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Hi ya party people,

Happy Friday!

I hope this week was filled with some much-needed relaxation and joy.

Knowing holidays can be stressful for so many reasons, I'm sending you alll the good vibes.

The year is ALMOST OVER, and all I wanna do right now is read a book, eat a snack, and lie down. 😅

But first—we’re talking tools, tools, and more tools this week!

What’s one tech must-have you should be adding to your HR stack?

And with 2025 right around the corner, what are the latest tools that can help you tackle employee engagement once and for all? 📲

As always, the amazing People leaders from the Safe Space community are here, sharing their expert opinions!

So before you slam your laptop shut, let’s get into it!

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ASK AWAY

🛠️ 2025 tech stack

✍🏽 What's one tool that I absolutely should have in my HR tech stack?

📣 Liz Clarke, Head of People @ Environmental Health & Engineering, Inc.:

These don't technically count as "HR" tools, but as soon as I started using project management tools, like ClickUp and Notion, they completely changed the game for running daily HR operations, workflows, and projects (seriously....where have Gantt charts been all my life!? 🤩)

If you're not using one already, I HIGHLY recommend giving them a try. They're usually promoted to project managers, but we run a TON of projects and complex workflows in HR, so having a tool ensure that strategic initiatives don't get suffocated by the daily fires is a MUST.

Safe Space members can join this discussion here. Not a member yet? Apply to join here.

✍🏽 What are some new tools I should explore in 2025 to help out with engagement issues?

📣 Abbe Solomon Vacek, EVP Operations @ Change Research:

There are so many ideas and tools available to increase employee engagement. Are you remote, in person or hybrid? First, I recommend you drill down on how your organization defines "engagement." From there, establish goals about what engagement success looks like. For example, are you seeking greater interaction at team meetings, more folks showing up for social time, more positive feedback on surveys about how folks feel engaged, Slack (or similar) chatter, or something else? Once you understand the gaps between where you are and where you want to be, you can find tools and creative ideas to help.

As an example, we found the younger, less experienced members of our team were not engaging on any company calls — their team and broader. The manager and I discussed ways to draw them out, invite them to the table, actually ask them direct questions in meetings, and to design meeting agendas around their ideas and successes.

Sometimes tools are the answer, and there are so many available, so you want to be clear on your goals before you buy.

Safe Space members can join this discussion here. Not a member yet? Apply to join here.

Safe Space members can contribute to discussions like these with other HR leaders who get it.

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🚨 ON YOUR RADAR

🎧 I Hate It Here Podcast: I'm always dropping new episodes with your favorite People Ops leaders! Check it out on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!

💰 Pay Transparency matters (but it's also difficult). That's why I created this course. Join the Safe Space community to access it, plus everything else you need to stay ahead of the curve.

❤️ From ‘I Hate it Here’ to ‘I Love it Here’: Your Culture Transformation Roadmap. HR can influence culture change in any organization, and this course teaches you how. Join the Safe Space community to access it!

📝 RESOURCE OF THE WEEK

Each week I feature a resource I love from the Safe Space library that I believe would be relatable to this week's newsletter topic.

This week I’m featuring my HR Therapy sesh with Noah Warder, Head of People at Gusto. We covered everything you need to know about HR tools – so you can turn your tech stack into less of a necessary evil and more of a strategic ally. Check out the replay HERE ⬇️