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Helllooooo,

Apologizes for my delay in getting into your inbox!! I'm having a Monday.

How are we feeling on this last day of March?

1 quarter down, 3 more to go this year.

It’s been an eventful Q1 both professionally and just in the general world. Lots of changes to navigate and uncertainty about the future.

Which is why for today’s last newsletter of the quarter, I’m going to try to imagine what the future could look like for HR!

DUN DUN DUN!!!!!

Honestly, it’s times like these I really wish I had a crystal ball to just tell me. Like what will my life in HR be like in the next few years??? What will consume my every thought?!

Today, I have my hunches of what that could be. But I’m either going to be spot on or so wildly wrong. Guess we’ll see together?

On the note of things I AM SURE about though…

📺 Authentic leadership! This month’s HR Therapy digs into the role of self-awareness in leadership and the role of HR in helping leaders grow. One of the top complaints I hear is about leaders and their lack of awareness, so here’s your chance to learn how to handle that from some experts.

Before we get into today’s newsletter about the future, 🕌 Eid Mubarak to those celebrating!

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HR'S ROLE

The Future of HR:

Do you ever feel like HR is at a crossroads?

The last few years it feels like there’s this tug - a push and pull of where HR was and where HR wants to go.

This entire quarter I’ve tried to demystify what HR’s role is in an effort to create space to dream about what HR could be…

Some top hits from this quarter:

Now, I want to dream of what HR could be!!

BUT FIRST: What do you want HR to be?

If you could close your eyes, wave a magic wand and have HR be whatever you wanted, what would you imagine?

I’ll give you my vision: HR that sits at the center of people and progress. A function that is deeply strategic, balancing employee wants and needs with what is possible for the business. Our work is focused on building inclusive cultures with policies that strive to remove bias and barriers for all groups.

Sounds nice right?

While I think we’re a ways to go from that being a reality for everyone in HR, here are some things I think could define HR in the future to get us a bit closer to my vision:

Skills
AI
Wellbeing

Let’s dig into each one!

We’ll be skills experts:

We’ve been hearing about things like skills based hiring for a while, so I don’t think you’ll be surprised to see that in the future I expect HR to be even more focused on skills.

In the past there was this focus on job architecture and building models with clear cut roles and responsibilities, almost putting what someone does into a fixed box.

The problem? It can feel incredibly static.

Look nothing against job architecture - I still think it’s super important but I also believe there’s this flexibility that comes with focusing on skills that could be a better approach.

And truthfully, this approach could differ depending on what the organization needs. Some larger organizations may not be interested in pivoting away from job architecture.

But the organizations that do? Well they could unlock an edge.

The future will need to be more fluid when it comes to employee roles and capabilities because work is moving faster than ever before.

Especially with the introduction of new technologies like AI.

Not only that, employees also have expressed that they want more fluid careers. Gen Z seems less concerned with climbing a corporate ladder and more concerned with developing the skills they need. You love to see it!

With all of that being said, I think HR in the future will become experts on skills. (Some of us are already!!!)

HR will be at the center of understanding:

What are the core capabilities that define our organization today?
Which emerging skills are actively developing within our teams?
Where are our critical skill gaps—and how are they impacting our goals?
What skills will be essential to our success in the next 1, 3, and 5 years?

⭐ Internal talent mobility will become a real strategy where organizations can shift employees to focus on the most critical projects more easily and efficiently!

The bottom line: A focus on skills allows organizations to be more personalized and adaptable.

We’ll be AI enabled:

AI this, AI that…

AI will not replace HR, it will enable HR.

I believe in the future all HR teams will be AI-enabled.

Why?

Because AI can handle transactional tasks so HR can focus on the work that truly helps a company moving the needle.

I see AI handling things like:

Drafting policies
Analyzing large amounts of data
Automating workflows
Answer employee questions

So that HR leaders can focus on work like:

Coaching leaders
Designing inclusive systems
Analyzing policies
Listening to employees

AI will free up HR leaders to be more strategic, leverage their empathy better and create impact in their organizations.

AI curious? Check out some of these tools:

Kinfolk: AI agents for HR + employee support
Textio: Helps managers give actionable feedback without bias
AllVoices: For employee relations and anonymous reporting

I would also put money down that any HR tool in your tech stack is rolling out some sort of AI automation. It’s worth doing an audit to see where your gaps are.

The bottom line: if you find yourself doing something over and over again, it might be worth thinking: can I automate this?

We’ll weave wellbeing into everything:

Employee wellbeing really had a moment in 2020 as our lives were turned upside down with the pandemic and the shift to working at home for knowledge workers.

What quickly became clear during the start of the pandemic was that there was a big gap in how we supported many groups at work.

It’s like until COVID we didn’t really stop to ask ourselves - is this all sustainable?? And is what we’re doing REALLY working?

We saw moms depart the workplace, caregivers struggle with finding care and employees adjust to different ways of working.

Burnout became the topic de jour and it was evident that burnout was a big business risk.

✨ Enter the wellbeing focus. ✨

And I believe that we’re just getting started NOW and in the future wellbeing will be woven into everything HR does.

What does that actually mean?

It could look like:

⭐ More personalized benefits. Let’s be real, traditional insurance isn’t really cutting it these days. The need for more personalized benefits is already here!! Things like menopause support, fertility care, financial coaching, trans inclusive healthcare and neurodivergent coaching are becoming add-ons to traditional benefits. I think this trend will continue in the future and HR will become the architect of building the best set of benefits for their specific needs.

Check out these companies:

⭐ Life-centered leave policies: We’re all familiar with vacation, illness and bereavement leave but frankly, those categories don’t cover it all. In the future I'm hopeful we’ll consider more flexible leave options that revolve around real life moments. Things like grief, menstrual days, mental health days, even sabbaticals should be on the table. Hey, a girl can dream!

⭐ Better Management: Okay this one you might think is a reach but your manager has more of an impact on your mental health than your partner!!! So, you want to care about employee wellbeing?? Start with the group that could be doing harm… your managers. I believe in the future managers must be trained more in how to handle things like team dynamics, emotional intelligence, and signs of burnout. It shouldn’t be HR’s job to check-in with every employee. We should arm managers to do this work as they are having the biggest impact on an employee’s day to day. I dream of a future that has less toxic managers.

At the end of the day employee wellbeing is a business imperative and HR could play the role of architect.

Up next:

New quarter means a new theme!!!!

And continuing with the inspo from music comes another banger…

Remember when Cyndi Lauper said Girls Just Wanna Have Fun?

✨Well, I give you the Hebba Youssef twist… ✨

Employees just want ______.

All of Q2 I’ll be inserting words into that ____ and talking about what employees REALLY want and need…

DOUBLE WHAMMY: I'll have guests on the pod to share their POV of what they think employees want.

Q2 is already looking brighter! ☀️

(HUMAN) RESOURCES

FCC investigates Disney for DEI practices
Minnesota gov’t return to office plan
Return to office mandates are bad for employees and innovation…
Taking action on climate change in Europe VS the US

WORK-LIFE BALANCE

📚 What I’m reading: Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins. I was an OG Hunger Games fan - reading before the movies came out. I think my sister actually introduced me to this series and I couldn’t put it down. If you haven’t read any of her work I’d recommend starting with the OG series and not the prequels. I know, counterintuitive but trust me. I am excited to dive back into this series.
📺 What I’m watching: Survival of the Thickest season 2. I LOVE LOVE LOVE Michelle Buteau big time and to see her show return for season 2 made me so excited. The fashion! The cultural relevance! The humor! The friendships!! The inclusion!! This show has it all and more, highly recommend moving to the top of your list.
👋🏽 What I’m obsessing over: Multivitamins - lately i’ve been trying to figure out my vitamin game. Do I need them? (Yes, I'm deficient in vitamin D) Do they work? (I think so??) Which ones should I take? (IDK HELP ME) So if you are on top of your vitamin game, help me out please!

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SONG OF THE WEEK

🎧 The Giver, Chappell Roan

If there’s one thing to know about me its that I’ve grown to love country music over the last decade or so.

Shoutout to my friend Caitlin for introducing me to some of my new faves! Before that I was a big The Chicks fan - specifically Goodbye Earl.

This new Chappell Roan song feels like that to me! Now, if you’re a die hard country fan please don’t be offended by my lack of knowledge. 🙂

That's all for this week! I hope you enjoyed this, please let me know what you think and what other topics you'd love for me to cover. I'm allll ears.

Reminder: Take care of yourself and know that I support you.

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