Supporting Wellbeing in the Workplace with AI

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[00:00:00] David Rice: Welcome everyone to our latest, the latest event in our event series. This is the first one of 2025, so it's good to be back. Uh, but we saw these grow a lot in 2024. It's really valuable way for our community. Our members, um, uh, are avid readers to engage with the experts who contribute to people managing people.

So we're happy y'all could join us today and take part. I'm looking forward to this section. As always, um, my name is David Rice. If you don't know, I'm the executive editor for People Managing People. And today's going to, today's session is going to be focused on focusing on building wellness and productivity into your AI strategy.

And we'll be speaking with some really top voices and thought leaders in this space. Um, I will intro them, uh, just kind of get us started here. But, um, we're joined by Jonathan Conrad. He is a, uh, most recently a former, uh, [00:01:00] Principal AI scientist at Amazon. John, welcome. I want to ask you a kind of a weird question, uh, to get us started.

What's a piece of technology that you didn't, uh, know you, you don't need, but you just had to have?

[00:01:16] Jon Conradts: Oh, um, there was this, uh, camera that was, that was produced in a real limited number, but it had, uh, over a dozen lenses. And What you could do with the camera is you could take a picture and focus it afterwards.

It was really a very interesting kind of different idea about cameras. Um, I thought that was really cool. And so I bought one of those. Uh, unfortunately, the little startup went out of business. But, uh, yeah, that was a ton of fun. Totally just. Something that caught my attention. I thought it was cool. And, uh, I really enjoyed it.

[00:01:53] David Rice: That is cool. And as kind of a photography geek, I would have loved to have played with that. Um, next up we have [00:02:00] Elena Garagamova. She's a regular contributor to us here at, uh, People Managing People, one of our advisory board members. Welcome back, Elena. Thanks. Um, my question to you, you know, you're always speaking at events.

What's the best city to have a conference in?

[00:02:15] Elena Agaragimova: Oh my gosh, that's a tough one.

That's, that's such a tough one. Um, I would say, um, I'll go with Dubai or Singapore. Because they're both very central. And then you can enjoy post conference travel around the region. That, you know, um, that's a little bit further west, further away. So it's always a good excuse for me to travel around that part of the world.

And, um, you get some of the most diverse audiences in those two places.

[00:02:46] David Rice: Awesome. I also hear they have incredible airports at both.

[00:02:50] Elena Agaragimova: Amazing food as well.

[00:02:52] David Rice: Yeah. And next up we have David Liu. He is the CEO and founder. Of Sond Health. Not

[00:02:59] David Liu: the [00:03:00] founder.

[00:03:00] David Rice: Oh, not the founder. First

[00:03:02] David Liu: CEO

[00:03:04] David Rice: though. The CEO of Sond Health, my mistake.

Uh, I've seen you note that we can learn a lot about human performance optimization from elite athletes. This is something you posted on LinkedIn about recently. I'm curious. Who's an athlete whose sort of performance optimization or self management really has impressed you? Well,

[00:03:26] David Liu: Oh, man. Uh, there's some so many.

Um, um, you know, I think all of the top, um, female and male athletes in each of their professions, whether it be, you know, Olympic athletes like calling quickly, we just brought on as an advisor. She's a world record holder in the four by 1500 and also an Olympian in the steeplechase. Um, Um, and any of the other folks, DeAndre Hopkins and, [00:04:00] uh, uh, uh, with the Chiefs who unfortunately lost this, uh, this past week, and then, uh, Moses Moody, they, they all have something in common with the Roger Fedders, the Tiger Woods, you know, every one of these elite athletes, they are Looking to, um, you know, to perform at their best when they need to, you know, they have to be ready at all times and, and that, that performance could be a tenth of a second.

That could be one stroke. That could be one point. And, um, and I think with what everyone is beginning to realize, it's not a new thing is that you have to pay attention to what's going on from the neck up as much as you do in training and keeping your body from the neck down, um, in its top condition.

And so we're, um. We're hearing this more and more, uh, we know this to be the case, and so we're thrilled to have the opportunity to work with, um, with these folks to get their expertise and helping us as we continue to build out, you know, our voice AI, uh, platform [00:05:00] for health tracking and insights to keep people working and operating at the top of their potential.

And that's, that's really the name of the game.

[00:05:10] Jon Conradts: No, I have a sports story really quick. Years ago. Um. We were developing, I was working on a team, we were developing StrengthsFinder, uh, an assessment that we were going to use to help college students and career people figure out, you know, how to, uh, choose their best career, where they would be happy.

And, uh, we were doing a, an early beta with a, an introductory psychology class at UCLA, about 300 students. And, um, you, the Olympics were about then, and there's this, uh, an American Olympian, Carrie Strutt, she needed to land the vault. Right. That was to win the all around or whatever it was. She had to land the vault, but she had just twisted her ankle really badly.

And so everybody was watching this girl just kind of hobble over. She has to [00:06:00] run. She runs on this ankle, hits the vault. Does her thing in the air, lands on one foot, and sticks the landing. And we were all just very impressed by that. The next morning, I get an email from the professor at UCLA. And he says, hey, Carrie Strug is in that introductory psychology class.

We've got her StrengthsFinder profile. Is there anything in there that's interesting? And we go look, and the number one thing that she had is what we had already called focus. The ability to just Be laser focused on a goal and to block everything out and we thought Holy smokes. This, this StrengthsFinder thing is finding stuff that, you know, shows up in the real world.

We were very excited.

[00:06:43] David Rice: That's pretty cool. And she's, she definitely had it. Um, so I want to start here for the panelists and John, we'll start with you on this one, but.

A lot of thinking around A. I. at present is mostly focused on task replacement, right? When we hear about it in the media, when you see a lot of the [00:07:00] posts on LinkedIn, there's a lot of fear. There's a lot of, you know, sort of thinking that it's going to replace workers. There's a lot of potential for it to do so much more, right?

And how do we start to shift this conversation toward its potential to impact employee well being and help us do more with the people that we already have?

[00:07:18] Jon Conradts: Yeah, when I talk to business leaders, um, I tell them, look, here's this technology that could increase the productivity of your people, meaning your information workers.

Right? So we're used to tools that like, you know, can stamp out more parts or can, you know, calculate things faster. But here we have a tool where information workers can. Have their productivity increased. And let's say it's like by 30 percent and I tell him, look, there's there's kind of two ways that I see people thinking about this.

One is, oh, if I can get the same amount of benefit for my customers, uh, with 30 percent fewer people, I'm going to do that, right? And so that's [00:08:00] this. I see that as a short term effort to to boost their bottom line. But there's going to be other companies that I think take the smarter route. So if you think about it, if at the same cost I can deliver 30 percent more value for my customers, when my customers are comparing me to other companies, they're going to choose me because we're doing things better for them.

You know, there's, as a, as a leader, you always have this list of priorities. And as you, as you're going through your list of priorities, at some point you have to draw a line and say, we can't do the stuff below this line. We don't have the money or we don't have the people or we don't have the resources, whatever it is.

And so you only do this stuff above the line. And what we're saying is, look, your customers could gain the benefit of 30 percent more. That's what AI does for you. And so I think it's, it's foolish and short term thinking to, to like get rid of people. Because for heaven's sakes, these are people that know your company.

It took them a long time to come up to speed. Hiring is expensive and painful. That's a not a [00:09:00] good idea. You get this short term benefit, but the best way to think about it, the long term benefit comes from, hey, let's enable our people to do more, be happier, achieve more and in the end, our customers gain that benefit and they're going to end up choosing us.

When the time comes,

[00:09:20] David Liu: I couldn't agree more. I mean, I think john, you bring up the point that a lot of people, I think, don't get to because, uh, you know, the bottom line seems to be always about cost cutting. And that's the easy thing to do. And, and, um, but the better thing and then we, we definitely have seen it with our own customers.

You know, how do we. Take that three X approach of being able to take the workforce, the people that you've spent a lot of time investing in and have them not only be more productive, but will be more creative and innovative and what they do. And everyone can contribute in that. In that way, it doesn't matter if you're working on a blue collar factory line, or if you're, you know, in some research [00:10:00] lab somewhere, it really does matter how you can, you know, empower these people to, to do more and, um, not more, but to, to, to create things that, that may improve the, the enterprise in surprising and very effective ways, rather than just focusing on how do I, you know, decrease, you know, cost by X percent that, that, uh, You never hear about somebody decreasing their way to growth, so it's just not really going to happen.

You're going to have to innovate. You're going to have to bring creative problem solving to your customers, um, and your employees are the way to do that.

[00:10:37] Jon Conradts: Yeah, so one of, when I was, uh, doing AI to support Amazon's marketing efforts, um, one of the things that people would suggest is, well, why don't we just have the AI generate the marketing email? You know, and so then we don't need the marketing managers, and we potentially don't need the artists and whatnot, and it's like, you know, um, a better idea is let's have the AI create [00:11:00] 12 marketing emails for this campaign, 12 different versions, and then allow, uh, you know, our, our human talent to go through and make the edits to make them all better.

In the same amount of time, it would have taken them to, you know, create one from scratch and then send all 12 and allow our email optimization system to decide which ones fit the best people. And so then you get all your customers get these beautiful, more personalized emails that are more appropriate for them.

Um, your, your sales go up, all kinds of good things happen. You didn't, you didn't reduce head count at all, but you just made everything better for customers. And frankly, you know, you made the job better for a lot of the marketers. Cause now, you know, making these improvements over time is actually a lot more fun than trying to come up yet with yet another way to sell socks.

[00:11:52] David Rice: Well, I think part of it too, is like, you know, if we can incorporate this in this way, that's sort of, it's. It's [00:12:00] about the employee's wellness and about, you know, again, doing more, a little bit more or doing different things. Maybe those side of the desk projects you finally get to, that kind of thing. We can remove some of the fear of AI adoption amongst the folks that are, you know, kind of tasked with incorporating it or, you know, having to do some of the things that they've done traditionally, which can feel like a threat.

Um, when we talk about well being, uh, there's this bit of emphasis on like the human touch, right? But more and more we see people's willingness to incorporate technology into their wellness approach, you know, Elena, I'm curious with you, you know, you, you're big in the fitness scene, how do you see people, you know, the shifting and kind of people's, and when they think about technology and their wellness, how do you see it shifting for employers in the coming years with younger generations?

You know, they're so open to tech.

[00:12:54] Elena Agaragimova: Yeah, I also want to kind of pick up on the the fear aspect that you mentioned, and then we'll go into that. So I think I'll [00:13:00] just speak from an individual kind of perspective from career development part, right? Um, so Jonathan and I had a separate conversation a little while ago, and I've realized I'm one of those people who's actually excited about AI, and I forget that there are a lot of people who are afraid of, like, what's going to happen to their roles.

And I think, you know, if you're an individual listening to this, you know, whether you're a manager or just an individual contributor, I think one thing to remember Is maybe three C's that could be interesting to kind of keep in mind, which is curiosity, courage and consistency from a career development perspective.

A is here. There's you know, you might as well embrace it. And the way you do that is being curious enough to understand. Where can it add to your career? Where can it add to your career development? Where can it support you in being more productive, better, faster in your particular role, right? So being curious about being courageous enough that we don't, we don't know what's going to happen.

We have no idea, no matter, you know, every AI expert you listen to out there, I don't think anybody really understands or can truly predict the, the, [00:14:00] where are we going to be a year or two years from now? It is terrifying, but I think Being courageous enough to admit that it is scary and then it's just being courageous enough to, uh, to just move through it, you know, um, you know, what's the famous quote?

If you're going through a fire, just keep walking, right? Um, and then the final part is the consistency. What are you doing consistently each day to help you minimize that fear? Because I think that's what it's all about. I think, you know, understanding where that fear comes from and if it comes from because you feel like you're going to be replaced, then what is it that you can consistently do to grow your career?

To grow your skill set, to grow your knowledge of any I I to get better with it. So I think the three C's will help minimize that fear of curiosity, courage and consistency from a well being perspective and kind of new generations. I spent a lot of time working with young talent and organizations, and one, it's a very humbling experience because you realize how much you don't know about technology, and I'm continuously, you know, have a humility check every time I work with these young young people and.

If you [00:15:00] think about it, I think, you know, when you think about, um, recent technological advances whether it's Uber, whether it's dating apps, I mean, who would have thought that we're going to be meeting our soulmates, for some of us, I'm not one of them, but for some of us, on a dating app, right, so that is wild to think about, but this is happening, and more and more young people prefer Uber.

A dating app, because that's what they're, they grew up with, it's more natural to them than going to a social, uh, place and meeting somebody, whether we agree with our generation, we have multiple generations here, whether we agree with it or not, that's happening. So I think they're much more, um, wanting that, and I think we need to move away from, you know, Us as leadership in organizations that tend to be more senior, right?

How will we see AI versus actually observing the young generation and how are they embracing AI and technology in general and looking at from their lens, 'cause they're ultimately gonna be our customers, our employees, and so on. And essentially our leaders in, in many of these spaces as well. So [00:16:00]

[00:16:00] David Liu: I, I, um, I couldn't agree more.

I, I think, you know, for me, um, this is just another. Step function change in an introduction of new technology, and we've seen this along the way, whether it be word processing to search to these are all tools that we've created to become more effective, efficient and what we do. But it is the human brain that's behind all of that.

And the human brain is something that we don't even fully. You know, I think I understand with hundreds of trillions of connections between neural networks. Thank you. Neurons in the brain. Um, we're the brain is quite efficient and making and doing what it does. Uh, we're learning now about AI and how much energy it actually.

Uh, takes to, to do and replicate some of these things that the brain does quite efficiently. It does it at scale, certainly, but it comes at a great cost, um, and definitely is, um, Um, it takes a lot of energy to, to, uh, to, uh, create these things. But I look at it this way, um, you know, for us, uh, very, very focused on [00:17:00] how do we Um, give everyone the opportunity to work at their personal optimal level.

And when you do that for every individual, and we're starting certainly a little bit more in that blue collar, um, industrial military space, and, and these are people who have targets on their backs every day. They have a target production target, they have a shipping target, they maybe have a mission.

which has a target and a goal, and they have to accomplish that goal in a set period of time. These are very measurable jobs, right? And these people have to be quite, um, creative and aware and alert and effective. And, and so how do we, um, employ technology like AI to be able to get these people to, um, uh, perform at their own personal You know, optimize level every single time, and so it's not now about using technology to find out who's sick or who's actually ailing.

Certainly that [00:18:00] there will be technologies to do that, but it's more about how do we keep people and support these workers and these, these individuals to be performing. At the top of their capability that turns into enterprise value for the customer. And so, um, I think we're going to hear more and more about this.

We're seeing tremendous feedback because, um, when you do this, you have incredibly satisfied. Um, of course, companies and and and and workers. Um, but you have people who feel that they're incredibly productive. And, um, and of course, they're staying healthy. We don't talk about this a lot. You know, we expect people to be, uh, doing all these great things in their roles, but we don't really understand if they're actually, uh, operating at their, you know, at their potential.

Are they? Healthy and, and, um, and incredibly affected. They can't really be if they're suffering, uh, from a mental health, uh, disorder, or even symptoms of those things can bring us [00:19:00] down from time to time. We all kind of have these, these moments. And so how do we get people back, you know, and, and running at that, at that level and so that they can be incredibly balanced and effective people.

Um, and that really does extend beyond the, the, uh, the shop floor, uh, extends beyond any military mission. It really does, um, extend to anyone who's doing anything, even if you're just trying to be the best parent you can be.

[00:19:29] Elena Agaragimova: I want to pick up on the, on a quick note here. Um, uh, when David mentioned about this being a tool.

One consideration for, I mean, for all of us, myself included, because I think it's very easy to get caught up in this, is that it is just a tool. And we live in a world where we want solutions, and we want, um, continuous, kind of, guidance. And I see this a lot more with younger generations, because they grew up with a very Consumer mindset, whether it's through high school and their college years, because something is always given to them, like you were [00:20:00] given directions how to do X, Y, and Z, and then they get to the corporate world, and the corporate world will all of a sudden expect them to create, to become producers and not necessarily consumers.

With AI, it kind of, uh, uh, deepens the, like, keeps them in that consumer mindset, because you can now go to AI, whether it's in fitness, whether it's in career development, and it will give you a step by step of what you need to do. And I don't know if it's there yet to really, truly do what you need for yourself, versus just giving you a general kind of information about the steps you might take.

So, I think there is that, that we just need to be aware that it is a tool, but it does not replace The other basic things about being human, about being a top performer, which is, you know, getting, making sure our health is in check, making sure we pause to understand what is it, what our values are, why our values are those values, like, what is this driven, where our decision making and actions come through.

come from. I think that's a little bit of a gray area still, uh, but I think as AI becomes smarter and able to analyze a lot more data or as we get the artificial super [00:21:00] intelligence, which is, uh, uh, equally as scary in some aspects, but as we get that, I think we just need to keep an eye out for those things and not, not forget that as a human being, we also have a brain, right?

Then we need to utilize it without just continuously relying on tools because they are just tools.

[00:21:18] Jon Conradts: Yeah, I worked with the executive assistants at Amazon. Amazon's an enormous company and there's thousands of executive assistants and I was talking to them about what do you love about your job and what do you not like about your job?

Being an executive assistant at Amazon is incredibly stressful because, you know, vice presidents and directors are constantly changing their flight plans. They show up in the city and they're like, Hey, tomorrow, you know, tomorrow at lunch, I want to have lunch for 35 people. And some people, you know, these dietary restrictions and, you know, just solve that for me.

It's halfway around the world. And as we're talking about these kinds of things, uh, we realized that, Oh, AI is going to be [00:22:00] really good for them because agents. Uh, allow the AI to, like, interact with airlines and hotels and restaurants and follow up with people if they haven't responded, make phone calls to restaurants in any given language.

It's like, all these things are coming. It was kind of funny because what an executive assistant needs most in their life is an executive assistant. And so that's what they were going to get right, and it, it wasn't going to replace them because their directors and their vice presidents, they want that personal relationship.

They, they wanna have a person that they can trust and they want to have someone that they can call and make sure things are going to happen. You can't really. You can't hold an A. I. Accountable like you can a person and so their jobs are just going to become more about the stuff that they enjoy doing.

Uh, you know, the visualizing and the designing and the, you know, all those kinds of things that they do in the, you know, executive assistants do a lot of organizing and setting up mechanisms in Amazon and they enjoy [00:23:00] that part of the job and it was going to automate the stuff that they didn't enjoy. So, yeah, I personally were very scared, right?

Because they thought, oh, my goodness, like, you You know, the executive is going to go directly to an AI to schedule their stuff. But that's probably not going to happen. They're still going to need these executive assistants with all of their, um, with all the things that they bring to the table.

[00:23:23] David Rice: You know, as long as we're on the, we're talking about some of the fears at this point.

There's a question that came in in the Q& A, and I want to go ahead and ask it. It says, do you think some employers are afraid to have open conversations with employees about AI? Curious what you all think.

[00:23:43] Elena Agaragimova: My two senses, I think they're nervous because they don't know, they don't have the answers. I think it's like when there was like a report done and they were saying like, how many CEOs are, or like how many CEOs believe that AI is an essential conversation to have internally? And it's like 85%. How [00:24:00] many people actually having that conversation or doing anything about it?

It's like 20%. So I think they just don't know which, you know, they're in the same boat as us. I think they're just human beings up top with a little bit more power, but not necessarily more information.

[00:24:12] Jon Conradts: Yeah, I left Amazon, um, even though I love my job, my, my job at the end was to create training materials for directors and VPs about AI because Amazon has very well educated vice presidents from top schools and many of them are, are, you know, they've been in tech industry, they're very technologically savvy, but Amazon also has VPs that are like from logistics or marketing or, you know, A huge number of different roles that aren't necessarily technology.

And so I was creating curriculum for them. It's like, here's how, what AI is, here's what it isn't. Here's, here's the, the, the lies you're going to hear. Here's the stuff that's actually true. And here's how you can like move through the process of implementing something. And I realized, oh my goodness, I mean, if in a tech company like Amazon, leaders [00:25:00] have this problem.

They don't understand what's coming. Uh, they're, they're making wrong decisions. They're buying a bunch of snake oil sometimes. How bad is it outside of Amazon? Right? If your, if your job is like your wah wah, right? And so your job is to make sure that there's food on the, food on the shelves and there's gas in the tanks.

It's like, how much do you understand about technology? How much time do you have to understand AI? Uh, very little. And so Yeah, I think that's a big problem. I think, you know, a lot of leaders, they, they may, they've seen headlines, they've seen, uh, you know, fortune magazine and they don't understand deeply, like how can I apply this in the best way to like bless the lives of my customers by making my, my employees happier and more productive.

[00:25:43] David Rice: You know, I want to go back to something that David talked about for a minute. You were talking about sort of those high stress roles. There's maybe like a physical danger in the job. We got to keep these folks kind of performing at their best. And I think that there's certainly, you know, the technology is developing to help them do that.

[00:26:00] One of the things I'm curious about, though, is could this help us understand people better? So in the sense of like, you know, Basically the impact of their work on their, their mental health, their bodies, whatever, you know, we know, like things like rest are so important, right? Take me through kind of like how you feel the technology might help us actually just understand the impact of work on people a little bit better.

[00:26:26] David Liu: Yeah, I mean, I think what is, uh, what we're learning is that we really don't know. That much about what people are going through because it's just been very difficult until the advent of health trackers and wearables to even get this information, right? And even with those people don't wear them all the time.

And so you just have these. Blank, uh, spots, uh, of lack of information and understanding the context of what somebody is going through, whether that [00:27:00] be a stressful moment in somebody's day or, or, um, or just, uh, a string of stressful days or or very intense days. And so we're, we're entering that, that. Phase now, uh, I think where, uh, people are more accustomed to, um, understand, wanting to understand more about how their body is feeling and, and, and what is driving some of the things that are, that they're feeling.

And, and I think being able to connect, um, tracking, health tracking on, on the physical side with what's happening. Uh, again, upstairs with the cognitive, um, health and, and mental health, it is really been an eye-opener for folks. I, I think that, um. What we've heard from our customers now, and we're running this really big trial with a very large, uh, global energy company, and what they're saying is that, you know, we wouldn't have known to even, you know, have a conversation with these people had it not been, you know, we've been [00:28:00] tracking their voice and we're working with a third party health provider to, um, to get in touch with people to see how they're feeling.

Sometimes Just having a conversation with somebody is as effective as getting them all the, you know, whatever Medical or attention or therapy that they might need they might not need, you know counseling in the traditional sense and so what we're finding is that getting ahead of all of this so that people can begin to feel comfortable and Understanding why they're not feeling great today.

I didn't really sleep that well last night, or I, you know, I had a very traumatic experience the other day, and being able to talk about it, being able to address it early and not have these things be compounded and layered on over time, ignored, stuffed down, right? And then you expect to go back and be as productive the next day.

I mean, I think we've all kind of experienced that at one point or another. And, um, that I think is really eye opening for us and, and people appreciate, you know, [00:29:00] having the ability to, um, recognize and understand this. So, we're not trying to, again, find people who are depressed. I think that's kind of far down the line.

We want to make sure that, uh, we understand our bodies a lot better and I think people want to be able to, um, stay fit in all aspects of their health. And it is much more acute in these roles, uh, where there are lives. And a lot of money on the line.

[00:29:27] Jon Conradts: Yeah, I love that what David team is doing. I mean, if you, you can imagine that, uh, these energy companies or military or whatever, they would love to have someone who sits down with each employee or each soldier at the beginning of the day, takes a read of kind of where they are, how they're doing, is able to provide an intervention when it's necessary to improve safety and whatnot.

But that doesn't scale. Right. And so what he's doing is he's enabling it to scale and what it is. What Elena and I was shift while are doing is we have another [00:30:00] founder named Jordana. She's a top leadership coach. Right? And so she's available. If you're a founder, a senior vice president, a vice president, she's available to you for personal coaching.

That's a really small group because Jordana is only one person. But what we've, we're doing the same thing. We're like, if we can use AI to dramatically scale this, then a brand new college hire can have access to a coach about their career and about how to be a better leader and how to better manage their time, their entire lives, right?

And we think that's a great approach for AI.

[00:30:36] David Liu: Jonathan, um, no better, no better person than you to understand scale coming from the places that you've come from. Um, but you're right. Uh, Our customers, they've not had the ability to get out to hundreds of thousands of employees at a time. And, um, and it is simply not practical to check in with [00:31:00] everyone.

You can't, even the line supervisors have 50, dozens of people that they're responsible for. Um, so what we're able to do with 30 seconds of voice and, and hopefully it's done on a, on a fairly regular basis is to be able to get. You know, a signal and not overreact to that signal, but get a signal and a trend it's, uh, everyone has their own baseline and, and then begin to, you know, understand a bit more.

And, um, I don't want to say surgically, but very target targeted way check in and, uh, you know, in health tech, typically, um, I don't know how much of a background you guys have on this, but typically. Um, this industry is obsessed with finding wonderful solutions to either identify the disease of the problem or to cure and treat the disease of the problem.

And what people fail to realize is that nobody wants to engage with any of those things. Because they're too busy working, being a parent, being a great brother or sister, or whatever it is, [00:32:00] we're going through our days. And so how do you blend, uh, these technologies into what you're doing every day so that you can go about your day without having to obsess about this?

And then, of course, you know, understand those changes, um, over time. And, and you know what, human beings are incredible. Once you have that stream of data that, uh, we've seen this with wearables, when you can see the trending moving in a certain direction, you pay attention. Um, and so, uh, you don't need somebody to, you know, kind of, uh, intervene on your behalf if, if, uh, you have the information and you understand, you know, how it's trending.

So, um, making it consumable, making it easy to use, uh, so that it's not in the way, um, these are the challenges. Um, that we're trying to, uh, to solve

[00:32:45] Elena Agaragimova: if I may. Also, I and there's a question that actually I would like to answer. That's in the or to be the first answer in the in the chat. And I'm asked, um, they would like to know how people leaders who have 30 40 people support with those human conversations that are essential for ongoing well [00:33:00] being for people to hurt an alignment.

So it's difficult because, you know, managers are More stretched than ever. And also nobody's really taking care of our managers today, right? So, um, kind of two things, two ways I see this. So based on kind of what David was saying. Uh, one, there is, um, there's a lot of push on what companies can do, uh, to support their staff, but also there's an individual responsibility, which is where tools that David's talking about are really helpful for us as individuals to understand where are we when it comes to our health, right?

Like, that's how, I think we need to take that responsibility also a little bit back and that ownership, and there are a lot of tools that are accessible and affordable today that can allow you to do that, whether in fitness, whether in just overall performance or sleep, pick your, uh, choose your tool, it's there.

Um, on the manager side, however, Um, you're right. It's very difficult to have those conversations. What I've learned in my world of just kind of working with organizations is that most managers, not necessarily to the fault of their own, don't know how to have conversations. They don't even know where to start of building those conversations with their people, [00:34:00] even if they had the time.

So there's two pieces. One, not all managers, uh, are trained to be people leaders. And second, not all managers, most of them don't have the time, and they have their own burnout challenges and so on. They're the most neglected, forgotten part of the organization, especially the middle manager. So I think where AI can offer us on individuals, what David was saying, on the manager side, You know, what if you had a little overview of your team, your kind of, uh, you know, specific areas around your team that will help you, you know, or whether your team or even individual team members that will help you have better conversations, that will help you come walk into a conversation better prepared.

This is where AI can really help, is to have that data to walk in the conversation and have a meaningful, more impactful conversation versus not knowing where to start or asking random open ended questions, right, which is often what happens. And at the same time for the individual, what I know, um, for sure, and like John was saying, yeah, you can hire a coach, but it's not scalable, not everybody can afford it, not everybody uh, has access to it.

[00:35:00] So with AI, if you as an individual can understand what is it that you need to develop in order for you to grow in that particular organization, and again, taking back that ownership a little bit and make it easier for your manager to then have that conversation and you lead that conversation, I think there's also a powerful thing there.

I've worked with a client, um, Last year just recently and um, one of the challenges she had in her organization is she said, you know She would show up at an annual review with her manager and she would want to be promoter Her manager would give her very vague Very vague goals and then by the time a mid review comes around there's really there's nothing that they're aligned on in terms of milestones or you know, KPIs and The my client was waiting for the manager to provide those.

But manager wasn't providing those. So we flipped the script and said, Why don't you start providing those insights to your manager? So I think I think it takes two to tango. I think it's individual responsibility and also organizational responsibilities to make this work.

[00:35:54] David Liu: Let me Elena. Great points. Let me be clear about something.

We're not Sharing, um, [00:36:00] this information, personal health information with the, with the managers or the people who are, who are leading these teams, um, the employer gets population level data and, and that's the way it should be so that the employer can understand, well, this site has a bunch of people, a thousand people who are scoring.

You know, a little bit lower than than normal. So what's going on on Monday, Monday mornings, right? And so that population level allows the organization, the enterprise to be able to change some of the program and change some of the ways that doing things that are affecting the broader population on an individual level, we work with a third party health care provider that is, of course, contracted by the employer to have these personal one on one, you know, touch points.

And to Gregory's question, I know I don't think Workers, uh, are going to open up to, uh, AI bots to talk about their psychological, uh, states or their health conditions. Um, and, um, it's my opinion that, uh, nor should they, you know, because, uh, I [00:37:00] don't believe that an AI is going to be. Um, effective and getting you what you need.

And there's a lot of evidence by clinicians who will tell you that it's a very dangerous thing to use a I, uh, to treat mental health or any of these other conditions. So I don't think the trust will be there, but the trust should be there that. Um, in terms of being able to understand what your condition is and how you're feeling on a day to day basis, each individual should take that ownership of understanding that and an employer should provide that capability to their employees.

They don't have to take it. They don't have to use it. I think it should be strongly encouraged, but ultimately. Um, everyone wants to be a great, um, an effective person at work. We had a great story, and I just want to relay this to you, an example where somebody, um, from our voice analysis, uh, was showing lower scores, and, and so, uh, over a period of a couple of weeks.

And then so, we contacted the, uh, the, the virtual healthcare provider. [00:38:00] They reached out to this person who, um, they agreed, had already previously agreed to, to use our technology. And to monitor their mental and cognitive health, um, as it turns out, that person was really feeling very lonely because they're from Bangladesh and they're working in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, 12 months out of the year, they simply missed their home and they needed somebody to talk to about their loneliness and how they were feeling that person, you know, made a tremendous kind of reversal of their story.

They're, uh, they're, uh, how they're, they're feeling and even in terms of, um, their scoring over time. So these are the stories. You don't need necessarily to get somebody to a psychiatrist, you know, just because they're scoring low on a, on a health tracker. I think these are the touch points that, that can scale, catch these things.

If we can catch these things much, much earlier, um, people just need a little nudge, a little support here and there. And I think they'll start trusting it a lot more if they can see that [00:39:00] it is something that, that they can take advantage of. It's, it's a service that they're, you know, that is going to make them healthier, better, and more prepared.

[00:39:09] David Rice: Well, this is good. I love that questions are coming in, folks. Please do keep I'm coming. We're entering sort of like the last 20 minutes here. So keep them rolling on in and out. We'll ask them as they come. Um, but picking up on that thread of like, you know, what, what was asked there by Gregory about people opening up to, uh, AI and sort of, you mentioned that maybe that's a little dangerous, uh, I'm curious, and we'll start with John on this one, what are the ethical considerations leaders should keep in mind when implementing AI driven tools, you know, to monitor improve wellness, right?

What needs to be at the sort of the center of our approach as we incorporate more of these into wellness strategies?

[00:39:48] Jon Conradts: Yeah, so the, you know, there's legal and regulatory issues that, uh, the AI provided company needs to be aware of, you know, things like. Hey, if someone makes a violent threat against [00:40:00] another employee or the company, or maybe mentions something illegal that's happened to them, you know, those records there, you know, the police can't subpoena those.

And that's going to be, um, people are going to respond to subpoenas, right? Setting aside those extreme cases that are very rare. In my, in my, uh, career, I've, I've, I've, you know, in 40 years of working in, in industry, um, that's only happened like two or three times in my life where there was something that it was like, oh, my goodness, we need to involve, uh, police or whatever.

So that's, that's really rare. But, um, the, it's very important that the company recognize, look, the, the person talking to the AI needs to manage it. Needs to be in control of the privacy, right? And so there, there are opportunities where they, let's say, um, you know, someone is talking to the AI and they're planning their project.

And they're, they're preparing for their promotion, which is going to [00:41:00] be a very common task with what we're trying to do. Um, you know, the AI might ask, hey, is it okay if we prompt your manager to ask about this project? Like, let us know, Okay. When you're ready for that, and we can, we can try to push that to their agenda.

So, so in your next one on one with your manager, they're ready to talk to you about that. You know, I think people would be comfortable with that. It's a little hard for me to, uh, to kind of boast about my own projects. It's always been something I've struggled with. But if the AI can intervene on my behalf, and with my permission, share those things with my manager, that's a, that's a good thing.

I, I would feel comfortable with that. But there's a whole bunch of stuff that's like, If I'm having interpersonal issues with maybe my manager or other people, all of that needs to be in the box. And again, the it's not leaking out to the manager. It's not leaking out to anybody else. It's like I can have my private thoughts [00:42:00] because like I would have a relationship with Jordana as a coach.

I'm I'm safe talking to her about these kinds of things because we have that relationship, right? And she understands the ethics of of her role. So. Um, there's a lot of issues around a I that touch on on ethics. Uh, you know, things like where did we get the training data? And are we fair to all subgroups?

You know, like, we don't want the coach to treat women different than men. You know, those kinds of things. Um, that's that's an important thing that needs to be measured, by the way. Recently, DeepSeek made huge news kind of all over the place and had this big impact on, on the stock market. And one of the interesting things about DeepSeek is people were saying, Wow, it's, it's as good as or better than, than OpenAI.

Um, the thing is, they weren't using kind of the, the industry benchmarks that are very tough and much different than having a conversation with an AI. And when researchers had an opportunity to come back around and look at things like, [00:43:00] How ethical is it? Right? How truthful is it? Um, how accurate is it on, you know, difficult topics?

It did really, really poorly. And that's one way to save a lot of money on your AI, is not do the hard work and not do the expensive work. Um, and so, it's important for people to recognize that, look, when you, when you're buying access to a more expensive AI, part of that expense is the fact that it's done all the safety work.

Right? It's the difference between buying a scooter and buying a Volvo. Right. They're going to be difference in price, but there's also differences in safety and performance and turns out those things are important.

[00:43:39] Elena Agaragimova: I want to just kind of, uh, uh, kindly disagree with something David said earlier. I think that, uh, this notion that people won't open up to a I and they won't it won't replace the human.

I think, um Whether we agree with it or not, I think that it, I think you would be, we'll all be surprised how open people will be in having conversations with AI. [00:44:00] Now, should they? Different story. Should they address mental health problems? Different story. But I think that, uh, in the next, over the next two, five years, I think we're going to see a lot more people having those conversations with AI, because it's just accessible and affordable, frankly speaking.

Whether it's personal relationship questions or whatever it may be. Because we see this, uh, you know, in numerous stories today about, uh, in the dating world, you know, eventually you're gonna have a, a robot who is, uh, uh, who is your girlfriend. I mean, I know it sounds silly to think about now, but the, the, um, the, the, the, um, the movie Happening in Japan.

Yeah, exactly. So, I mean, you have, like, an example in Japan because Loneliness is a huge thing. They have a, you know, they have a, uh, I'm not an expert on it, but they have a huge loneliness epidemic, uh, among the youth. Uh, they don't have the connection. They have, I forget the term, but a Japanese term where the, the young men in particular, they stay at home and they only go out when it's dark outside, so they can, they don't need to be seen.

There's an actual, uh, Japanese term for it, I forget, but it's an actual [00:45:00] term of, they're part of society. It's a whole community of young men. who spent all their time online, they don't like to socialize, they cannot connect. You're trying to tell me they're not connecting in some type of way with a robot?

Uh, behind closed doors, for sure. They're having those relationships. They need that human, that human quote unquote interaction. That is not really human, but that's all they can get. So, I think we're going to have, I think that's going to change. It's, it's, I mean, I, I, I, I, I think we're going down very dark alleys when that starts to happen.

But it is happening. And like the movie, uh, Machina or something like that. I mean, I, I feel like it's, it's, it's, it's going to happen eventually. So I think we're going to be more comfortable than we imagined today, uh, speaking with machines.

[00:45:43] Jon Conradts: There is a less creepy, more corporate version of that, which is, um, years ago, uh, I was a manager at Microsoft.

And, uh, I took a course called Difficult Conversations. And these, these were things like, hey, your job is changing [00:46:00] or, you know, things like that. But they were also things like. Your fellow co workers say that you need to shower more, right? So, I mean, that's an awkward conversation for people to have. Um, and with the advent of AI, I realized, oh, you can have the, you can role play these difficult conversations.

I mean, if you're a salesperson and you have trouble closing deals, you can role play closing the deal. You just tell the AI, uh, you're, you're interested in buying this product, but you don't like price, and you're very tough on specifications, and that is your role. And we're going to talk, I'm going to try to convince you to buy this product.

Or you can say, you know, you're an employee, uh, you, you come from a long history, you've been successful, you're very happy, um, and you're, you're very sensitive about comments about your appearance. Right, right, and your, and your hygiene. And then I'm gonna be a manager and I'm gonna talk to you about, you know, It'd be good if you took a bath more often, right?

And so you can [00:47:00] have these like really difficult conversations with an AI and learn tactics, like learn approaches. Honestly, I've done this with, with family drama. It's like, okay, here's the situation. This is how you seem to feel and I'm gonna talk to you about it. We just kind of work through it and It's not, um, it gave me an opportunity to think more broadly about the issue, right?

And explore things that I couldn't explore and to take multiple bites of the apple that weren't available to me before. Um, so we think that's a valuable thing, like, much like being a career coach. Um, the AI can, can play the role of someone who's going to consider your, um, your evaluation or your, your performance, right?

And kind of provide them with some data and walk them through it and see how things are going, because it can be difficult to be objective with ourselves. So these difficult conversations, I used to take a class for that, and now instead I think I would tell people, Hey, uh, [00:48:00] queue up an AI, give it a good background, and role play.

[00:48:04] David Rice: Excellent. Well, uh, we've got like 10 minutes. I know some people will inevitably start jumping here, uh, because they've got to get to the next meeting or anything like that. So I want to make sure, uh, I have a moment to kind of invite you to our next session for one thing. And thank you for joining us today as well.

But, uh, we're, we've got a session coming up next month. on transforming your employer brand with video, uh, registration will be open in the coming days. Please keep an eye on your inbox. If you're subscribed to the people managing people newsletter, if not, you know, please get signed up for that. Um, and yeah, I want, you know, we love feedback around here.

So please take a second to let us know what you thought of today's event. Let us know if there are any topics you'd like us to cover in a future session. Uh, let that link is in the chat. Uh, so please do be sure to fill that out. We love that kind of stuff. Okay. Um, So I don't see any more questions in the chat right [00:49:00] now, but please feel free to keep putting them in there.

I'm curious about this one. In terms of addressing burnout, so, you know, there will be some hesitation from people around what sort of information you're collecting and how you're interpreting it, right? Talk to me about the kinds of data and analysis that goes along with the approach that incorporates these tools.

And, um Yeah, I'll just open it up. Whoever feels like jumping in, please do.

[00:49:26] David Liu: Um, well, look, I think this question, it really ties back to the last, uh, uh, sets of conversation about bearing your soul to, uh, to an AI and, um, I'm not, and you're right. Um, Elena, I don't think you're going to stop people from doing it.

So I think what I was my, my frame of reference, and I think this goes to David's question here is, you know, what is, um, a company's responsibility, corporate responsibility around, um, unleashing these types of tools for these types of purposes. And I think that's where the rubber, you know, starts to beat the road in [00:50:00] terms of, um, you know, it only takes one.

Person to, you know, uh, have that, that, um, sharing of that information with an AI that is sponsored or being, um, provided by a company and then it goes down some dark path and something, you know, something ends up happening. We've seen this already happening. So, of course, it'll get better and better. I have no doubt that the technology will, will mimic a person soon enough, but, um, I think, you know, who has that data, what are they going to do with that information?

And, um, some companies, um, DeepSeek, if you read, I think the fine details of the terms and conditions, I, I believe that they own the data even after you delete the app. So, um, these things, you know, who owns the information, what are they going to do with that information, and as an employer, Large amounts of people.

You have to be concerned about how your people perceive in, uh, either in, um, perception or reality. And so [00:51:00] when we're talking about burnout, um, of course, everyone wants to prevent, you know, burnout. And, and I think there's some crazy statistic that almost every major frontline job or even white collar job, there's, uh, we've got, we're seeing unprecedented levels of burnout.

Um, it's not just nursing, right? It's every almost every, uh, occupation. You can think of. We're seeing 2030 plus percent burnout. Replacement costs are obviously very high training costs. The cost of the organization. We all know those things. But, um, you know, that information I think has to be really, um, be used separately.

You have to have, uh, companies that are that are paying very much attention to separating them. Personal health information, making sure that it is, uh, with a health care provider that they're contracting with. Managers, we have to establish that very clearly up front. I don't think that companies are talking about this.

Even though they have these [00:52:00] incredible EAP and, and health, uh, digital services, they're not making it clear and up front. And so people are hesitant and to use these services. And why is it that 15, 20 years, uh, since we've had the advent of all of these services on the EEP side, we still have four to five percent utilization rates.

Why? Because number one, they're not engaging. Number two, I think a lot of employees don't trust the fact that if I engage with one of these, these services that my employer is paying for, that that information isn't somehow going to get back to me. Someone who's making a decision about my career and of course, um, most companies I'd like to believe and companies certainly we work with.

We ensure that that we make sure that that that wall is very, very thick and clear and high so that none of that information gets shared. But I think that to me is something that has to be established. Otherwise, you're going to continue to have very low participation rates. And you're not going to get the information that you need to be [00:53:00] able to help these people.

[00:53:01] Jon Conradts: Yeah, I agree completely that, you know, it's very important that the, the company that you're interacting with, who's providing the AI, um, be very clear and trustworthy. Right people need to be able to recognize. Um, so 1 of the things that Elena and I. Uh, decided early on was that it was super important that anybody interacting with the A.

I. They own the data, right? Um, they allow the company to have aspects of the data, but they own it. And if they leave that company and they go and they go someplace else, or they start their own company, or they just want to have an A. I. On their own, they do like they don't they don't lose any data. Um, because David, what you're saying is exactly right that, uh, if you're turning data over to your company that you work for, probably they're going to be good about it, but maybe they're not.

And if you if you have a problem with your [00:54:00] company, you probably don't trust them. And so why in the world would you provide them with data? And so companies lose the benefit of. listening to their employees because they don't hear the voices of those that lack trust. And that's an important segment for most companies.

And if you're going to actually improve your business, you have to listen to criticism and not just praise. So yeah. Absolutely.

[00:54:26] Elena Agaragimova: And, uh, just a quick note, um, on the burnout part, um, I think, uh, you know, there are, uh, like, uh, David mentioned, there are different kind of tools that companies provide, but there are people don't really use them for different reasons.

So I think, uh, one thing, you know, at least in a talent development world where we hear a lot is it's a very woo woo, it's very fluffy, like we're talking about well being and preventing burnout and so on. But I think it's just, I see it as just a smart business decision because Whether you, you know, whether you believe in that stuff, whether you are, you, you think people need it from you as an [00:55:00] organization, at the day, it's just smart business to be able to provide your people the resources, but also audit the kind of resources they actually need and what do they actually use.

I think there's a lot of money that's being spent, uh, I mean, the well being industry itself is, you know, more than a billion dollar industry every year that kind of, Spends a lot of money on tools that people just don't need. So I think that gives it a bad rap. So I think if you're a leader in an organization, audit where you spend your money and do people actually use it.

I think from, um, the organizational perspective, but also from individual perspective, I think we are getting burnt out because we're, uh, you know, it's not about time management. It's not about, you know, organization skills or anything like that. It's about how are you managing your energy. And going back to the basics, um, which is a whole other discussion, but I think it's worth noting, going back to the basics of auditing your sleep, auditing what you eat, right, and auditing what you expose yourself to.

Uh, I think there's a lot of things going on in the world. I think there's a lot of things going on in different communities that can also impact, uh, the mental well being of everybody. So I [00:56:00] think just limiting what you expose yourself to, um, you know, a good, uh, rule of thumb is like 10 minutes a day of bad news, you know, just news.

Because I think that's why we're hitting burnout. It's, it's, yes, we're doing more yes to all those other things, but I think the bigger challenge is that we're not managing our energy because we're so spent working, working, working that we forgot the human, the basic biology of being a human, which is getting our sleep, getting our movement in, and, and eating something that is not completely processed.

[00:56:30] David Liu: Elena, we're, uh, one of the biggest, uh, requests for us is to monitor or track through voice, uh, fatigue. And so we're releasing a product later on this year. It's, it's, it's, uh, being clinically validated and studied right now. Um, that is a massive, uh, uh, opportunity because you're right. You know, people aren't getting enough sleep typically.

Um, and it, we all know, you know, sleep is, is, uh, affecting so many other aspects, um, in this, um, [00:57:00] These crazy jobs that we all work at. So,

[00:57:04] David Rice: well, all right. We are unfortunately up against time, but I want to thank you all for being here and for joining us stage, John, Elena, David, for giving us your time and your expertise, this was fantastic.

[00:57:17] David Liu: Thanks for having us.

[00:57:19] David Rice: Absolutely. Well, everybody, uh, be sure to join us again for our next one. As always, it's a, it's a pleasure to host these and, and have these conversations that we hope that, uh, are at least if nothing else, thought, thought provoking for you and your roles, but also helpful and actionable.

So, uh, until next time. Take it easy.