Hire for relationships, automate the repetition

There is a version of this that is not about avoiding people entirely, it is about being honest with yourself about which parts of a role actually need a person. A great hire builds trust, reads a room, and makes judgment calls that a tool never will. That same hire should not spend half their week on repetitive tasks a system could carry instead. I look at every new hire's week this way, splitting what needs their judgment from what a system could carry instead.

This matters because a lot of new hires end up buried in exactly the kind of repeatable work automation was made for, which wastes the reason you hired a real person in the first place. Clearing that repetitive work off their plate before or right after they start means their actual time goes toward the relationships and judgment calls that justified bringing them on to begin with.

Try this today: if you already have a hire handling a mix of relationship work and repetitive tasks, pick one repetitive piece of their role and start building a system to take it off their plate.