TECH

Getty Images

Hackathons are far less common inside the HR departments of global financial institutions.

But that’s exactly what Jeff Bienstock, Citi’s global head of HR operations and technology, set out to do in order to accelerate AI adoption amongst HR colleagues and harness their expertise to ideate AI use-cases to better run HR across the business.

“Citi was in the process of rolling out a variety of internal tools for our employees, and what we were trying to solve for was…how do we get excitement behind an adoption of these tools within our HR function, specifically,” Beinstock said. “We had this philosophy, or maybe hypothesis is a better word, that there’s a lot of really talented, innovative folks within HR that would thrive given the opportunity to showcase some of the talent and use some of these tools internally.”

For more on how Citi’s hackathon promoted AI adoption within HR, keep reading here.—AD

      

Sponsored By Paylocity

Small businesses have enough plates spinning without turning payroll and compliance into a circus act. Paylocity’s Ready to Grow guide helps HR teams build a stronger foundation for today’s must-do work and tomorrow’s bigger plans. Because keeping operations steady shouldn’t mean putting workforce strategy in a drawer labeled “someday.”

The guide breaks growth into three practical priorities:

• delivering payroll accurately and on time
• staying compliant as employment laws evolved
• building a workforce thoughtfully and sustainably

It also shows how scalable HR and payroll technology can support both operational stability and long-term productivity.

Translation: fewer payroll fire drills, fewer compliance headaches, and a tech foundation that can keep pace when “small business” starts feeling a little less small.

Growing companies can get the guide now and start planning their next HR tech move with confidence.

RECRUITMENT & RETENTION

Illustration: Morning Brew Inc., Photo: Adobe Stock

Job-seekers are “mad as hell and they’re not going to take this anymore.”

Half of job seekers report being ghosted by prospective employers, and the frustration has given rise to a new website, Did they ghost you?, where job applicants call out employers who became unresponsive during the hiring process.

Gary Meyer, a fractional marketing executive based in Toronto, created the website in mid-July, (in what he said was partly a joke) after hearing repeated stories of prospective employers ghosting his friends. For the website’s purposes, Meyer defines ghosting as a company that stops responding after interviewing a candidate and does not ever clearly reject or update the candidate (unanswered applications don’t count).

Meyer’s site blew up quickly: More than 2,000 companies have appeared on Did they ghost you? so far, including tech titans Apple and Microsoft, finance firms Capital One and JPMorgan, and legacy media businesses Condé Nast and CNN.

For more on what HR needs to know about the website, keep reading here.—PM

      

HR STRATEGY

Elizabeth Norberg

For Elizabeth Norberg, the chief people officer role is about more than just HR.

As EVP and global chief people officer at SharkNinja, a household appliance manufacturer based outside of Boston, Norberg oversees not only people operations, but also corporate communications, real estate, design, and construction.

Norberg took on this broad remit with the support of SharkNinja’s CEO, Mark Barrocas, she told HR Brew at a conference in April.

When Norberg joined SharkNinja in 2023, the company had a “very traditional HR practice,” she said. With Barrocas’s support, Norberg and her team are pursuing a “bigger, bolder agenda,” beyond “the price of admission HR stuff,” she said.

For more on the initiatives Norberg’s team is spearheading, keep reading here.—CV

      

Sponsored By Paylocity

Small team, bigger HR plans. Growing businesses need payroll that lands, compliance that keeps pace, and a people strategy that isn’t perpetually postponed. Paylocity’s Ready to Grow guide shows small HR teams how scalable technology can steady today’s operations while setting tomorrow’s workforce plans up for success. Get the guide.

work perks

Francis Scialabba

Today’s top HR reads.

Stat: Just 43% of AI mentions in Glassdoor reviews have been positive so far this year, down from 81% in 2019. (Glassdoor)

Quote: “We needed a US workforce strategy on AI readiness yesterday. We’ve got to focus on the trust that the American worker has with AI, and the opportunity it has to help make us better learners, more efficient, more productive.”—Chris Layden, CEO of staffing and recruiting firm Kelly, on his view that business leaders and government officials need to do more to support workers’ AI readiness (the Wall Street Journal)

Read: Gone are the days of leaning on LinkedIn to land a new job. In the current economic environment, professionals rely on the platform just to maintain their careers. (Business Insider)

^{*A message from our sponsor.}