HR Players
Who runs HR — and what AI changes about each role.
Role Inventory
People Lead / HR Manager
Responsibility: Owns the HR function end-to-end. Recruitment pipeline, onboarding quality, culture integrity, compliance, and contribution velocity metrics.
Touchpoints: Every hire, every exit, quarterly performance cycle, compensation reviews, compliance audits.
Hand-off contract: Reports to founding team. Escalates: culture integrity issues, 90-day attrition spikes, legal/compliance flags.
Human / AI split (current): Human owns all relationship and culture decisions. AI handles compliance tracking, payroll automation, and initial CV filtering. Contribution velocity analysis is emerging AI use-case.
Human / AI split (target): AI drafts JDs, screens applications, schedules interviews, tracks compliance, runs payroll. Human focuses on character assessment, ZPD calibration, culture stewardship.
Recruiter
Responsibility: Pipeline management — sourcing, screening, and moving candidates to offer.
Touchpoints: Candidates (sourcing through offer), hiring managers (scorecard calibration), People Lead (pipeline reporting).
Hand-off contract: Delivers shortlist to hiring manager. Owns candidate experience from first contact to offer close.
Human / AI split (current): AI screens CVs and schedules interviews. Human manages candidate relationships and character assessment.
What AI changes about this role:
The recruiter's job has bifurcated. Volume work (CV reading, scheduling, initial scoring) is now AI territory. What remains human: recognising the character signals that predict long-term fit, managing candidate experience in a market where AI-generated applications make every real candidate feel undervalued, and catching AI bias in screening tools.
Profile shift: The effective 2025+ recruiter is AI-literate — they know how to audit AI scoring outputs, recognise AI-generated applications vs. human-written ones, and design assessment tasks that test reasoning rather than credentials. Credential-matching is dead as a skill.
Onboarding Coordinator (MKO)
Responsibility: Guides new hires through ZPD from day 1 to first independent contribution.
Touchpoints: New hire daily (weeks 1–4), then weekly. Manager for ZPD calibration. People Lead for 30/90-day gates.
Hand-off contract: 90-day contribution gate — independent contribution confirmed or flag raised to People Lead.
Human / AI split: This role is high-human. ZPD assessment and beginner's mind capture require contextual judgment that AI cannot perform reliably.
Key principle: Best MKO is someone who recently passed through the same zone — not the most senior person in the room.
Manager / Team Lead
Responsibility: Day-to-day contribution velocity and ZPD calibration within their team.
Touchpoints: Monthly 1:1s (structured), quarterly contribution reviews, onboarding gates at 30 and 90 days.
Hand-off contract: Contribution velocity data to People Lead quarterly. Escalation trigger: 90-day attrition or ZPD stagnation.
Ecosystem
Contractors — used to fill defined-outcome gaps and transfer knowledge. Contract terms must include process documentation. Contractors who document become a compounding asset.
Specialised recruiters — for technical or crypto-native roles where internal pipeline is thin. Cryptorecruit.com and similar for blockchain-specific roles. Techtree.dev for tech roles.
Outsourced HR (seed stage) — before a dedicated People Lead, a fractional HR consultant handles compliance and process setup. Cost: typically $2K–$5K/month for part-time engagement.
Employment lawyers — jurisdiction-specific compliance. Triggered on: first hire in a new country, contractor-to-employee conversion, any termination above standard process.
AI Coordination Mechanisms
| Task | AI agent | Human oversight |
|---|---|---|
| CV pre-screening | ATS AI layer | Recruiter reviews shortlist + runs bias check monthly |
| Interview scheduling | Calendar AI (cal.com / Calendly AI) | Candidate confirms |
| Payroll calculation | HRIS automation | Finance approves monthly run |
| Compliance tracking | HRIS compliance module | People Lead reviews flags weekly |
| Contribution velocity dashboards | Performance tool analytics | Manager interprets in 1:1 |
| JD drafting | LLM draft | Hiring manager edits for outcome framing |
What AI Does Not Own
Culture integrity, character assessment, ZPD assignment, and exit conversations remain human. These are the decisions where the cost of AI error compounds — a wrong character hire damages the team faster than any process failure.
Context
- Process — workflows each player owns
- Performance — metrics each player is accountable for
- Principles — what each player is optimising for