One pf the biggest blunders we did at Legacy was the speed at which we hired our team members. Our rapid growth allowed us to support students all over the world; however, in this process, we hired very talented, intelligent professionals without providing them with the necessary cultural and operational grounding. We didn't provide sufficient time for these new team members to successfully transition into their positions. As a result, many of our new team members felt as though they were playing "catch-up," rather than feeling like part of a collaborative atmosphere. Through this misstep, I learned an important lesson about what doesn't work when it comes to talent. Simply put, talent doesn't create a mission, but rather, talent is part of building a mission. To combat these issues in 2026, we completely revamped our onboarding process. In the past, we would send new hires through a short, quick orientation period. Now, our new hires will go through a 30-day learning curve that is a combination of cultural coaching, asynchronous shadowing, and multiple feedback loops with their peers in the organization. We have also added a "reverse onboarding" phase where we take input from new hires about what they think is unclear or unnecessary during the onboarding process. The information we gained from this initiative has proven invaluable. My advice for readers of HR Spotlight is to avoid treating the onboarding process as a checklist and instead view it as an opportunity to help new hires form their identities. When new hires can articulate why the company exists in addition to what they will be doing, performance becomes a natural function rather than a burden.
Last year, HR and our lending team weren't communicating well, so we missed steps in hiring. Candidate feedback was often slow or missing, which made onboarding a mess. This year, I set up a simple post-interview debrief and a checklist. Now everyone knows what's happening, and our new hires are getting started much faster.
I screwed up last year by rushing onboarding. New people were confused about basic stuff and kept asking the same questions. This wasn't my first time making this mistake at a company. I've learned the hard way that slowing down works better. Now we do weekly check-ins and assign a buddy, and people are settling in much faster. My advice is to not rush the start, even if everyone is eager to get going. That extra guidance up front saves time later.
Last year our Magic Hour team got a bit messy. People weren't sure who was doing what, which slowed us down. So this year we started weekly one-on-ones and wrote down what everyone owns. It helped a lot. Less confusion, more stuff getting done. If your team is growing fast, this might work for you too.
Even the most seasoned HR teams have blind spots—and in 2025, ours surfaced around internal communication during a period of rapid growth. As our team expanded across multiple locations and time zones, we underestimated the importance of structured updates and context-sharing. We assumed that because we had Slack channels and monthly all-hands, everyone felt informed and aligned. But as subtle signs of misalignment emerged—conflicting priorities, duplicated work, employee frustrations—we realized that information access and emotional clarity were not the same thing. The slip became clear when we rolled out a mid-year performance framework update. Though the policy was designed to support fairness and flexibility, it landed poorly. Many employees didn't understand why the change was made, or how it tied to our evolving values. Some even feared it was a precursor to downsizing. What we saw as proactive transparency, others experienced as vague and top-down. Morale took a temporary dip, and trust wobbled. Instead of pushing forward, we paused. We held listening sessions, re-opened the feedback loop, and brought in an external facilitator to audit our communication approach. One insight that stuck: updates that are clear to us aren't necessarily clear to others. People need not just the "what" but the "why," the "how it impacts me," and the space to process change. For 2026, we've implemented a full communication reset. Every policy or strategy shift now comes with a "Story of Change" brief—explaining the rationale, goals, and expected impact from the employee's perspective. Managers are equipped with conversation guides to help their teams personalize the message. We've also introduced quarterly micro-feedback rounds to catch small disconnects before they grow into larger ones. According to Gallup, 74% of employees feel they're missing out on company information and news—and poor communication is one of the top drivers of disengagement. We learned that the real failure wasn't in the policy change itself—it was in assuming people felt informed, valued, and heard along the way. 2025 reminded us that HR is more than compliance and planning—it's emotional architecture. In 2026, we're designing communication to be as thoughtful and human-centered as every other part of the employee experience.
My biggest HR slip in 2025 was not cross-training our onsite maintenance team on resident communication protocols when we scaled up to handle peak move-in season. We had techs who knew how to fix issues but couldn't explain preventative steps to residents, which led to repeat maintenance requests and frustrated move-ins at our Chicago properties. For 2026, I partnered with our operations team to create maintenance FAQ videos that staff could share proactively during move-ins--covering common questions like oven operation and appliance care. We tracked the impact through Livly feedback and saw move-in dissatisfaction drop by 30% while positive reviews increased. Now every tech goes through a communication checklist before interacting with residents. The real win came when we noticed our emergency maintenance calls decreased because residents understood basic troubleshooting. One property saw after-hours calls drop by nearly 20% in the first quarter just from better upfront education. When your team knows how to prevent problems through clear communication, you're not just fixing broken processes--you're building resident trust that shows up in retention rates.