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HELLO PARTY PEOPLE, I'm writing this with a full-blown Summit hangover. Not the alcohol kind, but rather the emotional kind. Last week we hosted the Safe Space Summit in Huntington Beach. There were four keynotes, breakout roundtables and more than a few tears. Yes, I said tears!!! Since when did it get weird to cry in public? I’ll cry here, there, everywhere don’t test me. If you were there: hi, I miss you already. ❤️ Y’all poured into me!!! If you weren't there: this newsletter is for you. I'm giving you the cliff notes from all four keynotes so you can steal the good stuff for your own team. BUT THAT’S NOT ALL!!!!!!! I was so stressy about how we had limited room at Safe Space Summit sooo I talked to the team and we decided we had to do something. THIS IS THE SECRET I’VE BEEN KEEPING!! 📣 Safe Space Summit VIRTUAL is coming to your computer screen in March 11th 2027!!!!!! Three tracks, incredible keynotes, fun, puppies (yes puppies), and even a DJ. It’s free and it’s built FOR YOU. For the challenges we’re facing so RSVP here and I better see you there! 🎧 The cult is back together on the pod. RyanMae, Josiah and I decided it wasn’t too soon for another cult meeting. What games did I make them play this time??? It’s my life mission to keep coming up with games to play with them on the pod. 🎃 HR Horror Stories (Vol. 4!!!!) is back. This is the last call for your spookiest HR stories. LET’S HEAR EM. The ones that have been submitted have my jaw on the floor!! Okay hot off the presses, your Safe Space Summit recap. Sponsored by Betterment at Work Kinda wild to imagine that your highest earners could be the reason your 401(k) fails its annual tests! 🤔 (I’m sure explaining that will be suuuper chill) Annual nondiscrimination testing checks whether your plan favors owners and highly compensated employees, right?? Betterment’s article explains in plain English who counts as highly compensated, what the tests measure, and how automatic enrollment and Safe Harbor provisions can help. Go read the breakdown before it becomes a future issue! SPECIAL EDITION What went down at Safe Space Summit: TBH: I didn’t think the world needed another HR conference. But that’s because of how I thought of HR conferences. You know the drill. Giant expo halls. Someone scanning your badge before you've had coffee or before you’ve decided you even want to talk to them. Too many sessions on "the future of work" that all somehow say the same thing. You leave with a tote bag and zero new people you could actually call. We wanted to build something different. Safe Space started as a community for HR leaders who are tired of carrying the job alone. The Summit’s goal was to be the in-person version of that! Curated, intimate, and built for people facing similar challenges. Sooo how did we do that? I can’t spill all the secrets but I’ll tell you the content can be make or break. So below you’ll find a recap of the most important parts of the keynotes delivered and how to get in touch with the speakers! Here's what each keynote taught us 👇 Keynote 1: AI has no finish line ⭐ Kayshia Kruger opened the Summit with a BANGER: AI isn't a transformation. It's a permanent state of change. She talked about how every big shift in history had friction built in. The printing press took 200+ years to change daily life because most people couldn't read. Electricity took about 40 years because factories had to be rebuilt around it. That friction gave humans time to adapt. AI's interface is… talking. So there’s not a ton of friction there?? The only speed limit left is how fast people and organizations can absorb change, and guess which function owns that? DUN DUN DUN. Us!! The three rules of change management AI just broke:
The part that got me was the rewrite of the stories we tell ourselves. Like "I used to be good at this." Kayshia's reframe: the job literally changed. The old job was walking people to a destination. The new job is building an org's capacity to metabolize change that never stops. And for anyone worried HR is "overhead" in an AI world: 74% of HR leaders say companies cutting headcount for AI are overestimating the gains. Upgrading tools without redesigning the people system has tanked productivity since literally 1951. Work redesign is THE SKILL, and it's ours. Her big idea: org charts map humans, but they can't show agents working alongside people. Enter the "work chart" map tasks, not titles. What stays human, what gets automated, what goes to an agent. Steal this:
📣 And if you’re curious about how to make a work chart, Kayshia was kind enough to agree to join me for A LIVE BUILD in Claude! Come hang out with us as we build. Keynote 2: Storytelling is a HR superpower How many times have you had to make the business case for… your own existence? (Don't answer that. I already know.) ⭐ Tara Turk-Haynes took the stage and made this point: HR keeps losing the room because we bring data when the room wants a story. So she gave us a framework, the origin arc:
Two moves I'm stealing immediately:
Then she flipped the story to a very relevant example, recruiting. Most interviews sound like interrogations. Tara treats them like character development. Her favorite question to ask:
Biggest takeaway: know your own origin arc before you pitch the business one. If your "why" isn't clear, nobody else's will be either. And if you missed it, Tara has joined me on the pod to talk allll about storytelling. She is a playwright after all! Keynote 3: The psychology of mistakes ⭐ John Baldino has 35+ years in HR, so when he says conflict is a money problem, I listen:
I had to read that last one twice. Billion with a go to the moon B! His core argument: mistakes are a byproduct of work, not an abnormality. When we respond to them punitively, people don't stop making mistakes. They stop telling you about them. And the "I told you so" culture, especially from the top, kills any appetite for risk-taking. One line I wrote down immediately: punishment is not the same as consequence. Mic freaking drop. 🎤 You can hold people accountable without making them afraid to raise their hand. Compliance and psychological safety are not mutually exclusive. His framework for handling a mistake:
Then he went somewhere I didn't expect, forgiveness at work. Not the religious kind. The functional kind. Grudges decay the person holding them, not the target. Forgiveness is just taking back someone's power over your decisions today. And HR? We walk around with a judgment framework by default. It's really easy to slip from professional judgment into blame. (Guilty.) My favorite moment was in the Q&A! Someone asked what to do when a senior leader won't let go of an employee's old mistake. John's answer: ask them, "What's the parole time? Give me a real metric." I CACKLED. Then I wrote it down. Then I cackled again. Steal this:
Keynote 4: The loneliest role in the org If you've ever sat in a meeting knowing about a layoff, an investigation, and someone's pregnancy, all before lunch, and then smiled and said "doing great, you?"… this keynote was for you. ⭐ Jessica Winder named the thing nobody names: the Trust Tax. The more people trust you, the more you carry. And the more you carry, the fewer places you have to put it down. A CMO can debrief with another CMO. A CFO can vent to the CFO down the street. HR? You might be investigating the CEO. There is literally no one in the building to talk to. And we're supposed to be everything at once:
Impossible. Pick one. (You can't.) Then Jess did the bravest thing I've seen on a stage and she gave me permission to share this here! She shared her story about being a Director of HR in active addiction, still performing at a high level, still getting promoted. "I was getting promoted and I was dying." The people around her knew something was off, but she was the HR person. She’s now 6 years sober. She made a point to say: who helps the HR person? Her message was simple: if you keep saying "I'm fine" and you're not, reach out. And when burnout tips into not caring anymore, that's not a vibe. That's a warning sign. Her action item is the one I'd like you to do this week. ✍🏽: HOMEWORK: Build your personal board of directors, people outside work who know what this job is really like:
Open your phone. Write one name next to each. If a slot is blank? That's what Safe Space is for. Because like Jess said: you can't find your safe space in your job. Go check out Jess's book, The Hidden Gem plus her podcast and newsletter. The close: Four keynotes. Four totally different topics: AI, storytelling, mistakes, loneliness. And somehow they all touched on: we can't do this job alone AND we were never supposed to. Kayshia reminded us that for the first time, HR isn’t the cleanup crew. We’re standing at the front. Tara told us to know our own story. John told us to stop carrying grudges (and to ask for the parole time). Jess told us to fill our board of directors. I said it on stage and I'll say it again here: we cannot do this job with out each other and finding YOUR people can be life changing. So whether you were in Huntington Beach or reading this from your desk between back-to-backs, come find your people in Safe Space? ❤️ Thank you to every speaker, every sponsor, and every single one of you who showed up and got real. And don't forget you can join us virtually in March! More tracks, more speakers like the ones mentioned here and you can join from ANYWHERE. They'll have to call me miss worldwide. Sponsored by Warp We’re told constantly that AI can do all this useful stuff…can it help with the benefits mess?? 😩 Warp’s free, 30-min AI Prompts for HR: Benefits Workflows webinar will be reshaping how you manage and communicate benefits! Gabriella Garcia studied computer science at MIT, worked at Google, Apple, and Meta, and now leads Operations + People at Warp. She’ll share her exact benefits admin prompts, demo them live, then take your questions. 🤓 Register and learn something you can use right after the webinar tab closes! (HUMAN) RESOURCES
*These are brought to you by my amazing brand partners WORK-LIFE BALANCE
SONG OF THE WEEK 🎧 Know that I Know, Lake Street Dive I fee like its been a MINUTED since i've shared some Lake Street Dive. I love this band and have been blessed to see them live a few times. There's just something about the lead singer's voice that just feels like your transprted to another time. 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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