EP 002 | Did HR Forget the Human Part? Why Workplace Culture Might Need More Fun HR spent decades fighting for a seat at the executive table. But somewhere along the way, did we forget the people we were supposed to be advocating for? Welcome to Episode 002 of The Talent Brief...LIVE!, where host Nadia Ciani welcomes Mitchell Jeffrey, founder of The Ember Collective, for a conversation that challenges what modern HR has become — and what it might need to become again. For years, HR professionals have worked to move beyond administrative tasks, office parties, and the dreaded "party planner" reputation. We've embraced analytics, strategic workforce planning, compliance, technology, and executive leadership. And that's progress. But what if we've swung the pendulum too far? What if, in our pursuit of becoming strategic business partners, we've lost touch with one of the most fundamental parts of workplace culture: making work a place where people actually enjoy being? Did HR Abandon Something That Actually Worked? Mitchell Jeffrey makes a confession that might make a few HR professionals uncomfortable. Maybe HR needs to bring back a little party planning. Not because employee appreciation events can solve toxic leadership, unfair compensation, excessive workloads, or broken management practices. But because somewhere between employee engagement surveys, HR dashboards, leadership frameworks, and performance metrics, organizations have started overlooking the simple human need for connection. And Mitchell has an experience worth examining. While leading HR for a large behavioral healthcare organization, Mitchell introduced structured employee engagement activities across facilities where high employee turnover was considered an unavoidable industry reality. The activities weren't expensive. They weren't complicated. Uno tournaments. Paper airplane competitions. A surprisingly popular pickle-themed celebration. And during a period when the organization added approximately 800 jobs, Mitchell reports that enterprise employee turnover decreased by 10 percentage points. Coincidence? Correlation? Or evidence that we've been overlooking something important? Nadia isn't letting that claim go unchallenged. Is Workplace Fun Real Culture — or Just Another HR Gimmick? Because there's an uncomfortable question hiding behind every employee appreciation event. Are we genuinely building a better workplace, or just distracting employees from everything that's wrong with it? Nadia challenges Mitchell on where the line exists between meaningful employee connection and performative workplace fun. What happens when employees are overworked, underpaid, poorly managed, or lacking career development opportunities? Can a pizza party, an office game, or an employee recognition event really make a difference? And what about employees who don't particularly want to socialize at work? This isn't a conversation about replacing meaningful organizational change with mandatory fun. It's about examining whether creating an enjoyable work environment has become an undervalued part of the employee experience. Mitchell argues that connection, appreciation, and enjoyment deserve a more prominent place in HR strategy. Nadia pushes back on whether these initiatives can truly address the deeper issues driving workplace dissatisfaction. And that's where the conversation gets interesting. Who Really Owns Workplace Culture? For years, HR has worked to become a strategic partner to business leadership. But when employee engagement declines, turnover increases, or workplace culture deteriorates, who is actually accountable? HR? People managers? Executive leadership? Everyone? Mitchell challenges the idea that HR can simply hand culture over to operational leaders and step away from responsibility. Nadia raises a different concern: if HR takes ownership of creating connection and engagement, are we unintentionally allowing leaders to become less accountable for the environments they create? They explore: Why leadership failures are often disguised as employee engagement problems. Whether HR has become too focused on metrics, systems, and frameworks. How psychological safety and healthy disagreement shape workplace culture. Why employees need authentic connections rather than manufactured enthusiasm. Whether average performers have been unfairly overlooked in the pursuit of high performance. How HR and organizational leaders should share responsibility for employee experience. Because culture isn't just the events an organization hosts. It's the experience employees have every day. What If We Stopped Calling It HR? One of the most thought-provoking moments in the conversation comes when Mitchell proposes a different way of defining the entire HR function. Forget Human Resources. Forget People and Culture. What if we simply called it Employee Experience? Not as another corporate rebranding exercise. As a fundamental shift in how organizations ...
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