Heroes of HR
Heroes of HR
Podcast Description
Heroes of HR is your backstage pass to the unsung champions of every workplace—the People Heroes. This limited-series podcast, brought to you by isolved, cuts through the fluff to highlight the real leaders, innovators, and change-makers redefining HR, payroll, and talent management.
Each short, bingeable episode hits the big questions head-on: What’s keeping you up at night? What’s got you fired up about 2025? How do you explain isolved to someone who’s never heard of HR tech? And how do you recharge when the grind gets real?
We’re talking bold insights, no BS, and stories that’ll stick with you. If you’re in the trenches of HR or just curious about the people shaping the future of work, this series delivers the goods.
Ready to meet the People Heroes redefining what’s possible? Hit play.
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
The podcast focuses on a variety of HR themes including job applications, talent acquisition, employee wellbeing, and workplace culture, with episodes featuring actionable insights on topics such as mental health in remote work, nonprofit HR challenges, and leveraging AI for better hiring practices.
Heroes of HR is your backstage pass to the unsung champions of every workplace—the People Heroes. This limited-series podcast, brought to you by isolved, cuts through the fluff to highlight the real leaders, innovators, and change-makers redefining HR, payroll, and talent management.
Each short, bingeable episode hits the big questions head-on: What’s keeping you up at night? What’s got you fired up about 2025? How do you explain isolved to someone who’s never heard of HR tech? And how do you recharge when the grind gets real?
We’re talking bold insights, no BS, and stories that’ll stick with you. If you’re in the trenches of HR or just curious about the people shaping the future of work, this series delivers the goods.
Ready to meet the People Heroes redefining what’s possible? Hit play.
What happens when a standalone ATS evolves into a fully integrated talent strategy? You get a platform that doesn’t just fill roles—it fills gaps in bandwidth, strategy, and execution.
Live from isolved Connect in Charlotte, Ryan Leary and William Tincup sit down with Bridget Fleagle to talk talent acquisition, product strategy, and how isolved Talent Services is reshaping support for small HR teams.
Bridget shares the real reason standalone solutions still matter, why some HR pros don’t even know what tools they already have, and how isolved’s services team quietly does the heavy lifting for businesses too small to build an HR department.
They also dig into the tension between adding features and killing them off—why product teams struggle to sunset, what “broccoli vs. chocolate” has to do with innovation, and how listening to customers is both a gift and a trap.
For anyone building product, managing people, or just trying to hire faster with fewer hands, this one hits home.
Timestamps:
00:00 — Live from Charlotte: regional events, live crowds, and podcast energy
00:49 — Bridget’s origin story: from ApplicantPro to leading TA at isolved
02:27 — Rebranding and integration: from standalone ATS to isolved Talent Acquisition
03:40 — Turning on tools customers didn’t know they had
05:17 — Smart upsells vs. feature frustration
06:14 — Real customer stories and the power of data continuity
07:01 — Why isolved TA isn’t just “another ATS”
07:48 — Deep integrations and strategy alignment
08:00 — Presentation breakdown: candidate experience and talent services
09:01 — How isolved supports small teams lacking HR resources
10:15 — Screening, video interviewing, and hiring assessments explained
11:03 — Why trades and sub-50 headcount companies benefit most
12:09 — Inside the isolved product roadmap process
13:48 — The balance of agility and vision in product planning
14:54 — Feature bloat, user adoption, and killing your darlings
17:50 — Why product teams resist removing features (and why they shouldn’t)
20:02 — A deleted feature no one noticed: when silence is insight
21:22 — Chocolate vs. broccoli: stretching users past what they think they want
22:14 — Competitor analysis and the trap of roadmap smoke and mirrors
23:19 — Real product = live software, not demo videos
23:48 — People Heroes defined: energy, advocacy, and showing up for humans
This episode was recorded live at isolved Connect on the UNC Charlotte campus.
The Heroes of HR podcast is a limited series sponsored by isolved. isolved is an HCM platform that modernizes HR, benefits, and payroll across Healthcare, Hospitality, Manufacturing, and more.
Learn more about isolved:https://www.isolvedhcm.com/
Connect with Us:
William Tincup LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tincup/
Ryan Leary LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanleary/
Connect with us on social:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WRKdefined/
Twitter (X): https://twitter.com/WRKdefined
Substack: https://wrkdefined.substack.com/
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