New World of Work: HR podcast by Oyster
Tune in to hear how People Ops and HR leaders from top companies are building thriving global teams in an ever-changing world of work.
Mentorship That Matters: Lessons from DeMario Bell
Meet the host of New World of Work
Carmen is an Organizational & Business Psychologist with international experience in employee engagement, organizational design, leadership development, performance management, emotional intelligence, psychometric assessment, and diversity, equity & inclusion.
As the former Community Lead of Oyster's People Community, she regularly empowered and facilitated leaders and professionals to transform their workplaces into authentic, inclusive, and thriving remote and hybrid environments.
Carmen brings a unique global perspective to my work due to her multicultural upbringing, which ignited her passion for building inclusive communities where people can celebrate and learn from each other. Whether speaking to hundreds of delegates at a conference or facilitating workshops virtually, she's known for creating curiosity, enthusiasm, and interactivity around any topic.
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Mentorship That Matters: Lessons from DeMario Bell
Mentorship can be a game-changer, but how do you create relationships that truly make an impact? In this episode, DeMario Bell, Senior Community Manager at Culture Amp, explores what mentorship looks like in today’s evolving workplace. From his infectious energy to his deep passion for community building, DeMario shares thoughtful insights into how People leaders can build a rock-solid mentorship program. This episode explores the impact of hybrid work on mentorship with the removal of water cooler conversations and highlights how to foster relationships despite this. DeMario discusses the importance of co-creating mentorship programs and what inclusivity can look like when you design for those at the margins. Don’t miss this insightful episode – which is like a mentor itself!
Building Global Pay Practices for the Future of Work With Matt McFarlane
This week, Carmen sits down with Matt McFarlane, former Senior Director of People Experience at Oyster and now the founder of FNDN (Foundation)—a consultancy dedicated to helping startups and tech companies master their pay practices. As a thought leader in compensation strategies and pay transparency, Matt brings invaluable insights to one of the workplace’s biggest challenges. In this episode, Matt and Carmen dive into crafting compensation strategies that align with your company’s vision, building a rock-solid compensation philosophy, and navigating the tricky waters of pay transparency in a global, competitive job market. Tune in to discover why pay is about so much more than just numbers!
Mastering the Principles of Hybrid Work: Lessons from CEO Emily Hinks
Get ready to dive into a high-energy, mischief-filled conversation with Emily Hinks, the Founder and CEO of Mischief Makers, a future-of-work agency shaking up the way organizations collaborate. Showcasing what can only be described as a mastery of collaboration, Emily and her team are the secret sauce for industry giants such as Spotify, Netflix, IDEO, and the United Nations. This episode unpacks what it takes to master hybrid work principles and why copy-pasting someone else’s model just won’t cut it. Emily shares her insights on creating a personalized hybrid strategy that fits your team like a glove and provides examples of organizations nailing the hybrid work environment. She touches on the importance of trust, employee policy co-creation, and why hybrid work is more about culture than structure. Whether you're rethinking your hybrid strategy or just love a good dose of energy and insight, this episode is one you won’t want to miss!
How To Unlock Employee Growth with Craig Forman
Welcome back to World of Work Season Seven! We are so thrilled to be back for the very first episode where Carmen sits down with her former Culture Amp colleague – organizational psychologist, Craig Forman. Craig and Carmen team up to discuss non-promotion-based employee growth strategies and how People leaders can use the data they collect to build thriving workplace cultures. Drawing from his diverse career journey, including military service and corporate leadership, Craig emphasizes the importance of balancing data-driven strategies with empathy and transparency. Additionally, he discusses how organizations can navigate cultural shifts during periods of growth by staying transparent, intentional, and responsive to employee feedback. This episode offers actionable takeaways for People leaders looking to foster engagement, trust, and alignment within their teams.
Breaking Borders: Tony Jamous on Building Oyster and the Future of Global Employment
Join Carmen for an exclusive conversation with Tony Jamous, CEO and co-founder of Oyster! In this episode, he peels back the curtain of his incredible journey—from growing up in Lebanon to building a revolutionary global employment platform. Tony shares the inspiration behind founding Oyster, rooted in his passion for making a positive impact and challenging the constraints of national borders.
Beyond the Benchmark: Embedding DEI in Every Corner of Your Organization
As the importance of diverse talent has continued to rise, conversations around diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) have remained top of mind for many PeopleOps leads. While much has evolved since 2020, a pivotal year when many organizations made bold commitments to DEI, who has truly followed through? Enter Daniela Herrera an award-winning DEI professional with over 17 years of global experience in talent operations, recruitment, and leadership. Dani offers valuable insights on accountability, actionable steps for implementing DEI, and why HR professionals should look to New York Comic-Con as an unexpected yet powerful example of impactful DEI. In this conversation, Dani explores the essentials of creating belonging, building psychological safety, and ensuring organizational commitments to DEI extend beyond benchmarks. Don’t miss this important conversation on what it means to embed DEI everywhere and weave it into all areas of your organization.
Gen Z at Work: How Younger Talent Is Influencing Work Culture
This week, Carmen chats with Cloey Callahan, Assistant Director of Development and Alumni Communications at SUNY New Paltz and former Digiday Worklife writer, to discuss what makes Gen Z tick at work. As a Gen Z-er herself, Cloey shares why this generation’s approach to jobs, loyalty, hybrid work, and even mental health is shaking things up. This episode explores the importance of making space for meaningful conversations about Gen Z’s needs, going beyond surface-level assumptions, and embracing topics that might be considered “taboo” in the workplace. From side hustles to the impact of social issues, Cloey explains how leaders can skip the stereotypes and connect meaningfully with Gen Z talent. Ready to see your youngest team members in a whole new light?
Finding Flexibility: From Fractional Work to Portfolio Careers with Julie Fedele
This week, Carmen is joined by Julie Fedele, founder of the Portfolio Career Club and author of The Portfolio Careerist, a popular newsletter for professionals looking to create flexible, meaningful careers. In this episode, Jules dives into how she helps individuals learn to love their work through the development of a portfolio career. She shares her journey to discovering fractional work, a model that’s gaining traction among senior-level professionals and executives. Combining this new structure into today’s organizations, she discusses how portfolio careers impact PeopleOps teams, as we see the integration of fractional employees into the development and management of permanent teams. Together, Jules and Carmen explore what it takes to build a portfolio career, how it differs from job sharing, and why fractional roles are reshaping the workforce. Jules also offers her insights on supporting non-linear career paths, finding talented leaders ready for a change, and empowering professionals to take ownership of their careers in today’s evolving job landscape.
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The Future of AI in HR and PeopleOps with Kait Rohlfing, PhD
Welcome back to New World of Work! In the first episode of season 6, we dive into a topic that’s been on the minds of HR and PeopleOps leaders everywhere: how can HR teams use artificial intelligence in their work? Dr. Kait Rohlfing, PhD, is a trained industrial organizational psychologist and former Sr. Leadership Trainer and Facilitator at LifeLabs Learning. Recently, she helped write a playbook on how PeopleOps leaders can leverage AI in their work. In this episode, host Carmen Amdador Barreiro and Dr.Kait discuss how to maintain people-centric policies in an increasingly AI-powered world of work, when to lean into AI, and why there is real cause for caution in deploying this artificial intelligence in the workplace.
Rebuilding trust: Restoring the relationship between PeopleOps and employees with Massella Dukuly
In this episode, Rhys sits down with Massella Dukuly, Head of Workplace Strategy + Innovation @ Charter. With over a decade of experience collaborating with PeopleOps leaders to enhance organizational effectiveness, Massella emphasizes the impact that a robust and trusting relationship between PeopleOps and employees can have. The repercussions of a breakdown in these relationships are felt throughout the entire organization, highlighting the need for PeopleOps leaders to find solutions and prevent such breakdowns from occurring in the first place. Rhys and Massella delve into strategies to restore and repair these relationships and unveil ways to cultivate a work environment with engaged employees who fuel organizational performance.
Empowering middle managers to combat burnout with Yen Tan
Welcome back to a new season of New World of Work! In the inaugural episode of season 4, Rhys sits down with Yen Tan, Co-Founder @ Kona, a Slack integration that allows managers to track morale across their teams. Yen and their co-founders started Kona in their dorm rooms after having a bad experience working remotely and knew something had to change. Since January 2020, they’ve interviewed over 800 leaders to discover their pain points when managing remote teams and built Kona to solve them. In this episode, Rhys and Yen discuss how to keep remote teams motivated during hard times, strategies for improving retention and morale among remote workers, and empowering middle managers to catch burnout early.
How COVID changed benefits forever with Amy Spurling
In this episode, Rhys interviews Amy Spurling, founder, and CEO @ COMPT. COMPT is an all-in-one innovative reimbursement platform that is revolutionizing benefits. Not a vendor platform by design, Amy and her team built COMPT to allow organizations to offer truly personalized benefits and stipends. Rhys and Amy dive into why personalization is the way to optimize benefits, especially for a distributed workforce, and how COMPT supports local vendors. Rhys asks Amy if benefits and stipends can ever become too flexible, and how managers can balance that tension. They also explore how personalization has improved benefits offerings outside of the tech industry.
The Digital Nomad Revolution with Lauren Razavi, VP of Communications at SafetyWing
In this episode, Rhys and guest Lauren Razavi explore the world of living as a digital nomad. Lauren has been nomadic since 2013, and is the author of Global Natives, a book about the past, present and potential of work from anywhere. Lauren is also the VP of Communications at SafetyWing, an insurance platform for digital nomads. In this episode, Lauren and Rhys discuss what it would mean to build a country on the Internet, how companies can think about remote and flexible work, and why work from anywhere is the future.
Influencing the C-suite with Ivori Johnson
Welcome back to New World of Work! In this episode, Rhys sits down with Ivori Johnson, Interim Head of People, Talent, and DEIB at ChartHop, for a discussion on influencing and convincing C-suite executives of the value and importance of the PeopleOps function. They will discuss making a clear case for the value of the function, especially in remote/hybrid environments, how Ivori uses her DEIB background to be an effective leader, and the PeopleOps ‘PR’ problem. Ivori will share her strategies for helping to position the PeopleOps function as the ‘hero’ of the workplace and effectively communicate its advantages to C-suite executives.
Championing Neurodiversity in the Workplace with Conner Reinhardt
What does it mean to ‘neurodiversify’ the workplace, and more importantly, why is it important? In this episode, Rhys sits down with Conner Reinhardt, COO @ Mentra, to help answer those questions. Conner and the Mentra team help neurodivergent jobseekers find employers that value their unique skills, and also help educate PeopleOps teams about neurodiversity. Join Rhys and Conner for an educational chat about embracing neurodiversity in the workplace, what PeopleOps leaders can do to create welcoming workplaces for all, and how Mentra is changing and shaping the conversation.
Upskilling in the Age of AI with Rajeeb Dey MBE, Founder of Learnerbly
Rajeeb Dey calls himself an ‘accidental entrepreneur.’ After starting a venture to help give students a voice in their education when he was 17, he’s gone on to launch a national entrepreneurship competition with the government of Britain, and founded Learnerbly, a curated online learning platform that helps organizations make learning part of their culture. He and Rhys have an interesting and enlightening conversation about why continuous learning is so important in the age of AI, the importance of upskilling, and how businesses can foster learning and development.
The power of distributed workforces for growth, collaboration, and community with Mike Podobnik
In this mini-series, we are focusing on the power of distributed teams to take companies at all growth stages to the next level. Webflow has been a pioneer in leveraging a distributed workforce since 2013, VP of People Mike Podobnik joins Katie to discuss how Webflow has grown and expanded with its team, and the lessons learned along the way. They discuss the challenges and opportunities of a global workforce, and how to foster community across borders.
How Superside uses global hiring to build a team of top creative talent with Fredrik Thomassen
Welcome back New World of Work! In this mini-series, we are focusing on the power of distributed teams to take companies at all growth stages to the next level. How do start-ups and entrepreneurs leverage global hiring to build teams made up of top talent? Host Katie McCauley is in discussion with Fredrik Thomassen, founder and CEO of Superside. Superside has been a distributed company since its inception, and uses a global hiring strategy to recruit the best creative talent the world has to offer. Frederik discusses why a global hiring strategy is part of Superside’s core mission, the importance of competitive wages, and where distributed teams and global hiring are going from here. Join Oyster's Free People Builders Community
Community Builder Roundtable with the Mapping Ties Podcast
Welcome back New World of Work! In this mini-series, we are focusing on the power of distributed teams to take companies at all growth stages to the next level.
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