Gen Z Needs Etiquette Training, Reality Checks and AI Bosses

Ever thought about how a simple act of bravery could land you in hot water at work? Today, we'll be revisiting a controversial story about a woman from Lowes who found herself in precisely this predicament. We'll also be comparing her story to a similar incident from Lulu Lemon! Furthermore, we'll be delving into a captivating new bill proposed by two senators on a mission to prevent employers from solely relying on AI and bots for their hiring decisions. 

Then, we're going to demystify the good, the bad, and the ugly of AI and uniform systems in the workplace. You'd be surprised by the number of companies now turning to office etiquette training and the potential discrimination it could be concealing. 

No Gen Z you cannot make up your own disabilities... SMH

 It's going to be an enlightening ride, don't miss it!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

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 write up my employee for crying too much? Welcome to our little safe zone. Welcome to JDHR.

Speaker 2: 0:44

It's been about five seconds, but welcome to JDHR, to podcast by two HR professionals. We want to help you get through the workday by saying all the things you're thinking, but say them out loud. I'm Warren and this is Fedders. All righty, back again. We have such a great time with our guests last week, eileen and Glinda so I want to give them another thank you for being our guests last week. I'm sure we'll have them come back again very soon.

Speaker 2: 1:14

But yeah, I got a couple of stories in the news I want to cover today. Some of them are sort of follow-up stories and then. But before we get to that, I do want to thank Halle, our original JDHR rock star, for continuing yet continuing to support us on Patreon. If you haven't noticed, I have not been running any ads this month. I'm going to stop trying to run some of those ads. Unless they're actually a good ad on the podcast, I'll forgo the money. So you want to see us not have those bad podcast ads? Go ahead and support us on Patreon. We have a new lower level the intern level you can get in at, so check that out. The link is in the show notes.

Speaker 2: 1:54

But, I want to start off with some sort of follow-up type things. First follow-up a few episodes back we did the Severed Heads episode and now they made Jod Hyman's list for Worst Employer. So I think that's a so far. That's a pretty captivating candidate for Worst Employer. I mean, putting Severed Heads on your desk has got to be a winner. So I like that. But another follow-up, and this is you know.

Speaker 3: 2:23

I thought of thought here for a second. Okay, when you fuck over your labor budget, I should have the ability to come in and just put a Severed Head on your desk Like get your budget shit fixed. Your labor dollars are all fucking atrocious. This is what's going to happen to you. Get your fucking dollars straight. Excuse my rant, I'm in budget season and I'm fucking pissed off.

Speaker 2: 2:50

Yeah, when managers just screw things up for you and it just always seems to be the same two or three managers you might I don't know how many managers you deal with, but it's the same couple of ones each and every blessed time. So yes, but in the news lately has been an article on this person. I forgot to put her name down, but she works at Lowes. She worked there for 13 years. She's a 68-year-old lady and she attempted to stop some robbers from stealing from the Lowes she worked at and she got fired. And I wanted to compare and contrast this story to the Lulu Lemon one we did a month or two ago. But so the whole story is three gentlemen come in robbing, they fill the cart up with over $2,000 worth of merchandise and then they try and make it out and, as the lady does, she grabs the cart and tries to sort of stop them where. What happens next? The robber punches her in the face. Pretty good the pictures. Her face did not look too good after that. Well, she did get fired From Lowe's but update as of this morning, she rose Lowe's rehired her.

Speaker 2: 4:06

So but I think this one, unlike the Lulu lemon, when I was saying yeah, the person number a, we wouldn't fire. But person number b, who chased him out the store, I probably I wouldn't raise an argument. But she said at first she thought she'd just get reprimanded or something. And then her defense was she just gets tired of seeing things Go out the door. She said I lost it, I just lost it. I basically lost all the training, everything they tell you to do. I just lost it. And you know what I can, I can see that. You know how frustrating it must be. You know it's happening, you're seeing it happen right there in front of you and you cannot do Anything.

Speaker 2: 4:45

The three people that were robbing the Lowe's did get caught in her being charged, but she did get her. Unlike the girls from Lulu lemon, she did get her job back. So that's pretty, that's pretty interesting, especially after being with the company for 13 years. I was like I can, I can, I can see that one happening, see that I could justify that termination, escalating things, essentially putting herself and others in in harm's way, and ultimately she put herself in in Hormsway with that. So yeah, that was in the news lately, but guess what was in the news today? You're gonna love this one.

Speaker 3: 5:20

Well, I'm gonna go backwards for one second, so I'm gonna be okay. At least I'm gonna be the grammar place on you. You can't be number a and you can't be number b, you can be that I say that, yep, you can be number one employee or number two employee, but you can't be a lot. You could be letter a. So I made a big note over here as you were saying that I'm like Language police needs to come out tonight.

Speaker 2: 5:43

I need to. I need that sometimes. Let's see that's a thing. When I get it think.

Speaker 3: 5:52

I.

Speaker 2: 5:53

Stop thinking the two don't work at the same time all the time. So, yeah, well, this sort of goes right into that. Story from today, july 25th, from Eric Meyer on LinkedIn. Two senators, one from Pennsylvania, one from Hawaii are sponsoring Installation that they claim will protect and empower workers by preventing employers from relying exclusively on artificial intelligence we're bots to make employment decisions. The bill is titled the no Robot bosses act of 2023. So here we are. Ai is here.

Speaker 2: 6:33

I've mentioned any number of times I'm using it to produce this episode. I'm using it. I even expanded just the last week on how I'm using it in forward this episode, and AI is here. It's here to stay.

Speaker 2: 6:47

But I think people are just getting there their panties in a wad over everything. Oh, my god, terminator is coming to go take over the world and in things like that, and we're gonna become servants to the, to the system. But I really don't think that I. Yes, it's gonna cost some people their jobs. Let's go create so many more jobs.

Speaker 2: 7:07

If you're that buggy whip operator here, our manufacturer, you're probably not long-dustin for the, the employment world, but the people who are going to succeed going forward are the people who know how to use AI, how to prompt it, how to double check it. I think I mentioned on a prior episode I'd asked chat GBT to tell me everything they knew about Warren workman and it talked about this baseball Empire who worked for the In the ALCS and in the 70s and 80s and the World Series and like 83 and all this other stuff. Like okay, warren workman is was a baseball Empire but never made it to that level. So and if I was in 1970 something I wouldn't have been old enough to do much good on to anybody on the on the field as Empire.

Speaker 3: 7:52

But people, just you be equivalent to most of them right now. They can't call balls and strikes either.

Speaker 2: 7:58

Yeah, yeah, I still see those those things. I still I. I still own and operate the world's number one. I'm firing website out there, but I'm part of fans, I believe it. There is such a thing.

Speaker 3: 8:12

But shameless plug people shameless plug.

Speaker 2: 8:14

So nobody's gonna go there from here, but anyways, just like nobody from there comes here but no. So some of the points of this bill is they want to pre deployment and periodic testing and validation of automated decision systems For issues such as discrimination and biases, before their plentime use for employment related decisions. Employers need to train individuals or entities on the proper operation of automated decision systems and then timely disclosures from employers on the use of automated decision systems, and it goes on. But AI is only as good as the person who's using it. You can ask AI follow-up questions. Sometimes they're good. You can even ask it how sure are you on this, or cite your source on things, and sometimes it'll Shoot something else out and sometimes it won't. It's a good tool, but it's getting better each and every day. It as we we get it further and further into AI. It's gonna be a big thing and another law that's out there right now. I don't have in my notes all the details, but in New York City now of course New York City you cannot use auto artificial intelligence in your hiring process, because they think it's gonna be discriminatory and their argument is you have a system that you are telling it hey, we're like hiring 25 year old white males and it sees that and it develops a pattern and it's going to continue and perpetuate that. But that could be a potential potential issue. But you can continue, you can validate it and you can work with it.

Speaker 2: 9:43

Tim Sackett he writes a blog almost every day online. You should check out a. He's one of the hosts of HR, famous is talking about how the good things of AI are outweighing the bad and how to to counteract these things. So I think I think this is interesting. I think it's a knee-jerk reaction. I don't ever see, or I don't immediately see, ai making decisions. Oh warn, did this. We got to fire him because, hr, we love the gray areas, we we like the gray. Or sometimes we look for the gray areas because we need to make things happen, or just judgment and discretion and Giving it all to AI. Yeah, it's gonna be uniform, but we've already talked about those uniform systems like point systems in in certain environments, that how awful they are when they're you're being Ultra uniform and it can actually be discriminatory just the same. So, anyways, I'll be keeping my eye on that legislation, as it's two things I'm interested in HR and AI. So, anyways.

Speaker 2: 10:45

So Last week, with the ladies from surfing corporate, we specifically me did a lot of shitting on generation Z, the zoomers. And Yet here it is. Just last week a news article came from WTOP out of Washington DC, july 18th, written by Jeff clay ball. So this blows me away and I, of all the things I could see happening in the employment world, this was not going to be one of them.

Speaker 2: 11:17

The opening line is nearly half of all companies are now using office etiquette training in additional 18% plan to implement it by the end of next year, according to a recent survey of HR managers by resume builder. And it goes on to say that Generation Z is entering the workforce unable to work in an office environment. Managers that here's a line from the article. Managers have called these youngest of workers the most difficult to work with because of poor communication skills and lack of much, if any, prior exposure to the workplace environment, and it's not acceptable Training that they're doing. This etiquette training consists of things like how to take constructive criticism, how to give feedback and how to accept it. Another big part of is how you dress in the office. What is appropriate attire? Another article I saw on the same topic, basically from HR dive companies. Reasons for this requiring these classes vary from employees wearing too casual clothing to not being able to make polite conversation or in they end up talking about politics, of religion at work and they're unable to write professional emails. So, yeah, never in my mind if they are not coming out of high school or college heaven forbid with these type of skills.

Speaker 2: 12:42

Our educational system is completely failing. And to think that it says, fifth, nearly 50% of companies have this and another 18% are about to go there. Like wow, it goes on. And I found this interesting. I think it could be potentially discriminatory. Among companies that say that etiquette training is or will be required for only some employees, 54% say the training will be for both Morse or all new college graduates aged 18 to 27. So you, as a, as a z, have to take this, but me, as an ex, don't have to take this. I'm like I would hate to take this if I joined a new company and they put me in there. But I think that you know what's. I think I have to Make it uniform. You can't only give harassment training to the males, you have to give it to the, the women in the office as well. So, generations, that you're just screwing everything?

Speaker 3: 13:40

I'm trying to think. I've worked in the office so long I'm not sure I know how to dress or talk in the office either. We're from like when we first went out for a cup, but it was like I'm gonna be on camera and we put a collar shirt on. Now I'm just like, all right, yeah, we're a hat. I just make sure we want to wear a tank top or come right back in from a run for a call, like it's.

Speaker 2: 13:58

It's dramatic, profusely.

Speaker 3: 13:59

Yeah, it's dramatically gone down like what was tolerable three years ago to now. It's like I don't care, and it's not just me, other people that I work with, or whatever they're also the same way. It's like, yeah, we don't care anymore.

Speaker 2: 14:13

Or people who, three years ago, would have their camera on always don't anymore. No, fucking I don't care. They just, they just don't care at all. Right, well, I Want to continue shitting on Generation Z. Nice, let's do it.

Speaker 2: 14:32

This comes to us from Karen Michael in the Richmond Times Dispatch on July 17, and this is a particular Generation Z person. Well, there's this girl, she's on TikTok, instagram or anything, everything like that, and she is going on a rant that employers do not respect her quote unquote time blindness. And so, basically, in an interview, she asked people how are they going to accommodate her time blindness, which causes her to be late to work each and every day? And apparently one employer just said basically, if you get the hell out, there's no such thing as time blindness and you have to be to work every day. So, yes, there can be accommodations if you have a legitimate disability. That may require you to have some flexibility in your work schedule, but to be late every single day, just in, oh my gosh, the comments on LinkedIn after this article. They're like it's called an alarm clock, it's called set memos, set reminders, it is.

Speaker 2: 15:45

I'm one of the most ADD people in the world on things. I go from squirrel moment to squirrel moment to the next thing, and it's most frustrating in my life is I will change subjects on the drop of a dime and she doesn't even know where she was in this conversation. Now we're in this conversation and she did. There's zero transition between the two and she's like what the fuck are you talking about? So right, I am extremely ADD and I jump around like that, but and I have a history of being late but I know, david, I'm going to be on time to work in my meetings because that's important. And but Karen McMichael or, excuse me, karen Michael goes on to say make no excuses, get to work on time every single day. She also talks about how she finds that her use of the word phrase time blindness very insulting to those who have legitimate sight impairments, which I can absolutely see on that. And then she plugs her book.

Speaker 1: 16:40

She says you can see on that.

Speaker 2: 16:44

She plugs her book it says they need to read. She needs to read my book Stay Hard, which of course, has a chapter titled Beyond Time to Work. So it's I don't know this person and apparently they cite some articles they've seen on the internet about time blindness and other people saying that's not a disability. It's getting lost in your work, it lose track of time. Everybody loses track of time from time to time. That's not a disability that you're going to get an accommodation filled out of request for. You can't.

Speaker 3: 17:18

You can't make up your own disabilities, people I mean if we look back at college, half our fratern brothers would have failed out of school because they were on their own time clock.

Speaker 2: 17:29

Never do it a day in class. Yeah, I made the mistake one semester because it fit into my schedule. I did a 730 biology class and it was one of those lectures freshman biology with 200 people in the room, and I did it at 730 and I'm not a morning person at all and, yeah, I was an idiot, but it fit in my schedule. Man, it fit in my schedule. It's crazy. And there was no online universities or anything back then. You had to physically put your butt in the seat every day and back then they also posted your grades by your Social Security number outside the door. If identity theft was a thing back then, wow.

Speaker 3: 18:18

I mean they were also on our student IDs with our name.

Speaker 2: 18:21

Yeah, yeah. Or you know, I was the secretary of our fraternity and I'd have to get everybody's GPAs. I just had you write down your name and your Social Security number and I went to the registrar's office. They didn't even ask two questions. Hey, I need everybody's GPA on this list, and a day or two later I'd come back in. Here it is. I had everybody's. There was like zero privacy, I don't know, zero fucks, given. That's what it was about everything. So it's really really crazy. So now there's a lot of really cool HR things in news and I'm continuing to explore AI.

Speaker 2: 18:57

I was working with our recruiter just today on using the proper AI prompts to maybe update our job descriptions, and I was I work in a very specialized industry in the engineering and technology area and I gave it some prompts and I ended up getting a probably 80% there job description for some of our tough niche type of jobs just by giving it the correct prompts, and I was really surprised and it put more information in it than I gave it. That was actually quite accurate. I was, I was working with my recruiter on how to use those prompts and how to make and narrow it down to get it where you want. And then I said, hey, this is 80% there. We just have, you know, to tweak it a little and bam where it's done. And so, yeah, it's going to be, it's going to be interesting. I think it's going to start saving people a lot of people a lot of times, but it's not coming for your job anytime soon.

Speaker 2: 19:58

I hate writing job description. Oh, I'll teach you, as I was working with my I've yeah, 100% my recruiter. We, we, we just spent an hour and we got like in an hour we got four or five job descriptions up to 80%, and then we just fill in some tweaks, some uniqueness about us. It did not do a good job because I asked for it to list standard physical and mental requirements of a job for this and it. That's probably the area. We're just cup and paste what we already have. But it did not did not do well there, but it was. It was really surprising how well it did.

Speaker 2: 20:38

So any who I don't have much more for today is a little bit of a shorter episode, but after our last week's hour and 10 minute episode, I think I think we are listeners deserve a little break from us, not that long of a break. Come back each and every week, but that's all I got. I do want to announce we have another very special guest coming up, actually a couple of guests coming up that we're really excited about. So keep on listening, keep coming back, keep supporting us. Leave us here reviews, follow us on your favorite podcast player.

Speaker 2: 21:12

Guess what I? I put threads. I did a threads account for JDDHR not that I use. I created, like Twitter and in Facebook and all these other JDDHR accounts when we first started this thing, and now I'm losing Instagram. I haven't used it, but like once in the last month and, but now I have a threads. So what the hell? I doubt I'll do anything with it, but we, we will see. So, anyways, follow us online, check out the show notes for all the ways you can support us. Leave us a review. Reviews are just so helpful in helping other people find the show and also tell a friend If you have a cool story. It's been a long time since we've had a listener story, but, once again, it's been a long time since I've asked for them. Send us your listening, your listener story, so that we can get you. Yeah, it's easy for me to say Get your story on there, maybe even have you on as a guest to tell your story firsthand so we can question. You dive a little deeper on that.

Speaker 2: 22:03

So yeah the voice artist, as always, is Andrew Culpa, and the intro and outro music is the devil of the devil by the underscore orchestra. I'm Warren and this is Feathers, and we're helping you survive. Hr won. What the fuck moment at a time.