An HR presentation that recites the handbook is a file, not a talk. The room wants a decision, a process they can use on Monday, or a number they can trust.
Dokie's HR topic dump does not say who is in the chairs. These 50 do.
- Name the audience in the title: managers, all-hands, or board. One deck cannot serve all three.
- End with a decision, a date, and an owner. "Awareness" is not an outcome.
- Put legal caveats in a handout. The live slide is the rule in one sentence.
- Headcount charts need definitions (FTE, contractors, open reqs) on the slide.
- Draft in GenPPT from the policy one-pager, then cut to 8-12 slides.
Pick the room first
For timing, how many slides per minute. For status format, project status report template.
All-hands
- How compensation bands work here (12 min)
- Open enrollment: three choices that matter
- Parental leave: what to do in week one
- How to report harassment without the rumor mill
- Performance cycle: dates and what "meets" means
- Remote / hybrid rules we will actually enforce
- Learning budget: how to spend it by November
- Referral bonus: what counts
- Mental health benefits, without stock photos of yoga
- How promotions work this year
- Stock / options in language a new hire gets
- Why we changed the holiday calendar
- Intern program: how to be a good host
- What "on-call stipend" covers
- Data the company holds on you, and how to see it
Managers
- How to run a 1:1 that is not a status meeting
- Calibration: how we avoid the loudest manager winning
- A hiring loop that tests the job
- Documenting performance without writing a novel
- How to say no to a skip-level raise request
- Accommodation requests: first 48 hours
- Headcount planning for your team, spreadsheet included
- Onboarding week one, hour by hour
- How to fire with legal and with dignity
- Promotion packets: what execs actually read
- Team offsite that is not forced fun
- Managing a poor communicator who ships
- Pay equity questions you will get
- When to loop HR vs when to handle it
- Rewriting a job post that was biased
- Contractor vs employee: do not freelance this
- How to use AI on people decisions (spoiler: carefully)
- Stay interviews before the exit interview
- Coverage plans for leave
- The meeting load on your team, with data
Leadership and board
- Attrition: regretted vs not, trailing 12 months
- Offer-accept rates by role
- Time-to-fill vs quality-of-hire, pick one north star
- Pay equity findings and the reserve we need
- Manager span of control that is breaking
- DEI numbers without vanity
- Workforce plan vs hiring freeze math
- Flight risk in a single org
- Cost of a bad exec hire
- Compliance training completion is not culture. Here is the real metric
- Union activity: facts, not vibes
- Location strategy: three cities, one HQ myth
- AI and jobs: what we will automate, what we will not
- Benefits cost trend and the change we recommend
- People risk slide for the board / pitch-style appendix
What never belongs on the slide
- An employee's health detail
- A named performance case
- Jokes about firing
- Stock photos of diverse hands on a table
- The entire policy text
Live deck: the rule, the date, the owner. PDF leave-behind: the policy.
If you present to executives, steal the hierarchy from McKinsey slides. If this is a culture talk, stay human and keep claims small, like TED talk topics.
Hiring and onboarding (same 50, findable)
Recruitment, loops, job posts, intern hosts, week-one plans: items 8, 13, 18, 23, 30, 31 in the lists above.
Managers and performance
1:1s, calibration, documentation, firing, promotion packets: items 5, 16-20, 24-25, 33.
Retention, engagement, DEI, pay equity
Stay interviews, attrition, offer-accept, pay bands, pay equity, DEI numbers: items 1, 7, 10, 28, 36-41, 43.
Worked all-hands: how compensation bands work (12 min)
Leave-behind: the policy PDF. Live slide: the rule in one sentence. No named employee examples.
FAQ
What are the best HR presentation topics? Ones with a decision: bands, leave, hiring freeze math, performance dates.
Easy topics? Referral bonus, holiday calendar, how to spend the learning budget.
For students? Role of HR, recruitment basics, why onboarding hits retention. Keep them classroom-safe. No case files.
How do I choose? Name the room first (all-hands, managers, board). Then pick a Monday action.
How do I keep it safe and useful? Policy on the slide. Names and health off the slide. End with owner and date.
Build the outline from the one-pager in GenPPT. Then read it once as if you were the skeptic in the third row.
