La-Z-Boy’s Director of Global Talent, Jessie Heath, is proving that comfort and belonging aren’t soft intangible ideas, but rather foundational to a radically human-centered future of work.
Emily Faracca
Multimedia Content Writer
Workday
Audio also available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
True to their brand’s purpose, La-Z-Boy places comfort at the center of their vision for work culture. But in a professional context, “comfort” isn’t just about feeling snug in your favorite recliner—it’s about feeling supported and connected in the workplace. It’s about belonging.
In business conversations, words like comfort and belonging can sometimes feel squishier than a beanbag chair. For Jessie Heath, director of global talent at La-Z-Boy, grounding these vital principles in real value and outcomes has been key to gaining alignment, and enacting a “radical” vision for the future of work that really isn’t so radical at all.
In conversation with Global Chief People Officer at Media.Monks, author, and AI trainer James Nicholas Kinney, Heath shared how he builds buy-in around belonging, elevates psychological safety at work, and scales a strong culture through internal champions.
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If the discussions around belonging and culture are focused on vibes, they probably won’t gain a lot of traction with the C-suite. Heath gets that.
He also gets that humans aren’t robots or numbers. They are complex, multifaceted beings with unique attributes and lives outside of work. Maximizing the potential of people is essential to business success, and at La-Z-Boy, Heath aims to ensure everyone is comfortable showing up as their true selves—even on an off day.
When you’re able to create this sense of belonging effectively, it shows up in measurable ways, with rippling impact.
“If we reduce absenteeism by 30%, that means this many more dollars for our bottom line … But then it increases engagement, it increases productivity, it increases all of these other things. And that's how you convince your leaders that it's the right thing,” shares Heath.
When Heath describes La-Z-Boy’s vision for a “radically human” workplace, the phrase lands with an intentional paradox. It sounds bold, even rebellious, yet what he’s really talking about is something fundamental: treating people like people.
“They’re not cogs in a wheel,” he says. “They have personal lives. They have home lives. They have children that are sick, mothers that are sick. They have bills to pay.”
People are navigating their busy lives while also trying to stay focused, and do their best work in a world of constant pings and rapid tech disruption. La-Z-Boy’s approach aims to center the employee’s lived experience, not as a variable to manage but a source of strength to build around.
Recognizing and celebrating the whole person shouldn’t be a novel concept, Heath laments. But “that’s not what I see in today’s workplaces.”
“If we reduce absenteeism by 30%, that means this many more dollars for our bottom line … But then it increases engagement, it increases productivity, it increases all of these other things. And that's how you convince your leaders that it's the right thing.”
As technology continues to reshape the world of work, Heath’s team is focused on one simple question: what are we doing with the time AI gives back?
“AI improves our ability to get things done faster,” he explains. “It’s about reallocating that time purposefully to the human aspect.”
Automation can streamline repetitive tasks—analyzing data, writing reports, prepping materials for onboarding—but it can’t replicate the power of connection. Heath argues that the time saved by AI should be reinvested in people: in one-on-one conversations, mentorship, listening, and building trust.
He models this practice himself, specifically blocking out the time he saves with AI to talk to his team—sometimes about work, sometimes about life.
“I saved an hour,” he says. “Okay, I'm going to take the hour, and now I'm going to talk to my talent acquisition leader. And we might spend the first 30 minutes, maybe even the full hour, not talking about anything to do with talent acquisition.”
Kinney agreed: “Because you're building a relationship. You're maintaining a relationship and finding out what's going on in her life, and finding out what's happening at home,” he said.
In this way, the benefits of AI tools can have a profoundly positive effect on empathy and relationships in the workplace. That's a transformation everyone can feel genuinely excited about.
At La-Z-Boy, the same ethos that guides the brand’s iconic furniture extends to how it builds culture: design for comfort, and connection will follow.
That means cultivating psychological safety — spaces where employees can express vulnerability, make mistakes, and grow. Belonging and performance are symbiotic, not separate. Isolation is a danger that leaders should take seriously.
“The opposite of belonging is to be alone,” Heath says. “Having no one else to help you.”
That’s why his team works to embed belonging into every level of leadership. Teams that feel connected not only perform better but also stay longer, innovate more freely, and extend that same comfort outward to customers.
Belonging and performance are symbiotic, not separate. Isolation is a danger that leaders should take seriously.
“The thing I've always loved about La-Z-Boy is that we've always focused on compassion in some way. How do we give back to not only our communities, but how do we give back to our employees? How do we focus on making them the best that they can be?” said Heath.
Belonging and performance are symbiotic, not separate. Isolation is a danger that leaders should take seriously.
True transformation, Heath reminds us, doesn’t happen overnight. Sometimes he has to even remind himself of that.
“I’m one who, my brain automatically must boil the ocean. I want it now,” he laughs.
Rather than try to instill the culture he envisions from the top down, Heath focuses on identifying internal champions: people who are deeply connected within the business, who embrace new ideas, and who can model belonging for others. “Those are the ones that are going to spread it like wildfire,” he says.
As AI frees up capacity and communication accelerates, these champions become multipliers, carrying the culture forward faster than any one leader could. “The more cultural champions I have,” Heath says, “the more time it builds, because they’re not coming to me for the answer. They already know the answer.”
That’s culture at scale, powered by comfort at scale.
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