Hiiii,

We’ve made it to July...look at us go!

It's officially the hottest month of the year, where walking to your car straight-up feels like hell. 🥵

While we're all trying not to melt, the workplace isn't exactly cooling off either!

This week we're digging into what the data says about women in leadership, why retirement planning deserves way more attention than it gets, and the inconvenient truth that AI isn't fixing hiring nearly as well as everyone's LinkedIn posts would have you believe.

Let’s dissect our chaos of today, shall we?

🗞️ Here's the Tea:Copy anchor linkCopied

👩 Companies led by women tend to have more women on boards and in leadership roles

The TL;DR: A new report found only 6.7% of major companies have women CEOs, but those companies are way more likely to have gender-diverse boards and leadership teams. Nearly 40% of women-led companies have women on their boards, compared to a global average of 30%.

Translation: When women lead, they bring other women up with them.

My POV: This prob isn’t news to most of us, but seeing the data behind it feels validating nonetheless!

One woman CEO changes who gets hired and put on the board after her.

Meanwhile, we're watching boards backslide on women's representation right as companies gut their programs, so the people doing the work of building diverse leadership pipelines are now doing it with way less institutional support.

This is your reminder that succession planning and board composition are directly tied to whether your company builds a pipeline for women or just talks about wanting one! 😇

🎙️Mic Drop Moment:Copy anchor linkCopied

"It's okay to feel a little bit boring, as long as it's bringing the outcomes that you need."Copy anchor linkCopied

On the mic this week: Melissa Elbert is a retirement and financial well-being expert at Aon who helps orgs design benefits strategies that accurately reflect how people live and work today. She specializes in using workforce data to improve retirement outcomes while balancing employee needs with long-term business sustainability.

Pin this:

• Financial well-being and retirement planning can't be treated as separate convos.
• Look beyond participation rates and ask why employees aren't saving or are withdrawing funds early.
• Benefits data is full of signals that can help HR proactively support employees before problems escalate.
• HR and Finance make better long-term decisions when they stop working in silos.
• Sometimes the best retirement innovation is just redesigning what already exists to be more equitable.

My H*ly Sh*t Moment: The stat that one in twenty employees is tapping their retirement savings to cover immediate expenses, and that billions of dollars are being withdrawn for healthcare costs…lives in my head rent-free.

▶️ Press Play

📊 Data Is My Love Language:Copy anchor linkCopied

Stat: Not even 5% of companies report ‘transformational’ outcomes from AI

My spiral: Everyone rushed to bolt AI onto their hiring process without rethinking the process itself, so now we've got faster screening and sourcing but the same broken decision-making underneath it! 🤦‍♀️

54% of orgs also say AI-polished resumes and interview prep are making it nearly impossible to tell who's more skilled versus who just had the better prompt.

The hardest part now is redesigning how your team makes a call on a candidate, and most companies skipped straight to the easy wins instead of doing that work.

🛠️ In Your Toolkit Copy anchor linkCopied

🧠 Pop quiz: If your CEO asked you which jobs AI will change at your org and which skills are missing, would you be able to answer confidently, or start buffering?

If your answer was the latter choice, you’re gonna want to sign up for this month’s HR Therapy!

I'm sitting down with Amanda Arena and Will Self from Aon to break down what data-driven workforce planning looks like, from skills gaps to job architecture to the transparency conversations everyone avoids.

Save a spot with us, and leave with a plan you can run when it’s over! 🤓

🗣️ UNMUTE YOURSELF

I think most of us have a version of this question we keep tucked away, either because work politics gets in the way, or just not wanting to be "that person."

So here's your chance to reflect on it:

“What's one question you'd ask your CEO if there were zero consequences?”

🛠️ TRY THIS TOMORROW:

Tiny phrases carry more weight than we give them credit for. "Does that make sense?" basically begs people to say yes even when it doesn't, because nobody wants to admit they're lost.

One small swap can get you closer to the truth!

So here's your move for tomorrow:

Replace "Does that make sense?" with "What questions do you have?" in your next explanation.

👂 OVERHEARD IN SAFE SPACE

After months and months of being told to use something we’re still trying to understand ourselves…this is prob a common feeling these days!

Read what members had to say here.

See ya on Friday!