Hiiii,

Happy Wednesday! Not gonna lie, it’s been a rollercoaster of a week already. 🎢

Lots of highs and a few lows…such is life in HR. IYKYK.

I’m probably preaching to the choir anyway, so let’s set the scene for today with ladders.

More specifically, how automating away entry jobs is also eliminating a ladder to leadership, which is deff worth talking about since this will be an even spicier topic in the future!

We’re also talking comp philosophies and an AI stat that literally every org should know about, in my humble opinion.

Let’s dive in!

🗞️ Here's the Tea:Copy anchor linkCopied

🪜 Lack of hiring now will create a ‘missing rung’ that may topple growth

The TL;DR: Companies are leaning on AI and hiring fewer entry-level workers. Guild economist Guy Berger warns that in a decade, they could be scrambling for managers and technical leads. Good luck hiring them away from competitors who skipped the same hires.

My POV: This feels like such an unavoidable issue that sooo many orgs are marching towards!

I’d bring this up the next time someone wants to cut a junior role because AI can do most of it.

Junior roles are critical! Like where are people supposed to learn what good work looks like if they never get a crack at any of the entry level? They just show up... knowing?? Absolutely not.

And if the answer is that managers will coach them…show me where that time is coming from, cuz I’ve seen those calendars. 👀

🎙️Mic Drop Moment:Copy anchor linkCopied

“Most founders get stuck at the founding stage.”Copy anchor linkCopied

On the mic this week: Haris Ikram had the kind of career most people would think twice about walking away from. Naturally, he decided his midlife crisis would be starting a company. We talked about how navigating pay as an immigrant led him to build CandorIQ, what surprised him about becoming a founder, and why he cared so much about getting the co-founder relationship right.

Pin this:

• Pick a co-founder you trust to challenge your thinking. Their blind spots matter as much as yours!
• Build pay ranges and career ladders early, even if you start with just one department.
• Give HR and Finance the same headcount plan so recruiters hear about changes before they keep hiring against the old one.
• Give managers enough context to explain how pay decisions were made. Yes, employees will ask.

My H*ly Sh*t Moment: Sometimes I think about how a salary someone felt safe enough to ask for on day one can turn into a pay gap HR is still trying to explain years later. Wild stuff!

▶️ Press Play

📊 Data Is My Love Language:Copy anchor linkCopied

Stat: New report finds people using AI are working up to 90 minutes extra every day

My spiral: I can already picture the leadership meeting where AI adoption is up, and everyone simply moves on to the next slide.

Meanwhile, some of the people using it are still at their laptops after dinner! 😭

I’d ask those teams specifically what they’re doing at 7 pm that used to wait until tomorrow, because that’s how you find out whether the tool is genuinely helping or whether everyone got a bigger job.

We have been told for months and months that AI was supposed to free up our time…and we’re seeing the exact opposite situation playing out.

🛠️ In Your Toolkit Copy anchor linkCopied

If you’ve asked a manager for interview feedback 4 times, are you managing the hiring process, or are they? 🤔

For this month’s HR Therapy on Nov 17th, we’re auditing where the hell our time is going and sharing what’s worked to get some of those hours back.

Bring the task you’re still doing, and we’ll figure out one thing you can automate, hand off, or stop doing altogether!

🗣️ UNMUTE YOURSELF

Think about the last decision you had to explain to employees that made you cringe a little.

The possibilities for that are endless in this role, so it’s worth taking a few minutes to mull over:

What’s one thing you’ve accepted as “just business” that probably shouldn’t be?

🛠️ TRY THIS TOMORROW:

I can always tell when I’ve reread an email too many times.

Suddenly I’m saying “operationalize” to someone I ate lunch with yesterday…guess it’s hard to fully turn off the HR part of your brain sometimes! 😅

Tomorrow, before hitting send, try removing one sentence that’s there just to sound smart.

👂 OVERHEARD IN SAFE SPACE

Oooof. I fantasize about a world where people have more time with their babies and absolutely zero reason to find out how a bereavement policy works.

Read what members had to say here.

See ya on Friday!