AI systems are infiltrating workflows all across the world of business, likely compelling companies and their HR teams to drive employee AI adoption and usage thoughtfully, without blowing through entire AI budgets. Measuring what constitutes success is becoming a growing question for business leaders and people pros.

“Everything is being redefined through AI, but in particular, how every company runs in terms of [an] operating model,” Laura Gonzalez Florez, AI-powered video platform Synthesia’s chief of staff and head of people, said. “For me, it’s not a systems-only problem, it’s a systems, it’s a people, and it’s a workflow problem.”

Pricing for the new technology is evolving into a pay-per-use service, with AI tokens serving as units that vendors use to represent the work being processed by large language models (LLMs). In recent months, some companies—and unsanctioned employees—designed leaderboards and trackers that monitor token use, encouraging some to maximize their token use, known as tokenmaxxing.

For Synthesia, tokenmaxxing didn’t stick. Like, at all.

For more on why Synthesia values AI impact more than usage, keep reading here.—AD

Nearly half (49%) of US workers have cried or almost cried at work in the past six months, and most (87%) have hid their tears from colleagues, according to a recent report from career and résumé platform Resume.io, seen by HR Brew.

“I don’t think it’s surprising to see the data, given how much is going on right now,” Amanda Augustine, a career expert at Resume.io, told HR Brew. “As we’re seeing many people return to work after having those lines blurred for so many years working from home, we are seeing more people show that emotion.”

HR pros can help by normalizing conversations about emotional distress and acknowledging that crying is a symptom of other issues in employees’ work and personal lives, Augustine said.

“While openly crying in the office isn’t fantastic, it’s not necessarily the problem, it’s the effect,” she said. “This emotional distress is a signal. We really got to focus on what is the root cause behind this.”

For more on how to support crying employees, keep reading here.—MC

Aizada Marat paid immigration lawyers thousands of dollars to help her navigate the US visa system.

Instead, a basic mistake left the Harvard Law graduate unable to work, travel, and stuck in legal limbo while living in the US and supporting her family back home in Kyrgyzstan. She called it an “immigration nightmare” that lasted more than a year.

Then she built Alma to fix it.

Founder Brew spoke to Marat about her experiences with the US immigration system, and why she wanted to rethink how professionals and companies navigate it.

For more from this conversation with Marat, keep reading on Founder Brew.—JH

More focus, less fluff. CollabWORK filters out the noise and delivers jobs that actually match what HR Brew readers are looking for. Click here to see the full board of curated roles.

On this episode of People Person, host and Morning Brew Inc.'s SVP Head of People Operations Kate Noel, speaks with Jenna Young, Senior Client Partner at Korn Ferry about the importance of PTO: taking it, not taking advantage of it, and how companies should actually be thinking about it for optimal employee performance. Plus, Jenna shares her idea for trading AI training with Summer Fridays.