Oct 24, 2025

From AI and equity to culture and leadership, the podcast explores how to unlock the full potential of our world's most powerful resource: people. Jodi: Welcome to The New Work , I'm Jodi Kovitz. Working in HR these days means being super strategic, managing people, policies, and expectations, all while managing yourself at the same time. You're a person juggling work, home, and everything in between. As HR folks, it's up to us to make sure that work is working for everyone. That's why we're making this show. The workplace and the people in it have been evolving constantly ever since the Industrial Revolution. But today, those transformations are giving us whiplash. Whether it's changes to remote work, back to the office, generational differences or the rapid advance of AI, it feels like the challenges are always coming and the world of work is always changing. That means HR needs to evolve and we at the Human Resources Professionals Association wanna help you lead that change. As the HRPA's CEO, I'm here to work with you to make work better. I'm having conversations with inspiring people who are setting new trailblazing standards in their workplaces, so we can share a little of their success and lessons learned. The HRPA's actual mission statement is to elevate the human in nature. We're trying to change industry standards. I'm really hoping that the title of my co-host will become an industry standard. Sachi: That's me. I'm Sachi Kittur. I often say I'm a business leader who just happens to geek out on all things people and culture. And until recently, I was the HRPA's VP People and Culture. But now I've got the exciting title of VP of Human Experience and Innovation. Jodi: It seems like a small change, but it's not. Sachi's title emphasizes that humans are at the center of the world of work. And that change didn't come out of nowhere. It was inspired by our guest today. KeyAnna: KeyAnna Schmiedl, Chief Human Experience Officer here at Work Human. Jodi: KeyAnna Schmiedl has a bird's-eye view of what works at work. Her company, WorkHuman, provides platforms that employers use to engage with their teams and figure out how to improve their workplaces. They don't want it to feel like software, though. To them, it should feel human. And as their Chief Human Experience Officer, or CHXO, KeyAnna is in charge of turning that insight inward, so those teams can help their clients do the same. So, she's responsible for making a lot of humans' experiences at work better. KeyAnna is going to be our guide through shifting that emphasis from human resource to human experience. Sachi: We started the interview by asking KeyAnna what that evolution and the change in her job title represent for her, and for her coworkers. KeyAnna: I love this question so much because it's a little bit of the role nomenclature finding me and then me also continuing to shape that, right? So, just before I joined the team, just over two years ago, they had decided to shift their name more towards the human experience team. And when I got here, I asked them about that and they said, ‘Well, it just feels more like us." And I was like, but have you thought about the why behind that? And so, a lot of the early work that I got to do with the team was defining the why. Why does human experience feel more like us? And what we came up with was that because we don't feel like the experience that people have at work leaves with them at the door, you know? We're not living in a Severance world. And so you bring that home with you. You bring home into the office. You bring the external into the officer or into the virtual space. And so really what we need to be able to support, what we need to be able to look after, what we need to be able to articulate is, what is that experience that humans are having and how is work acknowledging that? Where are the places that we need to play a different role for people who work in society? And then how does that lend itself to us doing a better job for our customers and in partnership with our customers? And so I really think it's just a much more holistic term. Listen, I have an MBA in HR management. I talk about it rarely because I don't love the term HR. This idea of human resources just has always felt like, oh, I need one of these and six of these and throw them in the basket. Now I've got my human resources. Sachi: So now that you're Chief Human Experience Officer, and I just love that title by the way, it rolls off our tongue. And I know, I love it. How has this reframe of human experience resonated and changed sort of the dynamics internally with your leaders and employees? KeyAnna: I think a title like this existing, or being able to imagine a title like this, is the way that I'm able to see myself as a leader in this space, right? If the title was still Chief People Officer, if it was still HR Director or whatever, I don't think that I fit that mould. And so I would have continued to rule myself out. When you have these expansive titles, it also expands the opportunity for who can see themselves here. Especially when it's a new thing, so it hasn't necessarily been done in this way before. I also think it aligns really well with my values, which are authenticity, transparency, and humility. And I feel like that's just a very human combination of things. I never, even when I joined here and when I met with the CEO, when I met with the board chair, I didn't tell them I know everything and here's why I'm going to be excellent for your organization. I asked a lot of questions. I am insatiably curious, and I think in this time and space, that's what you need. You need leaders who can ask really great questions. You need readers who can encourage, let me give you the information that I have right now. Let us hold this space for, we don't have all of the answers, but I'm being as transparent with you as I possibly can. And then also let me have the humility to admit when I got it wrong, when I didn't include the right people. And you start to see that shaping what good leadership looks like and what makes people feel good in their working experience. And then that kind of trickles out more broadly, right? I think it's both a top-down and a bottom-up thing that you hear a lot of in the past, but I think this is truly getting the leadership layer where it needs to be to be responsive enough to the bottom-up, but also to be when you're giving an answer and people are saying, you're not listening to me. And it's, let me show you the ways in which I've listened to you. I think the frustration is that I'm not agreeing with where you want to end up, and here's why that's the challenge. And those conversations weren't happening before. It was just constantly the surveys that go out and then leaders speaking, you know, in a slightly different direction. And then people going, you are not listening to me, and then the next survey goes out, and you rinse and repeat. And I think this is really an opportunity for leaders to admit, if we had all the answers, we wouldn't need a team. So I think it allows you to focus on those outcomes that businesses and culture have always wanted to focus on but have almost always gotten in the way of themselves just by the very nature of the structure and the expectations of leaders. Jodi: When you think about an approach to designing strategy around your people, how does the influence of the more human at the center or humanity at the center of your strategy, how has that impacted what you might have done very differently as you were building out even your strategy in your early days before you got to specific tactics? KeyAnna: Yeah, so I think for me, it was by the nature of what Work Human does and what we sell, this concept of customer zero. How internally can we take this idea of we should be the super users of our product, right? And that means that both my team, but also every employee, has the opportunity to share feedback with the product team, to hear about the upgrades coming from the engineering group, right? Because often it can feel like. Hey, our company has a strong mission, and then all of a sudden you're hearing a lot of innovation is coming, and then a bunch of work happens, it's quiet, and then, all of the sudden, you're announcing innovation. And it's like, no, it shouldn't be like that. You should understand, like, all along the way. You should be getting excited by different sparks. You should be seeing that, you know, before we had the human intelligence launch this year, we had launched it internally, and we had a Slack channel that was just for people to go in and say: this is my experience, here's what I'm seeing. Hey, I wonder if we thought about a button over here? This is how my team and I are using it. And then what you saw was that our product team was going, okay, this was great. We're gonna prioritize this before we go live with the launch. You saw the product team interacting, but then you also saw our consulting team saying, oh, that's interesting. Could we spend more time with your team to understand this? I think we might like to put this out there to our customers as a promising practice and next step. And especially for me, in the human experience space for my team, I want them to feel like they are able to shape that experience and that they have an impact internally and externally. And it also allowed us in our strategy for me to see beyond this idea of customer zero to being prospect zero, providing opportunity for my own team members selfishly, is me saying, hey, go partner with the product team. They need a small focus group. I think you would be great for this. You've got some really good insights, and then let's get them to build it and then let's launch it here. And we've continued to do that. It was like a microcosm, because I know our business is unique, but of being able to show the broader business, the value that you get from tapping into your people and reaching out in ways that you may not typically assume would be productive or the most valuable and finding those nuggets of without this input, without this insight, without this collaboration, we wouldn't have gotten here. Sachi: Jodi, you'll recall, we recently brought together CPOs from our membership base. And there was this conversation around Moderna recently took their chief people officer and expanded her responsibilities to include IT, tech AI, and Chief Information Officer. So we were having this really interesting debate around, is this the evolution of where our roles are heading? Clearly, our impact and our influence continues to expand since AI is all about people and talent. What's your prediction in terms of where that's gonna go? And is that an accurate prediction of where roles are headed? Of course, we were all nodding our heads saying, yes, absolutely, that's where it should go. KeyAnna: I guess what I would say is I wouldn't want to confine information to just how tech defines information. I think if you broaden that lens, chief human experience officers, people officers, whatever you want to call them, have always been chief information officers because we've had to have the information of what are the goings on in the business, where are the people getting stuck and therefore the business is not moving as quickly as it can, right? I think what we have found is that we've now said quantitative data is not the only data set that is of value. Qualitative data is now just as valuable, if not even more valuable. So of course, in the tools that we create, I mentioned the human intelligence launch, that's where we've put our efforts to say we want to empower people teams with the data that moves businesses forward, with the data that actually shifts culture, but shifts culture by shifting behaviour, to align to those very values that you say that you want to live, and therefore shifts the business into a level of productivity and positivity in terms of, yes, the culture itself, but also in terms business outcomes like those core business metrics around whether it's net platform revenue or whatever it is you're measuring, that says the business is doing quite well, it's healthy, and that's because your people are understanding the ask of them, it's very clear and they understand how to navigate your workspace. I think too, when we think about people, leaders and information systems and AI, it's interesting to me. I think every leader needs to be better at just thinking through what is that information that I need to help influence the right decision. And we're now kind of depreciating the level of value and who has all of the data to who knows how to ask the best questions to get at the right data when it's needed. And so data as an information currency, it used to be how leaders led, and it was, well, I have more information than you do, I have a broader perspective, ergo, I'm the only one who can inform a decision. And now it's, well, I'm asking the right questions of the right people, but also of the, whether it's AI agents or whatever the right tools are, to then say, we're now democratizing who has access to this information so that we can have a better conversation and gain more perspectives so that can look at challenges as a prism. And so that's what I'm most excited about, right? There have been a couple of articles recently that are kind of debating the value of AI formal education because it's like, well, as soon as you learn this, it's gonna be obsolete because the tech and innovation is moving so quickly. But the skills that are really necessary are communication and collaboration, be that human to human or human to tech. And that's where I'm getting excited. Jodi: How are you at Work Human, and you as a leader, thinking about the upskilling, both informally and playing, but also more formally when you have lots of people, I'm sure you also have to think about how do you meet people where they are, where they're not all as comfortable with it, and really programmatically approach upskillings and AI fluency? We're talking about that with every member all the time and people are really searching for ways to approach it that are scalable. That can keep up. So, welcome any ideas you have. Certainly, we're a tiny regulatory association and member association. You probably have lots of ideas to share. KeyAnna: It starts with acknowledging where is your business right now. I think every business is shouting AI and the value of AI from the rooftops and they're all talking like, yes, and our people are gonna be ready. And it's like, okay, what I'm not hearing you say is everyone is ready now for what that next working experience looks like in partnership with AI. And so therefore, what are the stepping stones to getting there? We're acknowledging that we are at stepping stones. We have some groups who are ready and it's built out and we have other groups that are going, don't tell anybody I use ChatGPT, right? Like, or my favourite is Claude or whatever the case may be. And we're saying, look, don't hide that. If this is a helpful tool to you, let us know so that we can start building around what is useful instead of what has the best package deal out there. Jodi: I want to actually double-click on something that both you and Jodi referenced at the beginning of the conversation around human experience encouraging and denoting our employees, our teams, to bring their whole selves. I just want to expand on that for a second. So yes, it's empowering. Yes, it signals trust and authenticity. But I also wonder if it risks crossing the line and putting too much of the personal into the professional. So KeyAnna, how do you think we can strike a better balance so people feel safe to be real, but the workplace still feels, well, like a workplace? The gray, because it's a gray line. KeyAnna: Yes, yes. So I love this question so much. And look, I think having been a DEI practitioner and a culture practitioner for what feels like my entire career, and in some cases, my entire life, if you didn't know, I'm married to a white man and we have mixed children. So, I am like, oh, great, we are going to do this work at home too. Look, what I will tell you is, I have modified that language, especially since the pandemic, the height of the pandemic, because we're, you know, still technically, it's around. I've modified that language to say, bring your best business self to work, right? Bring your best collaborative, like fill in the blanks of what the values are at your business. But that's the best version of that combination of value and belief structure is who I want to see showing up to partner with me in the work. And the reason I say that is my threshold for authentically sharing could look very different from somebody else's threshold. And that doesn't mean that I'm oversharing and they are not open enough. That just means that we interpret that differently and we have differing levels of comfort. I think too, it's to your excellent point, it is finding that balance of the pandemic changed the way that we work. Sachi: Yeah, it really did. KeyAnna: I now do not make excuses or apologize for hey, on this day, I have to leave at 3:30 because this kid has to be picked up at this time and my husband's picking up the other one, right? Like it's a known thing. And my feeling is, as long as you get your work done, I'm okay with that. It's going to happen. And I also work in a business where all of our senior leaders have that as their experience, right? Whatever the rationale is, it's like, oh no, so-and-so left at two today. And it's, oh, okay. I'll get to them tomorrow, or I'll send them a note, but it will start with, ‘hey, no need to respond until tomorrow, just while it's fresh in my head.' And so I do think that it is this balance of how do we allow or at least acknowledge that humans will be humans? They'll sneeze in the middle of a podcast recording and you keep going. With the, hey, we are a business and we have to run as a business, the latest conversation that I've been having with my peer set and with the company more broadly is, in the same way that we demanded business acumen in the past, there needs to be like a working experience acumen, right? And I think business acumen just needs to evolve to include that, which is what allows me to say, ‘Hey, here are the listening posts where we heard from you. Let me share with you what we saw as the feedback. Let me with you, what we call that as themes. Here's what we're doing against themes one and three. Here's where, actually, for theme two, we don't feel like, as a leadership team, we own that one. We believe you all do and here's why. And here's how we're going to set you up and encourage you to help to solve for this on your own.' Even if you feel like that's our responsibility, we get to say that it's not and have that be the right dialogue as opposed to it's either all of the employees have power or all of the leaders have power. And so when it comes to this idea of balancing, bringing your full self to work, I think it's your most collaborative, most respectful, most challenging for a purpose, self-to-work. Jodi: I want to pull on every thread you just talked about. I hope we can be friends and talk another time. I can learn a lot from you. What does success look like for you in the new frame of thinking about humans? And certainly, we are focused a lot on flexibility. And I heard you talk a lot about that. And, you know, certainly the generation, Sachi's kids are Gen Z and, you know, even my daughter, 17, like you think about that future generations, they have very different values. They have very different interests in a workplace. You have many generations. So when you think about human experience and how you're winning, and certainly there's metrics that your platform measures, but the metrics and . What does success look and feel like for you if you have been effective with your team at building, you know, a really beautiful and powerful, productive human experience at Work Human? KeyAnna: All right, I'm going to take the next 45 minutes to answer this question. I think I have two minds about this. One is if we're doing our best job, we're influencing more than the team at Work Human and our customers. We're influencing what the educational experience needs to be to prepare people for the future workforce and to help us to prepare the future working experience for the people. We can't have the same traditional thought structure that we did when it was you train in this way for school, you come in and your entry-level job starts you at level one, and then you move up the career ladder until you're at level 57. And then, you know, you get a retirement package that includes a gold watch and a see you later in a pension, right? But yet that's still how the education structure feeds into a workplace right now. And so I think for us, it's seeing a lot more outreach, a lot of partnerships, a lot of engagement on the education front to say, here's what we're experiencing as the shift in work. Here's where we're looking at the research that you're putting out. Help us to understand what the coursework is, what the guidance is, and where we can partner to say here's how we're trying to shape the experience for our future workforce. Let us work with you to see if we've found a promising practice that leads to anything. Or if maybe we're wrong. I think the internal piece for me in what success looks like is that people leaders feel more empowered to make the right decisions in the moment that balance both the business needs and what their humans need. It's how I think about DEI and culture work in general, and much rather have somebody in a role that's helping to shepherd and keep an eye on things as opposed to having to drive it through the business until it is adopted. And that to me is the ultimate future goal. I think the in-between is what you're seeing take place right now, where a lot of CEOs are looking around and going, I need my people leader as part of this conversation. I need them to be thinking about all the angles that we're not considering. And so I'm just excited encouraging the conversation around what is that prism. And how do you get more voices to feed into it so you have a better sense of you've looked at most of the angles that you can and you're taking your best educated guess. Sachi: Can you suggest a scrappy, innovative practice policy that you have introduced in your organization that we can all take away and potentially consider bringing to our respective organizations that supports this, you know, innovative future-forward lens of human experience? KeyAnna: Get involved with a working platform. I think the metrics that come from the platform give you a deeper dive into what's keeping your people around. What are those behaviours that are being reinforced? And which ones are you actually actively working against in your culture? Who are those culture carriers and those dot connectors that may not show up on the two or three levels of an org chart, but are absolutely critical to team composure and resiliency? And check in on your resiliency scores, right? You know, ask the questions of if a big change were to happen tomorrow, do you trust your leader to guide you through it? Do you trust your team members to feel confident in sticking with the business? I think just like flipping this a little bit to say, who is it that you trust in the company? And if it's not your leadership, and if they're not able to identify anybody but the one person who they grab coffee with all the time or they have a donut chat with, then I'd be nervous because it needs to be more people and it shouldn't just be leadership, but they should have a high trust in their leadership. And if something has broken in your culture where that trust is not there, partner with them to understand how you can best rebuild it, right? And then if not investing in the work human products to do that, I think it's going out and it's asking those questions. It's having not the skip-level meetings on a regular cadence, but have the meetings with the person in the department who you're like, I don't know who this person is. Let me go spend time with them and understand what their experience is here and build those deeper connections to go, huh, I'm noticing a difference in the layer of leadership and what their answers are versus the folks who are entry level or interns or are the Gen Zers, or I'm noticing a pattern where baby boomers and Gen Z-ers are aligning on things. How can we take advantage of this? It's just get really curious and be comfortable asking those questions. And then I think lastly, it's put the question to your own leadership team on how well do they think they're doing and what do they their leadership shadow is? And when's the last time that they've checked in on that? Jodi: That's a powerful question. KeyAnna: I'm not saying that we, as leaders, should just spend time navel gazing, but I do think just occasionally having that reminder in there of your shadow almost speaks louder than you do. What is that piece that you're kind of leaving behind in the ether, without really being aware of it, is a powerful tool for change. And it's usually when you're changing those things for the positive that people have experienced as your shadow. That you really see that trust begin to turn, that you see some level of sincerity of like, okay, let me give them a shot here. And you really start to see that cohesion grow. Jodi: That was KeyAnna Schmiedl, Chief Human Experience Officer at Work Human. She was talking to the HRPA's VP Human Experience and Innovation, Sachi Kittur, and me, Jodi Kovitz. The New Work is produced by the HRPA and the Globe Content Studio. The producers are Jay Cockburn and Kyle Fulton, with production support by Brian Wilson and Sammy Rosenzweig. The executive producer is Kiran Rana. Thanks for listening. Advertising feature produced by Globe Content Studio . The Globe's editorial department was not involved.