HR Professionals Discuss AI, Tariffs and Employee Engagement at Two Ten’s HR Summit

HR professionals in the footwear community came together for an insightful afternoon of panel discussions and presentations during Two Ten Footwear Foundation’s 2025 HR Summit.  

The virtual summit delved into some the biggest topics at the intersection of HR and footwear, such as employee engagement, the state of footwear retail sales, the future of HR technology and how to navigate the impact of tariffs.  

Presenters and panelists included several members of Two Ten’s HR Advisory Board as well as leaders from other sectors in the footwear industry, such as Matt Priest from Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America (FDRA) and Beth Goldstein of Circana. (You can see the full conference agenda here and watch videos from each session here.) 

Here were some of the biggest takeaways and key highlights from the event:
 
On employee engagement 

“Don’t just collect data for the sake of collecting data. You have to make sure that your employee survey sparks dialogue and action. At Wolverine, we use survey results to build targeted action plans. This demonstrates to the team that we hear their voices. That can lead to real change and enforce a culture of accountability and continuous improvement.” 
  -  Amanda Kirchoff, VP, Talent, Wolverine Worldwide 
 
“When I first started eight years ago with Birkenstock, our leader said that the most important thing is the culture we have and the engagement that we have in that culture. That is what is going to make or break us. That is the secret to the success for an organization: to have a great culture,”  
  -  Michael Hoessl, VP, Human Resources and Training, Birkenstock Americas 
 
“We have done things like ‘no meetings Fridays’ from 12 to 5 p.m. to let employees step back and focus on heads down work to feel good going into the weekend. We've also extended some summer holidays and, for example, give off the Friday before Memorial Day and Labor Day so people have four days to recharge. Having our entire corporate employee base disconnected has been a game changer for us. We also have an onsite parent child office. We're obviously not encouraging people to bring in sick children. But when you're in a jam and you need to be in office, we have an office that you can reserve, that has toys, games, TV and a workstation so parents can work while their kids stay occupied.” 
  -  Alicia Austin, SVP, People & Organization, North America, PUMA North America 
 
On what HR needs to know about footwear tariffs 

“If everything the President has announced to date this year went into effect, our duty bill would go from about 3.5 billion dollars to 10.2 billion dollars. And if you're an American company and you're in the HR department trying to navigate and answer questions about what's next for the company, and you’re told that your company’s duty bill could triple or quadruple, that is going to have a dramatic impact on profitability and employment, the things that really help support jobs here in the U.S.”  
  -  Matt Priest, President & CEO, Footwear Distributors & Retailers of America (FDRA) 

“Consumers are potentially getting a little bit nervous about tariffs. When asked about footwear, specifically, about 3 quarters of consumers said in our survey that they plan to change their footwear purchasing behavior due to tariffs. Most of them are either looking for more sales and promotions or just simply cutting back on footwear purchasing. We think the balance of the year will be soft, due to pricing concerns, potential supply issues and just overall consumer caution.” 
  - Beth Goldstein, Executive Director and Industry Advisor, Footwear, Circana 
 
On the future of HR  

"I think a few years ago, the HR function was considered more of a personnel function. It was administrative heavy and focused on firing and terminating employees or developing them while they were with the organization. It wasn’t really a thought partner. Now, the function has transitioned to more of an HR business partner to the organization. We're helping the company enable some of the critical priorities that they're working on. Looking ahead, I believe HR will not only enable the priorities of the organization, but will become deeply embedded in those priorities and be at the center of what the organization is trying to accomplish.” 
  - Juan Mejia, VP, Human Resources, Commercial, Foot Locker, Inc. 

“Trends are really forcing HR To evolve. We had tariffs in 2019. Then we had the pandemic, and now we have tariffs again and AI. I boil all of that into one major trend: uncertainty. That is the go-forward for HR, because there's always going to be something: a business challenge, macroeconomics, microeconomics, internal strife or whatever it may be. HR is about really sitting in the room and understanding what the business is doing. When we have sales forecast meetings, I go to sit in the room and listen to what's going on with each brand to understand what the employees’ challenges are and to understand what the business challenges are. If you understand the business, you'll be able to support the business better.” 
  -  Tom McGurren, SVP of Human Resources, Marc Fisher Footwear 
 
On HR and AI 

“We have a ton of automation in place within our HR team that we're using for repetitive, mundane tasks. This still requires some human interaction, but the bulk of the work is being done for us, which is freeing up the team to be more strategic. When we talk about engagement, nobody wants to sit there anymore and do data entry or audit 16,000 reports. Automation is actually helping the HR team stay more engaged as well.” 
  -  Alicia Austin, SVP, People & Organization, North America, PUMA North America 

“You're not going to be replaced by AI. You know what you will be replaced by? A person that can effectively use AI. That's how I look at it. For example, I tell my recruiters that candidates now are writing their resumes with AI, using the job descriptions that we have used AI for. As the recruiter, you need to use your people skills and have that human interaction to be able to interview that person, because you can't trust what the resume says. That human element is not going to go away.” 
  -  Lyndsey Benson, VP of Human Resources, Steve Madden, Ltd.