From the Editor: Leadership, resilience and the problem(s) with AI

Over the past two months we’ve kept our focus on cutting through the noise with genuinely useful, practical content and the metrics and feedback back that up: our ‘practical insights’ series is resonating with you.

Navigating change with practical guidance

HR Director Gemma Churley knows career transition from both sides, as a practitioner and as someone who’s lived it. In a recent article, she introduced the CARE framework, her practical, four-part model for supporting people through change. “Behind every transition is a person navigating uncertainty, identity shift and vulnerability,” she writes. “The emotional reality is more intense than any process ever reveals. This is where HR has the opportunity, and the responsibility, to do better.”

In her most recent piece, Dr Melisa Buie tackles a different kind of vulnerability: why ‘learning cultures’ so often fail to deliver on their promise. Her solution is FREE, a framework for turning failure into learning, built on the idea that well-intentioned cultures fall flat because people are hijacked by fear, and need a structured process to interrupt that response.

Leadership coach Julie Smith takes a similar line on psychological safety: “It isn’t something you declare into being. It’s a pattern of behaviour – consistent, repeated, and visible – that signals: it is safe to speak up, take risks, show imperfections and be yourself here”. She offers five steps to building it.

Personal and enterprise performance

Sara Chapman offers a different kind of practical guide: how she moved from HR Director to CHRO at Ulteig in under two years. Her point isn’t that you need to have done the job before, it’s that leadership readiness comes from building trust, asking good questions and creating the conditions for experts to do their best work. As she puts it: “We are often more ready for the next step than we give ourselves credit for”.

And Sonia Mooney asks the question a lot of HR functions avoid: after all the activity, the time and the budget, how much value have we actually delivered? Her piece on building an HR function that drives enterprise performance offers actionable steps to shift from activity to outcome.

If you haven’t checked out these articles, I encourage you to do so and I always enjoy hearing your feedback on which content is resonating with you most. If you have an idea for your own practical insights article, I’d love to hear it.

Well-intentioned cultures fall flat because people are hijacked by fear, and need a structured process to interrupt that response – Dr Melisa Buie

A sneak peek into our latest survey results

Answers to our current pulse survey continue to come in, and a pattern is starting to emerge. Right now, you’re telling us the biggest challenges are:

• Leadership behaviour and culture
• Individual resilience and sustainability
• Trust in AI.

That’s a shift from what came out of HRZone’s 2025 end-of-year research, which flagged:

• Workplace culture and employee engagement
• Developing leaders and managers
• Organisational change
• Budget constraints and managing ROI
• Pay, reward and benefits strategy.

When you put the two side by side, it suggests leadership culture and resilience are straining under the weight of ongoing pressure, burnout and the industry’s uneasy relationship with AI. 

As Sara Chapman puts it: “Today’s organisations face constant change, increasing complexity and growing expectations from employees and stakeholders alike. More than ever, they need leaders who act as stewards of the business, linking everyday work to enterprise outcomes, creating alignment around what matters most and helping teams navigate uncertainty”.

The survey’s still open and it’s one quick question. I’d love you to have your say.

AI is (unsurprisingly) still dividing opinion

AI hasn’t gone anywhere as a talking point. If anything, conversation has intensified. Behavioural scientist Adeline Segaux makes the case that if HR leaders don’t shape how it changes workplace behaviour, they’ll be the ones paying the price for it later, while Rodrigo Bolaños at Mindtools Kineo provides a five-step approach to rethinking productivity in this new age.

Then, there’s a practical test: can AI write an HR policy? BrightHR asked it to, and the answer, once HR advisor Gemma O’Connor had torn it apart, was yes, technically, but not a good one.

We’ve also launched a new content partnership with TMP Worldwide who kicked things off with a first piece on the hot topic of AI in recruitment. Sara Naveda argues that AI isn’t the problem with your hiring process, your silence is. 

This first article came hot on the heels of TMP Worldwide’s 2026 research. They surveyed more than 500 job seekers across the UK, Poland, Spain, Germany and France, alongside an audit of hiring processes across 20-plus industries, and found AI hasn’t broken candidate experience so much as exposed cracks that were already there. 

As Sara Naveda underlines: “The organisations that will attract and retain the best talent over the next few years will be the ones that combine technology with transparency, communication and respect for the candidate experience. Because while technology will continue to evolve, the fundamentals of great hiring have not – and will not – change”.

Keep an eye out for more content from our friends at TMP worldwide, who will be sharing a series of articles grounded in original research, client experience, and market insight to help HR and talent leaders make better decisions about how they attract, engage, hire and retain quality talent.

AI hasn’t broken candidate experience so much as exposed cracks that were already there – Sara Naveda

Get involved

We’ll keep bringing you the content that cuts through the noise and actually helps. If there’s something you want to see more of, or you have an idea for a framework, how-to guide or another practical piece, let me know.

If you haven’t already, here’s your reminder to answer this one survey question. It takes seconds and directly shapes the content we bring to you, our community. 

I’d also recommend subscribing to our weekly newsletter to receive the latest practical insights straight to your inbox, exactly where they belong!

Until next time!

Lauren, Editor, HRZone

[email protected]
www.linkedin.com/in/lauren-joanne-h

Did you read my last Editor’s note?: From the Editor: You’re telling us what matters and we’re listening