EP 139: How to Lead Your Team Through AI Fear (Technostress and FOBO) | AI in HR Series
🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts · Spotify · Buzzsprout
📺 Watch on YouTube https://youtu.be/_2ArKP3PSJA?si=4MdIuC8tqy5EINkN
📖 Read the full transcript below
Episode Summary
At least half of your staff is afraid of AI right now, and almost none of them have said it out loud. You’ve heard of FOMO. This is FOBO: the fear of becoming obsolete. Sitting right next to it is technostress, the exhaustion of a new tool every single week and no clear word from leadership on which ones you’re supposed to use. Both are real, both are showing up in your workplace whether you’ve made room for them or not, and neither one gets solved by buying another platform. Kerri walks through what the data actually says about how people feel, why the facts do not calm the fear, and what happens when the fear goes underground. Because employees who are scared don’t stop using AI. They hide it. Fifty-seven percent of workers admit to concealing their AI use or passing AI-generated work off as their own, which means client data and employee information are moving through personal accounts with no policy, no training, and no oversight. That’s not a culture problem. That’s a data security and compliance problem with a dollar figure attached. This episode is the people side of AI in HR: what AI can draft for you, what has to stay human, and the one sentence a leader has to say in their own voice before any of it sticks. The tool isn’t what stalls your AI rollout. The silence is.
In This Episode
What technostress and FOBO are, and why naming the two fears out loud changes the conversation with your team
Why 58% of workers fear becoming obsolete from a lack of skills, and why that number spikes in tech and finance
Why facts don’t defuse fear, using a real example from Kerri’s own rural community and a data center nobody wants
What Shadow AI is, why it shows up when leadership stays quiet, and the compliance exposure it creates
A concrete example of AI and a human intern splitting a project, and exactly where the human stayed essential
The division of labor: what you can hand to AI (the FAQ, the training outline, the announcement email) and what stays human (the reassurance, the one-on-one, the promise)
Why only 22% of employees say their organization has a clear AI plan, and what “just say what you do know” looks like in practice
The single sentence to say out loud this week that will lower panic more than any tool you could buy
Chapter Timestamps
0:00 FOBO: the fear nobody is naming
2:19 Why we’re still talking about AI
4:44 The people side: feelings show up at work
7:08 Technostress vs. FOBO, defined
9:28 What AI does for my intern, and what it can’t
11:45 The fractional controller I stopped paying
14:02 52% worried, 33% overwhelmed
16:25 Y2K, the first family computer, and emotional fear
18:46 Why the statistics don’t calm anyone down
21:11 Shadow AI and the compliance line item
23:30 Only 22% have a clear AI plan
25:43 What AI drafts vs. what stays human
28:02 The one sentence a human has to say
30:15 Where to start if you’re behind
32:28 Your action item: ask the question
Resources Mentioned
The HR Easy Button (book) - saltandlightadvisors.com/thehreasybutton - paperback, hardback, and Kindle on Amazon
HR Foundations (course, under $50) - saltandlightadvisors.com/hrfoundations
Free Mini HR Audit - saltandlightadvisors.com/hraudit
Companion blog post: Your Team Is Already Using AI. They Just Haven’t Told You. - saltandlightadvisors.com/blog
Earlier in this series: How to write an AI policy for your business - https://youtu.be/RxDlv8fUctM?si=kp4_QwaA9Or8D6rw
Earlier in this series: What HR tasks you can outsource to AI - https://youtu.be/SmTQkkm--Yo?si=eoZbKT5tUyLp9f9K
Harris Poll for ETS - 58% of workers fear becoming obsolete from a lack of skills
Pew Research Center - 52% of U.S. workers worried about AI at work, 33% feel overwhelmed
KPMG / University of Melbourne, Trust in AI - 57% of employees conceal their AI use
Gallup - only 22% of employees say their organization has a clear AI plan
Your Action Item
This week, say one sentence to your team about AI. Not a policy, not a rollout plan, one sentence about what you personally use it for. Then ask them what they’re using it for, and make it explicit that the answer will not be held against them. Be ready for honest answers, because the data says more than half your people already have one. That single question will lower panic in your organization more than any tool you could buy this quarter.
GET THE MONDAY EMAIL
If this episode resonated, you’ll like the Monday morning email. Every Monday at 5:28am, Kerri sends one practical idea for leaders who want to do this work better, including the conversations behind episodes like this one. 1,000+ leaders. 50%+ open rate. https://saltandlight.myflodesk.com/saltandlightadvisors
Full Transcript
FOBO: the fear nobody is naming
Right now, at least half of your staff is feeling some major, major fear when it comes to artificial intelligence. I’d never heard of this phrase coined before, but as I was doing some research on this series, I saw something I thought was really interesting. You’ve heard of FOMO or JOMO, right? The fear of missing out or the joy of missing out. I’m an introvert, so I’ve got the joy of missing out.
This is literally FOBO, the fear of becoming obsolete. And this is something that we’re seeing when it comes to AI. And if you’re the one running HR, or you’re owning a company, or leading a team, this is something that you’re going to have to navigate with people, to acknowledge with people. So let’s talk about how to lead your people through this time so we can lower the fear and the panic.
Welcome back to another episode of Don’t Waste the Chaos. I’m your host, Kerri Roberts. I have been doing HR for well over 20 years, was in corporate. I’ve been running my own HR consulting and advisory firm for the last three and a half years. And right now you’re catching me in the middle of a series on AI in HR.
Why we’re still talking about AI
And I know some of you are sick to death of talking about AI because it’s already here and you’ve already been using it. So why are we still talking about it? Some of you are sick of talking about AI because you don’t want to use it.
I actually live in a very rural area and it has caused so much drama on the Facebooks. I mean, an unbelievable amount of drama. People just absolutely cutting each other off at the knees, people that have been around each other for families of decades and decades and decades. Because farmland is being sold for data centers. And I’m seeing a bunch of people that are like, AI is a mark of the beast and it’s a devil. Friend, if you’re using autocorrect on your phone when you type a text, that’s artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence is all over the place. So these are a lot of these tools we have been using.
But when I’m talking about this series, I’m really talking about turning it up a notch. I’m not just talking about applicant tracking, screening out for minimum qualifications on LinkedIn and Indeed. I’m talking about the ChatGPTs, the Manuses, the Geminis, the Claudes of the world, and being able to outsource some of your tasks to artificial intelligence. I love me some Cowork. I love it. And I’ve got to be honest, it took the place of, I had a couple of people on my team. Now they left on their own accord, but I did not replace them because I was able to replace people with artificial intelligence.
So these concerns are real, but today we’re going to get into some actual details and we’re going to address two major things. One is technostress. Technostress. This is our exhaustion around the constant change of technology, constant rolling out of new technologies, constant purchasing of new technologies and integrating them into the business. The overwhelm of the tools, and they are changing every month, if not more frequently. Hadn’t heard of that one either until I started doing research for this episode.
And then what I’ve already mentioned, FOBO, the fear of becoming obsolete. So those two things are real. Those are two things that are going on. Those are two things we need to address, whether you’re in HR, you own the business, you’re a people leader, and you’re listening to this episode.
We need to address those things because they’re real, whether you’re annoyed with it or not, whether you’re sick to death of talking about it or not, whether you’d rather just ignore it. Maybe you’re a business owner that says this isn’t going to change my business, I’m not implementing these things. I’m telling you, if you’re ignoring technostress and you’re ignoring the feelings of FOBO of your employees, you’re ignoring some really valid things that are going on out there. And you’re helping no one, including yourself.
So we’re going to talk about these today. The job is not to help people integrate another tool. It’s to lead people through this change calmly, to try to lower stress, to bring clarity to the situation, clear rules. This episode’s going to show you how.
The people side: feelings show up at work
So we’ve already had several episodes in this series. And so if you haven’t checked those out, you should. Things that you can outsource from an HR perspective, if you’re even ready to do this in the first place. AI policy that you need to write, I kind of gave you a simplistic one to start modeling. So we’ve gone through all of that.
Now we’re going to talk about the people side of this because that matters, right? I’m a process girl. Usually when people tell me that they’re having people issues, I’m usually like, all right, well, what are your systems? I think you’re probably having an operational issue, which means lack of clarity, lack of communication. So then the people aren’t performing. That’s usually what I lean on. But we’ve got to talk about the people.
And today, don’t tune out, okay? But we are going to talk about the feelings. And here’s why. Because people are having them. People are having some feelings on this topic. And if we don’t talk about it, we are essentially acting like their feelings are irrelevant and like they don’t show up in the workplace. And goodness knows they do, right? Those feelings show up in the workplace.
So you can have clean data, you can have the policy, you can have the right tools, and you can still have a rollout of AI stall because you haven’t addressed some of these issues. And that’s what we’re going to address today. If the humans are anxious and nobody’s talking about it, this isn’t going to go super well. So we’ve got to talk about the people.
Technostress vs. FOBO, defined
So we’ve got the two fears. You remember what they are? Two that are newer. Maybe you’re listening and you’re like, I’ve never heard of those either. I had not. Technostress, FOBO. That’s it.
People are lumping it into like, my team’s weird about AI, our business is weird about AI, our leadership team’s weird about AI, the owner of the business is weird about AI. Instead of talking about what they actually are. Technostress is the overwhelm. Too many tools. New one every single week, wondering if they’re even doing it right. And then the FOBO, that’s deeper and more personal, the fear of becoming obsolete. Am I the one that’s becoming replaceable?
And this is coming up in a myriad of different ways, but let me walk through a few of them. If you feel like you’re replaceable, or you’re afraid that you’re going to be replaceable because of this tool, because of this AI, you’re either going to get resistant to using AI, you’re going to become a naysayer of it, or you’re going to get really quiet about it and you’re going to use it, but not share with anybody how you’re using it. And so the processes aren’t repeatable. We don’t have them captured in a standard operating procedure, and we’re at even more risk as a business.
Because, friend, if you’re using AI, you’re more efficient and you’re taking off those entry-level tasks so you can think more strategically.
What AI does for my intern, and what it can’t
So I want to say it’s nothing to be afraid of. And then I understand I opened up the episode saying my admin and my marketing have virtually been replaced by artificial intelligence. Now, if those people had stayed in my business, they would be doing more value-added things.
I do have a summer intern and she’s working on a number of projects for me right now. Let me give you an example. My summer intern is using AI to do research to find speaking engagements for me for 2027. So AI is helping her do the research. AI helped us write a short, medium, and long bio. AI helped us pick out what headshots we should be including with those. AI helped pick through my QuickBooks to find who the recommendations could be from, who I’ve done speaking engagements for in the past, collected their contact information, put pitch decks together for her, did FAQs for her of what I speak about, helped draft all of that, helped me build a better speaking engagement page for my website. AI has helped with all of that.
Now, a human has had to lead AI through that. AI just didn’t magically say, hey Kerri, would you like to fill up 2027 speaking engagements? A human had to lead that. And then after AI helped with all those things, which by the way was a lot of back and forth because we had to input what my blackout dates were, we had to input what my pricing structure was, we had to input my target groups and all of these different things. What I actually speak on. We input the content of what I’ve spoken on before to help draft these little mini blurbs for pitches. So lots of input.
But from there, after she’s developed the spreadsheet of all of the potential targets, she’s reaching out to these organizations. She’s doing the check to see if applications are open right now. If they’re not, she’s tracking it on the spreadsheet and then putting it on my calendar to reach out to them later. And then she’s actually applying on my behalf. Now, Cowork could potentially do that, log into websites and fill those out, but that’s getting a little bit too far down the road. And I want humans’ eyes on these things because this is how I make money, right? Speaking engagements, keynotes, breakout sessions, strategic workshops and things like that. That is a revenue stream for me. And so this is important.
I’ve got human oversight. And then I’ve actually got a human doing a large part of the process, just using the supplemental information from AI. I tell you that just because people are still very, very important in business, but she didn’t have to spend a hundred hours getting all that prepped. She and I together spent about 10. Now she’s able to get in and apply. Hopefully that means she’s going to be able to apply for far more speaking engagements so I can hit my target, which is one to two a month in 2027, which is loosely what I did in 2026 and I enjoyed that.
So I’m not going to say there’s nothing to be afraid about because those are real feelings and they’re valid. But I give that example because you and AI are going to need to coexist in your business. Whether you’re a support staff person, you’re a manager, you’re the business owner, whatever, you will need to use AI, but you are still very, very valuable, friend. And it’s just making sure that you’re using AI and keeping the more strategic people-centric pieces to yourself. Because AI can’t do everything for you.
The fractional controller I stopped paying
I saw some data that said 58% of workers fear becoming obsolete from a lack of skills. That was interesting to me because AI is going to give you even more skills. But that’s some data right now. The Harris Poll put that out. 74% of those people are in tech, 73% in finance. Okay, now that’s making sense.
And that’s because tech, where obviously the coding, the vibe coding is happening. And then in finance, the financial modeling is wild. I was even using a fractional CFO, fractional controller for a period of time. And I always knew I could do a larger part of that myself just because of my general business acumen, because I was a chief operating officer for a period of time.
But now, especially since I have AI, and right or wrong, I give AI access to my QuickBooks Online. And so it can pull the reports itself, give me the insights, tell me what I need to clean up to better prepare, get me tax estimates, all of those things. It’s amazing. And I was paying a fractional controller around $750 a month. That’s not a ton. And I still did that up until the middle of this year. So from April of 2023 till probably about that same time, probably about June of 2026, I was paying for that. And tax preparation, of course, on top of that, which I will continue to pay for, the tax preparation piece of it and tax filing. But a lot of that is now being taken over by AI. So I understand that in finance and in technology, those are heavy burdens.
The difference is the people who innovate, the people who evolve and figure out how they can be a more strategic part are the ones who are going to move on to business in the future and probably love what they’re doing even more.
I could say the same thing for human resources. You can certainly get on your AI and say, I’m a business in this industry at about this size of employee population, about this size and either top or bottom line revenue, I operate in this state, I have around this amount of employees or whatever, help me navigate this issue. Now you’re still going to need to know what your culture is like, what your policies are like, how you actually operate. AI can’t guess those things, but that’s part of the HR function.
And so I’m not worried about it because I still see so many areas where I’m collaborating with clients that I have to use my 20 years of experience. I can’t rely on AI for that, but I certainly am using AI. I’ll type in an issue, a scenario, and then I’ll say, what judgments have taken place in the state of Missouri or federally in the last three years, what rulings have happened on this, if it’s a potential discrimination claim or performance issue or wrongful termination or whatever. So I can see what’s happening in the court system. It’s given me a competitive advantage. Now, do my clients view that as a competitive advantage? Maybe not necessarily, but to me, I feel so much more well prepared to have those conversations with my clients. So again, I’m taking it above and beyond.
52% worried, 33% overwhelmed
Some other data that I saw. 52% of U.S. workers are worried about AI at work. So more than half of workers in the United States are worried about AI at work. 33% feel overwhelmed by it. Overwhelmed by the fear, the FOBO, and also overwhelmed, the technostress. They don’t know what they’re supposed to be doing. No one’s giving them the guidelines. No one’s telling them the play. No one’s telling them what the SOP says because we’re all just figuring it out together. 33% feel overwhelmed by it right now. We can’t just ignore it. That’s research from the Pew Research Center.
And we can’t just ignore that. That’s something that as HR, as leaders, as owners, we have to address. The fear is louder than the facts. The facts are out there around AI and utilization and adoption. And it’s, in my opinion, lower than I would have thought it would be, but the fear is still showing up in a very big way. And we just can’t ignore it.
Y2K, the first family computer, and emotional fear
You can’t argue people out of their fears. Just like right now, I mentioned I’m in a rural area. There’s this proposed data center, the land has been sold. We’re going to see what’s happening. And people are freaking out. We’re going to not have any water in the area. Our electric bills are going to skyrocket. It’s going to sound like a loud vacuum, and you’re going to be able to hear it from miles around. We are all going to have radiation. We’re all going to end up with cancer. Or money’s going to come into the area and we’re going to be overpopulated by people. I mean, the fear is huge.
And you can’t just say, hey, none of that makes any sense. This is a microcenter. It’s not going to drain the water. Our electric bills are going to go up, actually the local electric company has already disputed that. The sound is so much lower than it was when data centers first started. Not to mention this is a small location instead of a large location. The closest school to it is 1.3 miles away. They’re not going to be able to hear anything. When you start to explain all of that, a person says, well, you’re for it, you use it. And they just dismiss the facts. And that’s what’s happening. This is an emotional response that people are having.
And I graduated high school in 2000. I remember Y2K. For my younger listeners, Y2K, when the clock rolled over to 2000, people thought that technology was going to go haywire, that nothing was going to work because this was a new century, and everything was going to shut down and we were going to have major, major issues. And almost every generation can tell you about a time where people had some crazy fears. And it didn’t feel so crazy at the time. You were like, well, I don’t know, maybe that’s going to happen. And then the clock rolled forward to January 1 of 2000 and everything was fine. The clocks figured it out. The TV figured it out. The internet figured it out, even though the internet hadn’t been around near as long.
Then same thing when the internet came on the scene. I was a teenager. Same thing when my family got the first computer. I just remember it was just a huge deal. And we kept it in the kitchen because my family was afraid that something horrible was going to happen. And so we kept it right out in the middle of our whole family gathering, which honestly was smart. And it was dial-up, it was all of this stuff. But we’ve gone through all of these iterations of technology.
And I’m not saying that there are no negative consequences, right? I have a teenager, I see negative consequences of phones. I do. That’s why I’ve got Bark on my kids’ phone, because I’m worried about it. I see a ton of people reaching out to him that would like to victimize him as a young, attractive teenage boy. I see that bad things can happen with AI as well. I do. But the facts right now aren’t able to quell the fears. That’s just where we’re at.
Why the statistics don’t calm anyone down
When people are scared, they don’t stop using AI, they hide it. Or they won’t use AI and they get really, really dug in. They dig those feet in and they just absolutely will not change. And both are really, really hard.
The headlines are screaming, AI is coming for your job, AI is the mark of the beast, all of these things, right? The people actually doing the jobs mostly don’t believe that their specific role is going to disappear. What I saw was 15% of workers think it’s likely that AI eliminates their personal job in the next five years. Only 15%. That’s right where the data was at in 2023. Now here we are, I’m recording this late summer 2026. Only 15%. That’s still pretty low. The number hasn’t budged for two years.
But the HR part, or the manager part, the leadership part, the owner part, is people don’t act on the statistic. They still act on the feeling. So you can’t wave 15% at them and expect the fear to evaporate. Because even though only 15% of people are saying it’s going to eliminate their job, there’s still this undercurrent of just not sure, right? You have to acknowledge the feelings first and then bring the facts.
Shadow AI and the compliance line item
The fear you can’t see is what’s already costing you in your business. These conversations are happening behind your back if you’re not forcing it to happen in front of you as a leadership team.
Like I said, when people are scared, they’re either going to dig their feet in and refuse to innovate, or they’re going to use AI but then hide it, because they’re afraid that that would somehow prove that then they really aren’t necessary. Hidden AI is Shadow AI. I’ve seen this term. If you’ve got a hidden AI system, that means that you don’t know what’s being put into it. And if you’re not paying for the AI system yourself, then they’re probably using their own personal accounts with potentially client information, employee information. You need the paid accounts to have the higher level of security, because otherwise there’s no review on it, no policy on it, nobody can train on it because no one admits that they’re doing it. That’s data security and quality integrity problems, both. And they both have dollar figures potentially attached to them.
And you’ve probably heard me say before, HR metrics are business metrics, they’re finance metrics, and a culture of fear quietly becomes a compliance line item in this case. Because if we’re refusing to use it, then we’ve got struggles with adoption and change management. If we’re using it but not sharing it because we’re afraid that then it’ll prove that we’re really not worthwhile in our position or not needed anymore, then we’re running it rogue without any policies or parameters around it. Both are potential compliance and quality assurance issues.
I saw that 57% of workers have concealed their AI use or passed off AI-generated work as their own. Now, we can identify AI writing a lot more now, and AI flyers, everyone’s sick to death of the flyers. I’ve been cracking up with the people who have handwritten marketing now and they’re posting those and they’re like, hey, you’re sick of the AI flyers, here’s my handwritten whatever, and it’s like, call so-and-so for an insurance quote. People are making a joke out of this. This is a real issue. We’re tired of it, but yet we’re using it. And then we’re not acknowledging that we’re using it. And all of these causes struggle.
The antidote to this is not a pep talk, it is clarity in your business. What system are we using? How are we using it? How would we not use it? If panic’s living in a vacuum, then we need to bring it out into the light, right?
When nobody says anything official about AI, when we have no policies around it, we fill it in with the worst case scenario. Our human nature in the absence of information is to fill it in with the worst case scenario, unfortunately. That’s usually what we do. Hey, we’re not talking about AI because the whole company is going to be outsourced to AI in the next three years. That’s probably not true. But if you’re not telling them what the truth is…
And if you’re a business owner right now, or you’re on the executive team and you’re like, we don’t even know what the truth is, I hear you. I feel you on that. Stuff is changing so quickly. Just say what you do know. Hey, we’re going to put an AI policy in place because we recognize that a percentage of our workforce is using it. What was the data that I read? 57% of workers have concealed their AI use or they’re passing AI-generated work off as their own. So 57% of workers are doing that.
We’re just going to go ahead and acknowledge it. We’re using AI. Here are the approved tools inside of our organization. Here are things that are okay to put into AI and use AI for. Here’s where we value the human perspective. And that will also tell your employees, they see that the human perspective is still very important. That will also help lower the fear. The unknown of what to use and when to use it and can I use it, fear. The unknown of, are you still valuing us or do you value AI more, fear. So let’s just address some of those things.
We can’t say, well, here’s our five-year AI rollout plan, because who knows? We were using it like Google, and then all of a sudden it was coding for us. Then all of a sudden it was managing our calendars for us. It has evolved very quickly. I’m not saying that it hasn’t. But we have to be honest with our employees.
Only 22% have a clear AI plan
And let me talk about some data in this area. I saw it looks like only 22% of workers say that their organization has a clear AI plan. 22%. That’s not very high, considering how many of us are using AI right now.
So, where the leadership does communicate about AI, employees are three times as likely to feel prepared and 2.6 times as likely to feel comfortable using AI. So we’ve got technostress, we’ve got FOBO, and we could literally help this right now as a leadership team. That data came from Gallup. So if me telling you is not enough, if you knowing inside, like we’re not addressing this, the data is telling us this as well. I’m telling you.
So one of the things I recommend that you do is go back to either my last episode or two episodes ago on how to draft an AI policy. Go in there, download the transcript, throw it into AI and say, I’m a business in this state and this industry with about this many employees, either we’re using AI or we’re not. Don’t forget, hit that mic button and just talk to AI, Claude, GPT, Gemini, Manus, whatever you’re using, and walk it through and then say, here’s a transcript from this HR consultant that I follow from an episode she did about an HR AI policy, can you draft one for me? And it will at least start the process for you. And make sure to say, what questions do you need to ask me to make sure that this is as accurate as possible to my business? So now’s the time.
I’ll try to drop a link to that episode in the show notes so you can go back and listen. But literally, if you just scroll back on Don’t Waste the Chaos, it’s like two to three episodes ago about the AI policy, and it’s inside of this series.
What AI drafts vs. what stays human
So we need to talk about the difference between what gets handed to AI and then what stays human. And we talked about this a little bit in the last episode.
Drafting the internal “how we use AI around here” FAQ, AI can start with that. Building a short training outline for you on how you all are utilizing AI, AI can start with that. Summarizing the tool options, the name of the tool, when you would use the tool, for what tasks, in what departments. Writing the first version of the announcement email on “we’re no longer ignoring AI,” all of that. Or talking points for your all-hands meeting, whatever it is, AI can help you with all of that when it comes to AI. Isn’t that magical? It’s not that hard.
Now, what stays human in that process? The actual reassurance. Recognizing the feelings. The one-on-one with the person who is genuinely scared and has decided in their personal life they don’t want to utilize AI, but now you’re being kind of prescriptive on how they need to use it in the business. The decision that nobody loses their job for adding these tools. That’ll have to be a you decision. That’ll be a leadership team conversation. What does that look like and how does the work shift?
By the way, I would throw all of your job descriptions into AI and say, of these roles, what could AI take over? And then what is uniquely human? And of the roles that AI could take a lot over, what can I do to make these individuals more strategic so they pick up new responsibilities for the things that AI is taking off the administrative side of their plate? Start there. That’s another great way to use AI.
And calming yourself, that’s another thing that is unique to you. You’re going to have to figure out how you feel about all of this. AI can write the memo, but it can’t be the leader who delivers it. That’s going to be on you. That’s uniquely human, and that’s called being a leader. And sometimes being a leader is not the easiest thing.
The one sentence a human has to say
So when I’ve got a client who is trying to navigate this and wants to figure it out, when they’re rolling out AI and the team is on edge about it, I’ll use AI to build the internal one-pager for the client. Here’s how we use AI, here’s what’s off limits, here’s what it means for you, an FAQ. And that takes about 20 minutes. Usually I’ll do that while I’m on the phone with the client. That way they can talk me through their fears, what the issues have been going on. By the way, I will be recording the call, they know, getting a transcript from it. I don’t do the video recording because it takes up too much space in the cloud for me, but I take the transcript and then we’re making the policy as we go. And then once I get off the call, I’ll download the transcript into my AI and say, take this into consideration, this is additional information. And I will get them a really solid one-pager to start. That’s a great way that I use it.
I’ll have the draft training outline and the announcement too. But I always have one sentence in there that makes a ton of difference. And a human has to say this piece out loud:
We’re using this to take the busy work off your plate, not to take you off the team.
We’re using this tool to take the busy work off your desk, but not to take you out of the organization. Make sure a human’s saying that. That’s very, very important. AI drafts the communication, but you own that promise. Only if you mean it. So make sure it gets said, because that’ll help alleviate some of this fear.
Where to start if you’re behind
If you’re listening to this right now and you’re like, my team is nervous and I don’t have time to build the policy and the training and the talk on top of everything else, and I know you just told me how to use AI to do it, but I don’t really understand. That’s completely normal. Leading people through change is a big job stacked on top of your actual full-time job. Very fixable, but you don’t have to build it from scratch or guess at it.
So a few things that you can do. You of course can go to saltandlightadvisors.com/contact and just reach out to me and say, I’m ready to start walking down this path, but I can’t do it alone. And there’s no one else in my organization that can do it with me. Can you walk through this with me? Yes, I can. I can absolutely do that.
If instead you’re like, I’m not ready to do this, I actually don’t even know what I need overall on my HR foundation, let alone how to integrate my AI, I’ve got a free mini audit out there that would be a great place for you to start. saltandlightadvisors.com/hraudit.
Now I do full-blown audits for clients all the time. And when I say all the time, I usually do about two of these a month. And these always convert into clients with me. It’s not because I say something tricky from a sales perspective at the end of them. It’s because it’s a gap analysis. You usually come to me to do the full-blown HR audit because you know you’re missing something. There’s something keeping you up at night. There’s something stressing you out, something outstanding that has been brought to your attention and you know you’re ready to jump in.
I start with a full-blown HR audit, takes me about a month. The commitment from you as the business owner is I schedule a couple of calls with you and I ask you a ton of questions. You just answer them to the best of your ability. Sometimes you hand me off to an office manager or a finance person for some other questions, if I’m talking about topics that you’re like, gosh, I don’t really know, but so-and-so would. I’ll have a call with them. And then I’ll meet with you as the business owner to do essentially a gap analysis based on the business of your size. Here’s what you have that’s solid. Here’s what’s lacking. And I will rank it based off of cultural risks inside of your organization, people risk, recruitment, retention risk. And then I’ll do legal risk, insurance risk, financial risk, all of that. And then I’ll map out, if I were you, what priorities I would tackle in the next six months. And then I just map out, here’s what you could outsource to me and here’s what you really need to do internally. And usually that means we start working together.
As of right now, knock on wood, a hundred percent of those have converted into clients for me. And again, it’s not because I’m saying anything tricky. It’s usually people who come to me for an HR audit, they’re ready to roll. They’re ready to roll. And I’m ready to roll.
But if you’re not ready to get into a consulting agreement with me, that’s a one-time project, a one-month contract. And if you decide to walk away after that, no harm, no foul. Literally, I would be fine. And I’ve told myself that that’s why I put it as a one-time contract. Because if you took the information and actually applied it yourself, that would be fine with me. If you took the information and you gave it to your HR leader who just didn’t have time to get things set up in the first place and said, can you do this? And they did it, I would be cheering you on. I’m not trying to hold you forever. So that’s the whole deal.
I start with an HR audit. So if you’d like to start there to learn your HR foundation in general, and then I can walk you through how you can integrate AI into those practices. And then maybe it expands into your business, maybe it doesn’t.
Your action item: ask the question
Regardless, you need to tell your people what the plan is. We’re going to take a look at this and we’re going to see where we’re going to add it. Is anyone using it right now and not communicating it to me? You’re not going to be in trouble for using AI. We just really want to capture where it’s involved in our processes. And that’ll maybe help us understand if we need to start writing policies around it, or if we need to buy enterprise software so that way other people can be using it. Make it a safe space for them to be honest with you. And I think you’re going to be surprised. The data says 57% of employees are hiding it.
So go ahead and ask the question. Make sure it’s a safe space, that they’re not going to be penalized. And then be ready for the answers, and then be ready to take it a step further. The best thing that you can do is just put that into AI and say, here’s what I learned in my all-hands meeting, here’s the type of people that are using AI and what they’re using it for, what do you recommend? Where do we move forward with that?
This week, this is what I challenge you to do. I want you to say a single sentence to your team about AI. What you’re using it for, what you as an individual, as a leader, as a business owner, what you’re using it for. And then you ask them what they’re using it for and let them know that it won’t be held against them. That one sentence is going to lower that panic more than any tool that you could buy.
Next week, I’m going a little bit deeper on how to actually govern AI, that real human-centered AI governance for a company that’s not a big enterprise and doesn’t have a legal department. Because you can absolutely do this.
If you haven’t hit the subscribe button, please do so, because that’s the only way that my content gets to other business owners and leaders and HR managers like you. Otherwise, I’m just a small fry out there and my content just sits. So if you could hit subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, wherever you’re finding the podcast, I would be so very, very, very, very grateful. But regardless, I’m going to keep putting content out every single Tuesday. That’s when I release a new episode.
If you want to reach out to me for consulting, for speaking, or just a quick HR question, please don’t hesitate to reach out. I am doing this because I know that small to mid-sized businesses have a need and they usually aren’t allocating resources. Whether they can and they just aren’t doing it, or they don’t have the resources, they don’t even know what direction to turn. That’s why I’ve created this show. It’s for you. And I want it to get into the hands of as many people like you as possible so we can make an impact on our businesses, on our recruitment, on our retention, and honestly, on the way that you sleep at night.
So I understand that implementing these policies, new technology, learning what is technostress, what is FOBO, it’s just another thing I have to remember. I know all of that can feel like chaos. But the work is worth it. So don’t waste the chaos, friends. Embrace it. I’ll see you next Tuesday.
Resources To Keep Building
If your team has gotten quietly weird about AI and you’re not sure whether the problem is the tool or the foundation underneath it, take the free HR Audit to see where your people systems actually stand. saltandlightadvisors.com/hraudit
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
