But First, Coffee

But First, Coffee

But First, Coffee is a live weekly talk show where Jackye Clayton and John Baldino bring candid, insightful conversations about the world of work, leadership, and all things people. Each episode blends expert insight with real-world experience—covering employee engagement, leadership, inclusion, technology, and culture. It's not just HR theory; it's HR reality, poured fresh each week.

Episodes

Summer Lovin', Had Me A Blast (Explaining it to HR)

July 30, 2026 • 61 mins
Summer brings interns, thin staffing, and a lot of people working long hours next to each other, which is exactly when workplace relationships get complicated. Jackye Clayton and John Baldino separate the rare genuine partnership from the far more common summer lust, and they are direct about who absorbs the damage when it goes wrong. The discussion covers why intern programs carry outsized harassment risk, how financial pressure d...
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When Company Culture Stops Changing

July 23, 2026 • 62 mins
Irrelevance is a death sentence for a brand, and the same is true for a culture. Jackye Clayton and John Baldino trace what happens when an organization stops evolving, using the slow fade of Kmart, Esprit, Arby's, and Denny's to show how quality erodes long before the doors close. The conversation moves from retail nostalgia into the harder question facing HR leaders: how do you keep a culture current without abandoning what the o...
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Can AI Keep You Out of Court

July 9, 2026 • 59 mins
Can artificial intelligence keep an HR team out of the courtroom, or is it quietly walking employers into one? This conversation digs into the fast growing web of AI regulation, the bias baked into hiring tools, and the contract and pay equity mistakes that turn a time saving shortcut into legal exposure. The throughline is simple. AI is meant to influence the work, not replace the human judgment that keeps decisions defensible. Ke...
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PTO Nobody Takes

July 2, 2026 • 59 mins
Plenty of workers leave earned vacation on the table, and this conversation digs into why that happens and what leaders can do about it. Jackye Clayton and John Baldino unpack how micromanagement, guilt, and unclear policy quietly discourage people from using time they have already earned, and why unlimited PTO often means employees take even less. They make the case that managers should actively advocate for time off, treat PTO us...
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How to Get Managers to Be Managers

June 25, 2026 • 61 mins
Most companies promote their strongest individual contributor into management, then act surprised when that person manages like one. Jackye Clayton and John Baldino unpack why managing is a separate job that demands its own training, authority, and support, and what leaders owe a new manager before holding them accountable. The conversation runs from documenting performance issues honestly to managing across regional and cultural c...
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The Four-Day Week vs The Five-Day Mandate

June 18, 2026 • 59 mins
Two trends are pulling the workweek in opposite directions, and most companies are quietly picking a side. John and Jackye weigh the four-day and reduced-hours movement against the expanding return-to-office wave, and land on a sharper question than the schedule itself. A shorter week only delivers when employees know exactly what their job is, what outcome is expected, and how their work connects to the rest of the company. Withou...
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The Two-Speed Workforce

June 11, 2026 • 60 mins
Two employees can clock in at the same company and live in completely different economies. Corporate and white collar roles are being trimmed while frontline, warehouse, and service talent is courted harder than ever. John and Jackye dig into the split, anchored by Walmart's May 2026 move to cut roughly 1,000 corporate jobs while it kept hiring for stores and warehouses, and United Airlines handing flight attendants their first rai...
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The Retirement Wave: Who Keeps the Knowledge?

June 4, 2026 • 58 mins
Nearly a quarter of the US workforce is now 55 or older, and a retirement wave is set to take decades of institutional knowledge with it. John and Jackye dig into why succession planning has been neglected for years, how AI can help capture what veteran employees know before they walk out the door, and why the human side of management still cannot be automated. The conversation ranges across workforce planning, the real cost of ret...
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Celebrating at Work: When Is Friendly Too Friendly?

May 28, 2026 • 61 mins
Workplace celebrations sound warm and simple until you realize not everyone wants a sheet cake with their name on it. This conversation unpacks how to recognize people at work without overstepping, why the line between a work friend and being friendly matters, and how HR can honor connection while still protecting the organization. The hosts trade real stories about birthday collections, family picnics, dating policies, and the qui...
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The Class of 2026 Hits the Job Market

May 21, 2026 • 61 mins
John and Jackye sit down with the question every HR pro and parent of a new grad is watching this year. The Class of 2026 is walking into a labor market that does not look like the one their parents were trained for. Hiring is flat, traditional pathways have splintered, and the systems built to filter applicants are aging out faster than the talent they were supposed to find. The conversation moves through what is changing in how n...
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The Manager Tax on Performance Reviews

May 14, 2026 • 63 mins
Performance reviews promise clarity and growth, yet the people running them quietly pay an enormous tax in time, focus, and emotional labor. This episode unpacks what that tax actually looks like for managers, why it keeps growing, and what HR and leadership can do to stop treating review season as a productivity black hole. Key Takeaways: The real cost of a review cycle is measured in manager hours, not HR deliverables Calibrati...
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Automating Distrust

May 7, 2026 • 65 mins
Employers are deploying keystroke logging, screen capture, and AI scoring at record pace, and the result is a workforce that no longer trusts the people signing the paycheck. John and Jackye unpack what surveillance technology is actually measuring, why it backfires on managers who lean on it, and how leaders can rebuild trust without giving up on accountability. Key Takeaways: Keystroke and mouse tracking measures activity, not v...
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LIVE on Tape from WorkHuman 2026

May 1, 2026 • 26 mins
John and Jackye bring you a taped highlights edition straight from WorkHuman 2026. They unpack the conversations, themes, and on-the-ground takes that defined this year's gathering of HR and people leaders, and translate it all into what it actually means for the way work gets done now. Key Takeaways: What HR leaders are actually worried about in 2026, in their own words The shift from recognition as a perk to recognition as a pe...
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The Squeezed Middle Manager

April 23, 2026 • 62 mins
Middle managers are quietly absorbing more pressure than any other layer of the organization. John and Jackye unpack why the role has become unsustainable, what executives are missing when they pile on accountability without authority, and how HR can intervene before the manager class breaks. Key Takeaways: Middle managers are being asked to deliver executive priorities while absorbing the emotional load of frontline teams, with...
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Trade War Hits HR: Planning in the Fog

April 16, 2026 • 52 mins
Tariffs, supply chain disruptions, and economic uncertainty have landed squarely in HR's lap. John and Jackye talk through what HR leaders are actually doing when the business environment shifts faster than any workforce plan can accommodate, and how to lead teams through decisions that cannot wait for clarity. Key Takeaways: Trade policy volatility is not just a finance problem — it forces HR to make compensation, headcou...
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Signal Over Volume: The Applicant Flood Nobody Asked For

April 9, 2026 • 64 mins
Hiring teams did not ask for hundreds of applications per role, but that is the reality right now. John and Jackye dig into what happens when volume becomes the enemy of quality, how AI-generated resumes are distorting the top of the funnel, and what recruiters can actually do to find real candidates inside the noise. Key Takeaways: The surge in applicant volume is driven by AI tools that make mass-applying frictionless, not by ...
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Laid Off by a Forecast

April 3, 2026 • 56 mins
Oracle just cut 30,000 jobs before most people finished their first cup, all to fund AI data centers. A new CEO survey reveals AI-driven cuts will be 9x higher than previously projected. This episode digs into what happens when workforce decisions are made by financial models instead of people managers, and what HR leaders need to do about it right now. Key Takeaways: Oracle's 30,000-person layoff signals a shift from traditional ...
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Swag Report LIVE from Transform 2026

March 24, 2026 • 61 mins
What happens when HR's biggest conference meets your favorite coffee-fueled duo? John Humareso and Jackye Clayton hit the Transform 2026 conference floor for a live swag report, grading the best (and worst) vendor merchandise on display. Key Takeaways: The swag game at HR tech conferences reveals more about a brand than any booth demo Best-in-show items that attendees actually kept versus what hit the hotel trash can Why brand...
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What Hiring Actually Looks Like Right Now

March 19, 2026 • 61 mins
Hiring sounds clean in demos and messy in real life. In this episode, John and Jackye talk about what candidates and hiring teams are actually experiencing right now. Broken systems, tools without ownership, and AI that can organize data but can't replace judgment. This is an honest look at talent acquisition without the vendor gloss. Key Takeaways: The gap between how hiring tools are sold and how they actually perform in daily...
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Human Brand in an AI World

March 13, 2026 • 26 mins
AI is reshaping how we work, hire, and communicate. But what happens to the human side of branding when algorithms are writing the first draft? In this special Friday edition of But First, Coffee, recorded live from TalentNet in Austin, Jackye Clayton and John Baldino dig into what it means to build and maintain a human brand in an AI-driven world. They explore where AI helps, where it falls short, and why authenticity still wins w...
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