1. Your leave policy might be driving attrition

Leave management is a trust minefield. One mistake, one delay, and you’ve lost credibility with your people. It may look like admin work — but it sends a loud message about how much your company really cares.

“There’s a new report that shows when people have a great leave experience, they’re 75% more likely to stay for 5 years in a row.”

Instead of treating leave as just an admin function, Taylor encouraged HR leaders to step back and ask: Is our process built to support people — or just to check a legal box?​

2. Stop over-functioning to prove your value

Melanie put words to something many HR leaders feel but don’t say out loud: we often bury ourselves in work to show how much we care.

“We think: look at this 10-page manager handbook I created! See how hard I’m working? But what actually earns respect is impact, not hours.”

If you find yourself creating complex systems just to look productive, it might be time to pause and ask what the business really needs.

3. Replace time, don’t add time

If your manager trainings are getting ignored, it’s not just apathy. It’s bandwidth.

Melanie shared a simple fix: stop piling on. Instead of asking managers to carve out extra time, embed training into existing touchpoints — like replacing a team meeting or town hall.

“I started saying: we’re not adding more. We’re replacing. It’s the only way to get real engagement.”

4. Fire drills aren’t chaos — they’re a clue

HR teams running on constant fire drills aren’t just unlucky. They’re under-resourced or under-systematized.

Taylor suggested a first principle: ask if this fire drill fits an existing process.

“You get into panic mode and throw out the playbook. But often, you’ve already solved this before. Follow the process. Then retro to improve it.”

Melanie added that when the CEO believes managing people is the responsibility of line leaders — not HR — fire drills disappear fast.

5. Time is your credibility with the business

Time is the most valuable currency you have with your leadership team. Wasting it erodes trust. That means every training, every rollout, every policy needs to be ruthlessly efficient.

Melanie shared practical ways to do this:

“We let people test out of trainings. If you can prove you know the content, why waste time? We also use a policy bot to make answers self-serve.”

And when there are legal time requirements (like minimum-hour compliance trainings), focus on making them relevant and tolerable — not just boxes to check.

6. You don’t have to build the engine to drive the car

Not every HR leader needs to become an AI engineer. But you do need to know how to evaluate the right tools and drive outcomes.

“I don’t need to know how to build an engine to know how to drive a car. The same is true with AI.”

Melanie’s point was clear: you don’t need to master the tech — you need to master the impact. Your job isn’t to become an engineer. It’s to ask: Where can this save us time? Where can it reduce friction? Where can it unlock better decisions?

If you’re an HR department of one, or leading a small team, these insights are even more critical. Redesign your systems. Ask for help. And make time your greatest asset — not your biggest cost.

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