EP 145: Your 90-Day AI Roadmap for HR - Turn the Whole Series into a Plan | AI in HR Series

PodcastDon't Waste the ChaosHR for Small Business
Written By Kerri Roberts

Series: AI in HR Series (finale) · Host: Kerri Roberts · Run time: ~31 minutes

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📺 Watch on YouTube https://youtu.be/AkG1FJTKhho?si=KAcT-NYuLbu5AOWa

📖 Read the full transcript below

Episode Summary

88% of HR leaders say their organization still hasn’t gotten real business value out of AI. That’s not because the tools don’t work, and it’s not because your people aren’t ready. Over 65% of employees say they’re excited to use AI at work. What’s missing is the plan. Only 22% of workers say their company has communicated a clear AI plan at all, and where leaders have laid one out, employees are three times more likely to feel prepared to use it.

In this finale of the AI in HR Series on Don’t Waste the Chaos, Kerri Roberts takes eleven weeks of readiness tests, policies, automation, governance, and upskilling and turns it into a 90-day sequence you can actually run: clean the foundation in days 1-30, set the rules and automate one thing in days 31-60, then upskill your people and get HR into the AI conversation in days 61-90. She also shares how AI saved her own business around $95,000 in the last year, the real (and imperfect) workflow behind this very page, and the one rule that never changes. AI-ready HR isn’t something you buy off the shelf. It’s something you sequence.

In This Episode

  • Why 88% of HR leaders still aren’t seeing real value from AI, and why a plan beats a bigger budget

  • Days 1-30: document your messiest processes, pull turnover and cost per hire, and get your data out of inboxes and spreadsheets into one place

  • How to start when you don’t want to document anything: open a paid, secured AI tool, tell it about your business, and ask it to debate you and find your blind spots

  • Days 31-60: write a one-page AI policy, automate ONE repeatable task, and put a human’s name on the final call

  • Why a task force of your most AI-curious employees will move you faster than any vendor demo

  • Days 61-90: upskill the people who used to do the work so they can oversee it, with 30 minutes a week and a shared prompt library

  • A behind-the-scenes look at Kerri’s own podcast-to-blog AI workflow, and why it still needs human oversight

  • Why Kerri audits the tech and contracts you already pay for before adding a single new AI tool

Chapter Timestamps

0:00 Eleven episodes in a pile of someday

1:40 Welcome to Don’t Waste the Chaos

2:10 AI-ready HR is a 90-day sequence

3:00 Why a roadmap beats a tool purchase

4:25 How AI saved my business $95,000

6:20 Days 1-30: Get the foundation clean

8:20 How to start when you don’t want to document anything

11:35 Days 31-60: Set the rules and automate one thing

13:35 How companies end up in the 88%

14:20 Start an AI task force

14:55 Days 61-90: Upskill your people

15:40 My podcast workflow (and why it still needs oversight)

18:30 Reskilling and getting HR into the room

20:30 Be honest with your team about where this is going

21:45 The rule that never changes: AI drafts, humans decide

22:40 Before new AI, use the tech you already pay for

24:45 Keep every output in alignment with your culture

26:30 When you don’t have time to build this yourself

29:40 Your one move this week and the series wrap

Resources Mentioned

Episodes in the AI in HR Series

EP 134: Is Your HR Actually Ready for AI? The 5-Question Readiness Test

EP 135: Where to Start With AI in HR - 5 Tasks to Automate First

EP 136: How to Write a One-Page AI Policy From Scratch

EP 138: AI Is Taking Half of Your Managers’ Job (And That’s the Good News)

EP 139: How to Lead Your Team Through AI Fear (Technostress and FOBO)

EP 140: AI Governance for Small Business - The 4 Things You Actually Need

EP 141: Skills Over Job Titles - Workforce Planning in the Age of AI

EP 142: How to Build AI Fluency on a Shoestring Budget

EP 143: How HR Gets a Seat at the AI Table

EP 144: What AI Can’t Replace in HR: The 5 Human Skills that Still Win

EP 145: Your 90-Day AI Roadmap for HR (you’re here - series finale)

Your Action Item

Don’t try to do all 90 days this week. Just do day one. Block 30 minutes, pick the single messiest process in your business, and write it down from start to finish. Better yet, open your AI tool, tap the mic button, and talk it through out loud. That one-page foundation is what everything else sits on.

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Full Transcript

Eleven episodes in a pile of someday

Over the last 11 weeks, we have covered a lot when it comes to AI in HR or just AI in your business in general. We have talked about if you’re even ready, what to automate first, what kind of policy you need in place, how to interact with AI in your hiring process or your compliance pieces, legal landmines, how to get an HR seat at the AI table. And if you’re like most people that I know, this has all landed in a pile of someday. Like, I really need to get to that. I’m going to get to that. And so today I’m going to take the whole series. I’ve done 11 episodes so far. I’m going to take the whole series and I’m going to turn it into a process that you can actually run.

Here’s a number that should get your attention. 88% of HR leaders say their organization still hasn’t gotten real business value out of AI. Does that mean that it’s not being used? No. But they’re not seeing real business value. This is a very powerful tool. Let’s do something about that. It’s not because the tools don’t work, it’s because you’re not using a plan. Nobody gave you a plan. You haven’t taken the time to create a plan. Your people are ready. Over 65% of employees say that they are excited to use AI at work. I love seeing that. The plan is what’s missing. So let’s build yours. We’re going to talk about 90 days, three moves, and how to start today.

Welcome to Don’t Waste the Chaos

So welcome back to another episode of Don’t Waste the Chaos. I’m your host, Kerri Roberts. I have been doing HR for over 20 years, focusing on people operations. I’ve done it inside of large organizations when I worked in corporate. And then in the past three and a half years, I’ve been focusing on small to mid-sized businesses and helping them build that business foundation. And a huge part of this as of late has been, how do we incorporate AI into these processes? How do we roll it out? Internal comms, training, learning and development, accountability, standard operating procedures. How do we do that? And so we are getting into it. 11 episodes where I’ve kind of told you what to do or things to think about. This one turns it all into a plan that you can actually run.

AI-ready HR is a 90-day sequence

So AI-ready in HR is not a vibe. It’s not a tool that you can buy. To me, it’s a 90-day sequence. You get the foundation laid, you set a clear set of rules in place, and then let’s automate one thing. Let’s make this as easy as possible. Then we’re going to upskill your people. We’re going to get HR into the room with IT, all of that. That’ll come later. But the companies winning with AI are not the ones with the biggest budgets. They’re the ones that have a plan and they’re executing on the plan.

Why a roadmap beats a tool purchase

So let’s talk about it today. Why does a roadmap beat a tool purchase? Here’s what I think about this. AI-ready HR is not something that you buy off the shelf. It’s something that you sequence. I was looking at some data. Only 22% of workers say that their company has communicated a clear AI plan at all. And where leaders actually have articulated a plan, employees are three times more likely to feel prepared to use it. A plan is not red tape. It’s the biggest multiplier that you’ve got, and it costs nothing. That’s why we’re focusing on this today.

So I’m going to break this down into three different segments. Days one through 30, what are we focusing on? Days 31 through 60, and then days 61 through 90. I’m going to try to make this as plain and simple as possible, but I will say go back and listen to the last 11 episodes. Some of them are only 20 minutes. Some of them are a little bit longer. You need the juice from all of it, though. It would be really helpful. So if you’re thinking, gosh, I wish she would go into more detail, I have been going into more detail. I’m just trying to sum it up. I’m trying to land this plane. Next week we’re going into a new series, which is exciting. But I’m not going to get off of this. This is where I’m at.

How AI saved my business $95,000

And candidly, in the past week I’ve decided to partner with an organization that does essentially training in understanding what AI is, what it can do, and then they help employees build skills, which is super exciting. A lot of people are still using AI kind of like a chat feature, like a Google feature. And in my business, I am using the skills, I’m using Cowork, I’m using scheduled tasks, and it’s been a game changer. I’ve mentioned throughout this entire series, I saved somewhere between $80,000 and $95,000. In the last 12 months, from September ‘25 to September ‘26, it ended up being around $95,000. That’s because I had two employees and they were doing a ton for me. And then I also had an intern that was working at full-time capacity last summer. So between those three people, I’ve saved a really good chunk of change. And it wasn’t about pushing them out. I had some natural attrition that happened due to a misalignment, and I just opted not to rehire.

Are there things that a human can do? Yes. I do have a part-time intern that works for me. I have a contractor that publishes my podcast. But otherwise, I have really pared down for a number of reasons. Simplification, focusing on the Pareto principle, and then utilizing the tools that are around me, that is what I have done in my business. And it has been huge for me. I didn’t even have to reinvest that money into the top line. So I’ve literally just made that much more money in the last year. The money was already coming in. It’s just I was able to pocket that much more, which has been awesome. Join me at the bottom line, won’t you?

Days 1-30: Get the foundation clean

So let’s jump into these three time frames and talk about what you can do in each one. So days one through 30. We want to get the foundation clean. This is the part that everyone wants to skip. They just want to jump right into using it. And I say build that foundation. This is taking us straight back to episode one in the series. AI on top of messy HR just makes a faster mess. That was my point of that episode. The first 30 days are not really about AI at all, even though we are thinking through it. We’re picking our messiest processes, we’re documenting them from start to finish. And I want you to pull two core numbers: turnover and cost per hire. So AI truly has something to work from instead of guessing.

Get the employee data that you have on those out of your inboxes or your HRIS or your spreadsheets, or maybe you’ve never gathered that data before. Come on, let’s get the data together. Let’s know where it’s coming from. Let’s make sure it’s clean. Because when we start to integrate AI into these processes, you know, garbage in, garbage out. That’s what we talk about when it comes to data. So we want to make sure that the data that we’re feeding our AI is going to be clean data. So get it out of your inbox, get it out of your spreadsheet, and get it into one place. It’s the unglamorous month that makes every month after this work like a well-oiled machine. HR metrics or finance metrics, a tool trained on garbage is going to make expensive mistakes at scale. So this is the first thing that we want to do.

How to start when you don’t want to document anything

Now, if you’re like, no, I’m ready to jump in, okay, let’s talk about it. While you’re building in the first 30 days, while you’re building your processes, talk them into AI, ChatGPT, or whatever tool it is that you want to use. Gemini, whatever. My personal thoughts: I use ChatGPT for brainstorming. I use Claude for design, Cowork, coding, scheduled tasks. I use both. I have found that both large language models that I’m utilizing have strengths and weaknesses, right? And so that’s just how I’m using them. Not to mention I don’t want to ride just one horse. That becomes not just a monopoly from an economic perspective, but a monopoly if things go down, because I want to be able to use these tools for the long term.

So if you’re like, I don’t want to document all these processes, that right there is going to stop me from doing this. Hold up. Let me make it easier for you. Open up Claude or ChatGPT. Get the purchased version, the enterprise version, so it’s safer. Set up all your security tools. Ask the tool how you should set it up to make sure it’s secure. Just ask it and it’ll walk you through it. Beautiful. It’s so helpful. So set it up and then just open up a project, open up a chat, and say it all. I’m resistant to this, but I want to get started. And so I’m going to start talking through some of my processes, but I don’t even know where to start. Where should I start? I own a business that’s in this industry. It’s this size. It operates in this state. Tell it a little bit about your goals or whatever you’re trying to accomplish. I’m trying to sell the business in the next five years. I’m trying to scale the business in the next five years. I’m just trying to make a million a year, or whatever it is that your goals are. It’s not going to tell anybody and it’s not going to judge you.

But you should say, you know, where should I start? And it depends, if you’re a sensitive Sally, then don’t say this. But for me, I always say, and debate with me. Help me to understand what my blind spots are. Make sure that you’re critical of me when I’m cruising along so I don’t miss anything. I say something along those lines and it will get you going. It’s going to say, all right, let’s break this down by department. Let’s break this down by team. Let’s break this down by process. Start to talk to me about X. And if it’s like, let’s start with accounting, and you’re like, crap, I don’t even know. I’ve got an outsourced controller for this. I use QuickBooks for this. I’ve got an office manager that’s clicking these buttons. Just start saying that. Just tell it the reality and it will help you get started. Just get started.

So that’s day one through 30. Let’s build this foundation. Let’s make it as clean as possible. I would pick a couple of metrics and just say it. Like, I’d like to look at my turnover and my cost per hire, if you’re looking at it in HR. If you want to look at something else, look at something else. Say, help me do a deep dive into my accounting. I utilize QuickBooks, or whatever tool that you use. I pay payroll out of QuickBooks or Gusto, or whatever tool that you use. Help get me started. What reports do I need to pull to give to you so you can help me with this analysis? And then I want to build work instructions or standard operating procedures around my processes so they’re delegatable. And I’m telling you right then and there, these first 30 days are going to be beautiful.

I would block out 30 minutes to an hour. Here’s what I’m going to tell you. If you block out 30 minutes, an hour later you’re going to be like, shooey, that was fun. That was crazy. Look what I’ve been doing. So I would block out a little time. I would do it every day. But if you can’t, do it once a week. First of all, prioritize this. This is going to change your life, it’s going to change your business, it’s going to save you money, it’s going to grow you money. But your first 30 days, this is what you’re doing. You’re just cleaning up the foundation, finding where the data’s at, figuring out what it needs to get fed. Building a sales brain, building a marketing brain, building a business brain. It’ll tell you how to do all of that. Just tell it that you’re ready to get started and it’s going to get you rocking and rolling.

Days 31-60: Set the rules and automate one thing

Okay. So let’s step into days 31 through 60. We’ve built the foundation. We’re making sure that we’re not going to build on top of a mess. Now we want to set the rules and we want to automate one thing. I recommend that you write a one-page AI policy at this point. Ask AI to help you with it. Make sure you tell it what state you’re operating in, a little bit about your industry, if you have federal grants or state grants, if you’re for-profit or nonprofit. Tell it some stuff and at least get a starting point there. If you want somebody to look over it, holler at me, or contact your attorney. I’m not an attorney, but go back to episode three, because I talked about how to build an AI policy from scratch and the five things that I think you need to have in it. It’ll be short. Half of all companies still don’t have one of these policies. And of the ones that do, only about a quarter think that it’s any good. They’ve probably just had AI write it. They’re not even sure what it even means.

So write the policy. We want to deploy it. Then we’re going to pick exactly what task we’re going to start out automating. If you’re in HR, I say look at job descriptions, look at your interview scheduling pieces. That’s a repeatable task that doesn’t need high decision-making. Or do policy drafts, whatever that looks like. Put a human’s name on the final call, though. Part of the policy, and I say this in the episode where I talk about the policy, is a person has to be the final say. So who’s your AI guru? They don’t have to know everything. They’re just the one who answers the question when you’re like, hey, is this okay? Can you approve this for me? And if it’s you, let it be you. It’s okay. You don’t have to know everything. Ignoring this is not the answer. It’s not going to go away. So build the policy, start an iteration, let’s get going, and then figure out where we’re going to automate first. One task done right with a clear owner. That’s the whole move.

How companies end up in the 88%

Resist the urge to automate the entire department in a month. That’s how you end up in the 88% with nothing to show for it. I said at the beginning, 88% of HR leaders say their organization still hasn’t gotten real business value out of AI. That’s how you land there. Because you piddled around, you put a few things in there. There’s no systematic approach. People don’t really understand. They’re using it as a chat feature. There are no skills built out, no true automations, no scheduled tasks. There’s no rhyme or reason. We didn’t build the policy. We don’t know where we’re going. We don’t know how we’re implementing it. We’re not documenting it in our standard operating procedures, blah. 88% of people are living in that la-la land. Stop that. Let’s be serious about it.

So step one, those first 30 days, we’re getting that foundation laid. Step two, the next 30 days, we’re setting the rules. We’re automating one thing. We’re picking where we’re going to start, and we’re going to be communicating with our people about this along the way. Hey, we’re beta testing this and we’re testing it in this area.

Start an AI task force

Start a task force. Get a group of people who are into it. There are people in your organization right now that are bananas about AI. They’re building out stuff you would never believe. And I’m not talking about protein-focused macro plans for their meal planning, even though that’s super cool. Maybe some of them are doing that and then linking it to their grocery delivery app, and it’s automatically going in and ordering their groceries. Now that’s a thing. Now we’re getting into it. There are people in your organization doing really cool things with AI. Make it work for your organization.

Days 61-90: Upskill your people

Okay. The third part of the sequence is days 61 to 90. Now we’re going to be upskilling our people, because our people aren’t going to be doing the doing. They’re going to be managing the doing in a lot of these cases. So we’ve written the policy, we’ve picked the task we’re going to automate. So the person who used to do that task, now what do they do? If that was the only thing that they did, now they’re overseeing the AI. Because with AI, we can’t just trust that it’s going to go. It’s not a human. We can’t just trust that it’s going to run itself. Somebody has to make sure that the scheduled task is running and that it actually happens.

My podcast workflow (and why it still needs oversight)

Here’s a scheduled task that I have with regularity. When I get done with my podcast, I will go into Riverside FM. I will download the transcript. I will throw it into AI. And then I’ll say, I need two blog posts written from this. I need my ClickUp form, which goes to my podcast producer. And then I also need an email drafted. So let’s start with the ClickUp, and then give me the email. I put the email into Flodesk. I schedule it a couple weeks out to coincide with when the episode launches. For those of you who want to get that, get on my email list. I’ll link it in the show notes. And then it drafts two blog posts. And I’d say about 50% of the time it’s drafting the blog posts, but it doesn’t actually go into Squarespace and put them in draft. It just poops out for whatever reason. Maybe it’s the connection. Maybe there were questions that it asked me that I didn’t answer. So even though I have it as a skill that I’ve created, I still have to manage it.

And then once it’s in Squarespace, I am going in and uploading photos to go with it, because I still want to do that. I have to go into Canva, and I’m going to build this out in a skill. I’ve just been working it through step by step, perfecting what I can, and then I’ll move on to the next step. But I go into Canva, where my podcast production company has a shared album with me of my cover photos for the episode. I look at that, pull that down, and then I manually load that. And that’s when I’m looking at the blog post inside of Squarespace after it’s already been drafted, and I make sure it makes sense. I read it. It’s my words, right? I read it. One of the blog posts literally pulls down a transcription, but it cleans things up and it gives chapter timestamps and all of that. I read it. Sometimes the bullets are weird. Sometimes the font is odd. Sometimes the titles don’t get bolded. Stuff needs to have oversight. And I go back and give Claude feedback like, hey, when you posted this, you didn’t do X, Y, and Z. What can we update in this skill to make this better? But I still have to have oversight. I’m uploading that picture.

Then the other blog post is a summary of the episode. It doesn’t even reference the episode. It’s just recapping it as a topic. And so I’ve got to read that, make sure that makes sense, and upload a separate graphic. That’s not a cover photo, because it’s not about the podcast episode. It’s just content at that point. So then I’m uploading another photo that I feel like is relevant for that. I’m making sure that the SEO stuff is set up. I have this all set up in a skill, but does it always run? Not 100%. Do your employees always do every single thing that you ask them to do at the exact same time per milestone? No. Okay, well, your AI is not going to either. It’s going to do pretty dang good. It’s going to get you pretty far down the field, but it’s not going to do everything. Somebody has to have oversight.

Reskilling and getting HR into the room

So the foundation’s clean, the rules exist, the one thing is automated. Now you have to scale it with humans. That’s how you scale it. For every 100 workers, from what I’ve read, 59 are going to need reskilling by 2030. I saw 70%, now I’m seeing 59 out of 100, whatever. It’s still pretty high. That’s a majority. You don’t need a training budget for that. Go back and listen to the episode where I talk about building out training for this on a shoestring budget. What you need is 30 minutes a week and probably a shared prompt library with your policy, by the way.

And get HR into your AI conversations, because right now, what I saw is 52% of companies are leaving HR out of the AI strategy entirely, and it’s showing in the results. And I’m not totally blaming you if you’re a leader and you’re like, I didn’t even think to ask my HR person, because my HR person wouldn’t belong at that table. I hear you. I have a previous episode, if you’re an HR person, called getting a seat at the AI table, even though I hate the whole “how do I get a seat at the table” talk. Just bring value. But most HR people wouldn’t even raise their hand when these things are coming up. They wouldn’t say, hey, I need to be a part of this committee, I need to weigh in, I need to be a part of the team, because they’re afraid too. They’re figuring it all out too. But we need to make sure that we’re including HR.

Let’s say we’re automating job descriptions. When I’m automating job descriptions, one of the things that I’m saying to AI is, what of this job description could be automated inside of AI? And it tells me, and then I’m looking at that thinking, okay, if this person automates all of this and we have seven people doing that, that’s a lot of redundancy. Do we have a workforce reduction coming up here? Or what else could these people be doing to increase impact on the bottom line of this organization? I’ve just got to be honest. This is where this is at. A good HR pro is going to be looking at that. There are always reasons why there might be a workforce reduction or an influx of hiring. And so you need to look at it. HR has got to be a part of the overall AI conversation, because right now we’re just adding the automations.

Be honest with your team about where this is going

And you know, if you listen to my last episode on FOBO, the fear of becoming obsolete, or technostress, not knowing what to do with all this technology, people are wondering, okay, now I’m automating this. Now what? Am I automating this work so they can push me out? Just have the conversation. Here’s what we’re thinking. If we can get some of this automated, we’re going to enhance your role. You’re going to be overseeing the AI agents. Let’s say for a marketing social media person, instead of posting on five platforms, we’re going to post on seven, five days a week. And you’re going to focus on engagement, because we’ve been getting the posts out there, but we haven’t been engaging very well. And we know that engagement increases our ranking on the algorithm. So that’s what we’re going to be working on with you. Yippee ki-yay! Good. Now I know I need to automate this stuff so I can get to the stuff that actually matters and use my human brain. So just be honest about it. We’re going somewhere with this, right? This is where AI-ready stops being a project and becomes how you operate. So exciting.

The rule that never changes: AI drafts, humans decide

So those are the three 30-day checkpoints. Get that foundation clean, set the rules and automate the first thing, and then upskill your people, making sure that HR is in the room. The last thing, and I have said it in every episode: there are parts of this that have to stay human. What are those parts? This is not running itself. Across everything that we’ve covered, this rule never changes. AI drafts and the humans decide. The humans say, yes, that’s in alignment with our culture. That makes sense. Move forward. It can write the policy, it can build the turnover model, it can screen the first pass of the resumes, but it never owns the judgment call. It never owns the coaching conversation or the decision that affects somebody’s livelihood and somebody’s paycheck. That is on a human. And I think some of us would like to outsource that, but we can’t, because that’s what we’re specifically here for. You treat AI like an intern that is fast and tireless and occasionally confidently wrong. Okay. And keep a human reviewing its work. That’s not the caution. That’s the whole job of this thing.

Before new AI, use the tech you already pay for

So here’s what I’m looking at with my clients. Clients want to jump straight into, what can we automate? What I do is make sure that the foundation is already built, and I look at the tech that you already have. Before we even say we’re going to add an enterprise version of any new artificial intelligence, I’m looking at machine learning that you already have. I’m looking at AI that you already have. I’m looking at your tech stack.

So here’s an example. Somebody wants to add AI technology to their HR function. And I’m going to ask, do you have a human resources information system? Do you have an HRIS? How do you pay payroll right now? Is essentially what I’m asking. Where are your HR records kept? When you do performance reviews, is it on a paper form, or where is that being tracked? What’s your records management around your personnel files? How do you manage paid time off? Who is putting the time in where? What’s your time clock system? I’m asking all those questions. And then based off of all of that, I’m learning what your HRIS system is, your human capital management tech, whatever you want to call it, your HR payroll system. I’m learning what you currently have.

And then I’m going to say, can you give me those contracts? And once you give me the contracts, I’m going to see what you’re paying for versus what you’re actually utilizing. And we’re either going to stop paying for things we’re not utilizing, or first we’re going to utilize the things that we are already paying for. Let’s get this figured out first. Before we layer on more new tech, I’m going to make sure that you are getting what you need out of the tech that you’re currently paying for, or we’re going to reduce that. Nine times out of 10, you’re paying for stuff that you’re not even using. A module that you’ve never even implemented. So we turn it all on and actually use it before we add a single more thing on top of that. Then we’re going to look at redundancy across all your different tools to make sure that you’re not having redundancy. If you’ve got all of that in place, then we will start taking a look at your processes and figuring out how to automate them with AI. Then, and only then, am I saying let’s bring in ChatGPT or Claude.

That’s what I’m talking about for the recurring stuff that’s happening every single week outside of that. Your job descriptions, your job postings, your handbook updates, the first draft of a policy, pulling trend data together on performance, pulling trend data together on employee satisfaction and engagement, pulling trend data together based off of comp bands, comp strategy, where everyone’s currently getting paid, so you can see what’s actually going on. But here’s the line that I want to make sure I’m saying. AI pulls it all together. You and I together decide what that means.

Keep every output in alignment with your culture

It can draft the job posting, but we need to decide if it’s in alignment with your culture. I just did a webinar last week with a branding firm that I love partnering with. We’ve shared multiple clients. And when I say make sure that it’s legally sound and it’s in alignment with your culture, if you have brand language, brand standards, brand guidelines, all of that, I’m not talking about just a logo and a color palette. If you’ve got on-brand behaviors, your mission, your vision, your values, all of that makes it so much easier for us to make sure that your handbook and your job postings and your job descriptions and your performance reviews and your performance improvement plans and your disciplinary action process are all in alignment with the language of your culture. That is so very important. Any of us can pull down a template, but if you don’t have your language integrated, then it’s going to take just a hot minute to get that situated so we can make sure it’s in alignment with your brand. Otherwise, it’s going to spit stuff out and you’re going to be like, I’m spending all the time updating this to make sure it sounds like us. Or you don’t, and now you have culture drift, because you didn’t make sure it sounds like you. And now stuff’s not aligned with your culture and stuff’s going awry. AI can surface the trend data around performance, but we’re the ones who decide what to do with it.

When you don’t have time to build this yourself

And if you just heard the last 26 minutes of me talking, or this is episode 12 and you have listened to them all, and you are like, I do not have 30 minutes or 60 minutes or 90 minutes a week or a day to focus on that, that’s a normal reaction. I understand, because you’re running a business, you’re running a department, whatever. It doesn’t mean that you’re behind. It means that you’re too busy running the business to actually build the system underneath it. That’s what I do. Partner with somebody, whether you’re thinking about HR or accounting or otherwise. There are people that work fractionally or outsourced for your business to help you get ahead. I have hired mentors for myself in my business. I hired mentors when I was working in corporate. That’s how you skip levels. Instead of you being like, I’ll get to that when I have time. That is a poor person’s mentality. You’ve got to bring on some help to get to where you’re trying to go. Or don’t have a goal of scaling. That’s just a reality. You don’t have to figure out all of it on your own. You don’t have to do it by yourself. Just hire somebody to come alongside you.

And if you don’t know where your gaps are, especially in HR, I’ve got a free 10-minute audit out there that would be a great resource to you. Go to saltandlightadvisors.com/hraudit. That’s my free audit. If you’re like, no, girl, you’ve said enough, let’s get all the way in, I do a comprehensive audit. Usually it’s month one of a six-month agreement that we get into together. I used to do 90-day agreements. I couldn’t get anything done in 90 days that I really felt like would make a huge impact on your business. So six months is great, because here’s what’s happening. We do the first month, which is the audit. And then together we decide, for the next five months, what do you want me to tackle?

And most people are like, I just don’t even have time to work on this with you. I don’t care. You give me one to two hours a month, and I will put it on your calendar and I will lead that agenda, because I know what I’m doing. I’ve been doing this for 20 years. So I’m not going to ask you a bunch of questions that I can answer for you. I’m going to come to the table and say, I see this, or I see you’re missing this. I recommend this, this, or this. What sounds like a fit? Okay, cool. Here’s how that’s going to play out. Here’s how we’re going to implement it. Here’s what internal communications need to be like around it. I’m going to guide you. And I literally draft emails for CEOs all the time, because your communication matters. So if we want to roll something out, I’m going to say, and also, by the way, if I were you, this is what I would send to your employee population. Change it if you want to. That’s great. Or just forward that thing along. Just make sure you remove my signature block. Because that’s how we get things accomplished. And it is so exciting to see an impact on businesses like that.

If you’re not ready to get into consulting, you know there are other options. Of course, I’ve got my book, The HR Easy Button. I’ve got my coursework out on saltandlightadvisors.com/resources. You can get my coursework out there, and I have a few other free resources on that website as well. I’d love for you to check that out. And if you’re listening to me and you’re like, I need you to come in and just talk to my managers, I do speaking engagements all the time. You can reach out for that too at saltandlightadvisors.com/contact.

Your one move this week and the series wrap

Now, this week I don’t want you to try to do all 90 days’ worth of stuff that I said. Just do day one. Pick the single messiest process that you’ve got and write it down. Better yet, just tap that mic button in your AI and start talking about it from start to finish. That one-page foundation is going to be the stuff that everything else sits on top of. That’s the whole series in a sentence. Get the foundation right. AI is going to multiply it.

This wraps up our AI-Ready HR series. I’ve got something new lined up for next week, so make sure that you’re subscribed wherever you’re catching this show, whether it’s on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, or somewhere else. Thank you for spending 12 weeks building your AI foundation with me. I would love to hear how this is going. Please send me a message and give me feedback on what it is that I missed, or tell me what got you started. What was the catalyst, so we can celebrate it together? I know that this is work, but the chaos is worth it. So don’t waste the chaos, friend. Embrace it. I’ll see you next Tuesday.

Resources To Keep Building

If your HR processes still live in inboxes, spreadsheets, and somebody’s head, take the free HR Audit to see which foundation pieces need cleaning up before you hand anything to AI. 👉 saltandlightadvisors.com/hraudit

Resources to keep building:

🎯 Take the free HR Audit - Score your HR systems in 5 minutes and see exactly where your gaps are.

👉 saltandlightadvisors.com/hraudit

🎙️ Listen to Don’t Waste the Chaos - This episode: Your 90-Day AI Roadmap for HR. More at the show feed.

👉 https://www.buzzsprout.com/2471085

📚 Explore the HR coursework - Self-paced courses, tools, and resources to build your HR systems step by step.

👉 saltandlightadvisors.com/resources

✉️ Get the Monday Email - One practical idea for leaders, every Monday at 5:28am. 1,000+ leaders, 50%+ open rate.

👉 saltandlight.myflodesk.com/saltandlightadvisors

Need fractional HR support or want to talk through a specific challenge?

👉 saltandlightadvisors.com/contact

Kerri Roberts https://saltandlightadvisors.com
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EP 143: How HR Gets a Seat at the Table on AI Decisions | AI & HR Series