🗞️ Here’s the Tea:

🤖 IBM CEO says replacing HR staff with AI led to more hiring

The TL;DR: IBM’s CEO says they cut hundreds of HR roles using AI, but didn’t shrink the company. Instead, they used those savings to hire more strategically in areas like sales, programming, and marketing. 

My POV:

I have A LOT, and I mean A LOT, of questions I’d love to ask. 

Like:

• What HR roles did they cut?
• Where did they automate the work?
• Where did they find the most inefficiencies?
• How are employees feeling?
• Outside of HR, were any other cuts made?

Just those 5 to start!!!

Should you be worried about AI coming for your job in HR? 

I think if your work is strategic, human-centered, and connected to business outcomes, probably not. 

But if you’re doing mostly admin work, it’s a possibility. 

Bottom line: AI isn’t coming for HR, it’s coming for the parts of HR that should be automated! So you have a chance to let go of those redundant tasks and potentially expand your scope and skills in HR. 

🎙️ Mic Drop Moment:

“Talent wins games, but teamwork wins championships—and in the workplace, that means culture, not just credentials.”

On the mic this week: Chris Henrichs is the co-founder and Head of Partnerships at Boon, a company providing personalized coaching to help employees thrive. Before Boon, Chris spent seven years in finance and then scaled a startup from 10 to 150 employees, all while learning the hard way what real leadership looks like. A former athlete, new parent, and passionate advocate for resilience, Chris brings both tactical know-how and deep emotional intelligence to the workplace.

Pin this: 

• HR is often the coach, GM, and sometimes even the ref, and the best teams win because they build chemistry, not just collect talent.
• Resilience isn’t just a buzzword, it’s a foundational skill built through competition, setbacks, and hard conversations.
• Great leadership requires personalization: what works for one team member won’t work for another.
• Layoffs and slumps require thoughtful recovery plans: support, trust, and resources make or break the bounce-back.

My H*ly Sh*t Moment:  I did not expect a conversation about basketball to make me reflect so deeply on grief, leadership, and why building a team (at work or in life) is really just figuring out how to trust people again.

▶️ Press Play

📊 Data Is My Love Language:

Stat: Nearly 70% of Gen Zers plan to look for a new role this year

My spiral: Okay, that feels like a WILD statistic!

But at the same time…it’s not that surprising. 

It’s interesting (and a little depressing) because it shows just how broken the pipeline from graduation to stable employment has become. 

These are entry-level professionals, fresh out of college, navigating a chaotic job market, higher expectations, and a confidence crisis!!

If we don’t start rethinking how we onboard, support, and grow early-career talent, we’re going to lose them before they even get started.

🛠️ In Your Toolkit 

🎤CEO Decoder: “Let’s make AI part of our DNA.”

I cannot go a day without reading about another CEO and their AI manifestos!!

True story: My CEO actually sent me the IBM story and asked for my hot take! TY Adam!! 

But, what does that actually mean when a CEO comes to you and says we need to figure out the AI strategy???

I think HR has an incredible opportunity to lead her from a change management perspective but it’s not the only stakeholder in the AI quest. 

🛠️ 3 Steps to Dealing with the “We Need an AI Strategy” CEO

1. Define the goal: What problem are we trying to solve or situation are we trying to improve? You have to be able to answer this to build a strategy. 
2. Audit the work: Identify manual, repetitive or low value tasks across the org. Lean on department leaders to help here!
3. Test, Measure and Iterate: Pick a use case to test AI, track the actual impact (time, money, etc saved) and decide if that can be replicated across the org. 

This is a simple, lightweight plan to test out a strategy before going NUCLEAR.