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Employee Onboarding

Make onboarding Your competitive advantage

Check out Jess’ best-selling Udemy course! Eligible for 1.5 SHRM PDCs.

More Perspectives from Jess

Articles and talks

  • Guidebook: Elevate Your Executive Impact

    Whether you're a new executive or looking to refine your leadership approach, this guidebook packed with actionable insights will help you:

    • Adopt a "First Team" mindset
    • Manage competing priorities across your department and the broader organization
    • Maximize your influence as an executive

    Download the free PDF now to elevate your executive leadership!

    Download Here

  • The CEO-CPO Relationship

    Inspired by a joint conversation with Jevan Soo Lenox, CPO at Stitch Fix and Michelle Wagner, CEO at Mindstrong, Jess shares what makes a CEO-CPO relationship successful, how to know when it’s not working, and how to fix it.

    Article link

    Podcast link

  • Always Be Retaining: The Art of Employee Retention

    The Art of Employee Retention:

    💸 Why to avoid throwing money at the problem

    🌟 How to identify your high impact talent

    ⚒ Steps to strategic retention

    🌶 Spicy sneak peek: "Unintuitively, don’t put people first. Focus on business needs first."

    A collaboration with the insightful and delightful Tanja Nitschke.

    Link to article

  • The Hottest Hypergrowth Hire is *Still* the Chief People Officer

    Insightful follow-up to the Hottest Hypergrowth Hire article 3 years later. Take a look at CPO market supply and demand, and get tips on how to strengthen your CPO search.

    Article link

  • AI at Work: The HR Transformation

    Anxiety surrounding artificial intelligence abounds, but as a former Chief People Officer, Jess can’t stop envisioning the various ways AI stands to enhance the workplace.

    Article

  • Wartime CEOs may win the battle but lose the war

    Workflow's Jennifer Kim and I unpack the effectiveness of the Wartime CEO mindset. Jennifer Kim is known for her spicy takes in the People space and prolific content. I've been following her for nearly a decade since her time as Lever's Head of People, and I was honored to be her first guest for her Safe for Work newsletter.

    Article

  • The Hottest Hypergrowth Hire

    The 2018 piece that put Jess on the People thought leadeship radar.

    The demand for Chief People Officers at fast-growing VC-backed companies has never been higher. The supply and demand factors at play explain why the market is so tight. And learn what companies can do to better prepare for finding a People Leader.

    Article link

  • Employee Terminations

    Terminating employees is a difficult, but essential part of the HR role. It requires courage, empathy, and careful planning.

    Jess and Ethena’s VP People Melanie Naranjo dive into this tricky topic.

    Webinar recording

    Checklist of what to do pre-, post-, and during a live termination discussion.

  • Startup Culture Diagnostic

    Laura del Becarro, founder of Sora.co (one of the companies Jess Yuen advises) shares her learnings about culture - many she learned from Jess!

    Article link

  • The post-layoff playbook: How to avoid 'survivor's guilt'

    It's hard to go and it's hard to stay. For those managing layoffs and the aftermath, tips for leaders on caring for those who stay:

    ⛑ work on psychological safety

    📢 be honest about the current state

    🤲 stay open to people’s feelings, they’ll have lots of them

    Article link

  • Inclusive Hiring

    Ethena’s VP of People Melanie Naranjo was joined by Jessica Yuen (former Head of People at Gusto) and Beth Axelrod (former Global Head of Employee Experience at AirBnB) to talk about best hiring practices from Startup to Global Enterprise.

    Link to summary and video discussion.

  • Pick up the pace: Accelerating Board Diversity

    Change is not coming fast enough when it comes to corporate boards (spoiler alert: it’s moving at ~1% per year). Dig into the current state of board diversity and the tactical things businesses can do to pick up the pace.

    Article link

  • Advice on being an effective manager of managers

    The transition to becoming a manager is often a bumpy one. What makes a successful individual contributor (IC) can sometimes make a terrible manager. It’s not surprising that after transitioning to manager, the next step can be even tougher and less supported. So how can you smooth the often bumpy road to managing managers?

    Article link

  • Neither entitled nor titled: Why we have no titles at Gusto

    The story and philosophy behind one of Gusto’s most definitive culture decisions: no titles. Any major people related decision, even the ones most aligned with values, comes with benefits and challenges. Uncover how we approached this one.

    Article link

  • 5 Tips to Finding the Perfect HR product (and Avoiding Buyer’s Remorse)

    HR technology is a double-edged sword that promises efficiencies, but can also be a minefield of challenges and changes. Many tools seem shiny and oh-so-promising. So, what can you do proactively in anticipation of these challenges?

    Article link

  • Compensation market data: How to make the most of it

    The job market is on fire, which has companies sweating over compensation. While survey data can be a useful input, balance your approach with other powerful data at your disposal.

    Article link

  • The Quiet Power of Reading with your coworkers

    A growing body of research supports the idea that reading is good for you, and in my experience, it can be good for your company, too.

    Article link

  • The Upside podcast Episode 4

    Jess discusses with John K. Anderson of Allegis Partners how she believes people operations can truly make an impact particularly when it comes to developing and amplifying an organization’s culture.

    Podcast link

  • Talk Talent to Me podcast

    In this Sept 2020 episode, Jess shares the most important elements of an early talent machine, as well when to push back on hiring plans in service of future scale.

    Podcast link

  • Reimagining Culture podcast

    In this episode of Reimagining Company Culture, AllVoices’ chats with Jess. Tune in to learn Jess’ thoughts on where the onboarding process starts for new team members, the career path for executives, the definition of culture, measuring accountability, and more!

    Podcast link

  • Quartz at Work

    Check out additional articles Jess authored on culture and workplace for Quartz at Work.

    Link to articles

  • How 6 parents are navigating their way through startup life

    In 2016, Jess spoke with Gusto’s parents about how kids and startup life fit together.

    Article link

  • Making Work Work for Parents in 2020

    In the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, Founders Circle invited SVB and Jess to share about how to support parents and caretakers.

    Link to discussion takeaways

  • Companies are changing the way they invest in employees — and it’s working

    As organizations navigate return to the office, retention rates are suffering and questions reign on how to create an equitable workplace. One HR leader has found a compelling solution.

    Article link

  • Employee Onboarding E-course (UDEMY)

    Onboarding is the most leveraged time in an employee’s experience. It can impact engagement, retention, and trajectory of a hire. In this course, learn how to make onboarding a competitive advantage for your company.

    Link to course

Books I often recommend

  • Work Rules

    by Laszlo Bock

  • Multipliers

    by Liz Wiseman

  • The Great CEO Within

    by Matt Mochary

  • The Making of a Manager

    by Julie Zhuo

  • The One Minute Manager

    by Ken Blanchard

  • The Coaching Habit

    by Michael Bungay Stanier