What HR actually does, the employee lifecycle, and the operating model behind modern people teams.
For: Aspiring HR pros, founders without HR, new managers
The honest, end-to-end mental model of modern HR — its history, the four quadrants of the operating model, how it differs from People Ops, what it owns vs. influences, the 12 systems a healthy people function runs, and how to tell good HR from bad in 10 minutes.
A complete map of the eight stages employees move through — from 'never heard of you' to 'alumni who refers your next great hire' — with what to design at each stage, the metrics that matter, the moments of truth that compound, and the research behind it.
What 'People Ops' actually means, how it differs from classic HR, the stack it builds, the rituals and metrics it runs on, who to hire and when, and the operating system that makes it work — drawn from Google, Netflix, Stripe, GitLab, and the canonical literature.