The Human Element

The Human Element, presented by Wisq, is a podcast hosted by Barb Bidan where CHROs and senior HR leaders share candid stories and practical perspectives on how AI and innovation are shaping the future of HR. In this episode, Barb sits down with Diane Sanford, Chief People Officer at Unleashed Brands, a Dallas-based franchising platform that helps scale family and kid-focused experiential brands including Urban Air, Snapology, and The Little Gym. They talk about building a culture ready for AI, practical automation wins, and the three things employees need from leaders to trust a transformation. Subscribe today.

Diane Sanford has a clear view on the real risk AI poses to employees, and it is not what most people expect. "The only way AI is going to circumvent a human in most jobs is people will be replaced by other people who really know how to use it and get the most out of it."

Sanford is the Chief People Officer at Unleashed Brands, where she leads people strategy across a portfolio of purpose-driven, kid-focused experiential brands. With more than 25 years in HR leadership, her approach to AI starts not with tools but with culture, and specifically with the trust that makes adoption possible in the first place.

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We Are in a New Industrial Age

Sanford frames the current moment directly. "We are in the equivalent of a new industrial age. Change is constant and we need to embrace it." Companies are not exponentially adding headcount to get more done. They are expecting more from the people they have. AI is how individuals and teams meet that expectation without burning out.

Her message to employees is straightforward: if AI can help you do more things better and more quickly, and get you out the door when you want to leave, why would you not learn to use it? That framing shifts the conversation from threat to personal advantage.

Unleashed Brands is building a formal program around AI fluency, launching in early Q1, designed to remove the mystery and give people a framework for experimentation. They are also asking employees to look at their own jobs and identify which processes are repetitive and which questions they answer on repeat. The invitation is to volunteer: what can be automated?

To back that up, Sanford hired a dedicated work automation specialist this year, specifically to help eliminate redundancy across the organization so people can spend their time on work that is more strategic, more creative, and more satisfying. Not moving widgets across a board all day.

Where AI Is Already Saving Time

The most concrete example Sanford shares comes from the front end of the hiring process. Opening a job requisition at Unleashed Brands used to involve a string of drive-by conversations and several rounds of email. They replaced that with an automated job form delivered via email that captures everything the team needs upfront: the P&L impact, the role details, where to find candidates for niche positions.

That one change removed three to four hours of work per requisition from the people team and took two to three days out of the overall process. The intake meeting moves faster. The job post goes up sooner. The right information arrives before it is needed rather than being chased down after the fact.

Beyond hiring, the team uses AI to benchmark salaries quickly across multiple demographics, augment job descriptions by loading in what they have and asking what is missing, and build post-hire surveys including 60-day check-ins to stay connected to new employees and catch issues before they become problems. "It's helped us move faster. We run very lean. It's made us so much more efficient."

The 3 Cs

Unleashed Brands operates across multiple franchise models, each with its own brand identity and culture. Keeping it all coherent falls to Sanford, and her framework for doing that is built around three things she calls the 3 C's.

Credibility comes first. Employees want leaders who mean what they say and do what they say. The gap between stated values and actual behavior is where culture breaks down. Sanford's job is to make sure the systems and behaviors at Unleashed Brands match the things the organization says are important.

Communication comes second. People need to know where they fit and why their work matters. This is especially important during a transformation as significant as AI adoption, where silence or vagueness breeds anxiety. Clarity about what is happening and why it is happening gets alignment faster than any mandate.

Connection comes third. People want to be part of something bigger than their individual role. At Unleashed Brands, that larger purpose is genuine: the Unleashed Brands Foundation supports kids' charities, and the company's broader mission is to unlock what makes kids special and help them learn, play, and grow. Tying day-to-day work to that mission gives it meaning that outlasts any single project or initiative.

"Whoever your end user is, whether you call them a customer or a guest, their experience with your brand will never be better than the one you create for your team members." That is the lens through which Sanford builds everything.

Human Judgment Is Not Optional

Sanford is direct about where AI stops and human responsibility begins. "The judgment piece on what to do with that information is still critically and should be a human stop point." AI is a way to gather more data faster and consider a wider range of inputs. What you do with that information is a human decision, full stop.

Her framing of why is one of the sharpest things she says in the episode: "There is a depth to the human element that isn't there in AI unless you tell it to go there." AI does not know the unintended consequences of a decision unless you prompt it to think about them. It does not have the context that comes from being immersed in the business every day. Leaders do. That context is not a nice-to-have. It is the whole point.

At Unleashed Brands, this philosophy shows up in how they have structured their approach to guardrails. Executive alignment came first. The leadership team had a real conversation about what is and is not acceptable before any policies were communicated to the broader organization. One of their decisions was to prohibit AI note-takers in internal meetings, driven by concerns about proprietary information and the unpredictability of where a senior-level conversation might go. They are exploring a Copilot-based solution internally as an alternative.

The reason that clarity works is that it comes with a why. "A lot of people stop at just creating a framework or a set of conditions or process they want their people to follow. We really believe in explaining the why." When people understand the reasoning, they make better adjacent decisions on their own, without needing a rule for every scenario.

Stay Curious

Sanford's closing advice for HR leaders starting their AI journey is two words: stay curious:

"It's so easy to get locked into what you believe based on just your experience. Stay curious and continue to learn and that will serve you well across all platforms."

Curiosity is actually one of Unleashed Brands' core values, which makes it a natural anchor for how they are approaching the entire AI journey. If there is a better way to do something, be curious about it and bring it back so it can be shared across the organization. That mindset, more than any specific tool or process, is what makes a culture genuinely ready for what is coming.

To hear more conversations like this one, subscribe to The Human Element wherever you get your podcasts.