Kyle Roed from Rebel HR- Being Your Authentic Self In HR

Warren & Feathers are joined by Kyle Roed, host of the Rebel HR podcast, to discuss being your authentic self in HR.

Check Kyle out on LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyle-roed/
Listen to the Rebel HR podcast: https://www.rebelhumanresources.com/
Watch AND SHARE the original video: https://vimeo.com/789135713

Transcript

Announcer 0:01

Had you actually read the email, you would know that the podcast you are about to listen to could contain explicit language and offensive content. These HR experts' views are not representative of their past, present, or future employers. If you've ever heard, my manager is unfair to me, I need you to reset my HR portal password, or can I right up my employee for crying too much? Welcome to our little statement. Welcome to JDHR.

Warren 0:45

Welcome to JDHR, the podcast by three HR professionals who want to help you get through the workday by saying all the things you're thinking, but say them out loud. I'm Warren. This is Feathers. I'm Kyle. All right. I'm really excited for this episode. You may know Kyle from the Rebel HR podcast. Two, three years ago, Patrick and I appeared on his podcast, and now we're sort of returning to favor with this, but I had to reach out to Kyle when I saw his Disrupt HR presentation. And I'm I I'm not saying this because I I know Kyle or anything. I think this is one of the top Disrupt HR presentations I've seen. And I think as in the last two weeks, it still has been the top five list of the last well since it got released two weeks ago or three weeks ago, however long it's been. So congrats on that. So appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah. Kyle, go ahead and tell us a little bit about yourself and about Rebel HR and jump in from there.

Kyle 1:48

Yeah, absolutely. So, Warren, it's it's awesome to be hanging out with you, feathers. It's great to meet you, man. I had Warren and at the time, Patrick, on the podcast, way back when this was like the middle of COVID quarantine. I was sitting in my basement, hadn't left the house for like three weeks, you know, it was like the outlet. And it was it was a much needed outlet, and I'm just I'm glad you guys are still still doing your thing and sharing the truth of HR, which we'll probably be talking about that here in a little bit. But you know, myself, I'm uh an HR professional by complete accident. I fell into it like everybody else, where you know, you weren't a complete and utter jerk, and they're like, oh, you're good with people, go do HR, because that person just got fired. That's pretty much how I fell into it. So, oh, by the way, we need to hire 90 people for the holiday season. Can you figure that out for us? Thanks, Kyle. So that was my trial by uh by fire. Um, and since then it's you know, I just haven't left, despite trying to a couple different times. But um, very fortunate in my career that I get to work for uh an organization called CPM as the vice president of human resources international firm, super cool, super fun, great team. Got to essentially build the department from scratch, which was which was fun. But then this thing happened called COVID, and and actually, you know, I just I was so isolated. I was the only HR professional running the COVID quarantine response, pretty small company, so I was me. And I needed an outlet. I needed people to talk to, I needed people to bounce ideas off of, and I needed to make sure that I wasn't completely losing my mind sitting at home. And so we uh myself and a couple other local HR professionals, Molly Burdess and Patrick Moran, who are my on-again, off again co-hosts, started Rebel HR. And the entire idea was how do we deal with disruption? How do we manage through the things that always happen in HR, the shit that we can't figure out, plan for, and it's not on a strategic plan somewhere. And from there, we interview guests every week. I mean, I'm just so thrilled at the quality of guests that we've been able to connect with. Right. And for me, it's like just an opportunity to just listen, learn, ask all the dumb questions, which is the beauty of being a podcast host. You get to ask the questions and nobody can tell you they're stupid. And even if they are and they think it's stupid, they won't tell you. So it's like it's you can edit it out if you want to. You can edit it if you want to, yeah. Yeah. Although I'm kind of at the point now where it's like, you know, I used to do the and ums and the ums and the like whatever, and it's just like screw it, whatever. It's just, you know, this is just me. So I don't I don't do that anymore. But yeah, we I didn't edit out the ums.

Warren 4:23

This podcast would be an hour and a half long just based on me alone.

Feathers 4:26

So I'm like Warren, I want to go to bed. I want to go to bed, Warren. Can we stop talking?

Kyle 4:33

So yeah, so that's the podcast, and yeah, it's just been a ton of fun. Had the opportunity to do some speaking off of the podcast, and then yeah, got to do disrupt, which uh it was our local disrupt that I actually founded with the same two co-hosts, Patrick and Molly. We founded that a few years ago as well. And so this was our first event post-COVID here in December. It's a ton of cool.

Warren 4:54

Yeah, we have not had a disrupt event in the in my area in years. I I did say next time they have one, I'll probably attend or or something like that. But I haven't seen it's been it's been years, where at least in my my neck of the woods. So hopefully, hopefully someone will kick that off again and and do some of this. What I love about the disrupt presentation is it's five minutes. You're not getting and it it and it's a pace five minutes. They're going your slides are going with or without you. And I've heard so I haven't seen, but I've heard some horror stories about that. But I've seen them. You've seen who we've had a couple. But your slides are going at your five at that five-minute pace, with or without you, and you're off the stage in five minutes. And you you don't get to hear the fake, bullshitty stories that you know why HR is so important because their grandma on their deathbed said, go be the best HR person in the world's ever seen, and all this other things you the dumbest stories you always hear. Yeah, uh, yeah, grandma. And you don't get a sales spiel out of it. I I really like the formatting where you get what 12, 14 of them in in a day, and with five minutes of pop, you're out of there in you know, less than two hours, you know, after transitioning setup and things like that.

Kyle 6:19

And you can drink when you do it, so it's a ton of fun. Yes, yes. I'm way better after a couple bourbons. It's way more fun, as far as I know.

Warren 6:29

I think I think everything's better with bourbons.

Feathers 6:33

There's there is a line, though. A couple bourbons fine. Like several bourbons, yeah. We're gonna disrupt the real real truth is coming out. Yeah, the real real truth's coming out.

Warren 6:44

So, well, also about Rebel HR podcasts, you know, it is it is a different animal than jaded HR. People might actually learn something there, get some great advice, build their network. Uh, basically everything you're not gonna get here at jaded HR. We're you know, y'all, y'all are the nice classy restaurant and establishment down the street, and we're that dive bar that you know, we got the bare minimum of the the health inspector to be able to stay open.

Kyle 7:12

Uh uh. Um I I don't know if we're like fancy. I think we're kind of like we're like like chilies or applebee's level, right? We're like fast casual. You know what I mean? Like you could take your family there and you don't have to worry about like getting you know food poisoning, but you're not you probably don't want to take your first date there, right? Like that's like a that's a virtue signaling thing, and they're like, this isn't the guy for me. You know what I mean? That's what I would describe.

Warren 7:42

I like it. I like it, yeah. So but you do have great guests, you do have very informative information in you've got how many episodes you just told me two minutes ago. How many episodes are you all up to now?

Kyle 7:53

Yeah, today I actually just reported 152. So yeah, it's been busy. Nice. That's been a good time. I finally got my intro figured out.

Warren 8:05

Yeah. I like I said, I haven't memorized mine and been saying it for three years now. So, uh, anyways, the the reason I wanted to have you on was your your disrupt presentation about three weeks ago. And the fur like right after I saw it on LinkedIn, I went ahead and I messaged you. I said, this is like the best. And I'm I'm not trying to put down any other presenters on disrupt HRs. There's some really good ones. You know, Suzanne Lucas, our friend, has done some great ones, some of my favorites there, but a lot of them are not to be disrespectful, they're the touchy-feely. Go out, do your best, and you know, everybody loves you, could everybody will love you and all this kumbaya stuff. But yours is this one was real, and it is being your true authentic self in HR. And I think that carries a huge message because so many people out there have this expectation of HR, and first hell, we're the three of us are breaking that expectation. We're three dudes in HR. That's that's definitely not the norm. We all have epic beards. I'm just gonna throw that out there. Uh mine is a little more white than either of y'all's.

Feathers 9:18

But you got hair, Kyle. That's the difference. You have hair.

Kyle 9:21

Yeah. I yeah, you could have hair feathers. I can tell. I could. Warren, I don't think so. Yeah.

Warren 9:28

I'm chrome. Chrome, baby. Get the bowling ball polish out. Is that what I've got. I I do think it's it's legitimate, and it's what people in HR need to hear. Is I think so many people in HR, especially those who are just getting into the the profession, they think they have to be that all things to all people. And the way to be a good HR person is to be that nice person who gets along with everybody and you know does things like that. So I thought it was just really telling. I think it's something that needs to be shared amongst the HR community very much. So what got you going? What what motivated you to? What brought you to that theme or your target, your subject for for your presentation?

Kyle 10:13

Yeah, so it's my second disrupt presentation. The first one was touchy-feely. And and and honestly, I was like the warm-up act for the like the legit speaker, Selena Peerman, who's who's awesome, and she had a great presentation at Disrupt. So I was like, you know, I I I was just kind of having a good time. This one I wanted to take a little bit of a different angle. And what really the way I thought about it was why did I start the podcast to drive change in human resources? I mean, that's really what what I was trying to do. That's the whole goal of what we're doing. And the other thing I wanted to do was take some of the like key learnings that I think HR people really need to hear specifically for their own self-development, that I've learned from guests. And there were a couple key guests in some of my podcasts that that really reflected on the on the content that I put together. And so, you know, it so, first of all, the the best thing about my podcast is it's like this is completely unintentional. It's like I get to learn some of the most like cutting-edge research, doctoral thesis, all these like crazy smart people come on this podcast to talk to Dumb Kyle about all the really smart things. And so it's like I get to like, it's like I'm going through an MBA course and I'm not even paying for it, and it's like super rewarding and enriching. And but but there's a couple guests that just really made a really big impact on me. And what I found is there was a common theme between those guests, and it's it's the guests that when you're talking to them, you know they're I don't know, can I I could swear, right? You know they're fucking real. Right? Like, like, this is not bullshit. This person is telling me the truth, their truth. There is like no question about what they are telling me and the amount of passion, energy, and integrity that they are telling me right now. And it's like, and I think I'm guessing you guys have probably felt that too here and there. Every once in a while you get a guess and you're like, this person's fucking legit. Right? Like, it and and so for me, it's like, well, so I'm I'm trying to like circle that in my head. Like, how do I like explain that to somebody else? And for me, my truth, like what I actually wanted to be when I grew up was a musician. And so I was like, and then I was like, you know what, fuck it. I I started this, I'm the founder of this, I can do whatever the hell I want. So I was like, well, I'm just gonna play guitar and live out my failed rock star fantasies on stage, and nobody can tell me I can't, right? So it's like so so it's a little bit of self-like aggrandizing, you know, whatever ego, but then a lot of it was like, how do I, how do I translate that into something that that somebody can take away? And so I I what I did is I took that music, which for me is like truth, to the point that I have a tattoo with a microphone that says truth on my arm. And how do I like convey that to people in an HR setting? And so what I the way that I thought about it was, okay, certain people play certain types of music, certain people love certain types of music, certain people are just naturals in certain genres of music. Like you're not gonna take Jimi Hendrix and make him go play Hank Williams Jr., although he could, it would be weird for him, right? Like, you know, i I'm yeah, I'm I'm not gonna go play classical music, you know, and and be a virtuoso at classical guitar. It's just not so it's it's like that was the first thing. Like, and you think about that, it's like as I think about genre, for me, it's it's industry, it's company, it's team. You know, it's like, are you in the right genre? Are you are you is it just the right thing? And then it and then it's like that's the environment, right? But then it's about you. So it's how do you interact with your environment, right? Are you faking it? Are you are you just full of shit and acting the way that you need to act, or are you authentic? And for me, and I I don't get into this in the the disrupt speech, it's only five minutes out of time to get into it, but like for me the personal story of that was firing somebody, right? And I used to be I used to be the the correct quotation, correct HR professional. When someone was uh was stupid or made a mistake or violated a policy, which policy might have been stupid, I flipped a switch and I turned into like Mr. Robot, Mr. Compliance, and I was just a heartless, soulless HR drone, and I would just fire people. And it was a coping mechanism, right? It was like you were compartmentalizing an awful situation that probably made you physically ill, but you're doing it in a way that you've been told you're supposed to do it in. Like, don't don't show them too much emotion, they'll feed off that, then they can sue you for it. You know, like that entire kind of HR industrial complex was how I was brought up, right? And I had a profound moment where I got to a point, you know, I think, you know, matured in my career, I kind of got fed up. And I actually empathized with somebody that I was firing, right? You know, I I was I was honest and and open and I listened. You know, there's a there's a novel idea. I mean, I should you not at one point there was a a running gag, like a like a contest for how quick can you fire someone at one of my companies that shall remain nameless. It was like, oh, that was oh, that was 15 seconds, can you beat that? You know, like like awful. And what I found though is when I when I when I exhibited the traits that we should all exhibit as humans, that it was better. And ultimately that person's experience was better. And ever since that it was like a light bulb moment that like okay, I can't flip a switch and become HR Kyle. I just need to be Kyle. Right. And and I think, and that's that's really the the underlying you know message in this entire presentation is you know, be yourself, be human. That's what your organizations need you to be, not this mindless, compliance-focused drone that you know everybody hates because HR's reputation sucks. I mean, like it's it's an understatement. Yeah, I mean, every everybody hates HR. When I tell people I'm in HR, they're like, oh, you know, it's like so I tell so now I tell now I this is cool, Warren. Now I can tell people I'm a podcaster, right? But but there's so many podcasters, they're like, oh, that's all bullshit. Like, no, you're not. Like, you know, prove it. And then I'm like, oh look, I have 150 episodes. I'm like, oh shit, you are a podcast, you know. So, anyways, I have fun with that in bars. It's a good time.

Warren 16:46

Yeah, I don't know if you heard we're in the top 25 of all podcasts in Swaziland, and we've spent for like eight weeks now. Whoa, on Apple Podcast charts. Like, I've been reaching it. Please, Mr. or Mrs. Swaziland listener, call get in context. I want you as a guest. Is that one listener? Is that one person? I I have no idea. Yeah, he said it only takes to get in a top 25 in Swaziland, it takes like two downloads, is what he was saying to me.

Kyle 17:15

Swaziland, I love you, Swaziland. I am spreading the gospel to Swaziland right now. Keep listening. Keep listening. Tell your friends.

Warren 17:24

Yeah, I think it's it's it's give us a review. Leave us a review.

Kyle 17:33

No, but yeah, that's amazing. Good for you. I have no idea what you're doing.

Announcer 17:38

Oh, really?

Warren 17:39

Oh no, I don't know. Well we'll talk some more HR or more podcasting shop talk later about this. So anyways, so you you you've really set uh set yourself up good and uh you've really set yourself up well because I don't think there's a better educational statement.

Feathers 18:02

I'm not judging. Oh, I judge. We did go to the same college, so it does make sense we both talk like that.

Kyle 18:13

Yeah, I don't even want to ask where uh we'll go down a rabbit hole, right? Go Pirates. Okay, okay.

Warren 18:22

Uh all right.

Kyle 18:23

I got no I got I got no context for I mean they're they're purple, right? Purple and black. There you go. That's all I got on that school. Yeah.

Warren 18:32

Yeah. We can play baseball. We're okay at football.

Kyle 18:37

We play baseball. Football team is all right. The other year, yeah. Listen, I'm a I'm an Iowa Hawkeye, so like I've got no I've got no room to you know judge. I mean, I think we we set the record for the lowest offense and the highest defense this year. And if you ever want to see like the most boring game of your life, that's it. Like third three and out defense. That was basically the entire season. So yeah, I got yeah, a little trauma.

Feathers 19:02

The sole reason why I'd want to go see a game in Iowa is I want to wave to the kids in between. That is cool.

Kyle 19:08

The wave is cool. If anybody doesn't know, so they wave. The children's hospital has an observatory that can see into the stadium. It's Kinnex Stadium in Iowa City. I went to school there. It's incredible. It's incredible. It's awesome. And it's like all the feels, and they always wave at the kids up in the up in the suite at the end of the first quarter. And it's like you watch it and they sh they always show it on ESPN and stuff. It's just like, you know, they there are literally kids waving in the window who are like hospitalized and dealing with some serious, uh, serious medical issues. It's it's a really powerful moment.

Warren 19:41

So not to get sent a bell on you. But no, that's something fabulous.

Kyle 19:45

Yeah.

Warren 19:46

But y'all also ha have, or at least in the 90s, had wrestling as well out there. We're number two right now. We're number two. Yeah, yeah. Brants brothers. A little bit of wrestling. Well, anyways, uh I'm great at no no subject and just meandering everywhere. But uh you you set up your presentation really well.

Feathers 20:04

And hey, Warren, let me let me pause for a second. Let me go back for a second. So if you're talking about you being your authentic self during a termination situation, can you give me an example of what that actually means?

Kyle 20:15

Yeah, absolutely. So I'll just share the story without sharing the details. So that's what I'm thinking about that right now. But it was it was a situation where I had an employee who had been on multiple written warnings for for behavior. And just kind of chippy stuff, right? Like kind of getting, you know, rude with somebody else, not being super respectful, not you know, just not being a super great team player. But when you get when you got this person one-on-one, you talk to him, you'd realize, you know, this is actually a really genuine person. They just really suck at emotional. Right, you know, and and I think we all know those simple. Yes. Yeah, and but no, you cannot tell you cannot tell Gary to fuck off, right? You know, like you gotta like you can't do that in a workplace. You might want to, I might want to, but I'm not gonna say it, right? So, you know, we got to a point where we went through the whole disciplinary action process and and I just liked this person. I mean, yeah, they were, you know, they had their behavioral issues, but I just liked them. They were just, you know, they I could see myself as that person or my my buddies in that person, right? It was just like it was somebody that I enjoyed. And so instead of walking down the script that I usually walk down, which was, well, we gave you this on this date, this on this date, this on this date, this happened on this date, therefore, henceforth, blah blah blah, legalese, you're fired. Um, I believe. Um, I paused at the end of it and I just said, Man, this sucks. I'm sorry. You know, that you know, I I really like you. But this just wasn't okay. You know, but I hate this. And it was that moment of like honest like connection with another human. That person just like they were just like Yeah, you're right. I mean, it was they just took complete and utter ownership. And but it was also a point of connection where, you know, they they also shared that they, you know, they were having some issues at home, you know, they were working on it, they knew it wasn't okay, thanked me for being open and honest about it. And like left, honestly left, like handshake, literally wishing the best, and you know, still see that person around town. I'm a pretty small town right now. Like I, you know, you can't you can't be a jerk in my town, or eventually it catches up to you. You'd have to move like every five years. Um so it you know, that that moment right there, that moment of kind of humanity and connection, um, you know, it was pretty eye-opening for me. And and it was also way less conflict than when I would just do it the old way. Right? So it's kind of like so everything I was trying to prevent by doing it the way that the lawyers wanted me to do it was what happened when I did it the way that I should just authentically do it, right? And I didn't say anything that would have got us in trouble. I just said it I just said what I was truly feeling in the moment in a way that allowed for some connection, right? So that's that's maybe a little bit more context to what I mean by being, you know, authentic.

Warren 23:34

Okay, I w I have a follow-up question on that. So do you think that if in your managing the person giving their written warnings and maybe pips or whatever you you did, if you'd been your authentic self with them at that point, do you think that maybe they would have reacted better than oh crap, I'd gotta deal with fucking HR again and oh yeah, sign this stupid piece of paper and get rid of them, things like that. Do you Do you think if you'd you'd been your authentic self with him at the earlier stages in the game, it would have made a difference later?

Kyle 24:11

I don't know. He really liked yelling at people. I like to think they would have. Yeah, the person that could have been, you know, making that impact would have been the supervisor. And I, you know, it and actually this this is an interesting tangent. Like now when I think about things like training and development and like, you know, how do I make culture better? Right, like I don't for me, it's like it the stuff that HR does, like the actual tactical stuff that HR does, matters so much less than how your leaders are out in the field. So all like all of my focus is on like how do I get my team where they need to be, how do I get my leaders where they need to be, how do I coach them up? You know, how do I prevent that situation from happening by trying to coach them on these types of habits and traits and activities? And it's and that's the that's hard. That's really hard. And that's I think that's you know, a lot of HR professionals who are hopefully listening to this for some some reprieve, like like hang in there. That's it sucks, man. You're trying to control, you're not only trying to control employee behavior, you're trying to troll control leadership behavior and how they react to the employees. And it's like, you know, you can only control so much. So like, you know, just do your best.

Feathers 25:31

That's I miss the more difficult part is controlling the management.

Kyle 25:34

Exactly. Yeah, especially when you, you know, I tell people, my job, so you know, VPHR sounds really cool, right? Like it's fun. And I love it. It's a fun job. But a lot of my job is what I call ego management. If it's like, listen, I know this wasn't your idea. Um, so let's let's calm everything down and make sure that you think that it was your idea by the end of this conversation. Like, that's like that's like 95% of my chop right now. I like that.

Warren 26:06

I like that.

Kyle 26:06

It doesn't always work. You know, I do have a big stick though. I can be like, you know, fuck you, do it. So that that helps. That does help a little bit now. I didn't always have that. That's where the VP comes in. Yeah. Unless it's a C-suite, and then you know, then it is a little bit more of a robust discussion. Right.

Feathers 26:25

But I think they're probably the ones that need it most.

Kyle 26:27

Like just sometimes, yeah. Yeah. Nobody in my current company ever, if anybody's listening to this, absolutely never have to deal with that. This I'm I'm only talking about past employers. We never we don't have any issues with that, as far as you know. Yeah.

Warren 26:42

As far as you know, I love it.

Kyle 26:45

It's a little asterisk. I I'm good at asterisks. I really like asterisks. My favorite punctuation.

Warren 26:54

Well, well, due to some copyright rate restrictions, we cannot play what you did on uh disrupt HR presentation, but you've graciously volunteered to go through the the five-minute spiel. So we're podcasting, you'll get to see the visuals, but I think this stands alone on its own. So Kyle, you can take it away anytime you're ready and uh uh just give us your presentation uh right now. All right.

Kyle 27:21

So um uh full disclosure, I have not done this for like a month and a half, so we'll see how this goes. But it's gonna be better because it's it's jaded HR, so we can do whatever we want. Okay. All right, here we go. Here goes Nathan. She's a good loves mama, loves Jesus in America too. What did that do? Did you just have a feeling? Maybe you thought I sucked at singing, and why am I listening to this podcast? And that's okay. Music evokes emotion. What does HR do? We are also supposed to evoke emotion. But what emotion do you evoke? Are you Toby from the office? Are you, oh shit, HR's here? What do I do? What did I do wrong? Side note, you probably do have a reputational issue. It's time to rebel. The best musicians are rebels. So I ask you this what genre are you trying to play at your organization? Here's a secret. There are only really like five chords that you need to play in order to play most popular music. I just played almost all music. The difference is how you play those five chords matters. Are you playing them like this? Or like this. So you've got to ask yourself this question: Who are you as an artist? Here's an issue. Context switching is a problem. If your organization is asking you to switch from one genre to a next every few minutes, you are going to screw something up. You will get tired. On average, it takes people about 10 minutes to get back into a productive workflow after being uh interrupted. So you might be playing a sweet solo. And then some drunk asshole says, play free bird! Side note, if you are a musician, you do have to learn how to play free bird, or you will get beat up at the bar. So make sure that you know how to play free bird. But the point is, you can't do it all. You can't play every single genre for everybody. You have to find the right genre for you. And you have to find the right band members to play that genre with you. Side note, always find the drummer. They are the hardest to find. Once you find your band, now you've got to deal with stage fright. Trying to achieve social performance is exhausting. But guess what? That's what HR does every single freaking day. We are on stage acting. Here's the trick you can't fake it. You have to be authentic and you have to be true even when it hurts. If you are constantly acting over and over and over again, it's exhausting. You will burn yourself out. How many articles have we read lately about HR fatigue? The problem is human behavior. When you constantly consider your actions, you screw up. You have to learn how to play your own music, or people will tell that you are not playing the genre that you should be playing. Here's a quote I love. If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything. That's a Mark Twain quote. And that's what we should all be striving to do. If we are faking it, we will fail eventually. When I started my career, I thought I had to play everything in C major. Because it's pretty and it's right, and it's like that corporate headshot with the shiny photo that everybody wants. But the truth is that I should be playing a C minor. That's just me. That's who I am. So ask yourself this: how are you doing? Are you playing the blues on a Sunday? Because that sucks. If you've got the Sunday scaries, if you dread going into work, guess what? You're probably playing the wrong genre. So do you need a bridge? A bridge is a contrasting section in music that gets people to go back to the return to the original material. Is it time for you to go to go back to your original material? Ask yourself that. Here's the thing we can make a difference in HR if we are our authentic selves. Oh, by the way, close it out on a badass power chord and leave a lasting mark. And revel on.

Warren 32:17

Awesome. Yeah. Just I I really think the combination of the message and the music is what makes this presentation successful and what makes it a a must, must listen to, must share. I encourage all of our listeners to go on the disrupt HR channel. You can share that video. I shared it to all of our dozen LinkedIn followers the other day, and I I wish I could put it up on Instagram where we have more followers. But uh yeah, it it's it's something that really does need to be shared. I think too many people just think they they have this is the role they have to play. I'm in this HR box and I can't poke my head out or anything like that. And yeah, it it's it's just really the the real message that real HR people need to hear. And those who are getting to that point you mentioned earlier, you were getting to the point you were you're the robotic person, but you you felt like your career had progressed in HR that you got to the point where, you know what? Screw it. Yeah, this this is the this is screw it. This is what the the legal, the the lawyers say I should do, but I know myself, I know my audience, I know what I I know what I can and can't say. And you know, they always say you never say sorry in a termination. You never say sorry because that means you're admitting some sort of guilt or wrong doing or something like that. You know, figure it out for yourself. What know your audience, know where you're going, and and play it by ear. Play to your audience and and and things uh or you be yourself to their audience, I guess you should say, more or less. So you don't want to necessarily kowtow to them, but just just know the situation. You are a professional, and that's why you're there, and and that's how you're gonna progress in your career. So well, that's like the least jaded thing I've ever said in on jaded H2O.

Kyle 34:08

Way too like inspirational more. We gotta change this tone. What the hell is going on here?

Warren 34:13

I don't know. I don't know. You did motivate me when I saw this. Like I said, as soon as I saw it, I I shot you an email because I thought it it was just it was perfect.

Kyle 34:22

So Yeah, now it's now it's released to the wild because it's like like disrupt doesn't have the copyright now, so you know, share away. It's all good. Yeah, no, you know, there's a couple things as as I was kind of going through that presentation, a couple kind of key points that I think we haven't really touched on, but like some of the research is really fascinating. One is the whole context switching thing, right? And it's like when I learned about context switching, which is basically anytime you switch your task from one thing to another, like the the whole like multitasking myth, right? Like it it totally screws up your flow. You can't get back into a flow state, takes like 10 minutes. And that's like that's like my job description, right? It's like, oh, this is no wonder I'm exhausted at the end of the day. So that was a really key takeaway. The other one, like for anybody that's on a Zoom call, was there was some really fascinating research done, it's doctoral research. And uh it's the it's my episode called Making Virtual Work Work. But the research showed that like every time you're on a Zoom call, you're you're fake. You're acting because you're staring at your face and you're like, what does my face look like? And you're just like, and you just get so in like like you act, like like it's like when you're on camera, you're different, right? It's like reality shows aren't reality, right? But basically everybody's in their own like reality show hell every single day when they're on these like teams and Zoom meetings and stuff, and it's and and it's it's toxic. Like it it will completely exhaust you. That's why like when you sit on an eight-hour day of Zoom calls, you're like you're ready to like go jump off a bridge because you're so freaking burned out and tired of of light. You know, but but that's what it is. It's like your brain is not made to do that. So that's that's kind of the other point, right? But but in the context of if you're constantly acting and faking and trying to be somebody else, it's the same exact experience, right? Whether you're on a Zoom call or not. So anyways, knock it off my soapbox now.

Warren 36:11

No, no, that's perfect. Uh you know, I've I've unfortunately Zoom calls are going to be going forward, they're not going away. They're not going away. People fall so many people have fallen in love with them. And uh, you know, this people still haven't learned this is a meeting that could have been an email or something like that. If if people actually read they're flipping emails. That's uh That's another podcast. The opening line of our disclaimer, had you actually read the email, you know, people don't read the email.

Kyle 36:43

Go back to asterisks, but I'll put like five asterisks in an like action required, read this email. Oh, yeah. And six if I have to, it really worked.

Warren 36:52

Six. I I'm I'm going into open enrollment and I've already put together my draft emails and action required, you must do this regardless if you participate or not, and this, that, and you know, come close of open enrollment. I'm gonna get I didn't know, I don't participate, I don't need to do this. Yes, yes, you do. And I've said that 30 times.

Kyle 37:13

Dude, I just wrapped that shit. God bless you. I got another nine months.

Warren 37:22

Yeah, it it'll be, it'll be, it'll be interesting. So well, well, Kyle, this has been a whole lot of fun. I'm so glad you agreed to to join us and and share your thoughts on being your true self in HR. Tell everybody where they can find you online, besides your awesome podcast, Rebel H R.

Kyle 37:41

Absolutely. Yeah, so I'm probably most active on LinkedIn. It's uh Kyle KYLE. My name is kind of weird. It's Rhodes, it's R-O-E-D. I'm pretty sure I'm the only Kyle Rhode out there. But you can also, if you want to check out the podcast, it's uh www.rebelhumanresources.com. And you can use whatever podcast player you want. But yeah, I would love to connect with anybody. There's a ton of really just super awesome people that I've had an opportunity to talk to. If you have any interest in some of those topics, I'd encourage you to check it out. But yeah, I just appreciate appreciate coming back on. You know, it's it's crazy, Warren. It's been almost three freaking years. And we started this thing about the same time. So this is just like it's just like, you know, all the feels. We're we're still doing it. We're we're here, man.

Warren 38:26

Yeah, there's been so many HR podcasts, even some that I really, really liked that have come and gone. Uh uh gosh, what this I can name the hosts, but I can't name the podcast right now. Sue and Whitney. I can't remember their podcast, but I loved it. And then they just released like a 10-second episode. Uh we've decided not to podcast anymore. I'm like, huh, yeah, type thing. And there's been some uh some you know it's been a couple people come and go. And it's it's it's not for everybody. And it is people don't know how how hard a work it is to put a podcast together.

Kyle 38:58

So yeah, it's you work harder than I do. I'm a lot lazier. I I outsource all my editing and stuff.

Warren 39:04

So we don't we don't have the money for that. I'm just lazy.

Feathers 39:10

I'm like, I'll put I'll find a way to pay for it later. I think we have enough for like two beers right now, Warren.

Warren 39:16

Yeah, yeah. But we well, speaking of which I didn't mention earlier, the ways people can contribute to jaded HR, you can leave us a review on your favorite podcast player. You can support us on Patreon like Hallie, our original jaded HR rock star, and you can contribute a story or tell a friend. Those are the ways you can help us grow. And we have some new links in our link tree, so go ahead and do that. And I'll give you a uh a sneak peek. I am working on an Etsy store right now for some jaded HR merch. Sweet. Yeah, look at feather face there. Etsy, yeah.

Kyle 39:51

Love it. Can I get like a can I get like a bejeweled like wind catcher? Like a jaded HR wind cat wind catcher.

Warren 39:58

I will see what I can do. But I if you go on Etsy, there is a jaded HR store. I think it's got like two things from Printify on it right now. So yeah.

Feathers 40:11

Even I'm learning something new today.

Kyle 40:13

That's awesome. That's awesome. I'm checking that out. So I do not, I'm gonna have to get an Etsy account, but I will check that out.

Warren 40:19

Sell some merch. Yeah. While we wrap things up, I don't I I guess our best practice for today is be a rebel and be true to yourself in HR. Our our intro and outro music is Devil by the Devil by the underscore orchestra. And old Andrew Kolpa, if I could speak today, is the voice art voice artist who does our intro, our disclaimer at the beginning. So as always, I'm Warren. This is Feathers, and I'm Kyle. And we're here helping you survive HR1 what the fuck moment at a time.