The HR Huddle

In this episode of The Pivot Effect, hosts Teri Zipper and Susan Richards welcome guest Amy Gerhartz, Founder & Lead Coach of A Higher Way Of Living, as they talk through what it actually looks like to leave a career you built from scratch - and why the hardest part of starting over is often convincing yourself you belong in the new space. Amy highlights the specific fears that came up when she transitioned into coaching and speaking, including the worry that people would write her off as "just a musician," and how she worked through them. Now, with a deliberate plan to blend both careers under her own name, give up her apartment, and head back on the road, Amy's story is a case study in what it looks like to build a life on your own terms without waiting until it all makes sense. Key points covered include: ↪️ Amy describes how touring burnout crept in gradually over five years before the pandemic made the decision for her, and why she believes even the work you love will wear you down without intentional breaks. ↪️ She gets specific about imposter syndrome in a second career, including the fear of not being taken seriously and the choice to keep her two careers completely separate until she felt secure enough to merge them. ↪️ Patience is the skill she credits most to her pivots, and she makes a direct case for why moving too fast through early career stages would have cost her the depth she has now. ↪️ Amy shares the details behind her current decision to give up her apartment and tour indefinitely, including how she planned it financially and why a strong support network is what made it feel stable rather than reckless. The 29th annual HR Systems Survey is now open through June 24th. Add your organization's voice to the largest HR tech survey in the industry at the link below. LINK TO SURVEY Don’t miss this exciting thought leader conversation! Follow the hosts and companies mentioned below: Sapient Insights Group Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn Teri Zipper Instagram |  Twitter |  LinkedIn  Susan Richards  Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter Amy Gerhartz LinkedIn The HR Channel  Instagram | LinkedIn WRKdefined Instagram | LinkedIn

In this episode of Spilling the Tea on HR Tech, Stacey Harris and Cliff Stevenson cover several notable moves in the HR tech market, including Betterworks acquiring Rypple and Rod Johnson joining UKG as Chief Revenue Officer, with broader observations about where the performance management and frontline worker markets are heading. The conversation turns to pricing pressure across the industry, with vendors and customers alike struggling less with the cost of AI and more with the unpredictability of usage-based models. They also discuss two research-backed arguments that push back on the assumption that AI is driving junior hiring declines, pointing instead to remote work and shifting knowledge transfer patterns as the more significant factors. Key points covered include: ↪️ Misdiagnosis rates for women run as high as 50% in some categories compared to men, and AI diagnostic tools trained on historically skewed data are compounding that problem rather than correcting it. ↪️A class action lawsuit against Eightfold AI raises a question that goes beyond bias: when AI is screening and eliminating candidates without visible human oversight, do those candidates have a right to know? ↪️Usage-based pricing for AI tools is producing a measurable drop in adoption, with users saying the issue is not the price itself but the inability to budget for something unpredictable. ↪️Two separate research papers argue with data that the real driver behind reduced junior hiring is remote work cutting off informal apprenticeship pipelines, not AI displacement. The 29th annual HR Systems Survey is now open through June 24th. Add your organization's voice to the largest HR tech survey in the industry at the link below. LINK TO SURVEY Don’t miss this exciting thought leader conversation! Follow the hosts and companies mentioned below: Sapient Insights Group Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn Stacey Harris Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn Cliff Stevenson Twitter | LinkedIn  The HR Channel  Instagram | LinkedIn WRKdefined  Instagram | LinkedIn

In this episode of HR, We Have a Problem, Cliff Stenvenson and guest Sudeep Cherian, VP Product Marketing at Cornerstone dig into what it actually means to bring agentic AI into the workforce technology stack. Sudeep walks through how Cornerstone's updated platform architecture layers a context graph and pre-built agents on top of the learning, talent, and skills infrastructure customers already use, giving those capabilities more workforce context to work with. The conversation gets into the accountability questions that come with agentic workflows - including who owns the decisions these systems make, where humans need to stay in the loop, and why HR is better positioned than most to answer those questions.  Key points covered include: ↪️ Cornerstone's Galaxy architecture has evolved to include a context graph and skills engine that give the platform more understanding of the workforce, making existing capabilities more useful rather than replacing them. ↪️ HR leaders need to be asking the right questions about AI agents before deployment, including who is accountable for decisions, whether there is traceability, and where a human needs to stay in the loop. ↪️ Rather than shifting customers to usage-based pricing, Cornerstone is offering agent packs within a subscription model to keep costs predictable for buyers who can't yet forecast AI consumption. ↪️ Sudeep sees the next six to twelve months as the window where Cornerstone moves from HR-only conversations to the broader C-suite table, with the people graph driving larger workforce decisions. The 29th annual HR Systems Survey is now open through June 24th. Add your organization's voice to the largest HR tech survey in the industry at the link below. LINK TO SURVEY Don’t miss this exciting thought leader conversation! Follow the hosts and companies mentioned below: Sapient Insights Group Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn Cliff Stevenson Twitter | LinkedIn  Sudeep Cherian LinkedIn The HR Channel  Instagram | LinkedIn WRKdefined  Instagram | LinkedIn

In this episode of Spilling the Tea on HR Tech, Cliff Stevenson and Allison Williams, Director of Research Programs at Sapient Insights Group, Anthropic's acquisition of Stainless, the SDK and MCP server tooling company, and what that consolidation means for organizations building on agentic AI. They also dig into the growing tension around AI cost structures, particularly the unpredictability of usage-based pricing and what that pressure is producing across vendors from Cornerstone to Paychex.  The hosts also cover workforce entry challenges for young workers, a significant expansion of Pell Grant eligibility to short-term trade certifications, and a fintech CEO who fired his entire HR team and then claimed the problems disappeared. Key points covered include: ↪️ AI usage-based pricing is creating real budget stress for organizations, with data showing eight in ten IT leaders reported unexpected charges from consumption-based models. The unpredictability of costs, not the costs themselves, is the core problem. ↪️ Cornerstone's Workforce AI and Paychex's WISE platform both reflect a shift away from transactional queries toward intelligence layers that connect skills, learning, and workforce data to business outcomes. ↪️ Anthropic's acquisition of Stainless consolidates SDK and MCP server tooling under one roof, which raises vendor concentration risk for any organization building on agentic AI infrastructure. ↪️The U.S. Department of Education's expansion of Pell Grants to cover programs as short as eight weeks signals a meaningful shift in how workforce entry pathways are being supported at the federal level, with a goal of reaching an additional 100,000 students within eight years. The 29th annual HR Systems Survey is now open through June 24th. Add your organization's voice to the largest HR tech survey in the industry at the link below. LINK TO SURVEY Don’t miss this exciting thought leader conversation! Follow the hosts and companies mentioned below: Sapient Insights Group Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn Cliff Stevenson Twitter | LinkedIn  Allison Williams LinkedIn The HR Channel Instagram | LinkedIn WRKdefined Instagram | LinkedIn

In this episode of The Pivot Effect, hosts Teri Zipper and Susan Richards welcome guest Rajiv Chandrasekaran from Where You Work Matters, an independent data project that analyzed real outcomes for 12 million workers across 1,750 employers over five years. Unlike traditional best-places-to-work surveys, this project measures whether companies actually help people advance, earn more, and stay in their roles, broken down by specific occupation and employer.  The conversation covers how the list rates employers across three archetypes, early career, growth, and stability, so workers at any stage can identify which companies fit their specific goals. It also moves into practical steps, including how to use the free comparison tool at whereyouworkmatters.org to evaluate competing job offers with data your hiring manager can't argue with. Key points covered include: ↪️ The list rates occupations at the company level using three archetypes: early career, growth, and stability. That means you can identify the right employer for your specific career stage rather than defaulting to overall company reputation. ↪️ Well-regarded companies don't necessarily perform well across every occupation. At Apple, for example, project management specialists see strong pay and retention but limited advancement pathways for early-career professionals. ↪️ Sales managers at platinum-rated growth companies are 89% more likely to receive an internal promotion within five years and 71% more likely to land a better job when they leave, compared to those at unrated companies. ↪️The comparison tool at whereyouworkmatters.org lets job seekers evaluate up to three employers side by side for a specific occupation, giving them concrete data to bring directly into hiring conversations. The 29th annual HR Systems Survey is now open through June 24th. Add your organization's voice to the largest HR tech survey in the industry at the link below. LINK TO SURVEY Don’t miss this exciting thought leader conversation! Follow the hosts and companies mentioned below: Sapient Insights Group Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn Teri Zipper Instagram |  Twitter |  LinkedIn  Susan Richards  Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter Rajiv Chandrasekaran LinkedIn Where You Work Matters LinkedIn The HR Channel  Instagram | LinkedIn WRKdefined  Instagram | LinkedIn