Britton Bloch
Published content

expert panel
Solopreneurs can borrow proven HR practices to build stronger contractor relationships, prevent miscommunication and set clear expectations. Members of the Senior Executive HR Think Tank share ways to improve onboarding, from documenting success measures and securing access to clarifying decision rights and giving contractors the context they need to work independently.Solopreneurs often bring in contractors to increase capacity, access specialized skills or free up time for higher-priority work. But outsourcing a task does not automatically make it easier to manage. Without clear expectations, documented processes and agreed-upon responsibilities, delegation can create more work instead of less.Larger organizations rely on human resources functions to establish expectations, communicate policies and help people understand how their work fits into broader business goals. Solopreneurs may not have an HR department, but they can apply the same principles on a smaller scale. A thoughtful onboarding process helps contractors understand the assignment, make sound decisions and deliver work that meets the business’s needs.Members of the Senior Executive HR Think Tank offer seven ways to build that foundation. Their recommendations range from creating a shared source of truth and documenting performance standards to verifying access, establishing decision-making boundaries and explaining the context behind an assignment.

expert panel
Workplace loyalty has evolved beyond long tenure and unquestioning commitment. Members of the Senior Executive HR Think Tank explain why trust, fair treatment, career development and reciprocal accountability are essential to building lasting employee relationships in today's changing job market.For generations, workplace loyalty was measured by how long employees stayed with an employer. Long tenure signaled commitment and employers were expected to offer stability, advancement and security in return. Today, restructuring, layoffs, changing career expectations and evolving business models have made that traditional arrangement less predictable. Employers still need committed employees, but they can no longer assume lasting loyalty comes automatically with a job offer.Research reinforces the need to rethink the employee-employer relationship. A Pew Research Center survey found that only 30% of U.S. workers were highly satisfied with their pay and just 26% were highly satisfied with their opportunities for promotion. Those figures point to areas where employers can strengthen the employee experience rather than rely on tenure as evidence of commitment.Members of the Senior Executive HR Think Tank, a curated group of human resources and leadership experts, see loyalty as a two-way relationship grounded in trust, fairness, development and meaningful work. Their insights offer a practical framework for leaders seeking to retain valuable talent, preserve institutional knowledge and build workplaces where employees choose to contribute because the relationship continues to serve both sides.

expert panel
Skills-based hiring promised to make the labor market more accessible by shifting attention from where candidates went to school to what they can actually do. Yet changing a job description is much easier than changing the systems and habits that determine who ultimately gets an offer.Reports suggest a real gap between changing job requirements and changing hiring outcomes. In 2025, Harvard Business School conducted research with the Burning Glass Institute. The study found that companies that removed degree requirements saw only modest increases in hiring workers without degrees, with fewer than one in 700 new hires benefiting from the reforms overall. At the same time, the trend has not disappeared: Indeed reported in January 2026 that 19.3% of U.S. job postings required a bachelor’s degree or higher in November 2025, up from 16.6% two years earlier.Members of the Senior Executive HR Think Tank say the question is therefore bigger than whether a degree appears in a job posting. The real test is whether employers have changed how they define qualified, evaluate candidates and recognize capability.

expert panel
Quiet hiring is evolving beyond internal transfers and stretch assignments as companies use redeployment, selective hiring, contractors, technology and expanded responsibilities to build capacity without adding significant headcount. Members of the Senior Executive HR Think Tank explain how leaders can make the practice more transparent, sustainable and beneficial to employees.“Quiet hiring” may have started as a way to describe companies filling skill gaps without making traditional external hires. But the underlying practice is proving more durable than the label.In today's cautious hiring environment, organizations can expand their capabilities through internal mobility, selective external hiring, contractors, technology, AI-enabled productivity and employees taking on responsibilities that once belonged to separate roles. Recent BambooHR data illustrates the shift: Internal mobility accounted for 62% of hires in 2025, up from 51% in 2021.Members of the Senior Executive HR Think Tank bring perspectives spanning talent strategy, recruiting, ethics, organizational development, employee experience and workforce planning. Their message is consistent: Quiet hiring itself is not necessarily a problem. The risk comes when organizations use it to obscure how work is changing or expect employees to absorb additional responsibilities indefinitely without clarity, development or recognition.

expert panel
Solopreneurs can replace the accountability of a traditional workplace with measurable goals, outside support, regular reviews and systems designed to make commitments harder to ignore. Insights from members of the Senior Executive HR Think Tank show how independent professionals can stay focused without becoming their own worst boss.Working without a manager offers greater freedom, but it also removes many of the structures that make follow-through easier. No supervisor is checking deadlines, no colleague is flagging a missed commitment and no team meeting is prompting a progress update.That makes self-accountability less about having extraordinary discipline and more about deliberately building the structures that a workplace would normally provide. Members of the Senior Executive HR Think Tank bring perspectives spanning organizational psychology, leadership, recruiting, culture and career development to the question of how independent professionals can create those structures for themselves.Recent Gallup research reinforces the importance of the issue: In a survey, creating accountability ranked as the lowest-rated of seven leadership competencies, with just 46% of leaders rating themselves "exceptional or outstanding" at holding people responsible for exceptional performance. If accountability can be difficult even inside organizations with managers and teams, solopreneurs have even more reason to intentionally design it into their work.The experts suggest several ways to do that, from building a personal support network and creating financial consequences to making goals public, tracking measurable outcomes and protecting time for meaningful work.

expert panel
As AI takes on more recruiting tasks, HR leaders must decide where automation should stop, and human accountability should begin. Members of the Senior Executive HR Think Tank explain when candidates deserve human judgment, communication, transparency and a meaningful opportunity to challenge an automated decision.Hiring has always involved a tension between efficiency and humanity, but artificial intelligence is pushing that tension into new territory. AI can now help screen resumes, identify candidates, generate job descriptions and automate communication. According to LinkedIn's 2025 Future of Recruiting report, 37% of recruiting organizations are actively integrating or experimenting with generative AI, while 73% of talent-acquisition professionals say AI will change the way organizations hire.That makes the question less about whether companies should use AI and more about where responsibility belongs when technology affects someone's opportunity. Members of the Senior Executive HR Think Tank bring perspectives spanning talent acquisition, organizational leadership, career coaching, workplace culture and HR technology.Across their responses, one principle emerges: AI can take on more of the process, but companies cannot automate accountability.
































