{"podcast":{"title":"The HR Life Podcast","slug":"the-hr-life-podcast-7368906","podcast_index_feed_id":7368906,"rss_url":"https://feeds.transistor.fm/the-hr-life-podcast","website_url":"https://thehrlifepodcast.transistor.fm/","image_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/BVjrIn3cLzcZ9amAQWcRnMP_HccdWgMf8DJ0MnI2Q0w/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:1400/h:1400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9jODk0/MWQzOTZhY2IyMDVi/ODhhMWZmY2EyZTFl/ZGU0Ny5wbmc.jpg","author":"Tony Benjamin","episode_count":61,"summary":"The HR Life Podcast is a show about the work-life experience of those of us in Human Resources and business leadership. This long-form podcast is a conversation, casual, and not always the corporate line. Hosts and guests touch on everything from serious or even controversial topics to the absurdity of modern American business practices. Your hosts are Tony Benjamin, owner and founder of The Grange Strategic HR Consulting, and Steven J. Smith, Author of The Hiring Tree: Laws of Applicant Attraction and all-around important guy. Guests include the best minds in the HR world. Join the show weekly.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-29T00:17:32.802408+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-hr-life-podcast-7368906"},"episode":{"title":"EP 57 Careless Hiring, Skinwalker Ranch, and Britt Davies' Long Awaited Debut","slug":"ep-57-careless-hiring-skinwalker-ranch-and-britt-davies-long-awaited-debut","published_at":"2026-07-14T12:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-hr-life-podcast-7368906/ep-57-careless-hiring-skinwalker-ranch-and-britt-davies-long-awaited-debut","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-hr-life-podcast-7368906","url":"https://share.transistor.fm/s/5e4a9233","audio_url":"https://media.transistor.fm/5e4a9233/2208b7bd.mp3","summary":"Britt Davies started her HR career before she graduated High School, and is most recently in the tech industry, which puts her right in the middle of the layoffs and AI anxiety everyone keeps talking about. She joins Tony and Steve for a real conversation this time, after her first appearance got lost to a technical glitch, and she comes with a historian's eye for how we got here. Britt walks through the shift from Peter Drucker's era of management theory to Jack Welch's forced ranking system in the 1980s, and makes the case that every major leap in technology, from the printing press to the steam engine, has followed the same pattern: fear first, then a new frontier nobody saw coming. She also gets personal about why AI matters to her beyond the workplace, and she doesn't hold back on what concerns her either. And what does Gallup's engagement data, now the lowest it has been since the pandemic, actually tell us about the people managing others, not just the people being managed? Britt has answers, and a few surprising ones. Stick around for how her idea of an annual girls trip involves Bigfoot, Skinwalker Ranch, and a paranormal conference most people have never heard of. Learn more about Britt Davies at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brittdaviespeople/ Check out Britt's podcast, The At Will Economy at: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6zE64AwfH8h2UPOY3I8MxA?si=ivkG0G0STHKJSaszZjcO5w&utm_source=copy-link&nd=1&dlsi=ba57a0e82292427c Learn more about Fantastic Tony Benjamin at: https://www.thegrangellc.com/ Learn more about Steven \"Big Deal\" Smith at: https://thehiringtreebook.com/ Learn more about the Books mentioned on the podcast at: https://thehiringtreebook.com/hr-life-podcast Learn more about Dyno Outfitters at: https://www.utahviaferrata.com/ Learn more…","meta_description":"Britt Davies started her HR career before she graduated High School, and is most recently in the tech industry, which puts her right in the middle of the…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":5055,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-hr-life-podcast-7368906/episodes/ep-57-careless-hiring-skinwalker-ranch-and-britt-davies-long-awaited-debut/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-hr-life-podcast-7368906/ep-57-careless-hiring-skinwalker-ranch-and-britt-davies-long-awaited-debut.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}