The Lean HR Playbook

You are running HR for a startup. You do not have a team, a big budget, or time to waste. This book was written for you.

The Lean HR Playbook is a practical, implementation-focused guide for solo HR practitioners, office managers, and founders who are responsible for hiring, onboarding, and managing performance without the headcount or budget that large companies take for granted.

Inside, you will find a complete 10-step AI-assisted system covering every stage of the employee lifecycle, from writing job descriptions and screening resumes to building 30-60-90 day onboarding plans and running performance reviews that employees actually find useful. Every step includes ready-to-use prompts that work with tools like Claude, ChatGPT, and Google Gemini today.

What this book gives you:
- 40+ copy-paste AI prompts organized by HR function, tested and ready to use
- A job description system that reduces bias and attracts better candidates from day one
- A structured resume screening framework that brings consistency to every hiring decision
- Behavioral interview question banks and scoring rubrics for any role
- A complete new hire communication sequence from offer acceptance through the first week
- A 30-60-90 day onboarding plan builder that takes minutes, not hours
- A step-by-step employee handbook drafting system without expensive legal software
- A performance review framework that makes reviews faster to write and more useful to receive
- A retention analysis system that surfaces problems before they become resignations
- A 30-day implementation roadmap that builds the full system week by week
- A 2026 AI tool comparison covering Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot with current pricing

This is not a book about the future of work. It is a field guide for right now, written for HR practitioners who need to get professional-quality work done with what they have. Every prompt, template, framework, and checklist in this book can be implemented using a standard AI subscription costing $20 per month.

If you are a team of one doing the work of ten, this is the system that will help you do it better.