The modern workforce is being reshaped by shifting expectations, economic pressure, and rapid technological change. In this opening conversation, we’ll explore how leading organizations are rethinking how they attract, develop, and retain talent and what HR leaders need to prioritize now to build teams that can adapt and endure.

Takeaways:

• Understand the biggest forces reshaping today’s talent landscape
• Identify where traditional talent strategies are falling short
• Learn what forward-thinking organizations are doing differently

What’s actually happening inside today’s workforce and what are employees really thinking about their jobs, managers, and future?

Drawing from Morning Brew’s 2026 Workplace Trends Study of more than 1,000 professionals, this session unpacks the biggest shifts shaping the employee experience today from rising burnout and shifting loyalty to growing skill anxiety and uneven AI adoption. These insights will set the stage for the conversations that follow, grounding the day in real data and real employee sentiment.

Takeaways:

• Understand how employee expectations, loyalty, and career attitudes are evolving
• Identify the biggest gaps between what organizations think is working and what employees are experiencing
• Learn the key workforce trends shaping hiring, development, and retention strategies today

The future of work has arrived: a landscape defined by an AI-driven talent market, relentless regulatory change, and the rise of the fractional career. The core mandate for HR leaders is no longer administration—it is strategy.

Join our panel of cross-functional industry leaders as they debate and unpack how to build a resilient workforce at scale and bridge the gap between high-tech recruitment and high-touch retention.

As AI becomes embedded in everyday workflows, organizations face a critical question: how do you integrate new technologies without eroding the human skills that drive performance and innovation? This session explores how leaders can intentionally design work where AI enhances — rather than replaces — human judgment, creativity, and growth.

Takeaways:

• Identify where AI should amplify human capability vs replace it
• Learn how to integrate AI into workflows without losing core skills
• Understand how to guide teams through AI adoption thoughtfully

As AI accelerates the hiring process on both sides of the market, application volume is rising while signal becomes harder to identify. This session explores how candidate behavior is changing, what hiring teams are experiencing in real time, and why traditional approaches to evaluating talent are being challenged.

Takeaways:

• Understand how AI is changing candidate behavior and application volume
• Identify new risks in evaluating talent, including authenticity and signal quality
• Learn why traditional hiring processes are becoming less effective

If the hiring landscape is changing, what are leading companies actually doing about it? This panel brings together HR and talent leaders to explore how organizations are redesigning hiring processes to balance speed, fairness, and quality from rethinking assessments to redefining what “qualified” really means.

Takeaways:

• Learn how companies are adapting hiring processes for an AI-driven market
• Understand how to balance efficiency with fairness and candidate experience
• Identify practical ways to improve signal in your hiring funnel

As roles evolve and skill needs shift faster than ever, organizations are moving beyond static job descriptions toward more dynamic, skills-based approaches. This session explores how leading teams are rethinking how talent is developed from onboarding to continuous learning and how to build systems that support growth at scale.

Takeaways:

• Understand how skills-based approaches are reshaping talent development
• Learn how to design systems that support continuous growth
• Identify ways to align workforce capabilities with changing business needs

Data has become central to how organizations understand and develop talent but many teams still struggle to translate insights into action. This session explores how HR leaders are using people analytics to inform decisions, identify opportunities, and build more intentional, data-driven talent strategies.

Takeaways:

• Learn how to turn workforce data into actionable insights
• Understand how analytics can support development and performance decisions
• Identify ways to build a more data-informed talent strategy

This is an opportunity for attendees to grab lunch, find their seats in their self-selected breakout, and begin working on table topic prompts as a guided networking exercise to start the breakouts.

Burnout isn’t just about workload — it’s about misalignment. As expectations around growth, flexibility, and communication shift across generations and career stages, managers are left to navigate competing demands without clear guidance. In this session, participants will work through real-world scenarios to uncover how these tensions show up inside teams and what leaders can do to better align expectations and reduce friction.

Takeaways:

• Understand how misaligned expectations contribute to burnout
• Learn how generational and career-stage differences impact team dynamics
• Identify practical ways to align expectations and improve team experience

Format: TED-Talk + Q&A

Format: TED-talk or presentation followed by Q&A

The traditional talent model — hire for a role, develop over time, backfill when someone leaves — is breaking down. As AI reshapes work and skills needs shift faster than hiring cycles can accommodate, HR leaders are being forced to make a more fundamental choice: what talent do we build internally, what do we acquire from outside, and what do we access on demand? This session offers a practical decision framework for rethinking talent architecture in a way that's built for speed, flexibility, and the realities of today's workforce.

Takeaways:

• Understand how the build/buy/borrow framework is reshaping workforce planning and talent architecture decisions
• Identify where your current talent model has hidden costs, gaps, or missed opportunities
• Leave with a lens you can apply immediately to how your organization sources, develops, and deploys talent

Despite new frameworks and tools, performance management remains inconsistent and ineffective in many organizations. This session explores where performance breaks down in practice — at the intersection of manager behavior and system design — and what leaders can do to create clearer expectations, better feedback, and more consistent outcomes across teams.

Takeaways:

• Identify where performance management fails in real-world settings
• Understand how systems and manager behaviors interact
• Learn practical ways to improve feedback and accountability

Format: Workshop

Retention challenges often stem from deeper system design issues rather than surface-level fixes. In this hands-on session, participants will map and test the underlying systems that shape employee experience from hiring practices to internal mobility and explore how small changes can create meaningful impact.

Takeaways:

• Identify system-level drivers of retention and attrition
• Diagnose gaps in your current talent model
• Learn how to redesign systems to better support employees

Format: Workshop

Did you hear the one about the Irishman and the Scotsman walking into an HR Happy Hour?

Working in HR in 2026, do you ever feel that if you don't laugh, you'll cry? You're not alone. Over the last year, Ashley Bendell & Peter Phelan built an HR community centered around that much-needed laughter. They've held over 15 HR Open Mic Comedy events in the NYC Tri-State area and the frequency and variety of locations is growing.

This session will give you a flavor for what these events can offer. If you want AI hacks - look elsewhere. If you want the latest compliance rules - good luck! But if you want to let off some steam, laugh out loud and build genuine friendships with HR professionals that have a great sense of humor, then you’re in the right place.

As organizations compete for talent, leaders are rethinking what truly drives retention. Is it compensation, flexibility, purpose, or something less tangible? This conversation explores how companies are balancing these factors and what employees actually value when deciding whether to stay or leave.

Takeaways:

• Understand the key drivers of retention beyond compensation
• Learn how culture, belonging, and flexibility influence employee decisions
• Identify ways to align organizational priorities with employee expectations

As the workforce continues to evolve, organizations must rethink not just how they hire or retain talent, but how they are fundamentally designed to adapt over time. This closing conversation explores what it takes to build resilient, future-ready organizations from leadership and structure to culture and strategy.

Takeaways:

• Understand what makes organizations resilient in times of change
• Learn how to balance adaptability with long-term stability
• Identify key shifts HR leaders should prioritize moving forward