Workplace Stories by RedThread Research

Workplace Stories by RedThread Research

Workplace Stories is a podcast for HR and people leaders who are tired of noise and need clarity that actually holds up. It is hosted by Stacia Garr and Dani Johnson of RedThread Research. Each episode features candid conversations with practitioners, thinkers, and executives who are navigating real decisions inside complex organizations. Not hypotheticals. Not vendor promises. Real tradeoffs, real experiments, and real lessons learned along the way. You’ll hear how leaders are making sense of skills, AI, organizational design, and culture when there’s no clear playbook and pressure to show progress is high. The focus is always the same: what’s actually working, what isn’t, and what leaders are doing next. Workplace Stories helps you make sense of complexity, build credibility with evidence, and move from ideas to action with more confidence. Want to be part of the conversation? Join our community for free and connect with others shaping the future of work. Learn more about RedThread Research here: https://redthreadresearch.com/home

Episodes

Authentic AI Adoption and Cultural Impact: Dessalen Wood

February 17, 2026 • 58 mins
From overcoming initial anxieties through hackathons and playful experiments, to setting an ambitious organizational roadmap for AI, Dessalen Wood shares how Syntax is embedding artificial intelligence across departments, focusing on pragmatic progress rather than hype.

You’ll hear stories about driving excitement, learning by doing, and the all-important challenge of measuring real impact. More than just technology, this episode di...
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    Five Levels of Becoming AI Native: Melissa Reeve

    February 4, 2026 • 50 mins
    The way organizations think about artificial intelligence (AI) in the workplace has shifted dramatically over the past few years. While early conversations centered on isolated experiments and technological hype, organizations now face the much harder task of integrating AI into the fabric of how work gets done. We welcome Melissa Reeve, author of “Hyper Adaptive: Rewiring the Enterprise to Become AI Native,” to discuss what AI ado...
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    Reimagining Work at Scale: Manuel Smukalla on Skills, Dynamic Shared Ownership, and the Future of Bayer

    January 21, 2026 • 58 mins
    Manuel Smukalla, Global Talent Impact, Skills Intelligence, and Systems Lead at Bayer, joins Workplace Stories to unpack one of the most ambitious organizational transformations underway today. As Bayer confronts significant market, legal, and profitability pressures, the company has taken a radically different approach to how work, leadership, and talent are structured, rethinking everything from management layers to career progre...
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    Centralizing for Strategy: Christine Crouch on L&D Transformation at General Mills

    December 17, 2025 • 52 mins
    Christine Crouch, Senior Director of Learning at General Mills, joins Workplace Stories to discuss a massive shift in how one of the world's legacy food companies approaches talent development. General Mills has recently transitioned to a centralized and integrated learning model.

    In this episode, Christine lays out one of the clearest cases for centralization we have heard. While efficiency is a benefit, she argues that the true dr...
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    Building a Skills-Based Organization with Koreen Pagano

    December 3, 2025 • 56 mins
    On the latest episode of Workplace Stories, we sit down with Koreen Pagano, author of "Building a Skills-Based Organization," to talk about one of the hottest and most complex topics in the world of work: how organizations can become truly skills-based, and what that really means in today’s rapidly changing, AI-driven landscape. The conversation was loaded with practical insights, candid stories, and wisdom from the front lines of ...
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    HR in the Age of AI: Cole Napper on People Analytics, Generative AI, and Redefining Value

    November 19, 2025 • 60 mins
    In this episode, Stacia and Dani sit down once again with Cole Napper, author of “People Analytics: Using Data-Driven HR and Gen AI as a Business Asset.” A year after his first appearance, Cole returns with bold insights about the seismic changes facing HR and people analytics, and why now is the time to rethink how we define value in the workplace.

    Cole argues that the future of HR depends on shedding its transactional skin and emb...
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    Eight Levers for the Future: Lori Niles-Hoffman on Reimagining EdTech Transformation

    November 5, 2025 • 42 mins
    In this episode of Workplace Stories, we sit down with Lori Niles-Hoffman, global learning strategist, EdTech advisor, and author of The Eight Levers of EdTech Transformation. With over 25 years of experience implementing large-scale learning systems, Lori brings a no-nonsense, deeply human perspective to how organizations can thrive at the intersection of technology, data, and talent.

    Lori reveals why EdTech success isn’t about shi...
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    Three Futures for Learning: How AI Is Rewriting L&D with Donald H. Taylor and Eglė Vinauskaitė

    October 22, 2025 • 66 mins
    Just two years ago, AI was a shiny new object in L&D, with most professionals dabbling in small pilots and content creation experiments. The latest findings reveal an inflection point: the majority of L&D teams are now actively using AI, not merely testing it.

    This week, on the podcast are Donald H. Taylor and Eglė Vinauskaitė, the minds behind a groundbreaking new report, "AI & Learning 2025: Race for Impact." We’re exp...
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    Believability: The Secret to AI Adoption in Learning

    October 15, 2025 • 43 mins
    Artificial Intelligence is transforming corporate learning, but not every organization is doing it in ways that employees actually trust. In this episode of Workplace Stories, we talk with Peter Manniche Riber, Digital Learning & AI Leader, about how his team built AI-powered learning tools that employees truly believe in.

    From creating the “Dilemma Coach” and “IDP Coach” to redefining personalization and data privacy, Peter dem...
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    Moving HR from Support to Strategic Driver with Nadia Uberoi

    September 24, 2025 • 50 mins
    On the show this week, Nadia Uberoi, Head of People at Garner Health, joins us to explore how HR can move beyond compliance to become a solution-centric and outcome-driven function, aligning closely with the business’s mission and deliverables.

    Nadia shares practical details on how Garner Health has developed agile people systems and cultivated a high-candor culture rooted in real-time feedback and organizational transparency. We di...
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    Making Skills the Currency of Opportunity with Haley Glover

    August 27, 2025 • 47 mins
    Haley Glover, Senior Director of UpSkill America at the Aspen Institute, is on a mission to build a world where skills—not degrees or pedigrees—are the primary currency of career opportunity.

    In this expansive conversation, she challenges organizations to think bigger, arguing that investing in frontline workers isn't just a corporate responsibility but a societal imperative that strengthens communities and economies alike.

    Glover sh...
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    Doing More With Less: Serena Gonsalves-Fersch on Lean Talent Teams and Big Impact

    August 13, 2025 • 49 mins
    Dr. Serena Gonsalves-Fersch, Global Head of Talent and Academy, shares her refreshingly candid perspective on the evolving role of Learning and Development (L&D) in today’s organizations.

    You’ll hear her challenge traditional approaches to employee learning, advocate for seamless integration between learning, talent, DEIB, and performance, and call out industry complacency.

    Serena also shares how her small but mighty team serves ...
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    Building Trust Through Vulnerability: How Zane Zumbahlen Leads Transformational Change

    July 23, 2025 • 43 mins
    In this episode of Workplace Stories, we sit down with Zane Zumbahlen, Chief People Officer at Wedgwood Veterinary Pharmacy, to explore how vulnerability in leadership can catalyze organizational change.

    With a 30-year career spanning IBM, CTCA, and global roles in Sweden and Japan, Zane shares candid stories that reveal the power of low-ego, high-confidence leadership. From active listening sessions that rebuilt trust among skeptic...
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    Beyond Training: How to Prove L&D Isn’t Just Overhead: Dr. Keith Keating

    July 2, 2025 • 53 mins
    Many organizations see learning and development (L&D) as a cost center rather than a strategic driver of value, but what if that mindset is costing them far more than they realize?

    In this episode, Dr. Keith Keating explains why we’re moving from a “knowledge economy” to a “value economy,” where it’s not what we know but what we do with it that matters.

    He shares practical ways for L&D teams to make their impact visible, brid...
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    Stop Guessing: How J&J Gets Precise About Skills w/ Bas Debbink

    June 11, 2025 • 36 mins
    Most organizations claim to care about employee development, but upon closer examination, their approach to skills is often vague, subjective, or downright confusing. They might assume people will simply "figure it out" on the job or resort to one-size-fits-all training. If you've ever wondered why your learning investments don’t seem to translate into impact, it might be because you’re still guessing when it comes to skills.

    Today,...
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    Leadership as a System, Not a Trait, with Cher Murphy

    June 4, 2025 • 44 mins
    In this episode of Workplace Stories, Dani Johnson talks with Cher Murphy, Partner, Head of People+Talent Practice at ON Partner, founder of The Murphy Advisory, and faculty member at Pepperdine and the University of Michigan. Drawing from her deep experience in executive coaching and leadership development, Cher shares how leadership is evolving in response to rapid technological, political, and organizational change. She emphasiz...
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    Why Your Strategic Plan Might Be Trapping You, with Lisa Kay Solomon and Jeffrey Rogers

    May 20, 2025 • 48 mins
    Most leadership development still clings to certainty, quarterly goals, strategic plans, official futures etched in stone. But what if that mindset isn’t just outdated, it’s dangerous? In this episode, Dani Johnson and Stacia Garr sit down with futurists and experience designers Lisa Kay Solomon and Jeff Rogers, two minds helping rewire how leaders think about the future, not as a distant unknown, but as a daily design challenge. W...
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    "Wait, You Still Make People Fill Out HR Forms?" with Josh Novelle

    May 14, 2025 • 52 mins
    Many teams don’t realize how much time their people are losing to repetitive tasks and clunky systems. From filling out HR forms to bouncing between platforms, what’s called “employee experience” often adds up to unnecessary friction. The real problem? No one’s questioning whether those steps need to exist at all. There’s an unspoken assumption that better design means more interface, more features, more engagement. But what if the...
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    AI’s Not the Problem - It’s How You Use It, with Jeremy Broome of VISA

    April 30, 2025 • 50 mins
    Most conversations about AI in the workplace get stuck on the surface - job loss fears, tech hype, and hand-wringing about what’s next. But in this episode, we flip the script. What if AI itself isn’t the problem? What if the real story is how organizations introduce, structure, and integrate it into the human fabric of work?

    Jeremy Broome, Global Head of Talent at Visa, shares how his team navigates AI with a surprisingly optimisti...
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    “Wait, We’re Still Guessing?” Why HR Needs Better Data - NOW

    April 17, 2025 • 42 mins
    HR teams have more data than ever, but many still rely on guesswork when it comes to people decisions. In this episode, we unpack the rapid growth of the people analytics tech market, which ballooned from $1.7B in 2019 to $8.1B by last summer.

    Hosts Dani Johnson, Stacia Garr, and Priyanka Mehrotra walk through how this market has evolved, what’s driving investment, and why the demand for better-connected, more useful insights keeps ...
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