📌 “Do you know anyone who’d be a good fit for this role?”
Hiring managers ask this question every day. And sometimes, the answer leads to an excellent hire.
But what happens when referrals become the preferred way to fill positions because the regular hiring process takes too long, screens out qualified people, or consistently fails to deliver?
The same candidates keep circulating through familiar networks. People without the right connections struggle to get noticed. And the underlying recruitment problems remain untouched.
Employee referrals can be incredibly valuable. They can also make it easier for organizations to ignore the parts of their hiring process that desperately need attention.
🔎 Here’s something worth examining: Are referred candidates succeeding because they’re better suited for the job, or because they’re receiving a level of consideration other applicants never get?
💬 HR and talent acquisition professionals: Have you noticed differences in how referred candidates and external applicants are evaluated in your organization?
🔁 Repost to bring more perspectives into this conversation.
#HackingHR #TalentAcquisition #Recruitment #HiringPractices #HRLeadership
📄 A job description asks for five years of experience, proficiency in eight different tools, a specific degree, and a career path that looks remarkably similar to the person who held the position before.
Somewhere, a candidate who could do the job exceptionally well reads that list and closes the tab.
And the hiring team never knows they existed.
We’ve become very good at describing the people we think we need. But how good are we at recognizing someone who could surprise us?
Consider a candidate who has never held the exact title you’re hiring for but has already solved the problems your team is struggling with.
Would your hiring process recognize their experience? Would they even make it past the initial screening?
🎯 Job descriptions serve a purpose. The question is whether we’ve become so attached to our requirements that we’ve stopped questioning which ones actually matter.
💬 Hiring managers and recruiters: What’s one requirement you’ve removed from a job description that helped you discover better candidates?
🔁 Share this with someone who’s rethinking how their organization hires.
#HackingHR #TalentAcquisition #Recruitment #Hiring #HRLeadership
🧡 You know that colleague who always stays late to help someone finish a project? Or the one who quietly takes on extra work when the team is overwhelmed?
When was the last time someone acknowledged what they did?
We spend so much time discussing workplace culture, yet some of the things that shape our daily experience at work happen in conversations, meetings, and ordinary interactions that nobody thinks twice about.
Giving someone credit when they’re not in the room. Respecting a colleague’s time off. Noticing when someone has gone unusually quiet. Making space for the person who keeps getting interrupted.
None of these require a leadership title, a budget, or anyone’s permission.
💬 What’s one small gesture from a colleague that you’ve never forgotten?
🔁 Share this with someone who makes your workday a little better.
#HackingHR #WorkplaceCulture #KindnessAtWork #EmployeeExperience #Leadership
Where Should HR Invest in AI? Practical Frameworks from Our Chicago Workshop, in partnership with @kinfolkhq and Marsh Agency.
linkedin.com/pulse/where-sho…
AI can make the work easier. But does easier mean better?
In 2025, researchers at Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University found that greater confidence in GenAI was associated with less critical thinking.
In L&D, teams now use AI to assist with tasks that used to be time-consuming, like generating ideas, structuring content, and drafting course materials and assessments.
While AI does some of the heavy lifting that once kept us busy, it creates more opportunities to apply our knowledge and critical thinking. We can invest more of our expertise in designing human-centered learning experiences and improving the learning journey based on evidence.
This simple framework captures where human expertise matters across the learning workflow.
🌟 The shift from AI tools to orchestration will be the theme of iSpring AI Days 2026, a free virtual conference on October 28.
The event will gather L&D specialists and consultants, instructional designers and curriculum developers, HR and talent development professionals, eLearning developers, educators and eLearning enthusiasts, and business owners.
What you'll learn:
- Why culture determines whether AI adoption actually succeeds
- How to build ethical, secure, and compliant AI practices into your L&D processes
- Practical ways to keep pace with changes in AI without burning out your team
- How to evaluate AI-generated course content
- Why expertise gained through hands-on experience remains essential to using AI well
👉 Register for free: bit.ly/4ebrBKp
💬 What would you add to the framework?
#LearningAndDevelopment #AIOrchestration #FutureOfLD #AIinHR #HumanResources #employeetraining #GlobalHR
ALT Infographic titled “Human Expertise in L&D in the Age of AI Orchestration,” presenting four areas where human expertise matters when working with AI: Learning Architecture, including shaping structure, considering examples, calibrating challenge, and validating assessments; Responsible Judgment, including verifying outputs, protecting information, disclosing AI use, and owning outcomes; Learning Quality, using the SURE framework: Simple, Useful, Resonates, and Easy; and Evidence of Learning, using learner feedback, learning outcomes, analysis, and improvement to understand impact. The infographic promotes iSpring AI Days 2026, a free virtual conference on October 28.
When an organization wants to engage talent in another country, the employment model itself is a workforce-design decision.
Today, in partnership with @remote, we explore how to make that decision and when to revisit it: bit.ly/4hGMzmM
#workforcestrategy #workforceplanning #globalhiring #skillsgap #talentmanagement #talentacquisition #HRLeadership
How much time are people spending “helping AI” save them time?
Glean’s 2026 Work AI Index surveyed 6,000 digital workers across the US, UK, and Australia, and they estimated that they spend 6.4 hours a week “botsitting”:
🔸 → 2.3 hours spent on supplying context
🔸→ 2.2 hours spent supervising its outputs
🔸→ Finally, 1.7 hours spent debugging AI mistakes
With better tools and integrations, it is possible to reduce repeated context-setting and avoidable errors. However, checking accuracy, applying judgment, handling exceptions, and taking responsibility for the result remain human work. It can't be delegated to AI.
The same study found that employees who improved both quality and productivity spent a greater share of their AI time on these activities.
This brings us to a question leaders should focus on:
Which parts of this work can we reduce, and which must be planned into the workflow?
Next week, we are kicking off Women Leading AI Transformation, a 5-week Micro Certificate Program, led by @MalvikaAtvis . We will examine these questions alongside other decisions organizations are facing:
You will walk away with:
🔸 An understanding of whether your organization is ready for AI transformation
🔸 Frameworks to help you redesign workflows, roles, and decision rights for human+AI collaboration
🔸 Ways to measure the capacity AI creates, but also the cognitive load it puts on people
🔸 Strategies to address bias, employee monitoring, workplace surveillance, and responsible governance
Starts October 14
📅 Five live classes, Live & Online
🗓️ Wednesdays, 8:00–10:00 AM PT
🎓 Included with Hacking HR Premium and Premium+
After completing the course, you will get a digital diploma, a Pearson badge, and 10 HR Credits (SHRM + HRCI+ IHRIM)
👉 Learn more and enroll: bit.ly/3UhjsNX
#AI #HR #FutureOfWork #AITransformation #HRLeadership #WorkRedesign #AIinHR
ALT Graphic titled “The Hidden Work AI Time Savings Miss.” It identifies five types of human work that remain across an AI-supported workflow: setting context, verifying outputs, reviewing and reworking, supervising actions, and handling exceptions. These activities require context, judgment, quality control, oversight, and accountability. The graphic asks which effort can be reduced and what doing the work well still requires.
🔥 Change never fails; people feel its weight long before leaders notice it.
🧠 Every transformation has that moment when the room goes quiet.
Not because everyone agrees, but because no one is sure if it’s safe to name what’s actually happening.
These questions aren’t a checklist.
They’re a way of paying attention to the tension in the room, the people carrying the most weight, and the signals your culture sends when no one is “on stage.”
✨ Because when the dust settles, people remember how they were treated while everything was shifting.
Which question do you think leaders skip the most?
Tag someone who leads with awareness, or repost if this resonates.
#HackingHR #HRLeadership #ChangeManagement #FutureOfWork #PeopleAndCulture
Run, run, run! Find your hiding spot! 🏃😂
Happy Friday!
#hrmemes #hrlife #HackingHR #HRcommunity #officememes #HRhumor #HRhumour #fridaymemes #humanresources
Do you really know…
🔸 How much capacity is AI creating in your organization?
🔸 How much time is being released?
🔸 Where is that capacity going?
Today, in collaboration with @MalvikaAtvis, we explore why these questions may be harder to answer than they seem. And how to find out.
👉 Check out our post: bit.ly/3Wemdjy
#AI #HR #FutureOfWork #AITransformation #HRLeadership #WorkRedesign #AIinHR
Here's a decision tree that challenges a very recognizable HR reflex: we see a capability problem and immediately jump to training or hiring.
But interventions should come later.
➡️ First, we need to understand what is actually getting in the way of the outcome the business needs.
- Is the outcome itself clear?
- Could capable people succeed in the current environment?
- Does the capability already exist somewhere else in the organization?
- Does this require only a few people to do it, or does the organization need to develop and sustain it?
A capability gap can point to very different decisions.
The answer might be to build, redeploy existing talent, hire externally, use contingent talent, automate, or redesign the work.
And sometimes the issue isn't capability at all; it's the conditions around the work.
This decision tree can help you diagnose a bit more deliberately before deciding where to invest.
💬 What would you add to it? Share with our community!👇
#WorkforceStrategy #CapabilityBuilding #StrategicHR #FutureOfWork #HackingHR #Leadership #HumanResources #skillgaps
ALT Capability Gap Decision Tree for diagnosing what is constraining business capability or performance before investing in a people solution. The six-step tree asks whether the required business outcome is clear, whether capable people would struggle in the current environment, whether the capability already exists elsewhere in the organization, whether success depends on a few individuals or teams, and whether the capability can be built internally within the available time. Depending on the answers, the recommended response is to define the outcome, fix the conditions, mobilize existing talent, build organizational capability, build internally, or buy, borrow or redesign. The final step is to make the investment decision based on the constraint identified.
AI can make L&D work easier. But does easier mean better?
👉 Check out our latest post in partnership with @iSpringPro, where we explore why human expertise, judgment, and responsible AI practices matter as we move from AI tools to AI orchestration: bit.ly/4yGBbNK
#FutureOfLD #AIOrchestration #LearningAndDevelopment #AIinHR #HRLeadership #FutureofWork
HR functions build things constantly. Programs, credentials, career paths, competency models. The question rarely asked is whether any of it leaves the business with a capability it can actually feel when it needs one.
Without a shared reference for what the output should look like, activity fills the space. What good HR capability looks like at your size, in your industry, at your stage of maturity. Most functions have never had that reference.
🔍 The HR GCF was built to be exactly that. 18 domains. 180 competencies. Three proficiency levels. Each one grounded in observable behavior, not completed hours or job titles.
💡 Five of those domains come with a diagnostic question worth sitting with and one action worth taking Friday before. The questions are the point. Use the framework when the answers make you uncomfortable.
Which one exposed something your function has been avoiding?
Explore the HR GCF at globalcapabilityframework.ha…
#HR #HRStrategy #HRLeadership #FutureOfWork #HackingHR
You've probably heard the advice "not to layer AI on top of poor workflows". But how do you start redesigning them?
Last week, @Kristjanfreyr , CEO of @50skillsHR , guided us step by step in a live workshop.
👉 Here’s what he shared, plus access to the recordings and all the materials we used: bit.ly/4y9m5zc
#HRLeadership #AIinHR #HRprocesses #HRworkflows #HROperations #PeopleOps
AI can help us analyze information, conduct research, and provide recommendations. But the quality of the results will depend on the people framing the problem, providing context, verifying the output, and exercising sound judgment.
Here, Malvika Jethmalani explains why human value sits within any AI-enabled workflow.
This is one of the themes of the upcoming Women Leading AI Transformation Micro Certificate Program: How can organizations redesign work around AI while protecting the capabilities, accountability, and judgment that people bring?
The course includes five live, online classes led by Malvika Jethmalani.
The topics include AI readiness, workflow and operating model redesign, workforce capability, cognitive load, bias, governance, monitoring, workplace surveillance, and leadership through uncertainty.
The Micro-certificate program starts next week!
📅 October 14–November 11, 2026
🗓 Wednesdays
⏰ 8:00–10:00 AM Pacific Time
💻 Live & online
🎓 Attendees get a Certificate of Completion and lifetime access to materials
📛 After completing the program, you can claim a Pearson badge and 10 HR Credits (SHRM + HRCI + IHRIM)
Join us!
This learning program is for HR professionals at every level. You don’t need a technical background to join.
It is included with an active Hacking HR Premium or Premium+ membership.
👉 Learn more and enroll: bit.ly/47Am6kR
#WomenLeadingAI #AITransformation #HRLeadership #AIinHR #ResponsibleAI #FutureOfWork
Just a reminder… 😏
Happy Monday!
#HappyMonday #Mondaymemes #HRmemes #HRhumor #HackingHR #HumanResources #HRLIfe #officememes #HR #performancemanagement
🎤: Ain't No Sunshine - Bill Withers
Somewhere, a leader remembers that you mentioned your mother was sick three months later, in a conversation about something completely unrelated.
💡 That moment probably stayed with you longer than any feedback session or development conversation they ever ran. They were actually listening when you said it. That meant something about how they held you in their mind when you weren't in the room.
You can teach someone to run a structured one-on-one. The genuine curiosity about another person that makes them feel seen on an ordinary Wednesday is harder to build from the outside.
👉 What's something a leader remembered about you that made you feel genuinely seen?
#HRLeadership #Leadership #ManagerDevelopment #PeopleFirst #FutureOfWork #HRCommunity #WorkCulture #LeadershipDevelopment
In most leadership conversations, the word "performance" points to output. What actually produces it is often harder to measure.
💡 Think about a time you did your best work. The conditions around it probably had less to do with the tools or the process and more to do with whether you felt your energy was protected, your voice was heard, and your effort was noticed by someone who actually saw what it took. Those aren't soft variables. They're the environment that makes sustained, high-quality work possible for more than one quarter in a row.
🎯 Every behavior on this list is a relationship behavior. The leader who makes feedback part of everyday work changes how people receive hard things. The one who gets curious in conflict instead of reactive changes what people bring to disagreements. The one who recognizes good work specifically, not just frequently, changes what people believe this place sees in them. None of these are complicated. All of them require consistency in moments when something easier is available.
👉 Which of these ten does your organization most need right now, and what would it take for it to actually become part of how leaders show up here?
#HRLeadership #Leadership #ManagerDevelopment #PeopleFirst #FutureOfWork #HRCommunity #WorkCulture #LeadershipDevelopment
You figured out within two weeks whether you could tell your boss you were struggling.
💡 Not from a conversation about mental health. From watching how they responded when a colleague missed a deadline, or when someone asked for a day off at a bad time, or when a project came back with problems nobody had seen coming. Those moments told you everything about what your own hard moments would look like in their hands.
The boss who made work genuinely feel safe probably never gave a speech about psychological safety. They just kept responding to hard things in a way that made you trust what would happen the next time.
👉 What did that person do specifically that told you it was safe to be honest with them?
#HRLeadership #MentalHealthAtWork #Leadership #PeopleFirst #FutureOfWork #HRCommunity #WorkCulture #ManagerDevelopment