Helping Boozy HR Pick Their Fantasy Football Team Name

Are you ready for some fantasy football? That's right folks, we're entering a realm where the gridiron meets the break room, and it's not for the faint of heart! We've got Ashley from Boozy HR with us to navigate these tumultuous waters where bragging rights clang against the office clock. Who hasn't fantasized about sacking the boss or outmaneuvering Karen from accounting on the virtual playing field? But, be warned, while employers lose a staggering $212.3 million per hour of work time on fantasy football, we're here to argue the team spirit and camaraderie could be worth every penny!

We're not just about pigskins though. We tackle some heavy-duty HR topics head-on from filing for unemployment claims to the notorious 360 review process. Despite the seriousness, we lighten the mood with some humor, because, let's face it, what's life without a dash of levity? Our brainstorming session for some clever and snarky team names for your HR fantasy football team will have you rolling on the floor!

As we wrap up our huddle, we pause to reflect on the impact of fantasy football on our daily lives. It's not just about the touchdowns and interceptions, it's about the relationships built, the rivalries forged, and the shared experiences that bring us closer together. We're grateful for all your support, and look forward to more engaging and spirited discussions. So, gear up, strap on those helmets, and let's get ready to tackle this week's episode together!

Follow Ashley on Boozy HR on Instagram.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

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 have ever heard my manager is unfair to me. I need you to reset my HR portal password. Or can I ride up my employee for crying too much? Welcome to our little safe zone. Welcome to JDDHR.

Speaker 2: 0:49

Welcome to JDDHR, to podcast by two HR professionals who want to help you get through the work day by saying all the things you're thinking, but say them out loud. I'm Warren and I'm.

Speaker 3: 1:00

Ashley.

Speaker 2: 1:03

All right, here we have Ashley back from Boozy HR, your favorite Instagram channel out there. So how are things going over at Boozy HR for you?

Speaker 3: 1:11

Well, it's funny. So I had started a new job like about a year ago, and then my account got a little quiet because I had realized that I have nothing snarky to say when I'm in my honeymoon stage. But now I realized last week I'm like oh, we're out of the honeymoon stage, it's over, so I am back.

Speaker 2: 1:32

Too bad that honeymoon stage can't last longer. And you know what? I think it's also in HR Everything's all nice and new and pretty and shiny, and then you see people are people. We're just talking about all fair, that, yeah, people are people and it's going to be the same, so somewhat similar across the board wherever you go. So yes, I can.

Speaker 3: 1:52

People are just people in all over the place.

Speaker 2: 1:55

Yes, exactly. Before we get too long, just want to thank Halle, our original J2HR Rockstar, for sponsoring us on Patreon. You can do that, and please leave us reviews. It's been quite a while since we've had a new review, but please leave us a review. We'll get those read on air. Regardless of it's one star five, I will read it on air. So go ahead and make that happen, if you would, please. Helps us grow. But today's topic you brought up fantasy football in the workplace, so you're about to. I guess among the millions and millions of people are going to start a fantasy or start playing fantasy football, getting ready for the draft and things like that You'd mentioned. You're not the hardcore fantasy player.

Speaker 3: 2:41

I kind of am.

Speaker 2: 2:43

Okay.

Speaker 3: 2:44

I started a few years ago at work. My co-workers had a league and I jumped in and it's the beginner's lock. So I don't know if you've experienced this, but once you have someone who joins your league who has never played and doesn't know what they're doing, yes. And then it happened to me like three times. So then I was just the winner's bug and I just loved. Back in the day when we worked in offices in cubicles, I had my trophy and.

Speaker 3: 3:13

I loved that I would walk by and see it. We're rendering a new season and I need to come up with fun names that I am at a loss now.

Speaker 2: 3:23

Okay, well, we talked about that. I've got some different names for you that you can reject them all I came up with. But yeah, my fantasy football experience when Patrick the first co-host I had and we had a or he ran the fantasy football out of our office. We had like 10 HR people. We brought in some of their spouses as well, so we had a nice little league going and things like that. It was a lot of fun.

Speaker 2: 3:50

Every year in a draft, yahoo Sports in our case, would tell you hey, you get an A, b, c. I always got A's after my draft and something ridiculous would always happen. So I like I had Adrian Peterson one year and he hit his kid or something like that, and so he didn't get to play that year. I had another quarterback who went out like first game of the year for the year and I just never did well and so I ended up becoming I don't think I played out of like 10 or more people. I don't think I ever got hired in six place in our league. I didn't have the beginning of there's first year luck or anything like that. I did. I did awful each and every year and it became sort of the. The joke, how bad am I going to do this year? I'll get the A on the draft and then something crazy happens and but I could pull off some upsets of. I did always play that role of, hey, this person needs two more wins to win the league. Nope, I get to come in and ruin their their week and things like that. So that was a little bit fun. But before we get into names, the bragging rights yes, well, I, I never had bragging rights but it's fun. That's part of the fun of having it, just pure bragging rights and camaraderie in doing this research.

Speaker 2: 5:02

I think it's some research. I covered on a the last time we talked about fantasy football work. I found out with this research. It's from a Research firm I've heard of before, called a challenger, gary and Christmas, and they came up with some stats. They say that workers spend 30 minutes during otherwise productive time, meaning outside of breaks or the lunch hour, every workday checking their players, proposing trades and researching their league. They also say that the they estimate employers use lose two point, excuse me. Employers lose $212.3 million for every hour of work time Play employee spin, playing fantasy football, and this accumulates to a total loss of nine billion with a B dollars. I think that's a little bit harsh. I don't think spinning 30 maybe if you're really into your, your sports and things, you can spend half hour a day. I never obviously did, coming in no better than sixth place or anything like. I came in last place multiple, multiple times. But yeah, I just can't fathom that. And nine billion dollars loss for my employers.

Speaker 3: 6:15

That number is shocking, the 30 million. Okay, you're that type of player, Okay yeah, but no with the billion like that's a crazy amount of money it is it is, but I Honestly do think, even if that number is right, I think it's worth it.

Speaker 2: 6:30

It builds so much camaraderie and fun in in the office and I was I was also saying off air, but I was looking for some research to find bad stories of where Fantasy football in the workplace had gone wrong. I didn't find anything, unfortunately. I found that that stats article about the money loss doing fantasy football at work, but I couldn't find. I wanted to find some juicy tale of somebody lost their shit and got in a fight or something like that at work because because of fantasy football or other things. But I just I couldn't find. I did not dive into reddit. That's probably where it'll be. There's like every other made-up story in the world. We'll end up the on reddit, so but I did not dive into that.

Speaker 3: 7:14

I don't know why my mind went here, but I was like wouldn't it be funny if someone just lost it and then just like took a dump on someone's death? Crazily, that's the kind of story like I want to hear. Like I want to hear let a handaged person Just going totally banana is at work because they came in like third place Touring ACL or something I don't know. But I want to hear that story.

Speaker 2: 7:40

If you've got it, send it to us feedback at jdharcom. Love to hear that, sir. We can do a follow-up episode as the season progresses. As we know, college football season starts in two and a half weeks from now and pro seasons not that far behind it. So yeah, that will be. That would be. That's the type of story I was looking for and I could not fun, but it's got to be out there.

Speaker 3: 8:04

I think it's just because it brings the world together like there's a negative story, because it just brings everyone together.

Speaker 2: 8:11

Yeah, it really does. And I think at work, as long as you keep the money off of it. At work, I once upon a time I did play in a money fantasy football league that took my money and I that's a different story. It for work, maybe amongst your friends or anything like that, that's a different thing. But outside the workplace, yeah, I just it is camaraderie, it is team building and it's unfortunate football seasons not longer, because I think it's, it's fun, just like when there's a hit TV show, like I can remember also when I worked with Patrick, game of Thrones was the big show and we would all the first thing you'd say when you came in the office, you either did or did not do your homework, and I was in the Tories for not doing our work, meaning you watch Game of Thrones because and if you did, is we all sat in a large cube environment. Now, was we be, everybody would talk, and if you didn't, everybody just are be glaring at me and say, oh, we can't talk about as Warren hasn't watched it yet, and things like that.

Speaker 2: 9:06

But it builds, it builds camaraderie and it's, it's a, it's a great tool and it's, you know, across umpteen million businesses across the world. I think it's probably worth nine billion dollars. I think companies that try and stomp it out I mean you stomp out something like that. You can just pick up your cell phone and do it on your cell phone. You have do it on your work computer that people are gonna still do it. So just embrace it for the few months and move on.

Speaker 3: 9:35

So anyhow, Well, I'm a fan, by the way but I did feel the same way when Scandival and a few weeks ago I don't know if you heard about that, but that was my no, what gave? Oh, oh, it's a, it's a bravo thing, it's a whole like reality TV thing. Just know that it was a cultural phenomenon and I got mad when people didn't do their homework.

Speaker 2: 10:02

No, I would get shunned at work sometimes if I didn't watch Game of Thrones that evening or something like that. And really, since I haven't worked in a large environment like that before, where there's a Hitshow or something that's going on that everybody has to talk about, I guess me and my assistant would talk about the TV show you, but there was no shunning if you missed it or anything like that. But yeah, it wasn't, as is huge a thing. So Well, you had mentioned in your DM that you were having trouble coming up with names for your fantasy football team, so yeah, yeah, so a little background.

Speaker 3: 10:43

It's an HR only league, so it's the old is only the HR team at our company and I am dying to come up with something like clever, fun, hr related, something a little snarky. I don't know what we're just got, we're just gonna try this.

Speaker 2: 10:58

Okay. Well, the first thing I did was went to chat GBT and I asked it to give me some names for an HR fantasy football team, and they, they punched out a sum which Need. They're not awful but they're, they're okay. So the compensation committee, the benefits bunch Okay, each or is heads, Okay. Recruiting roundup, the employment engagement experts, the DEI All Stars, the OSHA Pros, HR Ninjas, the town acquisition gurus, people operations wizards and human capital masters. Now, I think maybe stay away from masters, especially using human capital masters, but that one might be a little bit off. So they aren't awful.

Speaker 2: 11:58

You wanted some snark, so they definitely don't quite have that. But I spent my lunch today trying to help you out and I came up with 10 options that might have a little more snark for you. My number 10, the tips, Number nine, the scapegoats. Number eight let them eat pizza. Number seven you're going to need some workers comp. And number six and this was inspired by a song that was actually on in the background at the time Fleetwood Mac song Tell Me Lies. That's all we hear in HR and sort of. Number five is the opposite of the let them eat pizza. It's F you in your party planning. Number four this is an old school Saturday Night Live reference Hans and Franz, instead of going to pump you up, we're going to comp you up. So number three was a play on Harry Potter, the Dementors, and said the Dementors, the Dementors. And number two, the Terminators. And then my number one suggestion was harass this and that's what I. That's why I spent my lunch time doing today.

Speaker 3: 13:16

So yeah, All of those, I'm not going. So, first of all, if anyone is afraid that AI is taking over, is this proof that it's not Cause? I feel like channelling that in while you just nailed it.

Speaker 2: 13:31

So there we go. Thank you yeah.

Speaker 3: 13:34

Job Thursdays, we're fine. No, I love that, I love I rap this. That is like the best one, I think.

Speaker 2: 13:41

But that was my number one. Yeah, so I I actually do have a. Even though I'm an awful fantasy football player, I do have a good history of coming up with some fun and interesting, interesting names. That's what I'm good at in fantasy football, so yeah, so have some fun with those.

Speaker 3: 14:00

My personal one, so my personal fan cause I I'm in three leagues usually, so I know. But my personal one I don't think is appropriate Very proud, and it is Gronk, if you like, tds and that's my favorite.

Speaker 2: 14:16

Okay, so you're a New England fan.

Speaker 3: 14:19

I'm, I'm, what is it? The wagon? Yeah, yeah, I used to. It's a long story. I'm from Florida, okay, and I like went to school in New England and then I dated a guy who was like all into the Patriots and then it stuck with me for years and then I realized, man, like I'm not it. And then Brady. And then Brady was the douche. So well, just over them, it's so. I think I am recovered, I have joined, I have I've recovered. It was a 12 step program and we're out.

Speaker 2: 14:51

Okay, well, I'm happy you made it through unscathed.

Speaker 3: 14:55

I know I know, although I will never get rid of that fantasy football name, because it's still my favorite, okay.

Speaker 2: 15:03

Yeah, I didn't come up with any clever HR. Even though ours was a HR league, I didn't come up with any HR names. I don't know. One of the one of the ones I was most proud of was in a group of friends. I think Feathers was in it. This was back in the 90s or maybe late 90s, early 2000s, but a lot, a lot of foodies weren't in it and I was Massey, haramortos, cleaver, wheeling, maniacs. That was one of my better ones, but I can't even remember too many. I think one week was who's going to be warned this week? So I just had some fun with that. So, yeah, a lot of fun in that, but you know what's not so fun?

Speaker 2: 15:44

Changing subjects completely, unemployment claims I'm dealing with one right now and I'm going to try and keep it, keep some confidentiality here, but I really try not to take unemployment claims personally and I have this one that I'm struggling and not taking it personally. And unemployment insurance is really important. It helps so many. I mean I've been terminated once, I've been laid off twice and it's definitely coming handy. But in this particular case this person they were terminated for cause and it involved a arrest and conviction which made them ineligible for their job and. But the thing is the arrest took place nine months earlier that they didn't tell us about, and part of their job is you have to tell us of arrest, the petayments, etc. The idea, the idea for for this, and they did not do that. Now, had they told us that information rather than withholding it, maybe we could have done something different. I mean, self reporting is always the best thing to do, but it seems like they were trying to hide it and they were ultimately lost their jobs, their job, but where they filed for unemployment.

Speaker 2: 17:06

If you live in a state that uses eSIDES, I love eSIDES. We did with the claim that he was denied not like I'm trying to brag or make it happy, but there was no basis for unemployment. So now they're appealing and it has absolutely zero standing. But the thing about an appeal is you get to see their responses and why they want to appeal and some things like that is before when you're doing the eSIDES, you just put your information in hey, john Doe was hired on this date, termed on this date. This is the reason. Yeah, we warned, etc. And so forth, but the reason I take that.

Speaker 2: 17:44

I'm taking this one so personal and it's like and I don't even know this person from Adam, I couldn't point them out in the middle of the street or anything like that. Just the amount of blatant lies they're just so easy to just prove in reading their thing. I mean not that a third party would know their lies, but I know their, their lies. They fired me without warning and just told me to get out. It's not exactly what happened and I don't know it.

Speaker 2: 18:12

Just it really gets to me and I very little view things get to me. But when you start lying and I don't know, this one is just irking my nerves and I just want to be rid of it. And today there was another continuance. They got another continuance out of it and I'm like just let's just put this thing to bed. It's, it's an open clut. There's no, there's no gray area, it's anyways it. The more I think about it, I just continue to get fired up, fired up about about that. And in your world, do you have anything that just gets under your skin and makes you urgh, does?

Speaker 3: 18:47

anything grind my ears. Now my work is just so. Right now we're doing a round of 360s and I am just okay. So this is kind of a funny story, but not really so. We have, like you survey vendor and we've had them for a few years and, honestly, like we kind of use them ad hoc, like small little clusters, but we really haven't utilized it that much. So now our, our contract is coming up and me and my baby, we're like not in the mood to shop around or do anything within at this moment because we have so many other priorities. But I think that if I look at the calendar, the contract up in like three weeks, meaning I need all of these executives to like get their results in before we lose access.

Speaker 2: 19:37

Exactly, oh yeah.

Speaker 3: 19:40

Can you just get on it? And I just checked the numbers and it's like only like five have participated and I'm like, please, like it's only like you just need to get this done. I understand we're running a business, I understand that you're doing a lot of important things, but I need 15 minutes of your time so I don't pull my hair out Like that's all I want, yes, yes, whether it's.

Speaker 2: 20:06

We don't do 360s, just regular performance of VALS. And this will blow your mind we give our review process is 13 weeks long and it's that way. It's that way intentionally because we have so many people who are road this was a compromise I made. But we do have so many people who are true road warriors and will not be in the office, may not even be in the country for months at a time, and that was the compromise we made. But I'm like, do it from your hotel room. It's going to take you. You're checking your email, you're doing your time sheets, you're doing these other things on your computer. Is it's all online? Just knock this out too. And it just irritates me that even after 13 weeks a whole quarter we do the.

Speaker 2: 20:53

Our review process starts the beginning of the fourth quarter and it ends all. Everything has to be completed by the end of the fourth quarter and it gets to pulling teeth. I'm like y'all, I want to do this in four weeks two weeks for the person to do their self, about two weeks for the manager to do their eval. Bam, we're done, thank you. And there's no need for it to be, even with people being road wears. But I got a lot of other things I wanted. That's the one thing I'll lose Then. That was a loss I was not too upset to take during the compromise of what, what we're going to do. So I got.

Speaker 3: 21:28

I got everything, excuse me. So, like I said, you have to pick your battle.

Speaker 2: 21:33

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3: 21:35

So kind of going back to that, the fantasy football like the first time winners luck like that Pete.

Speaker 3: 21:41

I feel like I had first time winners luck when I came to my current company and I was like, oh, you know what? Like I'm looking at their performance review process and I'm like this is messy, like let's clean it up. There's too many options of like, like we know one through five scale, just like all this stuff. So I'm like, okay, like I'm new, let's like ask around and do some research and do diligence. And I like put a package together with my recommendations and I'm like here's how we can move it up. Total beginner's luck. Every single person on that ELT was like yeah, let's do all of it. That's cool. To this day, I have never experienced that again.

Speaker 2: 22:24

Hey, you, you got the, you got the new person vibe going. So they yeah, this is good. Hey don't, that's a win, that's a secret.

Speaker 3: 22:33

It's going outside. She is wide.

Speaker 2: 22:37

When I first started my job they didn't have a formalized review system and my first year I created this to make it electronic a Google form. And I made a Google form where an employee would ask questions. I'd print that out, send it to the manager, send them a separate Google form and match them up. And I thought it was cool because I was making this happen electronically and say A we were doing formalized reviews for the first time and B, it was just, but it was just so many steps in tracking. Okay, I got this person's now I guess they're manager. The manager sent it back. Tracking that and managing that was was a job. But later we ended up getting an HRIS with a performance management system part of it and it's been really really good, so, but yeah, some, yeah, I I.

Speaker 3: 23:27

Look at you innovating. Yeah, innovating Google forms yes.

Speaker 2: 23:32

Do do what you can with what you got.

Speaker 3: 23:34

Exactly. Well, we did a chunk it from five points. So it's what is it? It's a five point scale. We do three points now, which is and it's not numerical, because I'm very against like the ranking by numbers were very purposeful to be like. I think it's like it's needs, needs, development, outstanding. That's it Right, and we've gotten like a lot of positive responses about it. People like it. We've shortened the time for the performance review period, so it doesn't feel like a huge lift. And to your point before, if they're not doing it in the first two weeks, they're not going to do it in 12 weeks or whatever.

Speaker 1: 24:09

Like honestly, Exactly.

Speaker 3: 24:13

So I condensed really this and I was like what I'm doing now is just going through action plan performance, all right, what is it? Our engagement survey? And like I got one negative comment because I love reading the comment, like I love reading on it I just remember one negative comment where someone was like you took away all these like points and you made it only three points, like what do I have I'm achieving? Like what do I have to strive for now? And I was like you strive for outstanding. Did you not read them at all?

Speaker 2: 24:42

Oh, I had an employee come in I was working elsewhere, not where I'm at now, and because where we work now it's completely narrative based, there's no braiding points or anything like that and I really like that, but we had a. You could either similar, you could either not meet expectations, meet expectations or exceed expectations and this one of the things because it was a light industrial environment was safety and the basis was always going to be along with anything was going to be meets expectations and this person gave themselves exceeds expectations and with the managers and the employees, if you rated yourself anything a meets, you didn't have to put a narrative behind it. But there, if you put exceeds or does not exceed expectations or does not meet the expectations, you had to put a why you think that. But this person and they had legitimate reasons why they were exceeding expectations on each and every category. But it came to safety and he really wanted to make that point and he was a good employee overall, a little dramatic, but he wanted to make that his hill to die on. And when he was told he did not exceed expectations and safety and I've had no accidents and I've done this and that that's the expectation you don't have. Well, and then he goes well, how do I, how do I exceed expectations? Well, come up with a new idea. Tell us, hey, we could be even safer if we do this, we do that.

Speaker 2: 26:10

Oh, he, he wanted to die on that hill, that he should exceed expectations for not having any accidents or keeping a safe place, and or anything like that. Like, no, that's that. 100% is the basis. If you want to go above and beyond, you have to do more, and he just did not want to get it. If the 100% is the meeting expectations, is what it in safety what? Oh yeah, you can have 80%. So if you lose two of your fingers, hey, you're still good to go.

Speaker 3: 26:42

With that, because he didn't get all the fingers.

Speaker 2: 26:44

So he did. But yeah, he just, I don't know he, he just didn't. He wanted to argue with me up and down about that and I was like, oh please just stop, my brain is hurting now.

Speaker 3: 26:59

I'm empathetic, though, because I know people like a lot. People are proud of the work they do and they kind of see a lot riding on this score, especially if they're tied to Marriott or anything like that. So I get it Like I'm empathetic, but in that case I mean like you're doing a good job. Like you're doing a good job. You're doing a great job, yeah, meet more expectations.

Speaker 2: 27:23

Oh, and my other thing. This is when we are I do manager training about performance reviews. There's a difference between exceeding expectations and doing your job exceptionally well. If you're doing well, you're not necessarily you can be on time and you get all your stuff done, but you don't. That's not necessarily exceeding expectations. Or checking off the box and boxes and you're doing exceptionally well but you're not exceeding expectations, you're in. So many managers had a problem with that and I'd use all sorts of analogies. I use golf. Par is three, so that's what we're aiming for. You might get a bogey, you might get a birdie, who knows but that's where we start. That's the starting point is meeting expectations, and it was just, it was something else. So it was. I could do a whole show on performance evaluations, cause yeah, that's, but I'm into it too. I do enjoy. I do enjoy the, the philosophy and the thought process. I did all it's. It's interesting.

Speaker 3: 28:20

Well, yeah, earnestly, it's one of my favorite times of the year. I'm just like okay, like I earn in the. Yeah, I just, I just love that. So I know I can get like a little like spicy sometimes with it, but I I didn't love that Like that's why I care so much about it. I get starkey because I care.

Speaker 2: 28:37

Exactly, exactly. That's. That's what this whole if you, if you don't have the care behind your jadedness, your starkiness, you're just an asshole. That's what if you're, and that's your best practice for today. People, if you don't have stark, some passion behind your snark, you're just an asshole. There you go.

Speaker 3: 29:00

Heart behind snark. That's the new tagline.

Speaker 2: 29:03

Okay, I like that. I like that. Well. I want to thank you once again for joining us on this episode. Go ahead and remind everybody where they can find you, about your Instagram and anywhere else they can find you, and please do make sure you follow.

Speaker 3: 29:20

Yeah, so you can just find me on Instagram and threads now at stan and it's at boozy underscore. Hr.

Speaker 2: 29:28

And I'll have a link in the show notes as well. So please be sure to follow the intro and outro. Music is the underscore orchestra with the double the devil song and our voice artist is Andrew Culpa, is doing us a great favor. Also, be sure to listen. We've got another guest next week that I think everybody would be excited about as well. So, yay, we're getting through these things, but, as always, I'm Warren and I'm Ashley and we're here helping you survive.

Speaker 2: 29:59

Hr one. What the fuck moment at a time. Oh, that went, that went really well. So I think I didn't know.