Beyond the Chatbot: What AI Mascots Reveal About the Next Wave of Business Innovation
Release Date: 07/08/2025
Nicole Blevins on HR Burnout
Transform Your Workplace
Nicole Blevins discusses HR burnout with Brandon Laws, describing HR professionals as the "emotional sponge" of organizations. She explains how HR workers struggle to recognize burnout in themselves despite helping others with similar issues, particularly solo practitioners lacking peer support. Nicole shares practical strategies including setting boundaries, scheduling breaks, using music for decompression, and building professional networks. The key message: HR professionals must proactively prioritize their own mental health and apply the same self-care they advocate for employees. A QUICK...
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How Leaders Can Heal from Stress and Burnout with Susanne Madsen
Transform Your Workplace
In this episode, host Brandon Laws sits down with executive coach and author Susanne Madsen to explore what it truly means to do the inner work. Drawing from her career in high pressure corporate environments, Susanne shares how chronic stress, misalignment with personal values, and ignored emotions can quietly erode well being and performance. The conversation highlights practical tools leaders can use to regulate their nervous system, challenge limiting beliefs, create space for reflection, and rebuild their energy through simple daily routines. Whether you are feeling overwhelmed or simply...
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Leading in Layers with Lawrence Armstrong
Transform Your Workplace
In this episode of Transform Your Workplace, host Brandon Laws sits down with Lawrence “Larry” Armstrong—architect, artist, and author of Layered Leadership: Drive Double-Digit Growth and Dominate Your Competition with Creative Strategies and Execution. Larry shares how his unique blend of art and business has shaped his multidimensional approach to leadership. Through vivid metaphors and real-world examples, Larry breaks down his “layered” model of leadership, emphasizing balance, vision, and execution. He explains why curiosity and creativity are essential traits for...
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Connecting the Frontline: Rethinking Workforce Communication with Victoria Dew
Transform Your Workplace
In this episode of Transform Your Workplace, host Brandon Laws welcomes back , founder and CEO of , to unpack findings from her latest research report, . Victoria shares what her team discovered after interviewing communication leaders across 18 industries — from manufacturing and healthcare to construction and education — about the urgent need to better connect with deskless and frontline workers. Together, Brandon and Victoria discuss how to bridge the gap between corporate and hourly employees, why 72% of frontline workers don’t understand company strategy,...
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Be Yourself at Work with Claude Silver
Transform Your Workplace
In this episode of Transform Your Workplace, host Brandon Laws sits down with Claude Silver, Chief Heart Officer at VaynerX and author of Be Yourself at Work: The Groundbreaking Power of Showing Up, Standing Out, and Leading from the Heart. Together, they unpack what it really means to lead with humanity in today’s workplace. Claude shares stories from her own journey—from leaving a two-decade advertising career to building one of the most human-centered cultures in business—and offers practical wisdom for leaders who want to foster authenticity, connection, and belonging on...
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BONUS EPISODE: Nicole Blevins on How HR Can Support Internal HR
Transform Your Workplace
HR consultant Nicole Blevins discusses building effective partnerships between internal HR teams and external consultants. She emphasizes starting with clear role definitions, addressing concerns through curiosity rather than defensiveness, and positioning consultants as supportive extensions rather than threats. Success requires open communication, regular check-ins, and customizing support based on each team's unique needs. TAKEAWAYS Start relationships with clear expectations by mapping roles and responsibilities to avoid conflicts over unmet assumptions Address resistance through...
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Wellness 2.0 - How to Build a Sustainable Workplace Culture with Danielle Dinkelman
Transform Your Workplace
Danielle Dinkelman shares her journey into corporate wellness, shaped by personal injury and witnessing her husband's burnout. She emphasizes that effective wellness programs require shared responsibility between employers and employees, focusing on five key areas: rest, fuel, play, connection, and purpose. Success depends on authentic leadership commitment rather than incentive-driven programs. TAKEAWAYS Rest is productive, not a distraction — leaders must recognize that sustainable performance requires intentional recovery time. High-impact wellness coaching achieves 20-40% utilization...
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The Importance of Embodied Safety at Work with Josh Durham
Transform Your Workplace
Construction veteran and certified polyvagal professional Josh Durham returns to explore “embodied safety” — a whole-person approach that connects physical, psychological, and physiological safety. He and host Brandon Laws discuss why practices beat policies, how simple sensory cues (calm voice, clear signage, clean spaces, brief breathing drills) help teams operate in a focused “play zone,” and practical steps leaders can use to build respectful worksites that improve retention, decision-making, and outcomes. Key Timestamps 00:00 — Welcome & sponsor; why embodied safety...
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Leading with Heart under Pressure with Nir Megnazi
Transform Your Workplace
Leadership coach Nir Megnazi discusses leading calmly through uncertainty in this Transform Your Workplace podcast. He explains how overwhelming change causes leaders to freeze, micromanage, or become emotionally reactive. Megnazi emphasizes that effective leadership requires emotional awareness—identifying and naming feelings before acting on them. He argues leaders must shift from prioritizing results to enabling team success by understanding individual strengths and creating environments where people can reach their potential, ultimately achieving exponentially better outcomes. ...
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Fixing What’s Broken at Work with Melissa Swift
Transform Your Workplace
Melissa Swift discusses why modern work is dangerous, boring, and frustrating—comparing today's tech overload to the early industrial revolution. She advocates for human-centric workplace design, reducing work intensification, and treating employee feedback as valuable data rather than complaints. TAKEAWAYS Work intensification is real: Employees are doing more tasks per hour with denser workloads, like carrying bricks instead of sponges Technology waste is massive: 42-43% of time with workplace tech is wasted; half of employees want old systems back Focus on retention over recruiting: HR...
info_outlineIn this conversation, Brandon Laws sits down with Fritz Brumder, serial entrepreneur and co-founder of WiseOx, to explore how “AI mascots” are helping organizations move from one-off ChatGPT experiments to secure, organization-wide automation. Fritz explains why legacy chatbots struggled, how large-language-model (LLM) technology unlocks far richer support and HR workflows, and what an 80/20 security model looks like in practice. They also discuss practical first-steps for leaders, new skills employees should cultivate, and a realistic one-, two-, and ten-year outlook on AI’s impact on talent and trust at work. If you’re AI-curious but cautious about compliance, this episode offers a roadmap—and a few reality checks—to get started.
Key Timestamps
| Time stamp | Topic |
|---|---|
| 00:00 | Welcome, show purpose, and Xenium HR sponsor read |
| 02:00 | Introducing Fritz Brumder and the concept of “AI mascots” at WiseOx |
| 03:30 | Fritz’s startup journey, timing the leap from video tech to GenAI |
| 07:00 | Chatbots 1.0 vs. LLM-powered assistants—what changed and why it matters |
| 11:00 | Training an AI on SOPs, policies, and compliance docs: HR use cases |
| 15:00 | Internal roll-outs first, then customer-facing support and sales assistants |
| 18:00 | Beyond chat: email, voice, multilingual interaction, and task automation |
| 22:00 | Data privacy & the 80/20 security model (private vector store + LLM) |
| 26:00 | Pricing, five-step implementation path, and change-management tips |
| 30:00 | Future-proof skills: clear problem-solving, prompt design, creative thinking |
| 33:00 | 1-, 2-, and 10-year AI forecasts—why pace feels fast but adoption is a decade-long shift |
| 34:30 | Workflow examples: AI-driven applicant screening and onboarding |
| 35:30 | How to connect with Fritz and learn more about WiseOx; episode close |
A QUICK GLIMPSE INTO OUR PODCAST
Podcast: Transform Your Workplace, sponsored by Xenium HR
Host: Brandon Laws
“The Transform Your Workplace podcast is your go-to source for the latest workplace trends, big ideas, and time-tested methods straight from the mouths of industry experts and respected thought-leaders.” — Brandon Laws
About Xenium HR
Xenium HR is on a mission to transform workplaces by providing expert outsourced HR and payroll services for small and medium-sized businesses. With a people-first approach, Xenium helps organizations create thriving work environments where employees feel valued and supported. From navigating compliance to enhancing workplace culture, Xenium offers tailored solutions that empower growth and simplify HR. Whether managing employee relations, payroll processing, or implementing impactful training programs, Xenium is the trusted partner businesses rely on to elevate their workplace experience. Learn more ›
Connect with Brandon Laws
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lawsbrandon
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Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawsbrandon
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About: https://xeniumhr.com/about-xenium/meet-the-team/brandon-laws
Connect with Xenium HR
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Website: https://xeniumhr.com/
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Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/XeniumHR
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Twitter: https://twitter.com/XeniumHR
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Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/xeniumhr