HR Tech Providers: Doing something interesting with agentic AI?

About Beacon Turn

Built for moments of uncertainty

The beginning of change

Along the Columbia River in Washington State stands Beacon Rock. In addition to being the weathered away core of an extinct volcano, it also marks the beginning of the tidal influences on the river. For thousands of years, it's stood by as a point of transition that guided native peoples and early explorers alike.

That's where we find ourselves today

Beacon Turn is a research, media, and advisory firm built for transitions. We produce research, create media, and guide companies to outcomes they actually care about. We believe that better answers start with better questions. We're trusted because we'll tell you what we know and what we don't know — and lay out how we can discover the truth together.

Beacon Turn exists to help senior leaders navigate through the ebbs and flows of this changing environment. That can show up as a many different types of gaps, but the underlying condition is the same: the environment has changed faster than the organization’s confidence in what it knows.

Or, you know, things got real weird.

There are more signals than ever, more plausible explanations than ever, and more pressure than ever to act as if the situation is understood. Publish more! Think less!

Beacon Turn is built for the moment you reject that thesis. We also have posture that’s increasingly rare in this category: It’s okay not to know yet, as long as you’re willing to do the work to find out what’s true before you commit.

About our founder

Lance Haun has led research and strategy projects for 100+ organizations and created thousands of media pieces for people seeking guidance in a confusing environment.

In short, he's done some things.

But he also isn't a know-it-all. He loves learning and growing (and, as you can see, hiking). Adventures, hiking or otherwise, are more fun with others.

He has spent the last two decades researching and writing about people, work, and technology. He started his career in the trenches of HR, recruiting, and training and wrote about it on one of the earliest workplace blogs. He also co-founded the first social network for HR leaders. Eventually, his writing would land him at ERE Media, where he wrote about recruiting and HR and led conferences.

He joined The Starr Conspiracy where he eventually rose to the title of vice president of market insights. During his time there, he worked closely with clients focused primarily on go-to-market, messaging, research, and content initiatives. In 2025, he joined Rep Cap in a similar role, getting deeper into the technical aspects of content production before launching Beacon Turn in 2026.

He's been featured as an HR and workplace expert in publications like the Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, MSNBC, Fast Company, and other leading HR and business websites. He's also frequently tapped as a speaker at industry events as well as covering the world of work on podcasts and webinars, speaking at the SHRM Annual Conference, the HR Technology Conference and Exposition, ERE Recruiting Conference, and many other local and national events.

Lance and his family are based in Vancouver, Wash. where he hikes, roots for sports, and drinks some of the best craft beer in the world.

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Operating principles we hold true

Most people know that values are just something you put out there when you've screwed something up. We also don't think they are super helpful for understanding what it's like to work together. Instead, it's better to share how we show up to every engagement.

Collaboration without ego

We are allergic to know-it-all posture. It makes us physically unwell. While we've done a lot of work, we still have a lot of learning to do. Thus, almost all of the work we do is collaborative in the most practical sense. We can't do this work without your context, constraints, and knowledge. Often, we find ourselves working with partners. We're ready for that.

Even transactional work has strategic sensibility

Ghostwriting doesn't mean your brain can ghost the project. We do great execution work because we layer in a strategic view. We try to avoid borrowed language, lean into what makes you unique, and make judgements about when and how you show up. Plus, it would be tough to just forget all this stuff we've learned.

Comfort with chaos

It's okay to not know all the answers. Instead of rushing to a confident answer, we invite clients to live in the mess and create clarity from it. While clean, easy answers feel better, they aren't real. Plus, they are more easily co-opted by competitors because the claimed reality is vanilla.

Respect for our audience

Nobody needs to be impressed. Instead, they need work and information that respects their time and intelligence. Our audience works hard and they deserve information that is direct, grounded, and unwilling to lie or pretend to be something it isn't.

AI pragmatism and environmental respect

We do use AI in this practice, especially for things that it is incredibly good at (transcription, large data set analysis, or detailed personalization). But AI has also led to writing that has become ubiquitous and it still makes serious mistakes. When we use AI models, we try to run processes locally first on very efficient Mac Minis. When we can't, we break apart tasks or use the human touch to get an output that respects both people and the world.

Like what you're reading?

The best way to get started is to talk about what you need. If we can't help or don't think we'll be the best partner, we'll tell you (and usually be able to refer you to someone else). But if we can help, let's chat about making it work.

Let's talk

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