Best HR podcasts in 2026

Akshay Datt

Founder of Unnati and host of Founder Thesis, a long-form interview podcast with company founders. Over 400 episodes since 2020.

The best HR podcasts in 2026 are The Modern People Leader, HR Leaders, Digital HR Leaders, At Work in America, Recruiting Future, I Hate It Here, The Josh Bersin Company and HR Coffee Time. An HR podcast is a show for the people who hire, pay, develop and keep a company’s staff: the generalist handling this week’s problem, the recruiter, and the chief people officer answering to a board.

The lists that recommend HR podcasts have aged badly. About one in four shows named on them has released nothing in three months, including the show ranked first on the longest list.

Best HR podcasts in 2026

The best HR podcasts in 2026 are these eight, each the strongest live show for one part of the job.

The Modern People Leader is the one to start with. The Huerta brothers publish more than once a week, and recent guests are the heads of people at Thumbtack, 1Password and Xactly, talking through decisions most HR teams will face within a year: handing the CPO role to a successor, rebuilding recruiting around AI, and what to do when four in five engineering applicants turn out to be fake.

HR Leaders is the close second for anyone short of time. Chris Rainey also publishes more than once a week, and his recent episodes are built as five takeaways from one company: how Lloyds decides where AI goes, how adidas pushed decisions back down to its teams, how Primark grows its own leaders. Each one leaves you with a list you could take into Monday’s meeting.

Pick by the job in front of you. A recruiter filling forty roles and a CHRO preparing a workforce plan for the board need different shows.

Best podcasts for HR leaders and CHROs

The best podcasts for HR leaders and CHROs are The Modern People Leader, Digital HR Leaders, HR Leaders and Future of HR. All four interview people who run the function, and none of them explains the basics.

Digital HR Leaders goes out every Tuesday and stays on one question: what HR can do with data. Recent episodes cover how Roblox is redesigning its workforce strategy, how Bank of America and Cornerstone are building an AI-ready workforce, and how to turn skills data into a number the business will act on. It is the show for the leader who has to defend a people analytics budget.

Future of HR, also weekly, leans toward the CHRO’s own career and influence. JP Elliott’s recent guests include the CHRO of Zoetis on her route into the role, and two organisation design practitioners on building operating models that work. For the market the function buys from, The Josh Bersin Company publishes two or three times a week, short commentary on HR software, layoffs and corporate learning.

Best recruiting and talent acquisition podcasts

The best recruiting podcasts are Recruiting Future, The Recruiting Brainfood Podcast and The Chad & Cheese Podcast. Each covers talent acquisition from a different distance.

Recruiting Future is the practitioner’s show, past episode 830 and still going out about twice a week. Matt Alder’s recent episodes ask which parts of hiring not to automate and what continuous improvement looks like inside a TA team, in under half an hour.

The Recruiting Brainfood Podcast is Hung Lee’s weekly hour, recorded live, on the tools and tactics recruiters are trying now: using Claude in talent acquisition, new background screening products, how to assess human judgement in a candidate. The Chad & Cheese Podcast is the news desk, several episodes a week on the news across recruiting technology and the job market.

Best HR podcasts for pay, learning and employment law

The best HR podcasts for specialists are Comp and Coffee for compensation, The Talent Development Hot Seat for learning and development, and Employment Law Matters for UK employment law. Each assumes you already do the job.

Comp and Coffee goes out every few weeks, and recent episodes are each one question a compensation team is arguing about: whether benchmarking can keep up with a market that keeps moving, whether job architecture survives AI, whether pay for performance still works. The Talent Development Hot Seat publishes weekly, with L&D leaders from Intuit, Sutter Health and smaller chains on how training actually changed behaviour.

Daniel Barnett, a London employment barrister, publishes Employment Law Matters every Monday at about eleven minutes, one case or rule change per episode. For US employment law, the Workology Podcast covers EEOC changes, benefits and pay alongside wider HR topics, every two weeks.

Which HR software companies make podcasts?

Most HR software companies that started a podcast have let it stop or slow to a trickle. Of nine shows made by companies selling HR, payroll or performance software, four have released anything in the past two months.

Culture Amp’s show is the instructive one. As Culture First, long hosted by Damon Klotz, it published through 2024, then went quiet for fourteen months after January 2025. It came back in March 2026 as Culture Leaders, hosted by Culture Amp’s chief people officer, released five episodes, and has published nothing since 15 July. A new name and a senior host did not keep it going. Choosing who should host a company podcast shapes how a show sounds; it has little to do with whether the show lasts. Some published lists still recommend it under the old name and the old host.

HR Party of One shows the other end. BerniePortal released about one episode a week for five straight years, more than 250 in all, then stopped in June 2025. A weekly cadence is no protection when the show depends on one team’s attention. For a company planning a show of its own, company podcasts stop most often when the person who ran it moves on, and the relaunch rarely fixes that.

Which HR podcasts have stopped?

Thirteen HR podcasts named on published lists have released nothing in more than 90 days, the common definition of a dormant show. Every one still appears on at least one of those lists.

HR Besties is the clearest case. It sits first on the longest published list of HR podcasts, and after close to 90 episodes in 2024 its feed has carried nothing since 13 May 2026. Redefining Work went out most weeks for four years, then nothing after September 2024.

HR Heretics published twice a week through 2025, and its feed has been silent since 23 December 2025. Check the date on the latest episode before you subscribe; on the published lists that one check removes about a quarter of the names.

How to choose an HR podcast

Choose an HR podcast by the problem you have this quarter, then give one show three full episodes before judging it.

Running the people function: The Modern People Leader. Short of time: HR Leaders. Building a people analytics case: Digital HR Leaders. Hiring at volume: Recruiting Future. Pay decisions: Comp and Coffee. Learning programmes: The Talent Development Hot Seat. Early in an HR career, or stuck in one: HR Coffee Time, fortnightly and under twenty minutes.

Then check the date of the latest episode on anything a list recommends. A show that stopped a year ago still teaches, but it will not tell you what changed this year.

Frequently asked questions