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But First, Coffee

But First, Coffee

Written by: WRKdefined Podcast Network
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But First, Coffee is a live weekly talk show where Jackye Clayton and John Baldino bring candid, insightful conversations about the world of work, leadership, and all things people. Each episode blends expert insight with real-world experience—covering employee engagement, leadership, inclusion, technology, and culture. It's not just HR theory; it's HR reality, poured fresh each week.All rights reserved by WRKdefined Careers Economics Management Management & Leadership Personal Success
Episodes
  • Human Interaction Requires Communication

    Human Interaction Requires Communication
    Oct 8 2026
    John Baldino and Jackye Clayton dig into why so many workplace communication habits are quietly costing companies billions. Poor communication now drains more than two trillion dollars a year from US businesses, and knowledge workers say it spikes their stress and drags down how they feel about the job. John and Jackye unpack why tools like Slack and Teams were never built to carry the weight of a company's primary communication, how self implemented software rollouts skip the change management work that used to come standard, and why building real rapport, through something as small as sharing an old photo or a favorite childhood snack, still does more for team communication than any new tool. Key Takeaways: Chat tools like Slack and Teams were built for quick replies, not for carrying the weight of primary work communication, and many teams use them without any communication strategy at all. Software rollouts used to come with formal change management and training. Today most platforms are self implemented, with a few onboarding videos standing in for a real rollout plan. AI assistants that schedule or draft communication on someone's behalf can strip out the context and tone a human sender would normally include. Teams can build communication rapport through small, low stakes rituals, like sharing an old photo or asking what people drank with lunch in grade school, rather than forcing deep personal sharing. Knowing whether someone reads deeply into messages or takes things at face value changes how a leader should frame a request to avoid causing unnecessary friction. New employees, especially those early in their careers, were often never taught how to communicate in a professional setting, so leaders should not assume this is a skill people already have. Incentive based motivation does not work the same way for everyone. Leaders need to learn what actually motivates each person through real rapport, not guesswork. Keeping cameras on during remote meetings preserves facial expression and body language cues that get lost when a team defaults to chat only communication. Shared low stakes experiences, like being part of a company softball team, build the kind of trust that makes it easier to rally a team around real work later. Belonging and inclusion depend on teams actually taking time to get to know each other, and cutting that time out removes the foundation healthy communication is built on. Keywords: workplace communication, team rapport, remote work, Slack communication, change management, employee onboarding, cameras on meetings, communication style, team building, workplace culture
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    57 mins
  • Nobody Trusts the Robot Recruiter

    Nobody Trusts the Robot Recruiter
    Oct 1 2026
    Jackye Clayton and John Baldino dig into why candidates are losing faith in AI driven hiring. From applicant tracking systems that reject resumes on a literal keyword match to AI interviewers that mishandle a candidate's name, they walk through where automation in recruiting is helping and where it is quietly eroding trust on both sides of the table. Key Takeaways: ATS tools often reject candidates on a literal skills match without understanding the context behind where or how a skill was actually used. Treating an AI recruiting system like a new hire, by training it, correcting it, and feeding it context, is the only way to keep it from making decisions on its own. Automating first round screens and interviews removes the practice reps that help new recruiters learn how to actually evaluate a candidate. Skills based hiring software reduces people to a flat yes or no match against a preprogrammed inventory instead of assessing real competency. Candidates notice when they have gone through an entirely automated process, and that experience builds skepticism before they ever reach a human interviewer. There is a credibility gap when a company restricts employees from using AI tools internally while running candidates through an AI heavy hiring process. Current AI struggles to tell the difference between a candidate with two years of experience and one with twenty, because it evaluates a job description two dimensionally rather than contextually. Hiring an overqualified candidate to compensate for an existing team's skill gaps creates the same kind of organizational blind spot that bad AI screening does. Hands on, in person evaluation, like a trial cook session for a chef role, still reveals things a resume match or automated assessment cannot. Recruiting leaders, not hiring managers alone, should own how job requirements get written, since poorly scoped criteria are what gets fed into the automated systems in the first place. Keywords: AI recruiting, robot recruiter, applicant tracking system, skills based hiring, candidate trust, talent acquisition, HR technology, recruiter training, hiring bias, AI interview
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    1 hr and 2 mins
  • LIVE from RecFest USA 2026

    LIVE from RecFest USA 2026
    Sep 24 2026
    Live from the RecFest USA 2026 show floor in Nashville, Jackye Clayton and John Baldino cover the rise of candidate fraud, the limits of AI interviewing, and why relationships still drive talent acquisition, all while touring the loudest vendor booths on site. Key Takeaways: Candidate fraud is accelerating, and vendors are building dedicated fraud detection directly into applicant tracking systems Employers report a wave of fake remote job applicants, including schemes tied to North Korea, targeting US and European companies AI interview bots still struggle with basic nuance, tone, and even correctly hearing a candidate's own name As AI takes on more sourcing and screening, the industry is debating what unique value human recruiters still bring Buyers want fraud and AI tools embedded into their existing applicant tracking system rather than a new standalone platform RecFest exhibitors are spending heavily on custom activations, from a basketball setup to a mechanical bull, to stand out on a crowded 2,000 person floor New silent session panels let multiple stages run at once, with attendees listening on headphones instead of speakers An informal poll found a large share of RecFest USA 2026 attendees were first timers to the event Recruiters suggest feeding an event's sponsor and exhibitor list into an AI tool to quickly map which vendors solve which problems Relationship building and shared humor among industry peers remain an undervalued part of what conferences deliver Keywords: candidate fraud, AI hiring, talent acquisition, applicant tracking system, HR technology, RecFest USA, recruiting conferences, AI interviews, remote work fraud, recruiter relationships
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    31 mins
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