Collective Effervescence: Hope From HR Leaders As They Face Challenges

Forbes

28-05-2025

Teamwork and thought leadership can overcome any challenge.
If you're in the business of HR nowadays, the world of work can feel bleak. The divides amongst us grow broader and deeper; our businesses face layoffs, real and existential threats; DEIB has become a four-letter word; the C-suite implore us to help solve and ready the organization for an AI-laden near future, except instead of building the plane as we fly it, we're dismantling and repurposing the parts as we take off.
At the interpersonal level, those of us in HR can feel like caretakers. We are the willing, compassionate warriors who strive to prevent and alleviate the suffering of others. We are a place where people air their grievances. And many times, that's a good thing.
But who cares for the caretakers?
Enter Workhuman Live, an HR conference put on by Workhuman, an employee recognition software company. My team attended Workhuman Live in Aurora, Colorado, the week of May 12th this year, and came home full of topical insights, new friends, and, more importantly, hope.
Waypower and Willpower
In psychology and the social sciences, hope is a measurable psychological state with tremendous power to enable action. Its component parts are Waypower and Willpower. Waypower encompasses the strategies necessary to achieve a goal, and willpower refers to the motivational energy required to reach it. Workhuman Live and events like these, when done well, can provide both.
For ten years, Workhuman Live has gathered HR professionals, senior leaders, social scientists, and thought leaders to explore: How do we make work more human? From the likes of Adam Grant and Trevor Noah this year, to Michelle Obama, Brené Brown, Amal Clooney, and others in past years, this conference explores a wide range of topics. It seeks to unpack big questions, ponder challenging ones, and tread on uncomfortable ones, providing a place for HR professionals to collaborate, strategize, and bring actionable insights home to make a meaningful impact. This all contributes to the Waypower aspect of Hope.
Beyond the brainpower and best practices, though, this conference provided attendees with the powerful experience of collective effervescence, a sociological term describing the feeling of belonging and connection to a group, making one feel like they are part of something larger. With high-energy visuals, engaging and thoughtful emcees KeyAnna Schmiedl and Holly Ransom, high-powered speakers, coffee bars, customizable water bottles, and (actually) good, healthy food, the week in Colorado at Workhuman Live was a place of connection and re-energization. Through this, Workhuman Live enlivened our Willpower.
Key Themes: AI is Here to Stay
One of our biggest takeaways from this year's conference was, possibly no surprise, the role of AI as a workplace disruptor. Met by some with cautious optimism, others with trepidation, and others with doomsday predictions, there is no doubt that AI is here to stay and changing work in ways yet to be fully revealed.
With heavy-hitters weighing in like Adam Grant, Kelly Jones, the Chief People Officer at Cisco, and Kerry Dryburgh, the Chief Human Resources and Communications Officer at BP, it was nice to know that we are kindred spirits pondering the question: how will AI affect the future of work, workforces, and (up)skilling? Adam Grant suggested that we tap into the collective wisdom and creativity of our own workforces by launching a sort of AI hackathon, inviting employees to unlock the best possible ways to deploy AI to improve the organization. Whether you take his advice or not, the answer is not to crawl under your desk in the fetal position and hope that AI goes away soon.
Great leaders are People-Centric
We sat down and interviewed conference presenters, authors, and leaders, and asked them to differentiate between good and great leaders. Although our interviewees hailed from different industries, backgrounds, and areas of study, they all agreed that great leaders need to be people-centric, building relationships and cultivating the best in their people.
Best-selling author and keynote speaker Cy Wakeman has been pondering this question for some time. Her insights were summed up with 'I think there's a totally new skill needed for great leaders. They are not going to manage the systems and the processes. That is for AI. Leaders should be managing the energy of their people. The new great leaders will be alchemists.' Niamh Graham, Vice President, Global HR at Workhuman said the great leaders truly care about their people. '[They] have to be a good listener, and [they] have to care.'
We also spoke with Kia Afcari, Director of Greater Good Workplaces at UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center (GGSC), who brings an academic lens to the question, given the GGSC's focus on the psychology and neuroscience behind wellbeing in the workplace. Kia shared, 'We've been doing a lot of research and writing on kindness in leadership. Known in academia as prosocial behavior, prosociality is generally defined as 'positive' social behavior intended to promote the welfare of others. Companies with prosopical CEOs perform better. Employees perform better for prosocial managers.' He writes in his article Why Kind Workplaces are More Successful, 'fostering a prosocial and well-being–oriented workplace is not only 'the right thing to do' but also a strategic business decision.'
One way to initiate a more intentional approach to developing people-centric leaders is to explore the compassionate leadership toolkit, which includes a free assessment, and consider attending WorkHuman's next conference for educational and morale purposes.