Future of Work - A Workday Podcast
Workday Podcast Network
The world of work hasn’t just changed; it’s being radically redefined. Between the surge of AI, shifting workforce expectations, and the dawn of human-machine collaboration, the old leadership playbooks are obsolete.The Future of Work Podcast moves beyond the buzzwords to deliver raw, high-stakes insights from the architects of the new work day. Each episode, we sit down with C-suite executives, AI innovators, and industry pioneers to expose the friction between legacy thinking and the future of business.We ignore the tech specs to focus on what matters: the industry trends, cultural shifts, and leadership opportunities required to thrive in an unpredictable landscape. This isn't a conversation about tools—it's a conversation about the future of your organization. Stop guessing and start leading.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Apr 7, 2026 • 17min
Are You the Roadblock? How HR Leaders Can Rewrite the AI Adoption Curve
What’s holding AI adoption back in HR? Workday’s Cristina Goldt and AI expert Harper Carroll believe it’s because leaders might be hiding the working gears. In this conversation, they challenge the 'black box' status quo, revealing why your employees will never adopt a tool they aren’t allowed to interrogate. Together, they unpack the trust–adoption paradox and explain why visibility drives confidence.
Mar 31, 2026 • 26min
The AI Tax: Why 37% of Time Saved Is Lost to Rework
AI was supposed to take the grunt work off our plates. Instead, many teams are spending their time checking, correcting, and translating AI output back into the flow of work. In this episode, Jon Lexa, VP of GTM and Operations at Sana, joins Callie Kemmer, Senior Director of AI Strategy, Growth, and Operations at Workday, to examine why enterprise AI still struggles at the last mile—and what it will take to move from impressive output to work that businesses can actually trust and act on.
Mar 24, 2026 • 24min
What is the Hidden Cost of AI Efficiency?
While AI promises speed, many leaders are instead battling 'workslop'—the friction of low-quality, AI-generated output that creates more cycles instead of fewer. Join Workday’s Kathy Pham and researcher Kate Niederhoffer as they discuss how to bridge the gap between AI hype and reality to ensure technology strengthens human discernment.
Mar 17, 2026 • 31min
Empowering the 80%: The New Frontier of Frontline Innovation
80% of the global workforce is deskless, yet most tech is still built for a desk. In this episode of the Future of Work Podcast, Joshua Secrest and Josh Bersin discuss the frontline imperative and how "invisible software" can bridge the innovation gap to stop the massive revenue leaks caused by understaffing.
Mar 10, 2026 • 26min
Is AI the End of Cognitive Effort?
We’ve entered a paradoxical era of work. While AI is saving employees an average of 10 hours a week, a "productivity bubble" has emerged. Instead of using that found time for innovation, many are spending nearly half of it reworking and contextualizing AI’s output. Are we becoming faster at the expense of our own critical thinking?
In this episode, Aashna Kircher, SVP of HR Products at Workday, and Jacqueline Carter, Managing Partner at Potential Project, dive into the psychological and structural shifts required to thrive in the age of AI. They move beyond the technical hype to explore "automation bias," the biological pull of the "easy button," and why the most important skill of 2026 won’t be prompt engineering—it will be discernment.
Mar 3, 2026 • 11min
Workday President of Product on AI’s Productivity Trap
In this Season 2 premiere episode, Workday CMO Emma Chalwin and President of Product and Technology Gerrit Kazmaier pull back the curtain on the "Productivity Bubble."
Gerrit explains why the shift from deterministic to probabilistic systems has created a massive verification gap. Learn why the next era of work isn't about faster tools, but a fundamental shift in human reasoning and leadership judgment.
Feb 24, 2026 • 29min
From Apps to Agents: Turning Global Data into a Defensible AI Moat - Future of Work Podcast
Gerrit Kazmaier, Workday President of Product and Technology, leads product and platform strategy. He discusses placing foundation models into enterprise stacks. He talks about AI transforming HR and finance workflows. He explains why unified cloud data creates an AI advantage. He outlines Sana, an intelligent work UI, and Workday’s agent roadmap and monetization approach.
Feb 17, 2026 • 17min
Why Your AI Pilot Is Failing - Future of Work Podcast
Is your organization actually getting value from AI, or are you just measuring logins? In this episode, Workday Ventures leaders sit down with the founders of AI-first companies Laurel and Uplimit to pull back the curtain on enterprise AI. We move beyond the hype to discuss why "adoption" is a vanity metric and how to identify the "aha moments" that turn skeptical employees into power users.
4 snips
Feb 10, 2026 • 11min
Workday CTO: The End of Legacy Processes - Future of Work Podcast
Peter Bailis, Workday CTO and AI/systems leader, and Jerry Ting, VP of Product Management focused on builders and product strategy. They discuss agentic AI replacing manual workflows. Conversations cover autonomous multi-step workflows, low-code builders that let nonengineers create agents, governance and system-of-record needs, and how interoperable agents will reshape payroll, recruiting, compliance, and onboarding.
Feb 3, 2026 • 5min
The HR Advantage in the Age of AI - Future of Work Podcast
Workday's Liz Jennings is joined by Kunal Sethi, vice president of HR Digital Strategy at Medtronic, to explore how AI is reshaping the future of human resources. From early wins across more than 200 AI use cases to building a unified HR strategy, this conversation highlights how Medtronic is turning AI into a catalyst for both efficiency and human impact.
