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Hi y’all!

The air is getting cooler and I’M SO READY to fall. For the treats, the scary movies and so much more. Q4’s around the quarter and I, for one, AM JAZZED. 

I’ll bring the energy to get your excitement up too, don’t worry!! Prepare to be sick of me, if you aren’t already 🙂 

Here are two things to put on your to-do list for the week: 

🎧 A fresh ep of the podcast has dropped on the grey area of policies. Stephanie Shuler joins me to talk about the moments when what's right comes up VS what’s in the policy. Been there TOO MANY times. It ended up being the perfect way to end the hard truths season. 

📺 THIS WEEK ITS TIMEEEE for Tech Stack Therapy!!!! We’re getting into how to know your tech stack is failing, what to do when you can’t do anything about it, and how to move forward into the future. 

Now, onto today… the top 3 challenges we’re facing right now aka THE BIG 3.

Was this email forwarded to you?

CULTURE

Last week I covered the types of challenges HR is facing and this week I want to talk about 3 specific challenges that are showing up RIGHT NOW. 

HR is basically like Survivor. The show, not the Destiny’s Child song. 

Fire to put out here, curveball there, and somehow you’re supposed to smile and hand out snacks while rebuilding the shelter.

Every week brings a new “plot twist”: a sudden re-org, a legal change to navigate (this weekend, ugh), an employee conflict that makes you question humanity, or yet another executive asking, “What’s our AI strategy?”

It’s a lot.

And while every company’s flavor of chaos is different, the patterns tend to be the same. 

There are 3 challenges I’ve been hearing about quite a bit, regardless of industry, size, or budget. They’re not JUST trends, they’re things that are shaping the job today and tomorrow. Like:
👉 AI & tech pivots
👉 Rapid change
👉 HR capacity (aka: burnout zone)

Let me break these down!!

🚨 And if you are facing a TON of challenges and wondering WTF to do, have you considered coming to the Safe Space Summit? The whole agenda for the day was built to address the toughest challenges HR is facing. Yes, there’s a session on AI but it’s so much more than that!! It’s about leadership during these wild times, how to navigate change effectively as an org and how to build an environment where folks can actually learn and perform. And all those key sessions are yours to attend! Apply for a pass and come hang IRL. Now, more than ever, you need your HR community. 

At this rate, IDK if I can write a newsletter without talking about AI… lucky for you though I have a lot of other topics that interest me!! 🙂 

It does feel like every HR leader I know is suddenly also an “AI transformation lead.” Except, no one gave us training, no one handed us a roadmap, and yet here we are fielding questions like: 

✅ Can AI help us hire faster? 

✅ Should we let managers use ChatGPT for reviews? 

✅ What’s the risk?

Sometimes I want to scream I DON’T KNOW I’M ALSO FIGURING IT OUT AS WE GO!!!

The bitter pill to swallow: AI isn’t going away so HR has to move from curiosity ➡️ capability. 

But it’s lowkey messy… we’re tasked with making AI useful while keeping it ethical, secure, and actually human. That’s no easy feat! And I'm not sure anyone has REALLY figured it out.. 

Right now, a lot of teams are stuck in pilot purgatory: testing tools but unsure how to scale them. Or they were forced to ramp up quickly on the hot tools without a real solid plan. OR they’re feeling the pressure to emulate what other companies are doing without real, hard data that it’s actually working. I said what I said! 

Here’s how to make that move from curiosity ➡️ capability in 3 simple steps: 

1. Pick one use case: Don’t try to AI-ify everything. Start small and make sure you do that well! While it's starting small, don’t forget to pick somewhere that can add value to your organization. If your org is in massive growth mode, focus on the recruiting process to automate things like JD creation, interview scheduling, scorecards calibration etc. If your org is in retain mode look at leveraging AI to analyze exit interviews or engagement survey comments to spot the early signs of attrition! 

2. Build your playbook: Document what’s allowed, what’s not, and how employees should use tools. This sets guardrails before chaos kicks in.

3. Educate your people: Host a 30-minute session with managers or recruiters showing how to use AI responsibly. The tools are evolving so rapidly that this could end up being a monthly situation! 

The takeaway: You don’t need to have all the answers! But you do need some solid frameworks to help you experiment, educate your teams and set the guardrails. Safe Space has almost 20+ resources to explore around AI and HR. Join today and get access to all that and more. 

🔌 My plug: Sarika Lamont is presenting at the Safe Space Summit on 3 tangible use cases of AI and how to think about what your org needs to be successful when it comes to AI. Apply for a pass.

^^ easily a top 10 film, IYKYK.

Are you feeling a bit of whiplash from all the changes happening?? You’re not alone… 

Between reorgs and restructures, layoffs, new laws and regulations, shifting work models, HR lives in a permanent state of flux. 

Somehow what worked six months ago already feels outdated?? 

But employees look to HR for steady answers even when we don’t have them. 🫠

The challenge isn’t just keeping up with the pace of change, it's how you lead through it. 

HR is expected to be translator, stabilizer, and strategist all at once, all while the ground keeps moving underneath us. How fun for us??

Instead of trying to predict every curveball, HR needs frameworks for decision-making in uncertainty, something that is repeatable and you can lean on when the ground keeps shifting (because it won’t stop anytime soon).

But TBH  frameworks alone aren’t enough. The real edge for HR leaders will come from mastering these core competencies:  

✨ Clarity: The best leaders tell their teams exactly what’s changing, what’s unknown, and what the next 30 days will look like in a clear and concise way. Cut through the noise, set direction, and give people something to anchor to in the chaos. Don’t forget: “clear is kind.”  

✨ Communication: When rolling out a complex new policy (say, AI guidelines or promotion eligibility criteria), strong leaders translate the legalese into plain language, and answer the “what does this mean for me?” question, and keep repeating it until it sticks. The goal is to always be translating complexity into plain language and making sure employees feel informed rather than blindsided. Don’t forget: this often means repeating the message several times across different mediums. 

✨ Adaptability: When a project suddenly pivots because of market shifts or executives changing their minds (lol), the best leaders model calm flexibility. They scrap the old plan, pull the team into problem-solving mode, and treat the change as an opportunity rather than a failure. The key to being truly adaptable is pivoting fast, experimenting often, and staying steady while everything around you shifts. If you’re like me, you may even say you thrive in the chaos. 

Together, the right frameworks + these skills are what make it possible to not just survive rapid change, but actually lead through it.

🔌 My plug: I feel so strong about change that we have TWO sessions at the Safe Space Summit to cover this topic. One session focuses on leading through wild times with Jen Laurie and the other is around HR in the time of change with Lindsay Verstegen.

HR’s job has always been big: hiring, compliance, development, culture, pay. That’s the deal that most of us sign up for! Especially at startups where you end up doing everything VS larger companies where work can be more siloed. 

But, TBH somewhere along the way, expectations for HR ballooned. 

If it even smells like it touches people, it’s suddenly “HR’s job.”

✅ Layoffs? HR.
✅ Manager who can’t manage? HR.
✅ Wellbeing, AI adoption, culture, engagement, conflict, communication? HR.

Technically, YES these things do sit in HR’s lane.

But the weight of all of it, all at once has grown into something almost impossible. Especially when teams end up dramatically under-resourced when it comes to budget!!!!!! If I heard “do more, with less” one more time, disgusted as a rallying cry, I will actually cry. 

Not to mention, HR also ends up plugging the gaps where other leaders fall short from coaching managers who can’t give feedback, smoothing over communication misses, even acting as unqualified therapists when stress spills over.

The expectations are real, but they’re also unrealistic. And the cost is HR teams running on fumes, stretched thin, and burning out fast.

✏️ Here’s some homework for you to help you understand where you can shift your focus:

Grab a blank page and draw four columns: HR owns, Leaders own, Managers own, Shared responsibility. 

List out the work that falls into each. 

Take a hard look at where HR is carrying more than it should. Areas I commonly see are:

❌ Culture ownership because HR can design programs for culture, but it’s not HR’s job to single-handedly “fix culture” while executives model the opposite. 

❌ Being the middle man for all comms because managers can’t answer questions

❌ Handling tough performance convos because managers can’t. 

Your next step? Start training leaders on what belongs in their column AND hold them accountable for doing it. 

You cannot be everything, everywhere all at once. It’s not sustainable and HR burning out is actually bad for the organization.

The end of the quarter is upon us friends!!!!

You know what that means right?? A fresh new quarter of content awaits you… 

As for Q3, I’ll be kissing it goodbye.

(HUMAN) RESOURCES

• H1-B visa chaos
• The job market is rough
• AI chatbook as your work bff?
• Menopause at work and lack of understanding

WORK-LIFE BALANCE

• 📚 What I’m reading: Moral Ambition by Rutger Bregman. This came recommended by a coworker and I instantly dove in and haven’t been able to put it down. It’s making me examine how I feel about HR/our function and what I contribute to broader society. Casual, lol.  
• 📺 What I’m watching: Gen V. The first 3 episodes dropped and I was SAT. I loved the first season and was soooo excited when it came back. 
• 🏈 What I’m obsessing over: Fantasy football. I’m sorry I'm in two leagues and right now I’m stressy. So many players and games to keep up with! And I won last year so I HAVE TO show up this year, ya know??

SONG OF THE WEEK

When I’m REALLY having a challenging day this is the tune that can get me through. 

But, it’s actually not my favorite Destiny’s Child song… 

That honor belongs to Bug a Boo. 

On a weekly basis you can hear me whispering underneath my breath: 

You buggin' what? You buggin' who? You buggin' me and don’t you see it ain’t cool.

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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