s intentional, business-first approach to AI 

Whether you're in the early stages of your AI journey or looking for practical ways to align tech with talent strategy, this conversation offers both inspiration and actionable insights from the front lines of change. 

This episode is sponsored by Valence. 

Imagine if every employee had a world-class coach in their pocket. That’s exactly what Valence has created with Nadia - the AI-powered coach helping Fortune 500 companies scale development, boost performance, and support leaders at every level.  

Learn more at valence.co/insight222 

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Performance expectations are rising - but the systems designed to support people haven’t kept up. 

In this episode of the Digital HR Leaders Podcast, host David Green is joined by Parker Mitchell, CEO and Founder of Valence, to explore how AI is transforming the way organisations think about performance.  

Tune is as they explore:  

• Why traditional performance management still feels broken 
• How AI coaching can support real-time performance improvement at scale 
• How trust, context, and timing make the difference in effective AI tools 
• What changes when every employee has access to a personal coach  
• The signals that show AI coaching is driving real performance impact 
• How HR leaders can start small - but smart - when exploring AI coaching 

This episode is sponsored by Valence. 

Imagine if every employee had a world-class coach in their pocket. That’s exactly what Valence has created with Nadia - the AI-powered coach helping Fortune 500 companies scale development, boost performance, and support leaders at every level.  

Learn more at valence.co/insight222 

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