Session Prep
HR sessions are most valuable when you come in with a specific situation, not a general question. These prompts help you get concrete guidance on your people challenges — whether you're building HR infrastructure from scratch or navigating a difficult employee situation. This guide covers three areas: compliance and legal risk, hiring and people processes, and culture and retention. Before your session, identify your most pressing HR issue and come prepared with the relevant facts: how many employees you have, what state(s) you operate in, and a brief description of any active situation you're dealing with. Employment law is highly jurisdiction-specific — state and local rules vary significantly, so the more context you can provide upfront, the more targeted the guidance will be. If you're dealing with a live employee situation, bring any relevant documentation.
1.Are there any compliance gaps in how I'm currently managing employees that I should know about?
A quick diagnostic that often surfaces wage and hour violations, misclassification, or missing required policies.
2.How should I handle [a specific situation — termination, leave request, accommodation] to stay compliant and follow the right process?
Process matters enormously in employment situations. The right steps in the right order is usually the most important guidance.
3.What documentation should I have in place before taking action on this situation?
Documentation is the foundation of defensible HR decisions. Good advisors address this before any action is taken.
4.Are my workers correctly classified as employees or independent contractors under current law?
Misclassification is one of the most common and expensive HR mistakes — and the rules are stricter than most people realize.
5.What's the biggest gap in my current hiring process, and what's the most important thing to fix?
Hiring processes often have blind spots that the person running them can't see. An outside view surfaces them quickly.
6.How should I structure compensation for [a specific role] — what's the market range and what elements should be variable?
Compensation decisions made without market data result in offers that are either uncompetitive or unsustainable.
7.What should my onboarding process include to set new hires up for success and reduce early turnover?
The first 90 days disproportionately determine whether a new hire becomes a long-term contributor or an expensive regret.
8.Based on what I've described, what do you think is actually driving turnover — and what would you investigate first?
Turnover root causes are often different from the stated reasons. An experienced HR advisor has pattern-matched across many organizations.
9.What low-cost or no-cost changes have the biggest impact on employee satisfaction and retention?
Not all retention levers require budget. Clarity of roles, management quality, and recognition are often more impactful than compensation.
10.What does a healthy performance management process look like for a company my size?
Performance management that works for a 500-person company is overkill for a 15-person team. This gets you right-sized guidance.