CharlieHR monthly newsletter

Volume 295 29/10/2026 Hey there, This month, as we welcomed our AI and Product Board Advisor Faith Forster, I've been reflecting on how AI has taken a huge amount of space in our professional lives. I’m all for it, but when it comes to bringing new tech into your company, it pays to be careful about it. Two years ago, we might have been part of that cohort of small businesses who found it difficult to grow because they couldn't hire more staff. Fast-forward to today, and AI has changed that: it’s now a real asset to the way we work. That being said, I still think there’s plenty of space for talent and for people. AI shouldn’t replace the people in the room. It should help them do their best work. That doesn’t happen without leaving some room for error. At Charlie, we experiment with AI as much as we can, and we encourage everyone to use it. But when it comes to new tech and HR, there are also risks involved. As an HR company, that’s something we have a duty not to ignore. I think the example below speaks right to that 👇 Charlie Advice Corner Hannah Wenman HR Advisor for Charlie Grow - read her bio here Smart glasses are coming to work... Is your policy ready? Most workplace recording rules were written with phones in mind, but more and more people now wear a camera on their face or wrist. It then becomes much harder to tell when someone’s recording. As smart glasses become increasingly popular (read the news article on it further down), you need to protect your team and your business against invasion of privacy. Here are five items to update now so you're safe and sound: 1. Name new tech in your policies – A rule about phones won’t cover glasses or watches. Add camera-enabled wearables by name to your photography, recording and acceptable technology policies, so nobody can say they didn’t know. 2. Say where they’re off limits - meetings, 1:1s, disciplinary and grievance hearings, changing rooms, toilets, and anywhere confidential information is on show. But be careful with blanket bans: some people use smart glasses as a vision aid. Consider adjustments first, like a version with the camera disabled. 3. Be clear about the consequences – secretly recording colleagues can badly damage trust, and it may be treated as gross misconduct. Say so in your disciplinary policy, and still judge each case on its own facts. 4. Don’t forget data protection - Recording people or documents can count as processing personal data under UK GDPR. Cover this in your policy, and decide now who deals with suspected covert recording, so you’re not working it out on the spot. 5. Link it to the new harassment rules – From 30 October, your duty to prevent sexual harassment gets stricter: you’ll need to take “all reasonable steps”, not just reasonable ones. You can also be held responsible if customers, clients or other third parties harass your staff and you haven’t taken all reasonable steps to stop it. If your team is customer-facing, think about whether limiting recording of staff belongs in those steps. One last tip: assume anything said in a tricky meeting could be recorded. Keep it calm, factual and consistent, and you’ll have nothing to worry about. If that all sounds like a lot, the team at Charlie Grow is here to help. Announcing Faith Forster, AI and Product Board Advisor joining Charlie Read now Last week, we announced huge news with Faith Forster joining Charlie as our AI and Product Board Advisor. Faith is a seasoned Product Executive, with a career focused on B2B SaaS and fintech, including Wise, Dext (owned by Hg, exited to IRIS Software Group) and Legl. She has extensive experience building and scaling digital products from early-stage, VC and PE-backed businesses through to exit. We're super excited to have her join the business. Read my take on why she'll be essential to the business in our blog post. What we've been reading Employees want ban on camera-equipped smart glasses at work – Personnel Today More than