Hello HR Pros,

This week’s stories highlight the crossroads where work, technology, and leadership decisions collide.

From RTO backlash to new data on AI reshaping entry-level jobs, the stakes are clear: how we design work today shapes who thrives tomorrow.

Add in research on team focus and a call to rethink recruitment, and the theme emerges—clarity, humanity, and courage will define HR’s next chapter.

📰 Upcoming in This Issue

• 🧑‍💻 AI’s Job Impact: The Young Take the Hit

• 🎯 Teams That Prioritize Learning, Perform Better

• 🏢 RTO Backlash: Design, Don’t Drift

• 🔎 Where Has All the Talent Gone? A Call for a Recruitment Revolution

✨ Helpful Links

• 🎁 Curated HR tools & offers for 64,029 The HR Takeaways readers

• 🌍 The definitive guide to Employer of Record (EOR) for HR

📣 Trending HR News

• Mental health leave days up 300% from pre-pandemic levels (CNBC)

• Elon Musk's xAI lays off hundreds of workers tasked with training Grok (Business Insider)

• Microsoft's RTO Mandate Is 'Necessary for Innovation,' CEO Says (MSN)

• CHROs should take a more active role in digital security: Gartner (Yahoo)

🧑‍💻 AI’s Job Impact: The Young Take the Hit

The debate over AI’s impact on employment has swung in every direction.

New Stanford research offers the strongest signal yet: payroll data shows entry-level employment in AI-exposed roles has dropped sharply since ChatGPT’s release.

Older workers are less affected, and growth is even rising in roles with minimal AI exposure, like healthcare.

The study underscores a key lesson: AI doesn’t affect all jobs equally. Automation threatens early-career workers most, while augmentation leaves more room for human value.

Key Takeaways:

• 📉 Entry-Level Jobs at Risk: Employment for 22–25-year-olds in AI-heavy roles has fallen 13%, marking a clear early-career disruption.

• 🔀 Automation Hits Hardest: Occupations where AI automates tasks—like coding and auditing—show sharper employment declines than augmentative ones.

• 🧓 Older Workers Steadier: Roles with low AI exposure, like healthcare support, are seeing younger workers grow faster than older peers.

• 🎓 Training Gap Widens: Senior professionals often use AI tools more fluently than juniors—highlighting a failure in university curricula.

Read the full 2,480-word article from Derek Thompson here

🎯 Teams That Prioritize Learning, Perform Better

Today’s workplaces often demand that teams “innovate and deliver” at the same time.

But new research from Harvard Business Review shows this dual expectation backfires. Teams trying to maximize both learning and performance simultaneously lose clarity, eroding task meaningfulness—the very foundation of motivation and results.

By contrast, teams with a single orientation—either mastering new skills or hitting performance targets—report higher energy, stronger collaboration, and superior outcomes. The key isn’t asking teams to do it all. It’s giving them a compass, not a contradiction.

Key Takeaways:

• 🧭 Clarity Beats Ambiguity: Teams balancing learning and performance dilute focus, harming motivation and execution.

• 📊 One Orientation Wins: Teams leaning fully into learning or performance show higher morale and better results.

• 🛠️ Align Incentives Carefully: Rewards, coaching, and communication should consistently reinforce the chosen orientation.

• 🚫 No Mixed Signals: Encouraging risk-taking while penalizing mistakes undermines trust and reduces engagement.

I read the full 1,890-word article from Harvard Business Review—read the full article here.

✅ Stop Payroll Errors Before They Happen

Even small payroll mistakes can create outsized problems—compliance penalties, frustrated employees, and wasted HR hours.

That’s why HR leaders turn to Paycor Payroll, an all-in-one payroll solution built to eliminate costly errors and keep your team confident:

• ✅ Automated Payroll & Tax Filing – Ensure accuracy and stay compliant without the stress

• 📅 Built-In Compliance Tools – Reduce risk with automatic updates to ever-changing regulations.

• 📑 Employee Self-Service – Give staff easy access to pay info, freeing HR for higher-value work.

👉 Watch Paycor demo video to see how it makes payroll simple & stress-free.

🏢 RTO Backlash: Design, Don’t Drift

The RTO debate is often framed as a policy fight. But the smarter approach is to view it as a design challenge.

This whitepaper highlights why role-level decisions, guided by the five W’s and one H, create clarity and fairness. It also shows how employee experience—especially during the first six months—directly shapes retention and customer outcomes.

The message is clear: organizations must stop drifting into hybrid models and start designing intentional ones that align with trust, growth, and belonging.

Key Takeaways:

• 📊 Hybrid Isn’t Default: Nearly 75% of firms lean hybrid, but success requires designing models by role—not following trends blindly.

• 🧭 Clarity Comes First: Define who, what, when, why, and how work gets done before deciding where employees should sit.

• 🧑‍💼 Managers Drive Connection: Train leaders to reduce isolation, coach virtually, and set guardrails to prevent disengagement in hybrid setups.

• 🔗 Early Experience Matters: Half of employees under six months consider leaving—proving onboarding and EX directly fuel retention and CX outcomes.

Read the full 3,200-word whitepaper from NFP here

🔎 Where Has All the Talent Gone? A Call for a Recruitment Revolution

Jeremy Piotrowski’s 25-year view of recruitment—now from the job seeker’s seat—reveals a troubling gap between technology and humanity.

While AI is reshaping hiring, many recruiters still fail at the basics: empathy, insight, and true business partnership.

The strongest recruiters stand out not as gatekeepers but as connectors, advisors, and translators—valuing potential, adaptability, and cultural fit as much as credentials.

The call is clear: respect candidates, embrace AI as an ally, and revolutionize recruiting to focus on people, not just processes.

Key Takeaways:

• 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Respect Is Non-Negotiable: Ghosting and poor communication drive candidates away; basic courtesy and follow-up can differentiate recruiters instantly.

• 🎯 Potential Over Perfection: Prioritizing adaptability, resilience, and values prevents costly turnover from chasing “perfect” but mismatched candidates.

• 🔄 Cross-Sector Hiring Pays Off: Bringing in talent from outside the industry injects new ideas, diversity of thought, and long-term loyalty.

• 🤖 AI Is Already Here: Recruiters who add only admin value will be replaced—those who bring insight, empathy, and strategy will thrive.

Read the full 2,200-word article here

The bottomline

The workplace isn’t short on talent, innovation, or opportunity. What it needs most is leaders willing to cut through noise with focus and fairness.

Whether it’s giving teams one clear orientation, treating candidates with genuine respect, or designing work intentionally, the playbook for HR success is shifting fast.

And in a landscape defined by constant change, clarity and courage aren’t just nice-to-haves—they’re what keep people engaged and businesses moving forward.