The Art of Workforce Science: Creating Better, More Engaged Employees

In this podcast conversation, Michael Bungay Stanier speaks with Michael Housman, Chief Analytics Officer at Cornerstone OnDemand and a self-described workforce scientist. Housman has spent his career studying what drives employee engagement, what keeps people in their roles longer, and what enables them to reach their full potential at work.

Drawing on large-scale workforce data and econometric research, Housman reframes many commonly held assumptions about motivation, performance, and retention. Rather than relying on intuition or conventional wisdom, he emphasizes evidence-based insights drawn from real employee behavior.

Throughout the interview, the discussion centers on several core themes:

• Employee engagement and why it matters far more for long-term outcomes than short-term incentives.
• The surprising role of wages, including why pay increases often have only a temporary effect on retention.
• What makes a great supervisor, and why managers play an outsized role in determining employee success.
• Toxic employees and the disproportionate damage they inflict on coworkers and teams.
• Behavioral signals—such as browser choice and social media habits—that correlate with productivity and tenure.

The episode also explores how subtle behavioral patterns, when analyzed at scale, can reveal meaningful predictors of performance that are invisible in traditional HR processes. Importantly, Housman stresses that these insights are meant to inform better decision-making—not to create rigid or intrusive screening rules.

The conversation is structured around the following key moments:

• 0:01:53 — Why employee engagement matters and how it is often misunderstood.
• 0:06:50 — Why wages are a weaker retention lever than most organizations assume.
• 0:08:44 — What defines a great supervisor and how poor management leads to toxic dynamics.
• 0:14:43 — How toxic employees influence coworker behavior and turnover.
• 0:20:35 — Behavioral indicators of productivity, including browser and social media usage.
• 0:25:46 — Where listeners can learn more about Housman’s work.

The episode offers a practical, research-driven look at how organizations can move beyond intuition and design workplaces that are more engaging, resilient, and humane—by understanding how people actually behave at work.