From recruiting and retention to company culture and the latest in HR tech, HR Brew delivers up-to-date industry news and tips to help HR pros stay nimble in today’s fast-changing business environment.

HR Brew

Sam Blum

hr-brew.com

People exiting a crowded NYC subway station. 

A brief look at the issues befuddling RTO directives at some major employers.

 Getting workers back to the office is proving difficult for these large companies 

Kristen Parisi

an image of two people (a man and a woman) looking at a computer, smiling. overlayed are graphics including a bargraph and stars

how to conduct performance reviews

HR leaders say that more regular assessments are necessary for adequate performance analysis.

It’s not about whether you conduct performance reviews, it’s how many

Two people in an office sit on opposite sides of a desk.

Managers

Mikaela Cohen

 didn’t age well…for many reasons. But, despite the obvious HR violations in the 2011 movie, some might need a refresher on how to 

Mita Mallick, a workplace strategist, highlights the circumstances that can lead any manager to become a bad boss—and how to avoid them—in her book, 

The Devil Emails at Midnight: What Good Leaders Can Learn From Bad Bosses

Mallick shared more with HR Brew about her forthcoming book.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What will HR leaders learn from your book?

One of the number one DMs I get is, “Here’s a horrible situation at work that I’m going through. How do I survive this situation? What do I do?” I, as I was crafting this book, thought to myself, “Well, what if we are the bad boss? What if we’re the person that’s contributing to the environment?” Our behaviors can swing from bad boss to good leader to bad boss.

I hope HR leaders look in the mirror and think [about] how are they acting and behaving, and then also, how can they coach other leaders, versus saying, “Let me coach the team on how to work around this person, try to survive this person, try to manage up to them.” What if we actually said, “No, we actually have to go to the person who’s behaving badly and work with them.”

Why is bad leadership a problem in today’s workplace?

Loyalty is dead in the workplace…There used to be this employee-employer contract, like, I will take care of you. You take care of me. You’re going to get a pension, and so people knew there was job security, and a lot of times, generations before us endured abuse because they were guaranteed a paycheck.

We know in this market that’s no longer guaranteed. I could lose my job tomorrow. You could lose your job tomorrow…What’s happening more and more is that people, especially with social media having changed our world over the last decade, people are voicing and people are saying, “I’m actually not going to stay. You can tell me to put up with this, but I’m going to craft an exit plan, and I’m going to leave.”

Do you share any personal experiences with bad leadership in the book?

, I nicknamed her Medusa, I had never had anyone in my life, not my parents, not my brother, not my husband, not my friends, ever shout and scream at me. And, then I entered the workplace, and this woman would shout and scream at us. She would drop an excessive amount of F-bombs. She would publicly and privately humiliate us.

She had 12 people leave, and then she goes to manage another team, which I’m forced to join, and guess what happened? A year and a half later, those entire 12 people were gone. And, so the question is, employers and people who are in leadership power, aren’t actually thinking about the cost of replacing the employee, and they’ll do everything they can to protect this one person when it’s actually costing the company quite a lot.

How do you think AI will affect employee-manager relationships?

I hope that AI doesn’t breed a generation of lazy bosses…There are going to be things that are problematic with AI, and there are. But if AI is actually being implemented correctly in organizations, it’s the opportunity to do more work at scale. Take it off managers’ plates. So, then managers actually have time to do what they’re supposed to do, which is coach, and teach, and train, and lead.

The way I’m going to compete against AI agents is to be human, and to lean into a lot of the things, like dealing with conflict, teaching people how to go through mistakes, how to bounce back, resilience, a lot of these things we need. Some of the best leaders I worked for, they taught me these things on the job…People will argue, “Well, there’s no time during the day, and then I have meetings back to back, and that’s why I have to send emails at night”...Okay, if you actually scaled AI appropriately, and a lot of the things that can be automated are taken off your plate, you actually now have time to be with your teams.

Two hands holding on opened book with text highlighted

An interview with Mita Mallick, author of ‘The Devil Emails at Midnight’

Employees may have tolerated bad behavior from bosses before, but those days are over, Mita Mallick, author and workplace strategist, tells HR Brew.

Are you a bad boss? Ask yourself these questions

Is getting promoted always the best thing to happen? There’s little doubt that many employees wouldn’t turn down a pay bump, but one author suggests that promotions aren’t always positive.

More companies are reconsidering promotion structures to include both non-management and management role tracks, 

, so employees can advance their careers without necessarily jumping into people management.

But even when employees decide to take on a people management role, some of those “superpower skills” that got them promoted might work against them, according to Sabina Nawaz, executive coach, speaker, and author of 

You’re The Boss: Become the Manager You Want to Be (and Others Need)

Nawaz shared with HR Brew how people pros can help employees be aware of some adverse effects of stepping into leadership.

What will HR pros learn after reading your book?

This book, for HR professionals, is a two-fold resource. One is for themselves, and the other is for the clients that they support. There are three key things in the book that reshape our thinking about power, pressure, and leadership, and particularly leading in these times. The first one is that getting promoted is often the riskiest time in your career.

The second is that it is not power, but pressure that corrupts us. Under pressure, we act out, we get shorter, we get snippier, and then power comes in, and isolates us from the impact of those actions under pressure. So, we are often the last ones to find out that we’re actually doing damage and becoming innocent saboteurs for our teams, as well as our business results, because nobody wants to tell someone in a position of power what they don’t want to hear.

To the first point, what do you mean by promotions are risky?

When we get promoted, of course, it’s obviously an occasion for great celebration. At the same time, we haven’t changed, but our position has changed. We’re in a new level, and we have new rules. If people are not aware of that, it comes [back] to bite them.

Let’s say somebody is really attentive to details. It’s a superpower of theirs. That is what got them noticed and promoted up the ranks. Now, suddenly, as a manager, they’re going to be viewed as a micromanager because while we haven’t changed, the necks that are craning up to look at us, their view of us becomes less charitable, and also, sometimes people feel a sense of threat when somebody is in a position of power because they have so much control over our lives.

What does a good or effective manager look like from your perspective?

I don’t know that there is such a thing as a purely good manager or bad manager. They both reside under us, and it goes back to one of the earlier points I mentioned around pressure, that pressure actually changes how we act. 

There were times in my career where people told me I was the best boss they’d ever had, and there were times in my career where people told me I was the worst boss they ever had. Actually, they didn’t tell me that, they told other people.

Did I have a personality transplant? No. Did I act differently? Yes. Did those actions change because of the amount of pressure I was under? Absolutely. 

I’m not saying we should use that as an excuse, but to recognize that we’re capable of both types of behaviors we just have to be mindful of how we manage pressure. Because, if you think about it, pressure is also great. Diamonds are forged under pressure. It’s like an invitation to grow. We don’t realize the brilliance, the resilience, the creativity that we have unless we’re under pressure. So it doesn’t have to define you, it can refine you.

An interview with Sabina Nawaz, author of ‘You’re The Boss: Become the Manager You Want to Be (and Others Need)’

“When we get promoted, of course, it’s obviously an occasion for great celebration. At the same time, we haven’t changed, but our position has changed. We’re in a new level, and we have new rules. If people are not aware of that, it comes [back] to bite them.”

How having promotable skills can have adverse effects on employees

You probably have a boss, who has a boss, who has a bigger boss, who has a boss in the C-suite. And, the thought of actually managing all or even one of those bosses, as an individual employee, might feel rather daunting.

But every employee can “manage up” to their boss and leadership teams in order to take the reins of their career and gain influence within the company, says Melody Wilding, author of 

Managing Up: How to Get What You Need from the People in Charge

Wilding shared more with HR Brew from her book.

I very simply define managing up as how do you navigate your relationship with the people that have more positional power or positional authority than you. Primarily, that’s going to be your boss, but not always…and I think the mistake people make is that they think managing up is just something they do for their manager’s benefit, to get on their good side, to make them happy, to make them look good. It tends to be very much about the other person.

When, in actuality, managing up…is really about creating the conditions you need to be successful, whether that’s negotiating your workload, giving feedback and actually having it be heard, advocating for the resources you need or the advancement you want. It’s actually something you should do for your own benefit.

How can employees manage up when they may have conflicting interests or goals from their managers?

It’s ironic that mostly managing up starts with yourself. Managing yourself, your own psychology, understanding your own frame of reference, because, yes, you may value flexibility and making sure you have enough energy for your work and you’re engaged, and you or your team have high morale, and that’s why work-life balance is important to you. 

But, you may be dealing with a manager who is much more efficient [and] results-oriented. The people side of it is not as top of mind or convincing for them, and that’s really crucial to know because that influences how you frame your message, so that it actually gets through to them.

And, if you can say something along the lines of, “After 6pm, I do log off to spend time with my family, because I want to make sure that when I show up here, I can deliver the best results. I don’t make mistakes, which means that we can get deliverables to our clients faster,” you’re contextualizing it in a way that your manager is actually going to hear, care more about, and that will convince them to take action or say yes. You’re not fundamentally changing the content of your message. You’re just tweaking it, so that ultimately it’s more effective for you.

What role does HR play in helping employees manage up?

Everything from communicating and helping facilitate some of these conversations around alignment…It’s something that we all kind of overlook, because we’re just busy getting the work done. We very rarely zoom out or up to think about, 

Why are we doing this, and are we actually on the same page?

Especially now, as things are changing so quickly. Every day, every hour, it sounds like priorities are changing. You need to make sure your manager and the people who are reporting to them are aligned and understand, “What does success look like?” And, I think HR plays an important role in normalizing that those conversations should even be happening and helping people understand what’s the utility of them to you, as the manager.

This should be something that’s coming up in your one-on-ones, where managers, you are giving your employees line of sight into things you’re thinking about, or what’s happening at the leadership level. So, they can anticipate, they can ask questions. They have an opportunity to step up and say, “Actually, I would love to be part of that meeting. That’s something I could handle on your behalf.” So, they have development opportunities.

An interview with Melody Wilding, author of ‘Managing Up: How to Get What You Need From the People in Charge’

“Managing up…is really about creating the conditions you need to be successful, whether that’s negotiating your workload, giving feedback and actually having it be heard.”

Employees who manage up to bosses help the entire organization and their careers

An illustration of a photo of HR Brew reporter Paige McGlauflin.

Paige McGlauflin

 to have the conversations needed to perform their jobs successfully. In fact, few have actually 

 on leading their teams. Around 44% of managers say they’ve received management training, according to recently-published 

 help with that? Some companies hope so. HR Brew spoke with leaders from three companies about how their AI coaching products can help managers navigate the trickier parts of their jobs, like giving a critical performance review or discussing pay raise requests.

 its AI-powered coach in October 2023. The platform has rolled out new capabilities since, including live-chat role-play initially released to customers in late 2024.

 of role-play practice simulations is available, including some context around the scenario, the level of difficulty, and estimated time each conversation should take. Some options first rolled out were among the most requested by customers, and included scenarios like “set improvement goals for an underperformer,” “approve vacation request,” and “addressing burnout.”

The AI and role-player will “converse” either via spoken word or text. The AI is adaptive, meaning the conversation will get more difficult if it’s going well, or easier if the user struggles.

After the session ends, users will receive an evaluation rubric listing their strengths and areas for improvement based on the conversation, a detailed transcript pinpointing feedback to specific parts of the conversation.

“When you’re trying to navigate a difficult conversation or something in the workplace, tips from a seminar, conversation with a mentor, a course, can only go so far,” said Jill Raines, senior director of product management at LinkedIn. “To do that as a manager, you have to 

And probably you have to fail, and then you have to realize what you did poorly, and you have to do it again and again and again.”

On May 7, LinkedIn unveiled further updates to its AI coaching tool. Now, premium members can create and customize any scenario by describing the specific situation they want to role-play, as well as customizing the AI’s personality.

 CAISY, its AI-powered conversation simulator, for general availability in September 2023.

More than 100 out-of-the-box role-play scenarios are currently available with CAISY. Skillsoft customers can build their own scenarios, allowing them to fine-tune the simulation to their business’s needs.

First-time people manager scenarios are a “massive use case” for CAISY, said Apratim Purakayastha, Skillsoft’s general manager of talent development solutions. Some pre-built scenarios applicable to managers include:

handling difficult conversations with grace; and

“It’s very difficult being a first-time manager these days, handling pay equity conversations, handling diversity conversations, handling sensitive topics,” Purakayastha said. “When we saw generative AI, we saw a huge potential to create these scenarios.”

Users can practice as a manager, or as an employee. They select from four main behavior types: accepting, dismissive, defensive, or random (though Purakayastha notes Skillsoft is expanding the different personality types available). The AI’s safety features will stop the role-players if they say anything not suitable for work, like bringing up unrelated topics or sharing sensitive information.

Once the conversation is over, users receive a detailed report including a rating like “needs improvement,” “acceptable,” or “outstanding,” with a list of the skills they demonstrated well, and ones they should improve.

Looking ahead, Purakayastha said Skillsoft is looking into incorporating more capabilities customers want. Some requests include creating more out-of-the-box scenarios and more customization capabilities for CAISY, evaluations providing more specific scores than just “acceptable” or “outstanding,” and making the AI able to speak back and have a human-like avatar instead of a picture.

“At the end of the day, it’s still not human,” Purakayastha said. “But people want it to be more and more human-like, in multiple dimensions. And that is actually shaping our product direction.”

One newer entrant is digital coaching platform Coachhub, 

 its AI conversation simulator, AIMY, to select clients in February. It plans to make AIMY commercially available in June.

Coaching has historically only been made available to a company’s senior employees, but AI can help democratize that, said Laurel McKenzie, principal behavioral scientist at CoachHub.

“Your middle managers, I feel like they get lost in the sauce. They probably get a little bit of training when they become a manager, and they get a lot more options when they become directors and up,” she said.

AIMY has three modes available: goal-setting, discuss and reflect, and role-play. Only two role-play options were available during a recent demo, but CoachHub will add more.

After selecting a scenario, users choose the specific skill they want to develop, and whom AIMY should represent (a manager, direct report, or peer.) An optional field allows users to further describe the traits they want the AI to exhibit.

During the conversation, similar to LinkedIn’s product, AIMY will adapt to the user’s responses; If someone wants to improve emotional regulation, but becomes angry during the conversation, AIMY gets angry, too. Afterwards, users rate themselves on a scale of one to seven. They’re then given guidance on which skills to improve on, and a transcript of their conversation.

CoachHub aims to differentiate AIMY from generic generative AI tools telling users what to do instead of making them learn it themselves.

“It’s not just going to say: Here’s a five step guide on how to give proper feedback. It’s actually going to ask you coaching questions, to help you come to your own solutions, to solve the problem,” McKenzie said. “It’s not just giving you the fish. It’s going to teach you how to fish.”

Need to develop your managerial skills? There’s an AI coach for that

Three companies discuss their AI coaching products that can get managers to up their games.

How AI coaches can help managers prepare for the tougher parts of their jobs

Employees aren’t all vibing with the idea of becoming someone else’s boss.

Only one-third of individual contributors in the US want to be a people manager, according to a 

. And, some companies are rethinking how they handle promotions, so people management isn’t the only option for employees. Shopify, Google, and BP, for instance, started dual-track or two-track promotions, 

, where employees choose to advance either as a people manager or as a higher-level individual contributor within a company.

Kyle M.K., a talent strategy advisor at Indeed, heard about dual-track promotions in 2017, but they’ve only recently gained “popularity,” he told HR Brew, as companies started looking for creative retention strategies post-pandemic. M.K. said dual-track promotions are often more helpful than traditional promotions, because if employees don’t have the desire or skills to lead people, they can’t be effective managers.

When employees become managers, but lack the people skills to be a good manager, it can create retention issues, workplace strategist and author Jennifer Moss told HR Brew.

“Teams suffer because [employees can be] really good at being individual contributors, but terrible at being managers,” Moss said, adding ineffective leaders cause frustration within their entire team.

“It ends up that you lose two or more people. You lose, first of all, that incredible engineer [or] developer that could put a lot of innovation into your product, and then you also lose the members of their team who hate working for them because they’re a terrible manager,” she said.

 as companies reduced their workforces and expected them to produce more with fewer resources, Moss said, and that can make employees feel “punished” for becoming a manager.

 already don’t want to be managers, M.K. said, and there aren’t many opportunities for career growth without leading people, it pushes employees to leave.

“The things that hold them back from staying with a company is that they start to plateau in terms of their compensation, or their ownership, or influence over the business, or their team,” M.K. said. “If we hit that stage psychologically with the job that we currently have, and there’s no more challenges, then we start to look elsewhere.”

When considering dual-track promotions, M.K. said HR teams need guidelines on what’s expected to become a people manager and higher-level contributor. For instance, potential people managers need some “essential skills,” Moss said, like being empathetic, engaging in active listening, and measuring employee job satisfaction. Most companies already have a management training “deficit,” M.K. said, so every new and existing people manager needs emotional intelligence skills training.

For manager promotions, M.K. recommends that HR look for the “Ted Lassos” in their company—based on the Apple TV+ series where a US football coach with no experience coaching soccer leads a European soccer team. These employees may not be the highest performer or the best contributor, he said, but they typically keep morale up and inspire peers to do their best work.

Higher-level contributor promotions, M.K. said, should be for employees who want more “ownership or influence” over a product, service, or area of the business without having direct reports.

HR can slowly introduce dual-track promotions through test pilots within certain departments, Moss recommends. Start small and see how it impacts job satisfaction among employees, she said, then HR can use results to advocate for organizational change.

Dual-track promotions are “one of the best things” HR can do for employees, M.K. said, especially in tandem with a skills-first hiring approach. These promotions consider employees from a variety of skills and potential levels outside of their current role, he said, which helps improve retention.

“It is all centered around keeping that institutional knowledge, institutional, within the four walls of the business. It’s there to attract a lot of talent, saying, ‘Hey, whenever you start here, we’ve got lots of different opportunities,’” he said. “This really will help a lot of employers keep some of the best talent that they’ve got who are looking for those new challenges, new ways to influence, and new things to own.”

Two business women standing on a large-scale staircase with ladders leading up to a large-scale mug. (Credit: Illustration: Anna Kim)

Rethinking how employees are promoted

Current strategies could be harming retention and pushing talented employees out the door.

It’s nearly the most wonderful time of the year *checks notes*: Performance review season, a time that managers and individual contributors alike cherish dearly. (In case it’s not clear, we’re being sarcastic.)

While the annual performance review cycle has remained status quo for many companies, 

HR leaders shared with us how they’d like performance management to evolve in the year ahead.

“A trend I’d like to leave behind in 2024 is the devaluation of management roles. Between the ‘conscious unbossing’ trend—or Gen Z’s growing reluctance to take on management roles—and Silicon Valley embracing ‘founder mode’ over ‘manager mode,’ 2024 headlines painted management as an undesirable career path. Yet, organizations that underestimate the importance of middle management do so at their own peril. They risk a leadership pipeline crisis, threatening long-term stability and growth…To reverse anti-management trends, organizations first need to invest in more meaningful leadership development for manager-level employees.”—Stephanie Neal, director, DDI’s Center for Analytics and Behavioral Research

“In 2024, especially due to a lack of talent in certain industries, we saw too many companies promoting based on technical skill rather than leadership ability. These are different skill sets, and excelling in a technical role doesn’t always translate to success in management or leadership. Instead, focus on people who have potential for leadership, interest in leadership training, have strong rapport with co-workers, or have demonstrated potential outside of their primary role by showing a desire to advance their skillset.”—Shannon Gabriel, VP of leadership solutions practice, TBM Consulting Group

Consider how AI will disrupt the traditional career path.

 “Technology is evolving faster than ever and employers need to think carefully about the impact it will have on jobs and career growth—especially when we think about how AI and agents are transforming the way we work. Employees tell us they want to use new technologies like AI and agents at work. In fact, 90% of Salesforce employees say they like to experiment with new technology, and 82% see the benefits of technological advances to their work, according to our most recent survey…AI and agents can make it easier for employees to embrace learning and collect diverse and relevant skills, expertise, and job experience to position us for the future.”—Lori Castillo Martinez, EVP of talent growth and development, Salesforce

Ditch the old-school performance reviews.

 “I’d like to see the traditional, rigid approach to annual reviews finally left behind. Today’s workforce wants ongoing growth and real-time feedback—not an end-of-year assessment that’s often too late to be impactful. Instead, a continuous performance enablement model aligns much better with both employee needs and business goals. This approach prioritizes flexible goal-setting, regular check-ins, and decoupling compensation from performance reviews, allowing feedback to focus on skill development and long-term growth.”—Jamie Aitken, VP of HR transformation, Betterworks

 “Let’s say goodbye to superficial mentor relationships in 2025. So many companies have great intentions when it comes to mentoring, but most programs aren’t hitting the mark. Why? Because a lot of mentor relationships are surface-level and tend to lack real substance. Time is so limited. We’re all busy, and it’s tough to squeeze in coffee chats and virtual connects—especially if those conversations are one-sided, inauthentic, or uninspiring. To solve this, companies can create targeted mentorship programs—ones that are specific to their company culture and directly reflect the needs of their employees.”—Kelly Baker, CHRO, Thrivent

How performance management should change in 2025, according to HR

HR leaders share how they want to change the performance management process in 2025.

Ditching annual performance reviews, investing in middle management, and using AI for career development

Just one in three middle managers believe they have the “clarity, organizational support, and resources to succeed and to coach employees effectively on skills and career development,” according to a 

This may be because many middle managers don’t know how to have regular conversations with employees about their performance, Jamie Aitken, VP of HR transformation at Betterworks, told HR Brew, something that being “sandwiched” between the organization’s demands and employees’ expectations has only exacerbated.

“In HR, we give these middle managers the role, and the responsibility, of being really great coaches, and helping the members of their team succeed,” Aitken said. “[But] we haven’t given them enough support, I don’t think—traditionally, in HR—to really, truly give them the competency and the muscle strength to do that work.”

HR pros should encourage managers to have regular conversations with employees about development and performance, Aitken said. And instead of focusing on “performance management”—which tends to be a “backward-looking” reflection on the last six months or year—they should focus on “performance enablement.”

“As opposed to the more traditional performance management, that twice-a-year conversation,” she said, “performance enablement is this idea that, as a manager, you’re enabling performance and you’re enabling development over the course of the year.”

HR pros can establish a quarterly or monthly check-in process, in which managers discuss employees’ progress, current work, and career trajectory.

HR leaders should encourage managers to move away from thinking about yearly and midyear reviews as a “check-the-box” task.

Middle managers, like HR pros, should see themselves as talent managers and people managers, she said. It’s up to HR to make their company’s culture around performance and feedback more “lightweight” and “continuous.”

“I always say, my husband and I don’t have two conversations a year to find out how we’re doing as a team,” she said. “We’re constantly giving each other feedback, and recognition, and helping each other with challenges.”