The Moments That Make or Break Your HR Function

AI Can Fake Identity. It Can't Fake Humanity

Description In December 2024, Christine Aldrich's recruiting team caught their first deepfake candidate. Twelve months later, nearly 1 in 6 applicants at Pindrop shows signs of data manipulation — and every HR leader Christine knows has a story. In this episode of The Human Element, host Barb Bidan sits down with Christine Aldrich, Chief People Officer at Pindrop (the company building voice security and deepfake detection technology), to talk about what hiring really looks like when you can no longer assume the person on the other end of the camera is who they say they are. They cover the velocity of the deepfake hiring problem, why the two reflex responses (ban AI / go back in-person) are both wrong, the lightweight tactic any recruiting team can deploy on Monday morning, and why the future of recruiting belongs to the people who let technology verify identity so humans can focus on what only humans can do. Takeaways * Why December 2024 was the inflection point for deepfake candidates in hiring * The Pindrop data behind the "1 in 6" stat — and what it really means for your funnel * Why banning AI in your application process filters out your best candidates while letting fraudsters through * How recruiter bias training collides with deepfake detection — and how to resolve the conflict * The three-minute consistency check any recruiter can start using on Monday * How to run identity verification in the background so candidate experience doesn't suffer * Why "AI fluency" is now a behavioral attribute at Pindrop * The most overrated tool in fighting candidate fraud (hint: you've been on it today) * What recruiting looks like when AI takes the bottom of the skill stack Christine's closing reframe for every HR leader on the drive home Chapters (00:00) Cold open and intro (01:15) Christine's path: Michigan, Ford, Dunkin' Brands, and four startups (04:00) The first fraudulent candidate (December 2024) and the velocity of the problem (05:45) The 1-in-6 stat and what data manipulation actually looks like (06:30) What a deepfake candidate looks like in a real interview (09:00) AI usage vs. AI fabrication — where Pindrop draws the line (11:00) Why this isn't just a tech industry problem (12:30) The collision between recruiter bias training and fraud detection (16:00) The lightweight tactics any team can start using Monday morning (18:00) Verification in the background — preserving candidate experience (21:30) AI as both threat and defense — and why treating it as only one is the mistake (23:30) How Pindrop's own team uses AI in the recruiting process (25:30) The candidate side of the verification conversation (28:00) Lightning round: first red flag, the recruiter tactic, the most overrated tool (29:30) "AI can fake identity. It can't fake humanity." (31:00) Barb's takeaways and Christine's final word Connect with the Guest * LinkedIn: https://https://www.linkedin.com/in/chriskaszubski/ [https://https://www.linkedin.com/in/chriskaszubski/] * Pindrop: https://www.pindrop.com [https://www.pindrop.com] Sponsor Wisq is the AI platform for HR. We built Harper, the world's first AI HR teammate — designed to handle the judgment-heavy work that has historically consumed HR teams: job changes, performance concerns, leaves of absence, onboarding, and employee relations issues. Where HCM bolt-ons and chatbots deflect the easiest questions, Harper resolves full cases, end-to-end. The result is an HR function with the capacity and strategic bandwidth to focus on the work that moves the business. Companies get Harper live in weeks, not quarters, with implementation support built on deep HR domain expertise. Wisq serves HR leaders at leading companies across industries, helping them raise the bar on employee experience and expand what their teams are capable of. For more information, visit  https://www.wisq.com [https://www.wisq.com/]

How to Onboard Your AI the Right Way

Summary On The Human Element, Barb Bidan talks with Q Hamirani, Chief People Officer at HighLevel, about treating AI as a teammate you onboard rather than a tool you install. Q draws on building people functions at Airbnb, Paper, and now a 2,000-person fully remote AI company to argue that the real constraint on AI adoption is human cognitive capacity, not technology. He shares how he trained an AI compensation model to stop and validate at three checkpoints so a human always owns the outcome. The throughline: the people leader's job is not to implement AI, it is to decide what stays human. Built for CHROs, VPs of People, and anyone leading AI adoption in HR. Chapters 00:00 Meet Q Hamirani, CPO at HighLevel 02:20 Backing into HR from an engineering mindset 06:10 AI as a teammate, not a tool 11:00 Defining what a digital teammate owns 13:05 The real bottleneck is human capacity 16:40 Multi-modality: surveys, songs, and websites 21:00 Three stops that keep AI out of the black box 24:40 Accountability as culture, not compliance 27:30 Bolting AI onto broken work 30:40 Lightning round and the last word Takeaways - Onboard AI like a teammate with a loose job description and a clear owner, not a tool you install. - The binding constraint on AI adoption is human cognitive capacity, not budget or technology. - Break AI processes into blocks with human validation stops so nothing runs as an end-to-end black box. - Accountability does not change in an AI world; a human still owns the outcome. - The people leader's job is to decide what stays human. Connect with the Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hamirani/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/hamirani/] Website: https://www.gohighlevel.com/ [https://www.gohighlevel.com/] Sponsor Wisq is the AI platform for HR. We built Harper, the world's first AI HR teammate — designed to handle the judgment-heavy work that has historically consumed HR teams: job changes, performance concerns, leaves of absence, onboarding, and employee relations issues. Where HCM bolt-ons and chatbots deflect the easiest questions, Harper resolves full cases, end-to-end. The result is an HR function with the capacity and strategic bandwidth to focus on the work that moves the business. Companies get Harper live in weeks, not quarters, with implementation support built on deep HR domain expertise. Wisq serves HR leaders at leading companies across industries, helping them raise the bar on employee experience and expand what their teams are capable of. For more information, visit wisq.com [http://wisq.com/].

When Doing Great HR Work Isn't Enough

Summary In this episode of The Human Element, Chief People Officer John Foster (Tala) makes the case that the biggest risk for HR leaders isn't doing bad work — it's doing great work that the organization isn't ready to receive. John shares the framework he calls scratch OD, his argument for why AI won't fix performance management but will replace it, and the career moment when a boss told him to take his foot off his throat. Essential listening for people leaders who want to use the AI era to redesign, not just optimize. Chapters 00:00 Introduction: John Foster, Tala, and the Gamut framework 02:30 AI as restructuring work, not optimizing it 05:30 Organization market fit: the Cambrian explosion analogy 09:30 Applying AI at Tala: rethinking software development and workflows 11:30 Performance management's 10-second reinvention 15:30 Using AI as a thinking partner for organizational rethinking 19:00 Scratch OD: the chef framework for HR design 23:00 The change agent's trap: empathy for overwhelmed leaders 26:30 When HR is correct but not effective 28:00 The winning organization in 2026: customer-centric and modular 30:00 Lightning round: Trader Joe's, Ford, and what HR most often skips Takeaways 1. Being entirely right about the work does not make you effective at changing the organization. 2. Scratch OD starts with the ingredients — what people actually need from work — not with which best practice to borrow. 3. AI makes individual performance clarity at scale possible for the first time, shifting the model from top-down judgment to individual empowerment. 4. The organizations that thrive in the AI era will be customer-centric and modular, not defined by their product or technology. 5. If you can imagine what you want to build and describe it in detail, you already have an entry point into using AI to construct it. Connect with the Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnfoster-gamut/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnfoster-gamut/] Website: https://tala.co/careers/ [https://tala.co/careers/] Sponsor Wisq is the AI platform for HR. We built Harper, the world's first AI HR teammate — designed to handle the judgment-heavy work that has historically consumed HR teams: job changes, performance concerns, leaves of absence, onboarding, and employee relations issues. Where HCM bolt-ons and chatbots deflect the easiest questions, Harper resolves full cases, end-to-end. The result is an HR function with the capacity and strategic bandwidth to focus on the work that moves the business. Companies get Harper live in weeks, not quarters, with implementation support built on deep HR domain expertise. Wisq serves HR leaders at leading companies across industries, helping them raise the bar on employee experience and expand what their teams are capable of. For more information, visit wisq.com [http://wisq.com]. * (00:00) - Introduction: John Foster, Tala, and the Gamut framework * (02:30) - AI as restructuring work, not optimizing it * (05:30) - Organization market fit: the Cambrian explosion analogy * (09:30) - Applying AI at Tala: rethinking software development and workflows * (11:30) - Performance management's 10-second reinvention * (15:30) - Using AI as a thinking partner for organizational rethinking * (19:00) - Scratch OD: the chef framework for HR design * (23:00) - The change agent's trap: empathy for overwhelmed leaders * (26:30) - When HR is correct but not effective * (28:00) - The winning organization in 2026: customer-centric and modular * (30:00) - Lightning round: Trader Joe's, Ford, and what HR most often skips

The Moments That Make or Break Your HR Function

Summary In this episode of The Human Element, Barb talks with Heather Oxley, CHRO at Perficient, about what it looks like to run HR for a firm whose entire business is helping other companies transform. Heather walks through three areas where she's deploying AI across the talent life cycle: project staffing, learning and development, and recruiting. Her central argument is that the value of AI in HR isn't primarily about cost reduction — it's about bringing clarity to the decisions that define the function. She also names the one thing AI should never touch. Chapters 00:00 Host Intro: HR at a Firm Built on Transformation 01:30 Heather's Role at Perficient and the AI-First Mandate 03:30 AI in Project Staffing: Beyond Skills and Availability 09:00 The Leapfrog Moment for Smaller Teams 12:30 Learning as Career Navigation, Not Content Delivery 17:00 90% Voluntary Adoption in Two Weeks 19:30 AI in Recruiting: Where the Legal Stakes Are Highest 22:30 Closing the Candidate Black Hole and Debiasing Panels 24:30 The Fork in the Road: Cost Reduction vs. Decision Clarity 26:00 Lightning Round: The Line AI Should Never Cross Takeaways 1. AI in recruiting should augment human judgment, not replace it, especially as legislation in New York, California, and Colorado continues to evolve. 2. Using agents to close the loop with every candidate who doesn't advance is one of the highest-value, lowest-risk uses of AI in HR. 3. The fork facing HR leaders today is cost reduction vs. decision clarity, and most organizations are defaulting to cost. 4. Moments that matter (offers, terminations, promotions, hard conversations) should always involve a person, not an agent. 5. The HR leaders who matter in this era are the ones who prove the function can be as agentic as any other part of the business. Connect with the Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heatheroxley/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/heatheroxley/] Website: https://www.perficient.com/ [https://www.perficient.com/] Sponsor The Human Element is brought to you by Harper, Wisq's always-on AI HR Generalist transforming how work gets done. Powered by deep HR intelligence, Harper delivers instant, accurate, and empathetic support—from policy questions to performance coaching—so your people get answers fast and your teams stay focused. Learn more at https://www.wisq.com/ [https://www.wisq.com/] * (00:00) - Host Intro: HR at a Firm Built on Transformation * (01:30) - Heather's Role at Perficient and the AI-First Mandate * (03:30) - AI in Project Staffing: Beyond Skills and Availability * (09:00) - The Leapfrog Moment for Smaller Teams * (12:30) - Learning as Career Navigation, Not Content Delivery * (17:00) - 90% Voluntary Adoption in Two Weeks * (19:30) - AI in Recruiting: Where the Legal Stakes Are Highest * (22:30) - Closing the Candidate Black Hole and Debiasing Panels * (24:30) - The Fork in the Road: Cost Reduction vs. Decision Clarity * (26:00) - Lightning Round: The Line AI Should Never Cross

Why AI Adoption Stalls When Trust Runs Out

Summary In this episode of The Human Element, Barb Bidan sits down with Azurée S. Montoute-Lewis, Global Chief People Officer at Burson, to discuss what it actually takes to move AI from pilot programs to organization-wide adoption. Azurée argues that the organizations succeeding at AI adoption aren't moving the fastest. They're the ones who built a foundation of trust before deploying tools, designed metrics around decision quality rather than usage, and drew clear lines between where AI assists human work and where humans must still make the call. With 5,000 employees and 9,000 internal AI agents, Burson is a working example of what that approach produces. Chapters 00:00 Azurée's role at Burson and what makes it unique 03:10 AI forces an operating model change, not just a technology change 07:30 Why scaling AI breaks down: ownership, data gaps, change fatigue 11:45 Bringing along early adopters, skeptics, and global audiences 14:00 The right way to measure AI impact (not usage) 17:20 When Burson's data came back inconclusive and what they did next 20:15 Agentic AI: from AI that assists to AI that acts 23:50 The feedback coaching agent and where Burson draws the line 27:00 Trust, fear response, and psychological safety in an AI workplace 29:30 Lightning round: one metric, one governance mistake, one line AI won't cross Takeaways 1. Measuring AI adoption by usage is the wrong metric — decision quality and output quality are the signals that matter. 2. Organizations that deploy AI without a transparent trust conversation trigger a predictable fear response; building trust first makes adoption easier and more durable. 3. The strongest HR AI use cases augment human capability rather than replace human judgment — Burson's feedback coaching agent is a working example. 4. Calibration, succession, and leadership assessments should stay with humans; AI can aggregate inputs but cannot supply the nuance of real leadership observation. 5. HR's core job in the AI era is designing the human architecture around the technology: the measurement frame, the trust foundation, and the human/AI boundary. Guest links Azurée S. Montoute-Lewis on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/azureesmontoutelewis/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/azureesmontoutelewis/] Company Website: https://www.bursonglobal.com/ [https://www.bursonglobal.com/] Sponsor The Human Element is brought to you by Harper, Wisq's always-on AI HR Generalist transforming how work gets done. Powered by deep HR intelligence, Harper delivers instant, accurate, and empathetic support—from policy questions to performance coaching—so your people get answers fast and your teams stay focused. Learn more at https://www.wisq.com/ [https://www.wisq.com/]