Take the test: do you need HR — and what kind? →
HR is no longer needed. At least not in its current form. That thought stayed with me after the EU-Startups Summit in Malta, a day with EHRS HR people on the Tallink ferry, and conversations at Latitude59. All three told the same story: HR is looking for its new place.
Leaders cannot always say what they expect from HR. HR is searching for the language to make its value visible. Startups ask directly: does this role help us grow, sell, build and retain people — or not? The right people in the right roles matter more than ever. But the old HR model no longer answers that need.
Company size changes everything
The need for HR cannot be assessed in the abstract. A 9-person, a 40-person and a 200-person company mean entirely different things by "HR". AI and Sparkly push that line even further.
| Company size | Full-time HR? | What is actually needed | Who covers it in the AI + Sparkly era |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1–10 people | No | Clear expectations, contracts, the right people | CEO/founder, AI, Sparkly, accountant, lawyer |
| 10–30 people | Generally no | Role clarity, recruiting support, light admin, employment law when needed | CEO/COO, team leads, Office Manager, lawyer, fractional HR |
| 30–50 people | Rarely full-time | Visibility where work, responsibility and people fail to line up | CEO/COO, Sparkly, recruiter, fractional HR, People Ops |
| 50–100 people | Starts to make sense | Processes, onboarding, employment law, employee relations, data quality | People Ops / HR Generalist + Sparkly |
| 100–250 people | Yes | People operating system, leadership calibration, recruiting, performance, risks | Head of People, People Ops, leaders, Sparkly |
| 250+ people | Yes, specialised | HRBP, Talent Acquisition, L&D, Comp & Ben, Employee Relations, Legal, Analytics | Specialised HR team + Sparkly as the decision layer |
HR is not disappearing. HR is being unbundled
It is a mistake to talk about HR as a single job. HR is a mix of very different kinds of work, and AI and Sparkly affect each of them very differently.
| HR work type | Value it creates | Reduced by AI/Sparkly? | Will it remain? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Technical HR | Contracts, employment law, documents, payroll, leave | Partly (HR Assistant chat gives country-specific employment-law guidance — contract types, leave rights, notice periods, interpretation of labour law; Sparkly does not handle payroll or document management) | Yes, but legal consultation and everyday questions move into chat |
| Recruiting | Quality candidate flow and protection of leadership time | Strongly (Decision Board, holistic fit, automated scoring, mandatory qualification questionnaires, micro-task pipeline, candidate deduplication) | Yes, at significantly lower volume |
| Leadership coaching | Hard conversations, conflicts, leadership quality | Strongly (HR Assistant chat: leader–team fit and conflicts, pair synergy within the team, pattern layer, recognition need, commitment and ownership — all via chat) | Yes, only for the hardest cases |
| People Ops | Processes, rhythm, data, onboarding | Strongly (30/60/90 onboarding need, Org Health Dashboard, Team Dynamics v2, automation strategy, change management) | Yes, with a narrower focus |
| Employee Relations | Complex cases, neutrality, risk | Partly (burnout, recognition need, commitment and ownership, role reliability, Mayan work rhythm — early-signal layer; the final decision stays with a human) | Yes |
| People and role analytics | Role fit, team fit, risks | Very strongly (Comprehensive Fit Engine, Holistic Fit SoT, Team Role Allocation, Position Matching, Neuro-Work Task Fit, Work Pattern Fit) | Shrinks strongly → largely automated |
| Manual coordination | Reminders, spreadsheets, follow-ups | Very strongly (HR Assistant pipeline, auto-reporting, unassigned task scoring, AI cost & credit ledger) | Shrinks strongly |
One HR person cannot do all of this well
Companies often look for a single HR person who would simultaneously be a coach, recruiter, lawyer, admin, people analyst, culture lead, change manager, board partner and systems builder. These jobs need different profiles.
| Work type | Suitable profile |
|---|---|
| Leadership coaching | Mature people partner, coach, someone who understands organisational behaviour |
| Employment law and documentation | Precise HR admin, lawyer, HR specialist |
| Recruiting | Recruiter / talent partner with a sales instinct |
| People Ops | Systematic process builder |
| Structure and roles | COO-style thinker / organisational design experience |
| Culture and change | Change manager / communication and leadership background |
| Data and risks | Sparkly power user / people analytics profile |
HR is no longer needed — in its current form
HR is no longer needed when "HR" means a vague, all-in-one full-time role bundling everything from documents to coaching, recruiting, culture, strategy and leadership support. But the capability to lead people is needed more than ever. That capability simply has to be distributed more precisely — across the leader, AI, Sparkly, a recruiter, a lawyer, a coach and People Ops.