Lattice CEO Sarah Franklin sees AI as “transformational technology” in business—that’s why she posted to Linkedin last month that the company was proud to be the first to develop a system for onboarding, training, goal setting, and managing performance for these “digital workers,” and creating employee records for them.

On LinkedIn and elsewhere, the criticism was swift, with many users questioning if Lattice was equating AI tools to human employees. After the announcement, Lattice hit pause on deployment because, as Franklin told HR Brew, “We need to have this conversation.”

Franklin took the helm at the company as its new CEO in January, and told HR Brew in March that she was interested in designing AI tools that have “very clear business outcomes, and they’re relatively simple to put into practice.”

What was missing from the July announcement and the subsequent public understanding of the feature, Franklin said, was that in creating a new employee record type specifically for AI tools, Lattice would actually create some distinction between human employees and the AI used at work. The intent was not to liken bots to humans, but rather house these tools in an org chart (coded and colored differently than human employees), to make goals public and clearly define who is responsible for oversight. If that all sounds very HR to you, that was Franklin’s thinking too.

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Your employee culture might need a revamp. Namely, elevating professional development with solutions-oriented capabilities. Working Not Working joins HR Brew to discuss their innovative new platform and how it could revolutionize all of the above—and then some. RSVP for this virtual chat.

Burnout: so hot right now. Mention of burnout in workers’ reviews of their current or former employers on Glassdoor reached an all-time high of roughly 0.57% in Q2 2024, up from a previous high of about 0.56% in Q1 2022. The figure was derived from an analysis of all Glassdoor reviews from full-time and part-time US employees through July 28.

While half of one percent might seem low, Daniel Zhao, lead economist at Glassdoor, told HR Brew that many common topics that “you would expect to be pretty popular only show up in the low single digits of percentage of reviews…Which is why, usually, we focus on the change over time.”

“After companies have shifted gears towards laying off workers or cutting costs, you’re seeing more employees talk about burnout in the sense that they’re getting pressure from leaders to do more with less,” Zhao said.

HR Brew talked with Zhao and Leah Phifer, an employee engagement consultant and founder of consulting firm WhyWork, about what HR professionals can do to mitigate burnout.

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If the return-to-office debate was a mixed martial arts competition, remote work would’ve gotten hit by a few roundhouse kicks this past year from its opponent, in-person attendance.

But don’t count it out just yet: 35% of US employees “did some or all of their work at home” in 2023, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, down from 42% in 2020, but still higher than 24% in 2019, prior to the pandemic.

HR Brew spoke with two labor experts about how employers’ approach to remote work might change over the next few years.

Landing in the middle. The percentage of remote workers will likely settle somewhere between pre-pandemic and pandemic levels, like a “pendulum,” Robin Erickson, VP of human capital at research firm The Conference Board, told HR Brew.

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Caring for caregivers. Many parents have reported challenges in accessing mental healthcare for their teens due to rising costs and provider shortages. That’s why Headspace and Aon’s upcoming webinar will discuss why a comprehensive mental healthcare offering from employers is business-critical. They’ll also share recommendations on where to begin. Register for the webinar to catch these insights.