{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"The Human Element | CHRO & HR Leadership Podcast","title":"Why HR has to keep earning its seat at the table at Ojos Locos","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":1837,"description":"Summary\nYessica Perez, Chief People Officer at Ojos Locos Sports Cantina, has spent more than 20 years in HR leading people work in fast-moving frontline businesses. Ojos Locos has nearly doubled its footprint since 2022, growing from 18 to 35 restaurants, so her work sits where growth, labor pressure, customer experience and frontline execution meet.\nYessica tells host Barb Bidan why HR's seat at the table now has to be earned again and again: by knowing the P&L, framing risk as a business decision instead of a \"no\", and staying ahead of AI rather than waiting to be told to learn it. She shares how a California opening was moved by a week without HR becoming the barrier, how 15 minutes and a Chick-fil-A taught her finance, the commercial she built with ElevenLabs, and the three-step method she used to pressure test a third party's sales analysis with AI. For CHROs, CPOs and HR business partners in frontline and multi-unit businesses.\n\nChapters\n00:00 Meet Yessica Perez, Chief People Officer at Ojos Locos Sports Cantina\n01:24 Getting the seat at the table vs. continuing to earn it\n03:08 The credibility cost of leading with policy\n05:02 The California opening: be the solution, not the barrier\n07:50 Why AI raises the cost of not knowing the business\n09:30 Building business fluency: 15 minutes with the experts\n13:53 Making a commercial with ElevenLabs\n16:33 How AI levels the playing field for mid-market companies\n18:26 Pressure testing a third party's sales analysis with AI\n21:53 Leaders own the outcome, not the AI\n24:30 Teaching judgment through exposure\n25:50 Lightning round: labor cost, retiring attendance metrics, the seat at the table\n29:32 Takeaways and Yessica's final word\n\nTakeaways\n- Getting a seat at the table is not the finish line; HR keeps it by understanding the people, the numbers and the operations.\n- Lead with the business outcome and the risk, then offer a path: a one-week delay beat a \"we're not ready\".\n- Ask the experts for 10 to 15 minutes every...","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}