Episode 165

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Published on:

21st Oct 2025

How AI is Making HR More Human with Daniel Strode

This episode is sponsored by Deel.

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In this episode of the HR L&D Podcast, host Nick Day explores how HR can use AI to become more strategic and more human. The conversation covers where AI truly fits in HR, what changes with the EU AI Act, and how leaders can turn time saved on admin into culture, capability, and impact.


You will hear practical frameworks including a simple 4Ps plus 2 model for HR AI, human in the loop hiring, guardrails to reduce hallucinations, and a clear view on when AI must be 100 percent accurate. The discussion also outlines a modern HR operating model with always on self service, plus policy steps for ethical, explainable AI.


Whether you are an HR leader, CEO, or L&D professional, this conversation will help you move from pilots to scaled adoption and build an AI ready organization. Expect actionable steps to improve employee experience, strengthen compliance, and unlock productivity and performance across your teams.



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00:00 Intro & Preview

02:25 What HR Is For

03:54 Why HR + AI Now

06:19 AI as Augmentation

07:43 HR AI Framework & Use Cases

10:14 Guardrails: Hallucinations & Accuracy

12:45 Guardrails: Bias & Human in the Loop

16:58 Recruiting with AI

21:01 EU AI Act for HR

25:16 HR Team of the Future

25:56 New HR Operating Model

31:54 Tools for Culture Change

35:35 Rethink Processes


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About the Podcast

The HR L&D Podcast
Leadership, recruitment, culture. Conversations with HR's best
HR gets handed the problems nobody else wants to own. The restructure, the grievance, the engagement survey that came back badly. And then gets asked why people are leaving.

I'm Nick Day. I run an HR recruitment agency, which means I spend most of my week on the phone to HR directors, HR leaders and people leaders talking about what the job is actually like rather than what's written on the job spec. This HR Podcast came out of those calls. I kept hearing things worth repeating, and nobody was repeating them.

Every week I sit down with HR leaders, chief people officers, L&D specialists and the occasional academic who has changed how I think about work and people engagement. We get into leadership, and what happens when someone brilliant at the technical side gets promoted into managing humans.

Employee engagement past the survey score. Diversity, equity and inclusion in a climate where saying those words out loud has become a decision in itself. Pay transparency, talent management, reducing bias in hiring, HR digital transformation and the HCM systems everyone is being sold. And of course we cannot forget HR AI tools and platforms that are flooding the landscape as AI in HR becomes a hot topic every people leader is keen to understand and leverage.

Wellbeing comes up constantly, and it usually turns into the same question. Who looks after the HR team.

I'm not an HR practitioner and I don't pretend to be. I'm the person who hires them, which puts me in a useful position. I get to ask the obvious question that everyone in the room already knows the answer to and nobody says.

No script and no polite version. Mostly it's the conversation you'd have with someone doing your job at a different company, if you ever got the chance to sit down with them.

If you work in HR, people management or L&D, or you're building a career in it, start by subscribing to The HR L&D Podcast. We have had guests including Stephen Covey, Alan Stein Jnr, Andrea Wareham and Dr. Thom Mayer among other HR Leaders who are shaping the future of work and leadership.

Need HR staff? I run JGA Recruitment, an HR and payroll recruitment agency. www.jgarecruitment.com or info@jgarecruitment.com

Want to be on the show? Nick@jgadigital.com

If payroll is closer to your world, I also host The Payroll Podcast, the most listened to payroll show in the world.

Topics include HR leadership, workplace culture, retention, people management, employee engagement, diversity, equity and inclusion, DEI strategy, AI for HR, AI recruitment tools, talent management, HR digital transformation, HCM, staff wellbeing, pay transparency, reducing bias, L&D and HR recruitment.

About your host

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Nick Day