Most companies launch employee advocacy by buying a shiny tool, running a single one-hour LinkedIn webinar, and expecting staff to mindlessly click and share corporate posts. Six to nine months later, active users drop off, executives start questioning the budget, and the company blames the software. Meanwhile, trying to fast-track employee content with AI only floods social feeds with generic noise. Today on Happy@Work, Tatiana Koval sits down with Sarah Goodall—founder of Tribal Impact and a 15-year pioneer in social business and employee influence — to unpack why traditional advocacy is coming full circle back to authentic human voices. Drawing on data from the Edelman Trust Barometer and Tribal Impact's Human Edge Report, Sarah explains why LLMs and job seekers ignore corporate brand pages in favor of original human expertise, why VPs and Directors have 4x the influence on employee participation compared to the C-suite, and how to tie employee influence directly to commercial and hiring pipelines before your budget gets cut.Connect with Sarah Goodall: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahgoodall/Timestamps:00:00 - Introducing employee advocacy and the human voice behind the brand02:50 — The workplace trust crisis and the widening executive-employee gap.05:30 — How LLMs cite human LinkedIn posts over brand pages (and the AI noise trap).09:00 — Why vanity metrics (clicks & EMV) put a ticking clock on your budget.12:30 — Connecting the silos: Aligning HR, Employer Branding, Marketing, and Sales pipelines.14:40 — Top mistakes: Why a 1-hour training and a software tool won't change behavior.19:00 — Case studies: Moving pharma and manufacturing experts from "click-share" to storytelling.21:55 — The Human Edge Report: Why VPs and Directors drive 4x more employee advocacy.24:10 — Why external advocacy starts with psychological safety on internal social networks.26:30 — Sarah's 3 core steps to launch and measure a scalable employee influence program.Subscribe to Happy@Work for more insights on modern leadership, organizational performance, and human-centric workplace culture.#EmployerBranding #EmployeeAdvocacy #EmployeeInfluence #TalentAcquisition #SocialSelling #WorkplaceCulture #HRLeadership #HappyAtWork

As organizations race to adopt AI, automate processes, and accelerate transformation, many leaders focus on technology while overlooking the most important system of all: the human system.In this episode of Happy@Work, Tatiana Koval speaks with Suzie Lewis, Managing Director of Transform for Value, executive coach, and host of the "Let's Talk Transformation" podcast. Suzie has spent more than 20 years helping organizations navigate complex transformation challenges through the lens of human systems design. Together, we explore why organizational change often fails, how leaders can create the conditions for people and systems to thrive, and why AI may be exposing—not solving—the underlying challenges within organizations. Suzie argues that the AI era is fundamentally a human systems design challenge and that sustainable transformation depends on trust, relationships, leadership behaviors, and the emotional infrastructure of organizations. Connect with Suzie: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lewissuzie/Timecodes:00:00 - Meet Suzie Lewis and the human side of transformation01:10 - Human systems as the foundation for sustainable change03:16 - What makes an organizational culture adaptive06:19 - Building relationship infrastructure and psychological safety10:28 - Map, pilot, and iterate across cultural contexts13:32 - Emotional literacy: making room for difficult emotions19:56 - Leading emotional conversations across diverse teams24:40 - Reading silence as information, not automatically as a problem26:28 - Creating the conditions for people to adopt AI31:24 - Early warning signs of disconnection and misalignment36:45 - Preparing people for change through clear communication40:19 - Clarity, accountability, support, and care during transformation42:51 - Suzie’s 3 priorities for leadersSubscribe to Happy@Work for more insights on modern leadership, organizational performance, and human-centric workplace culture. #WorkplaceCulture #AI #AItransformation #Happiness #TalentAcquisition #AIinHR #HappyAtWork #AIagent #organizationalculture