Digital HR Leaders with David Green

Are we overlooking one of the biggest human consequences of AI at work? As organisations race to adopt AI, much of the conversation has focused on productivity, efficiency, and redesigning work. But far less attention has been given to how these technologies may reshape something just as important: the relationships people rely on at work. To unpack this, in this episode of the Digital HR Leaders podcast, host David Green speaks with Connie Noonan Hadley, organisational psychologist, Thinkers50 Radar thinker, and Research Associate Professor at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business. Connie has spent decades studying the social experience of work, including the growing challenge of loneliness in organisations. And drawing on her latest research and conversations with senior HR leaders, Connie shares insights on how AI is beginning to influence not just how work gets done, but how people connect, collaborate, and seek support at work. So, tune in to learn: Why loneliness at work remains such a persistent challenge - even in organisations investing heavily in cultureWhat CHROs are prioritising right now as they navigate AI adoption, organisational redesign, and a rapidly shifting external environmentHow employees are already using AI for things they once relied on colleagues for - from career advice to coaching and problem-solvingWhy return-to-office mandates may not solve loneliness in the way many leaders expectPractical ways HR leaders can protect human connection while embracing AI-driven transformation 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 recognizes 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, recognizing 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:  We’re Still Lonely at Work The Surprising Power of Team Rituals Institute for Leadership & Work at Boston University Questrom School of Business Institute for Life at Work, research think tank and laboratory

Have we made the manager’s role more complex without making it easier to make good decisions? Over the past decade, expectations on managers have grown significantly. They’re expected to make decisions that are fair, data-informed, and financially responsible - often in real time and under increasing scrutiny. Yet in many organisations, the systems designed to support those decisions haven’t evolved at the same pace.  So, in this episode of the Digital HR Leaders podcast, host David Green speaks with Kenneth Matos, Director of Market Insights at HiBob, to explore what it takes to design better decision environments for modern organisations. Drawing on new global research involving 4,700 people managers, Ken shares why the time spent stitching together data and the lack of a unified HR–Finance view are undermining decision quality - and what leaders must do to enable managers to balance people fairness with financial discipline. Tune in to learn more about: Why decision friction is emerging as a hidden barrier to organisational agility How fragmented data undermines fairness, consistency, and trust in people decisions What changes when HR and Finance operate from a shared contextWhy defensibility is becoming critical in an era of pay transparency and scrutinyHow AI can reduce decision friction when implemented with the right guardrailsWhy designing better decision environments is becoming a core leadership priority  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 hereResources:  Better Together: Budget-Smart People-Fair How Managers Decide with Data Report 

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 

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 companyHow HR contributes to value creation during a 3–5 year investment horizonWhat truly drives performance and retention across industries and organisation sizesHow HR must adapt when moving from large enterprises to fast-moving portfolio businessesHow AI is reshaping products, operating models, and early-career pathwaysWhy 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

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 

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 expertiseWhat 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 

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 

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 

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