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 HIII, Last Monday of Q3… how we feeling fam? I’m looking Q4 in the face and thinking DO NOT TEST ME this year!!! But as we allll know Q4 can go one of two ways: totally normal or an absolute clusterfu*k. My money is on clusterfu*k. What’s yours on??? The one good thing about Q4… SPOOKY SZN IS BACK!!! 🎃 And that means your fave series, HR Horror Stories (Vol. 4!!!!) is back too!! Click that link and submit your most frightening to absolutely outrageous HR stories. I’ll be reading them on the pod & featuring the most horrific stories in the newsletter. Can’t believe we’re on Vol. 4! 📺 TOMORROW!!! Dr. Ken and I are getting real about WTF is going on when it comes to AI. Yes, the data is about AI but we’re going one step deeper into the behavioral science part of it all. Like honestly, is everyone’s brains breaking because of AI? Are we losing our sense of critical thinking? Why is everyone obsessed with sending memos all of a sudden? All that AND MORE. Join us! ✍🏽 Missed Writer’s Room? I got you. LQ and I got into the questions I hear all the time about starting a newsletter: what the hell do I write about, can I talk about work while I still work in HR, and how do I keep coming up with things to say? Watch the recording and because a little bribery never hurt: publish by October 16 and you could get $3k in marketing support from Safe Space. Now, onto today… wrapping up our builder mode quarter with one final banger. Sponsored by Intuit QuickBooks Does every new hire trigger an office-wide scavenger hunt for tax forms and spreadsheets that may or may not be up to date?? 🫠 QuickBooks Workforce is evolving beyond paychecks to give you more of what you need in one place! One connected system with fewer administrative side quests sounds a lot better than what you've been doing, right??? BUILDER MODE Can I just build pls? Well. This is it. The last week of the Builder Mode quarter. 😭 Twelvish weeks of HR renovations. I tore down culture decks, revamped PTO policies, gave onboarding a much needed talking-to, and last week I discussed whether to build it or buy it. TBH: I've loved every second of this quarter and I wanted to end the quarter with a bang. Because the constant thing I've heard from your replies, your DMs, and roughly nine hundred convos: knowing what's broken is never the hard part. You know!!! You've probably known for a while. Back in August I asked what's the thing you know is broken that you can't get anyone to let you fix and the replies came in fast, which tells you something on its own. Nobody had to think about it! None of you were confused about the problems! In fact most of your stories involve everything that comes AFTER figuring out the problems. So for the last renovation of the quarter, let's talk about the three things you’ll need to do to even get a chance to build the things YOU WANT TO:
More below... Scoping it: One of the BIGGEST and possibly BEST lessons I learned early in my career? How to properly scope projects! You see, I didn’t start my career in HR. I was a project manager for a bit so I spent a lotttt of time thinking about scope and cautioning people against scope creep. Despite that, my first few seasons in HR I DEF overcommitted and gave in to scope creep. I wanted to do it all! Tear down performance management, implement a new system, overhaul onboarding all while managing the day to day of HR. A GIRL CAN DREAM. ✋🏽Needless to say, I was humbled REAL FAST. ✋🏽 Because the truth is… I can’t do it all. (I hated tying that.) And the lesson I had to learn: when you overcommit and don't scope things properly, you never get to actually build anything meaningful. You end up slapping things together and duct-taping process because you underestimated the work and said yes to too much. Scoping things out properly is one of the most important skills an HR person can possess. Quote me! How to get smart about scope quickly: ✅ Map the whole thing (project, process, revamp etc) first. Before you commit to anything, write out everything the fix actually touches, from systems, approvals, people who have to change how they work, etc. It's always MORE than you think, and you need to see it all before you can decide what the actual commitment is aka scope. Remember: scope is just the boundaries of the project! ✅ Be honest about what you can accomplish. You're doing this new project ON TOP of your day job. Not instead of it. So look at the mapping you just did and cut it down to what you can actually finish while still doing everything else. Don’t try to be a hero here! ✅ Name your v1 (and your v2). You don’t have to accomplish everything in ONE GO!! Projects can have parts, isn’t that novel. Map our what’s in your V1 vs your V2 and then be clear with all stakeholders on what falls in what part. This is critical to avoid V1 scope creep and expectation setting. Sell it: Here's where some of us lose the plot: we make the case to build something in our HR language. "The process is demoralizing." "Managers hate it." "It's hurting morale." All TRUE STATEMENTS. All real feelings you’ve heard a dozen times but it lands on an exec's ears as a “feelings” problem, which goes directly into the pile of things to care about later. Execs have a different currency. Think less feelings and more dollar impact. Things like regretted attrition, lost manager hours, bad comp decisions, or roles that stay opener longer than usual. To “sell” what your building: ✅ Translate before you walk into the meeting. Whatever you're asking for, say it once in your language, then say it again in theirs. You can bring up the feelings but IMO don’t lead with that. ✅ Bring the number, even a rough one. You don't need a perfect model!! "This is costing us roughly 20 leader hours a month" beats having NO DATA. TBH: nobody's going to audit your napkin math, they’re just looking for something to anchor to as a “real problem” or not. The bottom line: We KNOW this stuff. Stop presenting what you want to do like you're asking for a favor instead of flagging a business problem. Protect your time: This one's the real killer to every great idea!! You can scope a project perfectly, you can make a great case, you can even get a full YES. And then you'll still never build the thing… because the day job eats every single hour you have, and it will always feel more urgent than the rebuild. A hard lesson I had to learn: nobody was going to clear my calendar for me (honestly I wish). No one is walking over to say "hey, take Tuesdays off from everything, go fix performance." That has never happened to anyone in the history of HR. ✨ BOLD CLAIM I KNOW ✨ YOU have to take the time. And then you have to say what's being punted. To protect your building time: ✅ Put it on the calendar like it's a meeting. People will (hopefully) respect your calendar. You are unavailable for that time and it's yours to build as you please! The dream. ✅ Name what's being punted. Out loud, to your boss/team/everyone, before it happens. "This means the handbook updates move to December." That's not you failing to do something, it's you prioritizing the things that matter and will move the needle. Here's what happens when you don't protect your time: you end up doing the rebuild at 9pm on top of everything else, resenting it, and then it's bad. Clearly speaking from personal experience here. And it’s not because you're bad at it, it’s because it got built in the margins of your week. It’s hard to build something meaningful in the margins. And I know you want to build great things, so PROTECT YOUR TIME. What’s next: Builder mode is really just a mindset. Most of you already know what’s broken! What's been standing between you and fixing it isn't insight… it's a project too big to approve, a case made that falls flat, and a calendar that eats everything. Scope it, translate it, and protect the time. That's the whole thing!! And listen, I saw this with my whole ass heart: you're allowed to want to build things!!! Not just because someone assigned it to you but because you looked at something and thought, I could make that so much better. That instinct is a BIG reason a lot of us are still in this job. You got that instinct and you are a builder. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. 👀 Which brings me to Q4... 👀 We all know how next quarter goes…performance reviews, headcount planning, budget season, year-end. It is the single biggest stretch of the year for people asking HR to prove things. What worked, what didn’t, what did it all cost, and what actually changed. Why are we always being asked to prove ourselves?! UGH. But don’t worry because I bring RECEIPTS. Next quarter, I’m getting into what you can prove and what you can't. And let’s not forget, all the work you've been doing all year that nobody can see! 😉 Let me go grab those receipts. Sponsored by Intuit QuickBooks Payroll was a lot easier when your whole team fit around one lunch table. QuickBooks Workforce is evolving beyond pay runs, with HR and team management tools. Because hiring more people shouldn't mean collecting more logins too! 🤷♀️ (HUMAN) RESOURCES
*This one is brought to you by one of my amazing brand partners WORK-LIFE BALANCE
SONG OF THE WEEK 🎧 Mexico Honey, Kacey Musgraves I'm in a: ✅ Bad girl ✅ Good mood ✅ Wearing my gold hoops IYKYK!!!!! Highlight of my weekend? SEEING KACEY LIVE!!!!! 🤠 If you're lucky, I may even show you my custom cowboy hat. SHE'S GOING FULL WESTERN Y'ALL. 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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