Heyyyyy,

It’s another busy week, and I’ve been in and out of the airport so much lately that I’ll prob be having nightmares about $20 sandwiches that don’t come with any sides!

Holiday staffing might show up somewhere in that dream too. 😬

Retailers are planning to lean harder on existing employees this season, and they have my deepest condolences.

Today, we’re getting into holiday hiring, giving people time to actually try AI, and HR’s struggle to staff its own team.

Plenty to discuss while I loiter around the one airport outlet that works! 🤪

🗞️ Here's the Tea:Copy anchor linkCopied

🔎 Holiday hiring is getting ‘smaller and more surgical’

The TL;DR: Holiday retail hiring is projected to drop 2.5% to about 450k jobs this year. Many big retailers are keeping hiring targets on the hush hush, with signs they’ll lean on existing employees and on-demand workers. Soooo even seasonal headcount is getting the do-more-with-less treatment.

My POV: All this really means to me is that the same people working will just be doing more during the holiday season. 😬

Flexible staffing can make sense, but HR needs to check whether schedules and coverage actually support it!! Calling a staffing plan efficient doesn’t magically give your exhausted employees a second body for the holiday rush!

🎙️Mic Drop Moment:Copy anchor linkCopied

“Let's all share ideas and trade what is and isn’t working, because there's a lot that's not working.”Copy anchor linkCopied

On the mic this week: Parijat Sarkar is the founder of Numos, which builds AI agents for mid-market and enterprise finance teams. His background spans product, engineering, and go-to-market work, including experience scaling people systems at Zenefits.

Pin this:

• Pick one or two workflows and define success before promising to revolutionize everything.
• Give employees time, tools, and a safe place to experiment. Curiosity needs calendar space!
• Let AI handle the first draft while humans review with context and judgment.
• Hire for curiosity and a willingness to learn, instead of a résumé stuffed with AI tools.

My H*ly Sh*t Moment: We’re currently at a point where we’re asking already overwhelmed employees to find time to learn the tools that are supposed to make them less overwhelmed. 😵‍💫

▶️ Press Play

📊 Data Is My Love Language:Copy anchor linkCopied

Stat: 59% of HR leaders report that talent is hard to find, leading to project delays (58%) and cancellations (51%)

My spiral: HR is supposed to fix everyone else’s talent gaps while struggling to fill its own team…isn’t that wonderful??? 🫩

The work getting delayed includes retention, workforce planning, and performance management, which means the missing HR expertise can make the rest of the org’s people problems harder to solve!

Before leadership asks why HR hasn’t delivered, I’d love to see whether they’ve funded the skills and capacity those expectations require.

🗣️ UNMUTE YOURSELF

We usually get the convos that happen after the exec meeting ends…that could be the confused manager or the pissed-off employee

I’d love for the people approving those decisions to sit through a few of those convos with us!

What’s one thing you wish executives had to experience before making people decisions?

🛠️ TRY THIS TOMORROW:

I’m all for handing off the tedious BS, but an employee telling you they’re struggling needs more than a beautifully formatted AI response!

Figure out where an actual convo belongs before you start delegating.

Tomorrow, before using AI for something, ask: “What part of this actually needs a human?”

👂 OVERHEARD IN SAFE SPACE

It’s deff not just you. I would argue that the majority of us are feeling some kind of fatigue at the moment!

Read what members had to say here.

See ya on Friday!