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Your March Leave Law Update in 30 seconds! Here’s what HR teams should have on their radar right now: 📢 Virginia On track to become the 14th state with mandatory paid family and medical leave. Legislation has passed and is expected to be signed, offering up to 12 weeks of paid leave for health, caregiving, bonding, military-related needs, and safe leave. Contributions are slated to begin in 2028, with benefits following later that year. 📢 Minnesota Early signals from the state’s new paid leave program, launched Jan 1, are strong: ➝ Nearly 50,000 applications submitted ➝ ~34,000 approved so far ➝ Bonding and medical leave make up ~90% of claims ➝ Most decisions are happening within three weeks What this tells us: Leave demand is real, and when programs are available, employees use them. For HR, that means staying ahead of compliance while also thinking about how these policies show up in the employee experience. 📬 Get updates straight to your inbox. Subscribe to Circling Back, our monthly pulse check on what’s happening at Tilt and across the leave landscape: https://hubs.li/Q048G8cB0

Our March releases are here and they're all about making the leave journey clearer for everyone involved. ICYMI: Here's what's new! 🧭 Leave Planner — Employees can now privately explore leave scenarios before submitting a request, so they understand their options, pay, and benefits upfront. Less confusion. Less back-and-forth for HR. 📱Spanish Phone Support — Tilley Voice now supports Spanish, giving more employees 24/7 AI-powered leave support. 📋 Leave Summary — HR gets a single, real-time snapshot of where each employee stands in their leave, including pending steps and documents ready for review. 📊 HR Reporting Dashboard — Visual, filterable leave data across your org so your team can spot trends, manage risk, and act fast. 🔗 UKG + Gusto Integrations — Employee and leave data now syncs daily, cutting manual entry and keeping everything in one source of truth. Take a closer look: https://hubs.li/Q048Ggmj0

If March had a theme, it’d be this: HR is being asked to do more, with less room for inconsistency. Here’s what we explored on the Tilt Blog: From Time-Tracking to Leave Management: Building a Seamless Employee Experience → https://hubs.li/Q048vDyr0 Leave doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Your systems shouldn’t either. We broke down why disconnected tools create friction for both HR and employees, and how a more unified approach leads to a more human experience across the entire employee lifecycle. Why Creating an Equitable Leave Experience Requires Structure, Not Just Intent → https://hubs.li/Q048vDxn0 Good intentions aren’t enough. Equity in leave comes from consistency, clear processes, and systems that ensure every employee gets the same level of support every time. HR’s First Step in AI Adoption: A Simple, Practical Starting Framework → https://hubs.li/Q048vT-80 AI can feel overwhelming, but getting started doesn’t have to be. This piece focuses on what HR actually needs. A simple, low-risk way to begin experimenting and building confidence without overhauling everything overnight. What Most HR Leaders Are Getting Wrong About AI → https://hubs.li/Q048vrVm0 Spoiler: it’s not about the tech. Many teams are approaching AI as a tool to implement, rather than a capability to integrate thoughtfully. This blog challenges that mindset and reframes how HR should be thinking about adoption. How to Evaluate AI Vendors: Questions Every HR Leader Should Ask Before Signing → https://hubs.li/Q048vXYh0 Not all AI tools are created equal, and in HR, the stakes are high. We outlined the key questions to ask around security, compliance, bias, and real ROI before bringing any vendor into your tech stack. The Business Case for AI in HR: How To Win Executive Buy-In → https://hubs.li/Q048vVgP0 Getting leadership on board is about outcomes.This blog walks through how to position AI in terms executives care about: efficiency, ROI, risk mitigation, and long-term impact. The throughline? HR is being pulled in two directions: more responsibility and higher expectations. The teams that will thrive are the ones that build structure where it matters, adopt technology thoughtfully, and stay grounded in the human side of the work.

Introducing AI to your HR workflows is one thing. Getting leadership buy-in is another. According to Brandon Salisbury, CMO at Tilt, successfully introducing AI into HR starts with building a strong business case. If you want executives to support an AI initiative, the conversation needs to focus on outcomes. ➡️ Start with ROI. Leadership wants to understand what changes if a tool is implemented. How much time will it save? What manual work will it eliminate? How will it help the team operate more efficiently? AI becomes much easier to approve when it’s clearly tied to solving a real business problem and delivering measurable value. ➡️ Show how it improves decision-making. Many HR teams already have access to large amounts of data, but turning that data into actionable insights can be difficult. AI can help analyze reports, surface trends, and provide context that supports stronger decisions. When framed this way, AI becomes a strategic tool, not just a productivity booster. ➡️ Address risk and responsibility upfront. Executives will also want to understand the safeguards. That means demonstrating that any AI tool meets security and compliance standards, includes bias testing, and keeps humans in the decision-making loop. AI should support HR professionals with information and automation, not replace the human judgment required in people decisions. And that distinction matters. AI is best suited for repeatable, administrative work like summarizing information, organizing data, or supporting workflows. But the core of HR, conversations with employees, sensitive moments, and critical decisions will always require a human presence. For HR leaders looking to gain executive support, Brandon’s advice is simple: tie the technology back to clear business outcomes. When you can show how AI reduces administrative burden, improves insight, and protects the employee experience, the conversation shifts from “Should we use AI?” to “How quickly can we implement it?” And when HR leads that conversation, it positions the function exactly where it belongs: at the strategic table.

In this month’s Meet the Makers, Bailey Harr, Partnerships Manager at Tilt, shares what she is seeing across the market as brokers and partners start to rethink the role of leave. From shifting mindsets to helping partners connect leave to real human moments, Bailey talks about how education and enablement are driving a move from process to experience. She also shares why flexibility, not one-size-fits-all solutions, is critical to supporting HR teams today.

AI for HR: Weekly Tip No. 12 📝 This week’s tip is about making sure nothing slips through the cracks. The action: 👉 Use AI to turn any project into a clear checklist with owners and deadlines. When to do it: When you’re starting a new initiative, managing a recurring process, or feel like steps are getting missed. How to do it: → Write a quick summary of the task or project (even if it’s messy) → Paste it into your company-approved AI tool → Prompt: “Break this into a step-by-step checklist with clear owners and suggested timelines.” → Review and adjust based on your team structure and internal guidelines What you get: A structured plan you can actually execute on without relying on memory or scattered notes. Guardrails: AI helps organize the work. HR owns execution, accountability, and alignment with team processes.

New month, new insights from Circling Back! This edition explores how HR teams can design more equitable leave experiences, take a practical first step into AI adoption, and stay ahead of evolving leave laws. We’re also sharing product updates, community highlights, and conversations worth revisiting if you missed them the first time. ☕ 💻

Managers are often right in the middle of employee leave conversations. HR is there supporting policy, compliance, and process. Employees are navigating something deeply personal. And managers are asked to help bring it all together in real time. It’s a complex moment, and most managers haven’t had formal guidance on how to approach it. So we built something to make it easier: a Manager’s Guide to Employee Leave. It’s designed to give managers more confidence in those conversations by helping them: - Understand their role during an employee leave - Communicate clearly and compassionately - Partner more effectively with HR through the process - Support employees without feeling like they have to have all the answers When managers feel more equipped, HR gets more consistency, employees feel more supported, and the whole experience works a little better for everyone involved. 🤝 📩 If you’d like access, shoot us a DM and we’ll drop you the link!

Maine Paid Family and Medical Leave benefits officially begin this May. 👏 For employees, it means up to 12 weeks of paid time to care for themselves or the people they love, without choosing between a paycheck and real life. For HR teams… it’s a big moment, too. Because behind every new policy is a team figuring out how it works, how it integrates with existing processes, and how to actually make it feel supportive, not stressful. Shoutout to the HR teams who have been preparing for this. The real work starts now. And it matters. 💚 More info about the rollout: https://hubs.ly/Q047CTl80 Drop a 🎉 in the comments if you're as excited about paid leave progress as we are!