311: The Business Case for Caring with David Barrett

Most companies have no idea how their employee experience actually compares to their competitors. Not because the data doesn't exist. Because nobody's looked at it. David Barrett, founder and CEO of Welliba, built a platform that does exactly that, using publicly available information to measure workforce sentiment across hundreds of thousands of organizations.  The companies that treat their people well are outperforming the ones that don't. That's the short version. The longer version is more interesting, and a little harder to sit with. If you work in HR and you've ever been asked to justify a people investment with hard numbers, this conversation is the one you've been waiting for. In this episode, you'll hear: What six years of S&P 500 data shows about employee experience and business performance Why the strongest predictor of high performance isn't technology, pay, or flexibility What companies that are profitable but burning people out actually look like in the data Why most pandemic-era people investments never got properly validated Why the manager and coworker relationship still outpredicts perks and programs What Unhappy Performers are, and why the term might be more optimistic than it sounds