{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"The Human Element | CHRO & HR Leadership Podcast","title":"The Two Monday-Morning Conversations That Make HR Matter","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":2072,"description":"Summary\nWhat if the biggest thing holding HR back is the profession itself? In this episode of The Human Element, host Barb Bidan sits down with David Alsop, Chief Human Resources Officer at Ultradent Products and co-author of Making HR Matter, to talk about building HR that actually drives the business. David shares how 13 years in sales at Kraft Heinz shaped his business first approach to people strategy, why every company starts with \"irrelevant HR\" and how to grow past it, the fallacy of best practices, how Ultradent tucks in behind the \"lawsuit generation\" of AI while still building remarkable tools, and the two conversations any HR leader can start on Monday morning to finally make HR matter. For HR leaders, CHROs, and CEOs who want people strategy to converge with business strategy.\n\nChapters\n00:00 Introducing David Alsop\n01:58 From selling Kraft products to leading HR\n03:09 Betting on Ultradent and owning the strategy\n05:17 Why he wrote Making HR Matter\n06:45 Partnering with AI instead of fearing it\n09:00 Why HR gets stuck at the startup floor\n13:30 The skills gap: listening over indoctrination\n18:55 AI readiness and the lawsuit generation\n23:45 The Monday morning playbook\n27:05 Lightning round: brain science, compliance, and convergence\n\nTakeaways\n- Start every HR decision with the business. Understand the strategy and how people drive it before building a single program.\n- The startup basics of HR (legal terminations, policies, benefits, parties) are the floor, not the house. Plant seeds over time to grow the function into strategic relevance.\n- HR is a listening function, not an academic one. What leaders, employees, and the culture actually need beats what the textbook says.\n- Best practices are what the herd is doing. Adapt them to your culture, validate them with data, or skip them entirely rather than following the herd off a cliff.\n- Relevance starts with two conversations: ask leaders to educate you on the business and its gaps, and ask HR's...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/wSIM9OmCufT8YpGEujarJtAuPaEl6gUX3MEhrYkOqWs/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS84NzE0/YmEwNTBhMjA4NDk1/NTViOTczNmY3Yjlj/MmVmNS5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}