Ariel Shivers McGrew

expert panel

Hybrid and distributed work have changed how employees experience connection. Members of the HR Think Tank share how managers can make belonging part of everyday leadership through intentional communication, equitable access, stronger relationships and better work design.For years, organizations could confuse physical proximity with connection. Employees saw one another in hallways, gathered before meetings and absorbed informal information simply by being nearby. Hybrid and distributed work have made it much harder to assume those experiences will happen naturally.That matters because hybrid work remains a durable part of the workplace. Gallup's 2026 tracking shows that 52% of U.S. employees in remote-capable jobs work in hybrid arrangements, while 26% work exclusively remotely.Members of the Senior Executive HR Think Tank say the answer is not to recreate the office online. Instead, managers must deliberately build belonging into how they communicate, distribute opportunities, recognize contributions and design the work itself.

expert panel

As AI and automation take on more work, leaders face a new challenge: creating efficiency without crowding out human judgment, creativity and connection. Members of the Senior Executive HR Think Tank share how to determine what should remain human, protect time for creative thinking and redesign AI-enabled work around better human outcomes.With AI and automation becoming part of everyday work, the leadership challenge is no longer simply deciding what can be automated. It’s deciding what should be. The more capable these systems become, the easier it is to automate work that once required significant human effort.But efficiency alone does not guarantee better thinking, stronger decisions or more innovative outcomes. In fact, the organizations that benefit most from AI may be those that use it not simply to increase output but to create more capacity for distinctly human work.That decision is becoming increasingly important as AI adoption accelerates. Gallup's 2025 research on AI use at work found that the share of U.S. employees using AI at work at least a few times a year had nearly doubled in two years, rising from 21% in 2023 to 40% in early 2025. As adoption expands, however, leaders must consider how to use technology in ways that strengthen rather than diminish human capabilities.That distinction is at the center of the insights shared by members of the Senior Executive HR Think Tank. Their experiences across leadership development, HR, organizational psychology, human performance and business transformation suggest that the strongest human-AI models are not built around a fixed division between people and technology. Instead, they are designed around the different strengths each brings to the work.The opportunity, then, is to use automation to create capacity and deliberately reinvest that capacity in judgment, creativity, relationships and the kinds of thinking that give work its strategic value.

expert panel

New employees quickly learn what an organization truly values by watching what happens around them. Members of the Senior Executive HR Think Tank identify everyday workplace behaviors that can quietly undermine trust, engagement and retention—and explain how leaders can make those signals work in their favor.A new employee's first impression of an organization rarely comes from the employee handbook. It comes from what happens around them: whether leaders show up on time, whether promised meetings actually happen, whether every request is treated as urgent and whether the culture's stated values match everyday behavior.That matters because onboarding is not simply an administrative process. SHRM describes it as an ongoing integration of employees into an organization's culture, role and workplace, noting that the first days and months are particularly important for retention.Members of the Senior Executive HR Think Tank see the same dynamic from different angles. Their advice points to a common lesson: New hires are constantly interpreting small behaviors as evidence of what it really means to work at an organization. The everyday habits leaders overlook may become the signals employees remember.

expert panel

Mental health at work cannot be addressed through benefits alone. Members of the Senior Executive HR Think Tank explain how leaders can design workloads, management practices, autonomy, psychological safety and workplace systems to support sustainable performance.Workplace mental health is increasingly recognized as a business and organizational design issue—not simply an employee benefit. SHRM's 2026 research found that stress and anxiety remain significant concerns among U.S. workers, while companies continue to wrestle with employee burnout and the underuse of mental health benefits.That raises a more fundamental question: What if organizations stopped asking employees to cope better with unhealthy conditions and instead examined the conditions themselves? Members of the Senior Executive HR Think Tank bring expertise in psychology, HR, organizational design, leadership, culture and workforce strategy to that question.Their answers point toward a common idea: A mentally healthy workplace is not created by adding another program to the benefits portfolio. It is created by deliberately designing work so people can perform without continually sacrificing their psychological well-being.