I get it. All this talk about replacing humans with machines is anxiety-inducing. Especially to those of us who work in a fields built on people, like HR and People Ops. It just means that you can program it using the same language you use to talk to your team or your kids.

Self-promotion isn’t about ego. It’s a kind of management. It took me too long realize that self-promotion isn’t selfish. Staying heads-down just makes me easier to underestimate and overlook. If I didn’t tell people about my skills, they wouldn’t know when to bring me in so I could have the most impact. Or when to just get out of my way and let the magic happen.

Certifications like SHRM and HRCI that over-rely on recall without nuance only magnify this false sense of authority. Like passing the exam makes you Solomon or something. 

Let me give you a “hypothetical” example that has definitely never happened in real life. It’ll make your blood run cold.

When teams don’t plan for leave, the work gets spread across people already maxed out. That’s not “lean,” it’s a recipe for burnout.

Most teams treat FLSA salary exemptions as a payroll hack. But you need to do more than pay someone a flat rate for them to be exempt from overtime.

I was sending out resumes, but I was having a really hard time breaking back into the corporate world. I was typecast as "out to recess." No one wanted to give me a chance at a "serious" job. 

Just like us, dogs align themselves with power. Oscar intuitively knows who the pack follows. Once he knows who’s the boss, he tries to win them over just like everyone else does. 

I forgot. I’d asked the new office manager to grab “breakfast” for the VIP meeting. I forgot “breakfast” was code for something different around here.

People Ops doesn’t have to be in-house. It doesn’t have to be full time. It doesn’t even have to “feel” like HR. But it does have to be done right.

Termination isn't just a button in your HRIS. It's a tightly regulated event. It's the kind of process where everyone is watching. That’s why HR and managers feel so much pressure to keep it confidential. But too much confidentiality means the people responsible for execution don’t have enough time to get it right. 

If you're thinking, "But wait, that sounds like my company..."  That's the point.  These situations come up in all kinds of companies. They're as common as meetings that could have been emails. 

Putting words to those operating principles won’t just help someone ramp faster. It gives your whole team a shared language to spot and fix misalignments.

The company had built an "inclusive" culture that didn’t distinguish between employees and contractors. The systems were set up to put a fig leaf over the fact that there were two classes of team members.

Meanwhile, mistrust over the final paycheck was just one in a list of disagreements leading to a quickly deteriorating relationship

Don't put up with a broken back office just because you don't want to deal with HR. A fast-growing startup needs someone with the operational range AND depth to think on their feet.

Everyone understands the need for workers to be able to take breaks during their shift, but meeting those requirements in a dynamic business

Many topics that fall under HR are subjective and have some element of unconscious bias at their core, making them a natural magnet for empl

The impressions that employees form in their first week lay the foundation for their long-term opinion of the company.

Connecting your policies to your values strengthens the power of each. Here are some practical tips for making it happen.