your HR performance review
Hi ya,
I hope you are staying safe & warm as cold weather, snow and ice storms are impacting a lot of folks this past weekend into the week. ❄️
I brushed up on how to stay warm if you lose power and how to conserve heat. If you’re wondering, yes, I've read too many dystopian novels to not overly prepare for different disasters. I think I just like to always have plans for worst case scenarios.
A few things to hopefully bring you joy this week:
🎧 The latest pod ep dropped: The incredible Cassandra Babilya joins me on the pod this week to talk about traditional career paths are quite possibly… over??? Guess you’ll have to listen to hear more about this very juicy convo!
📺 MARK YOUR CALENDAR NOW!!! The first HR Therapy hits your streaming platform of choice aka your computer screen on February 25th! Payroll vs the People, how does HR balance it all? We’re getting into navigating budget pressures, what tradeoffs can be made, and how to do all of this without betraying the trust of employees and execs. See u there?
Now, onto today’s newsletter.
HR'S ROLE
What does “good” HR actually mean?Copy anchor linkCopied
Let’s unpack what “good HR” means because it’s one of those phrases everyone uses and almost no one actually defines.
Most people think they know what “good HR” is because this is the version they’ve seen:
❌ The rule enforcer
❌ The paperwork and policies department
❌ The people who show up when something has already gone wrong
❌ The compliance department
❌ The anti-risk group
So naturally they either love that or they tend to say it’s bad HR. 🙄
TBH: good HR is so much more than that list.
Good HR quietly shapes the employee experience longgg before things break, often in the background moving the different pieces into play. Good HR can do things like influence who gets hired, how people grow, how conflict gets handled, and whether work feels human or transactional.
Key word there: influence.
And when HR is good, people stay longer, managers make better decisions, and companies waste less time fixing problems they could have prevented.
But when HR is bad…. Well, you kinda feel it everywhere.
Here’s an uncomfy truth: “good” HR isn’t a fixed thing.
What good HR looks like depends on a myriad of factors like:
- The moment the company is in (growth, chaos, rebuild, or survival mode)
- How the business actually works
- What skills the company desperately needs today
- Whether leaders let HR do more than play policy police
At a startup or early scale-up, good HR might mean building just enough structure to keep chaos in check, setting up compliance correctly, building a foundation for fair pay practices, documenting policies and coaching managers on how to manage their team correctly without burning them out.
Whereas at a larger, more mature organization, good HR might mean untangling legacy systems, rebuilding trust after layoffs, or modernizing processes that were designed for a workforce that no longer exists.
So truthfully, I don’t think there’s one universal definition of “good HR.”
But I do think there are traits we can look out for!
3 things good HR teams almost always do:Copy anchor linkCopied
Across industries, company sizes, and the absolute nonsense levels, the HR teams that actually make work better tend to share a few traits.
💭 1. They live in reality.
Good HR understands how the business makes money, what moves the needle, who actually does the work, and what constraints on the business and the talent exist.
These teams don’t build “best practice” programs. They build usable ones. Because they know that best practice might not actually be the best practice for their organization at the exact moment they’re in. I said what I said!
They focus on systems people will actually use and policies people can actually understand. No decoder rings required.
For example: instead of rolling out a complex performance review process because it’s “best practice,” good HR might design a lightweight quarterly check-in because managers are leading small, fast-moving teams and need something they can actually sustain. Eventually, it could evolve into something more, but designing for the moment is much more important.
✍🏽 Try this: To pressure-test whether your HR team lives in reality, take 30 minutes this week and do the following: observe how your business actually runs.
Ask yourself:
- How does the company really make money?
- What work actually moves the needle?
- Who is doing the hardest or most critical work right now?
If your HR priorities don’t map to those answers, you’ve found a gap.
👀 2. They make the invisible visible.
Good HR doesn’t just respond to what’s loud. And trust me, we ALL deal with the “loud” signals 24/7. But what we need to pay potentially more attention to is the quiet signals and how we can surface them.
Good HR teams look for patterns in performance, burnout, attrition, inequity, and manager behavior and bring those patterns into the open before they turn into “surprises.” They turn feelings → signals and anecdotal stories → insights, so leaders are making decisions based on what’s actually happening, not what they hope is happening.
This is the difference between “a few people are struggling” and “this role is breaking people in 90 days” or between “this manager is difficult” and “this team has a systemic issue.”
Good HR names those patterns, even when it’s uncomfortable.
✍🏽 Try this: Practice making the invisible visible. Block 30–45 minutes and do a quick pattern scan of your organization and list the loud signals.
These are the things already getting attention:
- Complaints
- Escalations
- Performance issues
- Exit interviews
- “Problem” managers or teams
Write them down. Cross-check what you’re hearing with the data you collect. What trends are you seeing?
Congrats, you’ve just made the invisible a bit more visible. WOOO.
🤝 3. They reduce friction and protect trust.
Every process HR builds either helps people do their jobs… or gets in the way. Good HR knows the difference.
They don’t add policy for the sake of control or tools for the sake of looking modern. (BOOO 🍅)! No, instead they simplify where things are tangled and standardize where inconsistency is causing harm.
Their goal isn’t perfection, it’s clarity, fairness, and follow-through.
And because they care about how systems feel, not just how they function, they treat trust like a business asset. Trust is the foundation of every good relationship. And good HR knows that and wants trust to flourish not just with the execs they support but with the employees they’re responsible for!
A lot of friction at work shows up from a lack of trust and employees are naturally distrustful of HR! I don’t blame them, scroll social media for 5 minutes and I bet you’ll find a story of someone being treated unfairly by HR. So how do we overcome this and build trusting relationships?
Predictability. Things at work should be predictable and consistent from clear pay logic, performance expectations, and decisions. So that you’re not constantly playing a game of corporate gymnastics trying to explain why this one off is different. (It’s not).
Predictability is how you get fewer escalations, fewer side conversations, and fewer “HR said one thing, my manager said another” moments. It’s also how your employees are sure you’re treating them all fairly and equitably and boom viola trust in the HR team is restored.
The bottom line: Everyone defines “good HR” differently but in my experience, these three traits tend to show up wherever HR is truly effective.
Sooo… how would you define good HR?Copy anchor linkCopied
Let’s get personal.
If that’s not your jam just scroll on through here but I gotta have a little 1:1 performance convo with you.
If “good HR” is contextual, then the real question isn’t: is our HR good?
It’s: good for what, and for where we are right now?
Four questions to noodle on:
- How would you define good HR at your company today?
- What does “good” mean for your team’s performance?
- What does it mean for how people actually experience work?
- How much of that definition shows up in what you’re being measured on?
Because if your performance, or even your team’s performance, is being judged by standards built for a different phase of the company… you’re not being evaluated correctly.
And that gap?
Potentially that’s where your frustration is living.
TBH the goal isn’t to chase some universal, mythical version of “good HR.”
Maybe the real work is getting brutally honest about what good means here, now, and for this moment, and building toward that on purpose.
And if you can’t define it? That’s probably your first sign.
What’s next:Copy anchor linkCopied
So talking about “good” got me thinking a lot about performance and how we’re assessing things.
Y’all already know how I feel about antiquated performance processes so next week I’m coming at it from a new angle - what’s new with performance and how we can think about it differently.
I might throw a few odd ideas at you, who knows what will spark some inspo.
(HUMAN) RESOURCES
- Federal agents kill second Minneapolis resident this month
- Protests erupt across the US
- Snow and ice storms across the US
- Jobs and AI convos at Davos
WORK-LIFE BALANCE
- 📚What I’m reading: Very Slowly All at Once by Lauren Schott. What would you do if money started mysteriously showing up in your mailbox? What would you do? The premise of this book had me hoooooked. You know I love a thriller.
- 📺What I’m watching: The Pitt. I’m back to being anxious for a full hour of TV with The Pitt’s return. I love the energy of this show but TBH I have to look away sometimes because I can’t handle the gore.
- 📱What I’m popping off in the group text about: world news, life and how we’re blocking people. The world is truly horrific at this moment and I feel so much outrage. I’ve been staying grounded by leaning on my community, sharing resources and being aware of my rights. Please take care of yourself.
SONG OF THE WEEK
🎧 Changes, 2Pac Copy anchor linkCopied
I’m sure I’ve shared before that this is one of my fave 2Pac songs.
This song was initially recorded in 1992 and then remixed in 1998.
And while that was 33 years ago the commentary around race, class, politics are still so relevant today.
Take from that what you want.
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.
