Hi {{first_name}}
Careen’s still away, Andrea took over last week, and now it’s my turn.
Hello! It’s been a little while 👋👋
I’ve been very head-down building Mak, and I’ve missed connecting with you. The chats, the swapping stories, the honest conversations about what’s happening at work. It’s easy to disappear into the work of building something and lose a little of the connection that made you want to build it in the first place.
So this week, a proper hello from me. A little life update, something I think is worth asking your managers, and a very direct invitation to see what we’ve been working on.
Currently operating around school holidays
I lost this game by the way
This is me and my youngest, somewhere in the juggle of school holidays and running a business. I love spending time with my kids. I also need to work. Getting those two things to fit together takes a fair amount of creativity.
Sometimes that looks like talking an idea into my phone while making dinner. Sometimes it’s working around activities. Sometimes it’s accepting that the day is going to look very different from the one I planned 🤷♀️
Georgie Dent’s recent National Press Club address caught my attention.
She highlighted analysis showing that two parents working full-time, with primary-school-aged children, need to find at least 814 hours of care each year to bridge the gap between school and work. That’s even if they take all their annual leave separately.
So we rearrange. Call in favours. Work after bedtime. Use annual leave to cover care. Turn down opportunities because we can’t work out how to make the logistics happen.
Her address focused on Australia, but I suspect plenty of you around the world will recognise that calculation.
To the parents and carers in this community making it all happen this week, I see you. You can love your family, care deeply about your work and still find the combination bloody hard.
Read Georgie’s full address. It speaks to the reality for a lot us.
THOUGHT BUBBLE
Where do your managers go when they don’t know what to do?
We spend a lot of time thinking about what managers should know. We train them, give them policies, build templates and tell them to come to HR.
We are increasingly interested in what happens between all of those things. When a manager needs to address a performance issue. Someone asks for flexibility. There’s tension in the team. They know they need to have a conversation, but they’re not sure how to start.
Where do they actually go?
A colleague? An old email? Your intranet? ChatGPT? Do they ask HR straight away, or have a go and tell you about it later?
I’ve heard of a manager using a 50-page performance management program generated by Claude instead of their organisation’s templates.
They were looking for help. They found something that appeared thorough and usable but did it reflect their organisation’s policies? Did it fit the situation? Did it help them recognise when HR needed to be involved? Spoiler alert, no it did not.
A beautifully written document doesn’t answer those questions.
The challenge for us in HR is if we don’t understand where managers are getting support, we’re missing part of how people decisions are being made in our businesses.
Three questions worth asking this week 👇
Pick a couple of managers and ask them:
1. “The last time you weren’t sure how to handle a people issue, what did you do?”
Ask about a real situation. You’ll get a very specific response back about where they actually looked for support.
2. “What were you actually looking for help with?”
Was it understanding the policy? Finding the words? Knowing what to document? Or working out whether they could handle it themselves?
Those are different needs. Sending someone a policy might resolve one and leave the others untouched.
3. “How did you decide whether to involve HR?”
Was there a clear trigger? Did they use their own judgement? Were they worried about bothering you? Did they wait until the conversation went badly?
You don’t need a big survey to start learning from this. Two or three honest conversations could show you something useful about where your management support is working and where there’s a gap.
MAK HAS YOUR BACK
This is the gap we’ve been building for.
Careen and I have spent our careers in HR. We’ve taken those calls, helped managers prepare for difficult conversations and untangled situations that would have been much easier to address earlier.
That experience is a big part of why we built Mak.
The quality of everyday management decisions matters. To the employee on the receiving end, to the manager trying to lead their team, and to the business carrying the consequences.
Mak gives managers legislative and policy grounded guidance at the point they need to make a decision.
It helps them work through what to consider, how to approach the conversation, what to document and when to involve HR. You can upload your own policies, so the guidance has your organisation’s context.
For HR, Mak also brings together anonymous themes from how it’s being used, giving you earlier visibility of emerging patterns. Managers can use “Ask HR for help” when they need your involvement.
That gives you more to work with than waiting for the issue that finally lands at your door.
Now I’m going to be blunt: I want you to see it.
We talk honestly with this community about the challenges of the work. I want to be equally honest about what we’re building to help change it.
We’ve put a lot into Mak because we believe organisations need a better way to support everyday people decisions, and HR needs earlier visibility of where support is needed.
If you missed the demo Andrea shared last week, here it is:
What I’d really love is for you to bring us a situation from your own organisation. The question you keep getting. The conversation managers put off. The issue you wish you’d heard about earlier.
Book 30 minutes with us. We’ll walk through it together and show you how Mak could fit into the way your organisation works.
NEW RELEASE: WORK IN PROGRESS PODCAST
Rethinking HR: from managing processes to shaping the future of work. What does it take to become a truly strategic HR professional?
In this MicroCast, Gemma Sloane reflects on her journey into HR and the experiences that shaped her approach to the profession from learning the fundamentals of employment and recruitment through to becoming a trusted business partner.
We discuss the importance of moving beyond administration, embracing complexity and recognising that some of the most valuable HR decisions happen in the grey areas. Gemma shares why empathy is a strength when paired with strategic thinking, and why being willing to say “I don’t know yet” can be a sign of confidence rather than weakness.
Looking ahead, Gemma explores some of the biggest shifts shaping work: rethinking remuneration around outcomes rather than hours, ensuring AI adoption is guided with care and purpose, and using workplace change as an opportunity to address broader challenges like pay equity.
A thoughtful conversation about the evolving role of HR and the capability needed to lead through what comes next.
That’s it for this week.
And before I go, I’d love to hear from you.
If you ask your managers those three questions, hit reply and tell me what surprised you. No names or employee details needed. I’m interested in what you learn about where people turn for help.
Thanks for being here. I’ve missed this.
Have the best day.
Kim
Co-founder, Humaneer and Mak
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