In this episode of the WhatWorks podcast, Paul Walker, CEO of FranklinCovey, talks with Kathi Enderes about FranklinCovey’s history, his own journey of 25 years with the company from frontline employee to CEO, and how the company now helps large organizations like Marriott enable transformational change through individual behavior change, execution excellence, creating a culture of trust and performance, and developing new leadership capabilities.

FranklinCovey (FC) is one of the only publicly traded learning and leadership companies in the world.

Learn about how FC helps Marriott deliver one of the most highly esteemed customer experiences in the hospitality market.

Interviewee:  Paul Walker, CEO FranklinCovey

Additional Information

The Surprising Facts About Leadership Development,

Human-Centered Leadership,

Why Are Some Companies More Dynamic Than Others?

This week I discuss how major new AI use-cases have emerged. Imagine if every employee had a personal AI assistant? It’s going to happen. I also discuss LinkedIn Hiring Assistant, Galileo, SuccessFactors Joule, AI for performance management, and a big question: what are you going to do with the 35% productivity you gain?

Coming back from multiple weeks on the road with clients and vendors, this podcast will expand your thinking and help you build your own business case for AI tools and agents in your own HR organization.

While many of us believe AI is a productivity tool, I explain how AI use-cases in HR are for expansive than you realized.

Watch this YouTube to learn about the two ways to think about AI applications.

Keywords:

AI in HR, recruitment, productivity, coaching, job descriptions, LinkedIn, generative AI, HR technology, innovation, use cases

Additional Information

LinkedIn Enters AI Agent Race With LinkedIn Hiring Assistant

Digital Twins, Digital Employees, And Agents Everywhere

SuccessFactors Leapfrogs HCM Capabilities: AI, Skills, Talent Intelligence, And More

Introducing Galileo Pro, Your Personal AI Assistant for HR

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In this week’s podcast I discuss the trend (and need) for job task re-engineering: breaking down our jobs into tasks, so we can effectively use AI and Agents to speed things up. As more and more vendors announce AI Agents to assist with work, our best opportunity for massive improvement is to “re-engineer” how we do things, not just “add agents” to our current jobs.

As I describe, most companies build job titles in a “mashed potato” approach where we squash a bunch of things into one job description. Thanks to AI we can now think about work differently, and this will impact sales, marketing, HR, engineering, and just about every other function in our companies. In some ways this is a return to the old ERP model of “designing work around the software” but this time the Agents are smart, programmable, and learning! So if we do this well we’re going to see massive improvements in productivity.

I talk about Rolls Royce, EPAM, and the PR battle between Salesforce and Microsoft for “Agent-Tech.”  Plus I talk about why Chief Learning Officers have a new role in 2025!

Lots of new ideas to think about here.

Please watch this video for more on this topic.

Additional Information

Get your hands on Galileo Professional: your personal AI assistant for HR

Digital Twins, Digital Employees, And Agents Everywhere

Redesigning Work with AI

Vendors Mentioned

Agentforce by Salesforce

Copilot Agents by Microsoft

Sana Labs (the platform under Galileo)

In this episode of the WhatWorks podcast series, Nick Benaquista, SVP, People and Capability Partner, Chief Administration Office and Strategic Growth at Mastercard, shares how Mastercard has transformed HR from a static, siloed, overlapping model towards the product and consulting-oriented model of Systemic HR. Now in year 2 of the ongoing transformation, the company is continuing to change HR roles, jobs, operating models, and skills, and is using technology and AI to elevate the employee experience and its continuous business transformation.

Interviewee Nick Benaquista, SVP, People and Capability Partner, Chief Administration Office and Strategic Growth at Mastercard

Company Mastercard, a leading US-based global payment solutions provider with 33,000 employees

Additional Information

The Systemic HR Operating Model

Why The World Needs A New Operating Model for Human Resources

The Mastercard HR Transformation Story

Keywords:  Employee Experience, HR Technology, Systemic HR, AI in HR, HR capabilities, HR roles

White collar robots have arrived: digital twins, digital assistants, and AI-powered agents.

In this podcast I discuss what I learned about at Unleash, Sana, and Spotify this week.

My big message is this: AI in HR is even more powerful than we expected. And AI platforms and tools are transforming HR right this minute – across every domain in HR.

Digital Twins in the insurance industry. AI-powered L&D and change management solutions. AI-powered candidates battling it out with AI-powered selection and recruiting platforms. Scheduling bots unleashing energy in healthcare. End-to-end employee knowledge and learning systems at Spotify.

For two years we’ve watched AI evolve from predictive analytics to AI assistants to AI agents to Digital Twins. And these tools are now here for you to use, as long as you just get your hands dirty trying these tools out.

Bottom line: this is no longer a market of waiting for just the right solution – many of the new AI tools in HR can already do much more than you expected. Get your hands on Galileo and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

Additional Information

Introducing The AI Trailblazers! HR Technology Outlook 2025.

Introducing Galileo Professional, Your Personal AI Assistant for HR

Can AI Do Performance Reviews? Rippling Says Yes.

Delta Air Lines understands the importance of its employees, managers, and leaders, so the company has built one of the airline industry’s most advanced “skills-first” strategies. Built on its investment in SAP technology (Talent Intelligence Hub) and a focus from the top, the company fully embraces an agile cross-functional career model, all built around skills.

In this episode Tim Gregory, Managing Director of HR Innovation and Technology at Delta, walks Kathi Enderes through the company’s strategy, describing how Delta uses skillstech and AI to help employees advance their careers across job families in the company (we call this The Dynamic Organization).

Delta is a pioneer in this effort: most airlines fall far behind in their talent and HR strategies. As Tim describes, this strategy not only helps employees grow and develop, it gives Delta a foundation of sustainability and customer service others only emulate.

Delta is rated the #1 airline for passenger service in the US, and we believe this HR strategy is foundational to its market success. Join our course Career and Talent Mobility to learn more.

Additional Information

Delta Now Rated As Customers’ Favorite Airline

SAP SuccessFactors Delivers on HXM and The Promise of AI

Career and Talent Mobility: Certificate Program from The Josh Bersin Academy

I just finished a long meeting with 15 senior HR leaders in Silicon Valley, so in the context of AI, I discuss the themes of forgiveness, growth, and leadership these organizations are facing.

And these issues are acute right now. 2025 is shaping up to be a “Year of Redesign” throughout business, and as we do this we have to rethink about how we think about people. Are we ready to support, forgive, and help our people adapt? Leadership trust is at an all time low, so we definitely have some work to do.

I also describe how Satya Nadella embraces this idea of continuous growth as a very senior leader.

I also discuss the growing value of “Vertical AI” solutions and how they will complement and add value in a world of large AI providers, and give you a sense of where I believe the AI market is going.

Takeaways:

• Forgiveness and growth are essential in personal and professional development.
• Leadership is a continuous journey that requires constant learning.
• AI will play a significant role in redesigning work processes.
• A growth mindset fosters a culture of improvement and accountability.
• Organizations should focus on problems rather than blaming individuals.
• Continuous learning is crucial for high-performing companies.
• Redesigning roles and processes is necessary in the age of AI.
• Forgiveness can lead to better employee engagement and retention.
• Leaders must adapt to changes and seek advice from others.
• Creating an environment for reinvention is key to organizational success.

Additional Information

Corporate Citizenship Redefined

Leadership Trust Is Dropping (PwC)

The Value of Values As Organizations Build on Trust

Introducing Galileo Professional, Your Personal AI Assistant for HR

This week we are so excited to launch Galileo Professional, the personal AI platform designed for HR professionals, consultants, vendors, and investors in the global Human Resources industry.

As you’ll hear in my introduction, Galileo Pro is Your Personal AI Assistant for everything HR.

For $39 per month you now have access to the most trusted corpus of HR research in the world, including every research study, maturity model, case study, vendor profile, and benchmark we’ve done for 26+ years. This corpus is powered by the Sana advanced AI platform to give you personalized advice, education, and tools to help you in every area of HR.

Our trusted content providers (Lightcast, Oyster, Visier, Heidrick & Struggles) add global data on regulatory practices, skills, salary and turnover benchmarks, and leadership models, and we are adding more trusted content every week. And best of all, Galileo Pro is an open Gen AI platform for you to add your company’s policies, procedures, hiring guides, and other internal tools so you have your own personal (or company) Gen AI system to help with every HR topic you face.

Listen to the podcast, along with an AI-generated (thanks to Google Notebook LLM) Q&A on Galileo Professional, including a discussion of the Galileo Success Center, your place to learn about AI and share world-class ideas, innovations, and solutions built on the Galileo Platform.

You can purchase Galileo Professional today for yourself, your team, or your organization.

Join us on this exciting journey of AI-powered HR, leadership, and management solutions in the decade ahead.

In this week’s podcast I give you some insights on HR tech in 2025, perspectives on jobs, and what you’ll be dealing with in 2025. We just had two weeks of HR Tech announcements and next week you’ll see a big one from us! (The biggest product announcement in my career, to be a little hyberbolic!).

Topics include: the verticalization of AI, whey OpenAI will compete with Microsoft, how agents will change our jobs, and the implications of the low unemployment rate on pay equity, DEI, talent density, recruiting, and organization design.

For those of you who agree with me on Organization Design in 2025, here is the Org Design SuperClass, which is a “must consume” offering for the coming year.

Watch this space for our Big Reveal next Tuesday!

Additional Information

Understanding The Job Market (video)

The Org Design SuperClass

How To Create Talent Density

The Definitive Guide to Building a Dynamic Organization

Galileo, the world’s AI-powered expert assistant for HR.

Aimbridge manages 1100 hotels around the US and employs more than 45,000 employees. In this podcast, Conrad Riddle, VP of HR Shared Services at Aimbridge Hospitality, discusses how the company empowers employees (“Uberizing the Workforce”) and delivers a flexible, highly engaged workforce with dynamic workforce scheduling. The company leverages UKG Workforce Management to give employees a centralized app that lets an employee manage their schedule dynamically.

As you’ll hear, Ambridge employees can now “bid and ask” for new shifts without going through management.

Through schedule sharing across locations and bidding on shifts in an online platform, employees have more flexibility in their schedules and empowers them to manage their own shifts. It also enables managers to easily approve requests and effectively manage labor to avoid costly contractors.

Additional Information

Employee Experience: The Definitive Guide

New Research: Cloud-Based HCM Can Redefine Employee Experience

Join The Employee Experience Workshop: A Certificate Program In The Josh Bersin Academy

In this week’s podcast I go through the 30 HR Technology AI Trailblazers in some detail. You’ll hear about all the companies in the Trailblazer Report, as well as some of my personal thoughts on their leadership teams, centers of innovation, and differentiating capabilities.

My keynote at HR Tech was 75 minutes long and you can hear it or get access to the materials if you join our corporate membership (or come back to HR Tech 2025 next March!). For those of you in Europe, I will be speaking at Unleash Paris on Thursday October 17 and I will also be discussing many of these topics at Workday Rising EMEA on Wednesday December 11 at the RAI Conference Center in Amsterdam.

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy hearing about these 30 amazing companies, each of which is delivering on AI in high-value, high-ROI solutions. I also spent some time talking about the COST of AI and why and how you can work on a business case for these new AI capabilities and make sure you have a clear use-case and implementation plan for these new, exciting, high-value innovations.

AI in HR has reached a tipping point: it’s here and it’s delivering real value. Now we all have to figure out what to buy, which major players to standardize on, and which use-cases to address first.

Vendors Discussed

ADP Lyric HCM, Arist Creator and Teammate, Cornerstone Galaxy, Disprz Learning System, Draup Talent Intelligence, Deel Employment of Record Platform, Docebo Creator, Eightfold Career Navigator and Talent Intelligence, Galileo: The Expert AI Assistant for HR, Gloat Workforce Agility, Growthspace Precision Skilling, Heidrick & Struggles Navigator, HiBob, Lattice, LinkedIn Learning, Lightcast Skills, Medallia, Oracle HCM, Oyster Global Employment Platform, Paradox, Rippling Talent Signal, Sana Labs, SAP SuccessFactors and Joule, SeekOut, ServiceNow, SHL Global Assessments, UKG Bryte, Visier Vee, Workday Illuminate AI Platform (and HiredScore), Workera Skills System. 

Additional Information

The Trailblazer and HR Tech 2025 Report

Josh Bersin Company Announces 30 AI HR Tech Trailblazer Vendors the CHRO Really Needs to Know About