AI stealing work BFFs?
Hiii,
Happy Wednesday, friends!
Guess what!!!!!!
We’re one sleep away from the Safe Space Summit, and I’m vibrating with the kind of excitement that can only be described as a kid full of sugar at a birthday party. 🎉
Before I completely combust, here’s this week’s ✨mood boost✨ lineup:
Gen Z is forming emotional bonds with AI (yes, the robot is winning “Best Colleague” awards), Jessica DeVlieger breaks down why performance reviews are more theater than truth, and almost ALL employees see title inflation as faux growth.
Find your iced coffee and your emotional support emoji, and let’s gossip!
🗞️ Here’s the Tea:Copy anchor linkCopied
🤯 Gen Zs connect more with ChatGPT than colleagues
The TL;DR: A new survey found that Gen Z workers are spending more time chatting with AI tools like ChatGPT than with their actual coworkers, and some say the bot knows them better than their boss. For many, AI has become a “friend,” “therapist,” or “coach” instead of a productivity tool. It’s filling the connection gap left by missing mentorship, but it’s also raising questions about what happens when emotional support goes fully digital.
My POV: Honestly, this doesn’t shock me.
Gen Z entered a workforce that talks about connection but runs on Slack pings and email threads!
If your employees feel safer venting to a chatbot than to their manager, that might be a culture issue.
HR should see this as a massive wake-up call to rebuild trust, mentorship, and psychological safety with actual humans.
🎙️ Mic Drop Moment:Copy anchor linkCopied
“Employees know who the high performers and low performers are way before senior leadership does.”Copy anchor linkCopied
On the mic this week: Jessica DeVlieger is the CEO of Encompass Labs, an AI-native performance platform. Previously at C Space, she led 10 straight years of top and bottom-line growth, and she’s scaled a $10M startup into a global agency. Her superpower: helping people and organizations see themselves clearly, then act with alignment for lasting impact.
Pin this:
- Employees crave a reliable, unambiguous signal of performance, not a novella.
- Calibration often rewards the best advocate, not the best performer.
- Use AI to standardize inputs and reduce bias. Save humans for judgment and coaching.
- Make feedback a visible, rewarded behavior, becauseculture is what you reward, not what you say.
My H*ly Sh*t Moment: Jessica’s calibration story is the perfect indictment of why our systems need less theater and more truth. She walked in an office, convinced someone should be fired, then watched them get promoted! 🤯
▶️ Press Play
📊 Data Is My Love Language:Copy anchor linkCopied
Stat: 92% of employees believe that companies use inflated job titles to present the illusion of career growth
My spiral: This stat was kinda mind-blowing when I first saw it, because it shows how deeply MOST workers see through the illusion of growth without compensation!
Simply calling someone a “Senior” or “Lead” doesn’t pay their rent…it just breeds potential distrust and quiet resentment.
From an HR lens, title inflation might look harmless, but it erodes transparency, skews pay equity, and confuses career paths.
If we’re serious about retention, we can’t hand out inflated titles as cheap substitutes for development, fair pay, or meaningful recognition!
🗣️ UNMUTE YOURSELF
HR often gets boxed into whatever version of the role leadership finds most convenient.
Some see you as the policy enforcer, others as the therapist, and a few just remember you exist when there’s a crisis.
But underneath all that, there’s REAL strategy and impact that gets overlooked!
So that leads into my question this week:
“What part of your role still feels misunderstood, even by your own leadership team?”
🛠️ TRY THIS TOMORROW:
Most people at your org have an idea, skill, or passion quietly collecting dust because no one ever asked about it.
So tomorrow, try this:
“Ask someone, ‘What’s a project you secretly wish you could work on?’”
You’ll be amazed what people reveal when you give them permission to dream out loud.
👂 OVERHEARD IN SAFE SPACE
You’re absolutely not alone here!!!! Sending this person so much love and empathy. <3333
This job market feels unlike anything folks have ever seen, and screaming into the void can be a valid coping strategy.
Read what members wanted to share here.
And if you want to join in, Safe Space is waiting for you.
That's all for this week! I hope you enjoyed this, please let me know what you think and what other topics you'd love for me to cover. I'm allll ears.
Reminder: Take care of yourself and know that I support you.
