defrosting…slowly
Hiii,
Wednesday is here, I'm probably wearing my comfies right now, and I am UNUSUALLY UNCAFFENIATED. 😩
I think I’m lowkey still catching up on sleep from the Safe Space Summit???
Sooo I may be tired, but I’m also happy, and it’s almost Halloween, so you know what? A win is a win!
The weather might be cooling off, but the job market’s could be heating up?
Let’s get into what else is warming up in HR this week, because it sure isn’t my energy levels. 😅
🗞️ Here’s the Tea:Copy anchor linkCopied
🥶 ‘The Great Freeze’ in hiring may be thawing, ZipRecruiter survey finds.
The TL;DR: ZipRecruiter says “The Great Freeze” is thawing: 63% of employers plan to ramp hiring, with turnover plunging from 177% (2023) to 50% (2025).
Expect to see more entry-level roles, fewer degree requirements, and earlier skills assessments, particularly for competencies such as collaboration, customer service, and communication. On the flipside, the survey showed that employers remain cautious ahead of the holiday hiring season.
My POV: Don't forget about the role retention plays! If there are more jobs available potentially some of your top talent could choose to leave.
Time to double down on managers, growth paths, and recognition now. Think about working on shifting job design and career paths to show that your org is one where someone's career grows not stalls.
On the recruiting front, swap pedigree screens for skills signals and tighten your funnel with faster interviews, clearer assessments, and quicker offers.
🎙️ Mic Drop Moment:Copy anchor linkCopied
“You have survived 100 percent of your worst days.”Copy anchor linkCopied
On the mic this week: Sarah Rose Hattem has nearly a decade in HR, including time as the HR party-of-one at early-stage tech startup Steno while earning her master’s in HR during the pandemic. She later joined Tilt as part of a small but mighty People team. Today, she’s a Senior HR Solutions Consultant at Rippling, advising HR leaders daily on processes, pain points, and how to streamline operations with the right systems.
Pin this:
- Split the work. Design processes from the end goal backward and automate ruthlessly.
- Do a stakeholder inventory regularly (what ‘good’ looks like, risk tolerance, people philosophy) and align HR projects to ROI.
- Partner tightly with Finance on payroll. Ownership can vary, but accountability can’t.
- Triage: business-critical, business-essential, then the nice-to-haves. You can’t do it all!
My H*ly Sh*t Moment: Realizing that “HR should bear the admin burden for the employee’s sake” is actually harmful, because drowning HR in manual work steals the very time we need to build the employee experience in the first place!
▶️ Press Play
📊 Data Is My Love Language:Copy anchor linkCopied
Stat: Well-recognized employees are 7x more likely to be fully engaged in their jobs than employees who are not recognized
My spiral: This stat honestly says what we all feel but don’t always have the data to back up: money matters, but meaning matters more.
Recognition is one of the most powerful engagement tools we’ve got!
Of course, people like raises, but feeling genuinely seen and appreciated builds long-term connection and motivation.
This is huge because it proves that culture and leadership behavior can have a bigger impact on engagement than compensation alone, and that’s something we can control!
🗣️ UNMUTE YOURSELF
I love those moments when you can pause long enough to look at how far you’ve come, because chances are, you’re living a version of success you used to only dream about.
So here’s something to sit with:
“What’s one thing your younger self wouldn’t believe about your career today?”
🛠️ TRY THIS TOMORROW:
The people you lead don’t need a flawless manager, but they sure do appreciate a real one who owns their mistakes and shows the growth that followed.
So tomorrow, try this:
“Share one leadership mistake you made early in your career, and what you’d do differently now.”
You’ll be surprised how much trust and honesty that one story can create!
👂 OVERHEARD IN SAFE SPACE
I feel this. It’s like every vendor woke up one day and decided to rebrand basic automation as AI, and now we’re all trapped in a never-ending demo day we never signed up for.
Read what members had to say here.
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.
