Did you make it to ClearCompany’s ninth annual Talent Success Conference last week? We brought some big HR influencers and a few of our own experts to the TSC 2024 stage to share their experiences and advice. They discussed how we should expect AI to impact the employee learning experience and how leaders shape company culture, among other topics, and we left with actionable tips for applying their advice and renewed excitement for the future of HR.
Dive into some key takeaways from the big event, then watch your favorite sessions in full.
Didn’t make it to TSC 2024? Catch up and get access to valuable HR insights! 🔍
1. The Power of Acting Empowered
After ClearCompany CEO and Co-Founder Andre Lavoie’s opening remarks, we welcomed Amy Lentz Liberati as our first speaker at TSC 2024. Amy is the Chief People Officer at TOMS and the founder of Hack Your HR. In her session, she shared what it means to truly be empowered and how through self-empowerment, we can empower others.
Amy talked about the fact that empowerment comes from staying true to our values and discerning when we need to put our own needs before the wants of others. “When we are true to our values, we influence others just by living in alignment with our goals and our strengths,” she said.
Amy also shared several ways leaders can empower their employees, including:
- Sending employee engagement surveys to help employees identify and verbalize their own needs
- Leading with transparency and being honest about what you can and can’t do
- Ensuring decisions are informed by a diverse group of people to promote equity
Check out Amy’s session, then follow her on Instagram for even more HR advice at @HackYourHR.
2. How AI Is Changing Employee Learning
Ben Eubanks is the Chief Research Officer at Lighthouse Research & Advisory, author of Artificial Intelligence for HR: Use AI to Support and Develop a Successful Workforce, and a familiar face on the TSC stage! He joined us this year to share how AI disruption is leading to a need for new skills and how AI can help you offer employees a better learning experience.
AI disruption is already here, said Ben, and your employees want to be prepared to use it. To future-proof your organization, it’s essential to equip your people with AI skills to stay competitive as a business and as an employer. But employees don’t just want AI skills — they want a variety of learning opportunities, and AI can help with that, too.
With an AI-powered learning platform, you can offer employees personalized learning experiences that fit their needs. For example, if you need to see materials presented via video as opposed to text, or you’re looking for lessons tailored to your career path, AI can
AI can quickly generate relevant, meaningful learning “that matters to you specifically.”
Aiding employees’ growth and serving their needs with the help of AI is an excellent way to foster an empowered learning culture and create a sense of belonging at your company. That’s far from a “fluffy,” meaningless metric — the research shows that belonging has a tangible impact on your people. They’re more confident in their ability to progress in their careers and more likely to say their managers support them.
Watch Ben’s session to learn more about how you can build employees’ skills and foster more effective learning programs with AI. Then, follow Ben on LinkedIn for more insights and advice.
Watch TSC 2024 sessions for HR expert insights on leadership, learning, and AI.
Get access now.
3. How to Increase Accessibility for All
Are you creating accessible digital content? If not, or if you’re not sure, you stopped by the right session. Sarah Mercier, CEO of Build Capable, took the stage at TSC to share her insights on how to make your digital content — think websites and slide decks — accessible for everyone.
First, Sarah challenged attendees to rethink their idea of who is impacted when digital materials aren’t accessible. “Accessibility is super important for people who do have disabilities,” she said, “but it affects all of us because there are going to be times — temporary situations, environmental situations, where you’re not necessarily going to be able to access things in a way you might typically.”
Sarah’s immersive session invited everyone to experience what it’s like to navigate inaccessible digital content. Then, she shared several tips for increasing accessibility to your own digital materials, including:
- Best practices for setting structure and order of digital content
- The difference between alt text and image descriptions, when to use them, and where AI tools can help
- Ways to make better color and contrast design decisions
- When to use closed captions, audio descriptions, and transcripts, and how AI tools can get you started
Catch Sarah’s session for accessibility tips you can apply to your digital content today, then check out Build Capable for even more tools and tips.
4. How to Drive Positive Change With Transparency
We talk a lot about building trust to foster employee engagement, but how can we do that in particularly difficult work environments? We brought in Leigh Henderson, Founder and CEO of HRManifesto and host of the HR Besties podcast, to answer this critical question.
As a self-described “toxic workplace survivor,” Leigh is no stranger to bad company culture and the burnout we often experience if we’re employees at these companies. What can HR do to turn it around?
“We have got to build trust through transparency, that’s absolutely key,” said Leigh. “Employees want to feel informed, involved, connected — like a person, not a number.” When HR leaders are open and honest, she said, “that openness fosters not only respect but this culture of trust which is crucial for engagement.”
Leigh said that that means more communication with your employees — there’s no such thing as too much communication. “You cannot overcommunicate with the workforce because, in the absence of information — [it’s] human nature, we all fill that gap with the worst assumptions.”
As an HR consultant, Leigh starts by modeling communication and transparency from day one with the leaders she works with. She discusses her desire to build a trusting relationship with them and is transparent about her own limitations and boundaries. By modeling these behaviors, she said, you encourage others to do the same and fight burnout.
Watch Leigh’s session for more advice about modeling behaviors that beat burnout and how to check in with your people to build engagement and trust. Then, keep up with her on @HRManifesto and @HRBestiesPod.
5. How to Adapt Company Culture in Times of Change
Your company will almost certainly endure events that impact its culture, but how can you stay true to your company’s values when that culture has to adapt? No one knows better than our own Angie Wideman-Powell, Senior VP of People at ClearCompany.
Angie has been at the helm through big cultural shifts at ClearCompany, including our transition to a fully remote workplace in 2020 and our acquisition of the learning management system, Brainier earlier this year. In her session, Angie talked about how ClearCompany’s strong values were a framework for changing policies and practices as we found our footing as a remote organization.
These times of change, she said, are a chance to discern what’s most important to the organization — which parts of culture are essential to retain. “Once you’ve established your beliefs and core values, you can build policies and practices upon that,” said Angie.
Watch Angie’s session to learn more about the essential building blocks of culture and how to hold onto what matters while staying agile and adaptable. She also shares some tips about how HR pros balance self-care and being their company’s highest culture carrier.
6. How to Give Candidate Feedback That Leaves a Lasting Good Impression
ClearCompany’s top-notch talent acquisition team wrapped up TSC 2024 with a gold mine of advice on giving post-interview feedback leads to an excellent candidate experience for everyone. Brian Abraham, Director of Talent Acquisition, Brian Smith, Manager of Recruiting, and Senior Recruiter Catherine Patterson shared their tips for giving good candidate feedback and how it’s helped build up ClearCompany’s employer brand.
Did you know that 70% of candidates say a clear reason for their rejection would leave them with a positive impression of the company? That’s proven to be true at ClearCompany, according to our talent acquisition pros. Even though it can be difficult to give feedback when you’re telling candidates they’re no longer being considered, “Overwhelmingly, I’ve had more positive responses to negative feedback than anyone coming back and disagreeing,” said Smith.
The team described a recruiter’s relationship with candidates as “a guide, not a gatekeeper,” to the role and the company. Recruiters, said Abraham, are not “standing in between the person and the job they want…[they] stand side by side with them… and say, ‘Here’s how this process is going to go.’"
When giving feedback to the candidate, said Catherine, “I try to speak to the role and not to the person, and I avoid any negative feedback related to personal or character traits that may feel more like a personal attack rather than constructive feedback.”
That’s just a fraction of the outstanding advice our talent acquisition team shared in their session — tune in for even more tips you can apply now to create an unmatched candidate experience.
Watch every session in full for even more expert insights and advice. Thank you for joining us at TSC 2024!
.png)
