Jaded HR: Your Relief From the Common Human Resources Podcasts
Jaded HR is a Human Resources podcast about the trials and tribulations of life in a human resources department….or just a way for Human Resources Professionals to finally say OUT LOUD all the things they think throughout their working day.
Jaded HR: Your Relief From the Common Human Resources Podcasts
SHRM 2025 Drama, Lying Candidates, Bad HR Stats and an Epic Rejection Reply
Sometimes the most mundane workplace interactions become the most revealing. After Warren's unexpected hospital stay (complete with gallbladder surgery and online quizzes taken while being wheeled to the operating room), we dive into what's really happening in HR departments across America.
The SHRM annual conference saga continues with a plot twist worthy of a sitcom: Bradley Cooper cancels his keynote appearance due to "scheduling conflicts," only to be replaced by Jason Sudeikis – the very speaker who notoriously backed out last year to watch a basketball game. With registration fees approaching $3,000 (plus travel expenses), we question whether traditional professional conferences deliver genuine value or if our newly proposed "Free Range Conferencing" might be a better investment.
Beyond the conference circuit drama lies a more significant workplace transformation: Gen Z's wholesale rejection of middle management positions. Unlike previous generations who viewed climbing the corporate ladder as the ultimate success metric, younger workers are prioritizing work-life balance and specialized expertise over leadership titles. Smart organizations are responding by creating dual career tracks and implementing project-based leadership opportunities that allow talent to grow without forcing everyone into management.
We also tackle the persistent trust deficit between employees and HR, unpacking why 70% of workers report not trusting their HR departments despite HR rarely being the actual decision-maker on terminations, promotions, or compensation. This disconnect manifests in real-world scenarios like our story about a candidate who confirmed understanding a role's on-site requirements three separate times before demanding remote work after receiving an offer.
Whether you're navigating hospital bureaucracy, questioning professional development investments, or rethinking traditional career progression models, this episode offers both practical insights and a healthy dose of workplace reality. After all, sometimes you just need someone to say what everyone's thinking.
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Thank you. Oh, waiting for cloud to start recording. Interesting, are we recording? It didn't go so far. Five, four, three, two, two one it says it's recording okay, yeah, all righty.
Speaker 1:Welcome to Jaded HR to podcast by two HR professionals who want to help you get through work day by saying everything you're thinking, but say it out loud. I'm Warren, I'm Cece, so we didn't have an episode. Two weeks ago somebody decided that they needed to spend five days in the hospital and that somebody was me, so we did not get the opportunity to record, but I have some really fun hospital stories I want to share before we get into the meat and potatoes of our HR podcast. I mentioned in the last episode. We did that I ruined my wife's Mother's Day by being sick. Well, we got to the root cause of it. I had gallstones. And not only did I have gallstones, I had one that slipped out of the gallbladder and was blocking a duct in my liver. So I've been feeling like crap all day the Thursday before Memorial Day weekend, and by four or five o'clock in the afternoon, as I'm getting ready to leave for work, I'm feeling just shit warmed over.
Speaker 2:My stomach was hurting.
Speaker 1:My back was hurting, I was just, I was a wreck. I texted my primary care doctor and I said hey, you know, we've been talking. I've been going to her for a couple of weeks and she was diagnosing me with GERD but wanted to do a CT scan, which I couldn't get until May 30th. But this I don't know what the date was of, the Thursday before Memorial Day, but it was before the 30th, and I was like I just texted her, I'm going to the hospital. I said I can't do this anymore and anyway. So I go to the hospital and the first person sees me, the PA. You know she's doing the test. She's thinking GERD too. So press down on your stump. Because she said, I have the symptoms of a gallbladder, but when you press down on the liver it's supposed to hurt, and I had no additional pain, nothing. So she's like I don't know and she goes this doesn't seem like GERD, but it's probably the closest thing.
Speaker 1:Anyways, I got my CT scan there in the hospital and there it was. I had an angry gallbladder and one of the stones was out, and so they admitted me. I got my gallbladder removed on the Friday, the next day, Friday late afternoon, as I had to squeeze me in. And then, but that stone that was blocking the bile duct. Oh, my liver is a wonderful thing type thing that doesn't have anything to do with my drinking. I asked multiple times and it's not. I don't have cirrhosis of the liver or anything, but it was. The stone ended up fully blocking this duct, and so I started getting very jaundiced and my wife was calling me Homer Simpson.
Speaker 1:She said you're looking orange like Homer Simpson and things like that. So well, the suck ass thing about all this. I needed the gallbladder came out. You know, quick and dirty. But the general surgeon so well, the suck ass thing about all this. I needed the gallbladder came out, you know quick and dirty.
Speaker 1:But the general surgeon says okay, you have the stone, it's here. He goes I've done the surgery before, I'll do it. He's a general surgeon at the hospital. He says I'll do it again. And he says, however, if it was me, I would want the GI doctor doing it and not a general surgeon. He says but I'm here all weekend and we're going to monitor your blood work and if your liver enzymes get too high, I'll go in and get it done, because we couldn't get a GI doctor until after the holiday weekend, so until Tuesday. So they're monitoring my liver. Apparently, the gallstone can shift it, which it did, and I got my enzymes back and I turned back to a human being color versus a Simpson color, and things started getting better for me once it shifted again. But anyways, I had to spend five days, six nights, in the hospital, or six days, five nights in the hospital, I should say, and having absolutely nothing to do, and the TV didn't work in the room I was in.
Speaker 2:Even better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was just God awful in so many ways, but I got, like I said, got some fun, interesting stories. So I was telling you all fair. My first surgery on that Friday was scheduled for like 3.30 and the doctor and all his assistant come in and they're talking okay, you're scheduled for 3.30. We're going to come, you're going to be taken down to the operating room staging gangway area, whatever they call it, an hour beforehand and all this I'm like, okay, fine, All's good. Well, at 12.30, I'm taking classes online. At 12.30, I started a timed online quiz and it's I've only had half hour to do the quiz. Now, normally it only take 15, 20 minutes. It's not a big deal or anything, and but literally within seconds of me hitting start on the quiz, here comes everybody and their mother to okay, we're getting ready to take you down to pre op and I'm like whoa, I'm at 3.30. Give me 20 minutes. I just started quiz. She said, no, we're not giving you 20 minutes or anything like that.
Speaker 1:And so, oh, here's the first funny thing that happened. So there's all sorts of medical professionals in there and a medical transport person, the person who's responsible for wheeling you from your cart from place to place. So I'm in there and they say well, she goes, can you get up and use the restroom? And I said, yeah, I can do that. She goes okay, empty your bladder and all that. So I go use the restroom, I sit back down and she goes okay, now we need to do a scan of your bladder and make sure it's empty so we still don't have to give you a catheter.
Speaker 1:Okay, I signed the consent form allowing students to be in there and this one student and she was she was very sweet, very funny. She goes Ooh, she's like horse shack from welcome back. Ooh, I want to do the bladder scan. I want to do the bladder scan. And the head nurse goes okay, okay, here it is. Bam, the sheets come off my bed, bam, my, my gown is up to my neck and there I am, like with air, like I've I'd never, in the entire time I was there, I had that many people in my room in all my, all my glory, and she's scanning my bladder and she's having a good old time. And she goes I got it. I got it and I was okay, just didn't have any care for my modesty or anything like that.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:So I mean, it was just whip down the bed sheet and whip up my gown and I'm like, okay, whatever. It was funny in hindsight, but I was a little irritated at the time and things like that. So anyways, like I said, I'd started the exam. I didn't have luckily I didn't have to get a catheter. So I told them I'm sitting there as they're wheeling me down from my room to the pre-op area. I'm sitting there taking a quiz as they're wheeling me around. I'm using my phone as a mobile hotspot and I got it done. I got an 80, the lowest grade I've received all you know grad school time. But I'm like I'll take it. I'll take the 80. I was under much duress at that point. So that was the day.
Speaker 2:So dedicated.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And then I got out of surgery by the time I came to and got less, I think, because after surgery they were keeping me on morphine like every three hours.
Speaker 2:They're like oh, you need more morphine.
Speaker 1:I wasn't asking they're, they're just giving you're like oh sure I had another assignment due that was due before midnight and I got that done, got an okay grade on that as well. I submitted it like 11 55 pm, so did all that. But the next that was friday, saturday in the hospital nothing, nothing to do, I waiting. You know my? They're taking my blood twice a day and they're coming in every two hours to get all my vitals. I'm like you know what? I've got this wonderful little smartwatch. It takes my blood pressure, it takes my heart rate, it takes my temperature, all the things you're getting. Why don't you just connect to my watch for me and don't have to come and bother me? But I was checking. My watch was pretty damn close to the results they were getting with their equipment. It wasn't perfect, but it was probably close enough for anything else. But yeah, they did that. So Saturday, sunday, monday, in the hospital.
Speaker 1:Oh, while I was in the hospital I was on a clear liquid diet, so let me back up. Thursday morning I ate my normal breakfast, everything's hunky-dory. Midday I wasn't feeling well, so I didn't eat my lunch. I didn't eat a lunch. And then, thursday evening, they finally decided they're going to schedule me for surgery. They didn't know what time, so I wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything Thursday night and all day Friday till three o'clock and I really didn't care because my stomach was not feeling that well.
Speaker 1:But Friday late evening I got my first meal, consisting of chicken broth and yellow jello, and at the hospital they give you like a little receipt how many calories your meal is, and so that meal was like 110 calories. So since Thursday I've basically consumed 110 calories. The next three days my breakfast is a breakfast, the next three days vegetable broth, lunch chicken broth and dinner beef broth, all with yellow jello, but at dinner I did get an Italian ice. So I I was consuming like less than 600 calories a day for those six days in the hospital and and then, of course, tuesday for the second surgery, I couldn't eat anything again all day. I lost eight pounds in the hospital. I would not recommend it as a as a weight loss clinic, but I did. I have kept it off since then, but I lost eight pounds in the hospital.
Speaker 2:That's like the Dr Now diet from my 600-pound life.
Speaker 1:Oh.
Speaker 2:That is extreme.
Speaker 1:Okay, we're up here. My wife is obsessed with all those weight loss, those shows.
Speaker 2:It's brain rot. It's brain rot.
Speaker 1:The 600-pound life which I can watch. I think it's fine. I love Dr Now the way he says you're lying, you gained 15 pounds. You weren't following my diet. Yes, I am. Yes, I am Okay. I love Dr Now. He just calls them out Her other favorite show, which she's actually downstairs watching it right now. Every Tuesday we record she watches the Thousand Pound Sisters.
Speaker 2:Okay, I see I haven't watched that.
Speaker 1:Oh gosh, it is human trash on parade to the extreme. Yeah, I can't stand that show. And when she's watching it and I'm in the room, she calls me a TV talker. I'm just like what the fuck? These people cannot literally be that stupid and yet they prove me wrong week in, week out. It's like how stupid can we be? And I don't have these. It's yeah, it's, it's brain rot and their brains have rotted if they had one to begin with. It is. And she watches all the all the weight loss shows or or whatever you want to call them. She's watching them all and the thousand pound roomies she just started watching. I'm like, oh my, there's a lot. There's so many of those things, but anyways, let's see.
Speaker 1:So Tuesday I had my second surgery. That went really well. It's so funny. They put me under that Twilight anesthetic and the anesthesiologist is in there and she's in there. Okay, we're gonna give you some. Really, she's, this is what she said. We're gonna give you some really good shit, man, and you're gonna have great dreams.
Speaker 1:Through this whole process. You just sit back and enjoy it and relax and enjoy the ride and I'm like I was like I've been under twilight anesthesia before, like, and she goes no, this is the good stuff, this is pro fall, pro fall or whatever. She goes, this is good. I'm like, okay, she's like. It's like she's my drug dealer. And and then all of a sudden she goes. I'm going to start in three, two, one, and then all of a sudden my arm just started burning, like I said, wow, this hurts. She goes, that's how you know it's good. And she goes in 30 seconds you're going to be in la-la land and you won't care. Nice, it was good.
Speaker 1:During the procedure, I had wild dreams. I was okay. My wife, you know the anesthesiologist came up. How were your dreams? She's like into this. I wonder if she put a little LSD or something in my mix there, because she was into this, very passionate about her work. How was your and how are your dreams? I said, yeah, I was. I was like in a Harry Potter movie and I was riding the broomstick ramp. I wasn't playing Quidditch and I was just flying around Hogwarts on my broom. And she said that's so cool. And she goes. I told you to have good dreams and I'm like, yeah, she was into it. And my wife, who hates?
Speaker 2:online. Honestly, you want your anesthesiologist to be into it because they're basically, they have your life in their hands. You want them to be real into it.
Speaker 1:She was. She was hilarious. But my wife is making fun of me for having a Harry Potter dream. I'm like I don't choose what. I'm dreaming that I'm riding around a broomstick around Hogwarts and my wife says oh my God, you're such a nerd. I'm like, yeah, you've known that for 30 some odd years now. So, anyways, that's my story and that's why we didn't record two weeks ago. But hopefully we will be back on schedule and finally have the benefits episode of the office in a couple of weeks for you three weeks, yeah yeah, so.
Speaker 1:So how was your past month been since?
Speaker 2:oh my gosh I don't know it's been busy. My mom was radioactive for a while so she had like some nuclear treatment and then she had to stay downstairs in our basement we have a nice basement, it's not like she was living in a basement.
Speaker 1:Lock her in a basement.
Speaker 2:But she was like down there and she lived down there for a week until she could be amongst other humans. So there's that. Other than that, I traveled for work. So my new company went to California, went there for a week, met my team in person and it was a fun time. I really feel good about this team I'm on. I'm super excited, Cool. Very warm, very welcoming. It was great.
Speaker 1:That's half the battle. When you meet the team and you get involved and you say this is a cool team, a group, I want to be involved with that. That's like half the battle right there. So yeah. Cool, cool. So we've done 15 minutes and haven't even discussed the HR, so let's dive into some HR. Oh my gosh, so great. And this comes to us from Jamie, from HR best besties. She posted this to instagram about the the more drama sherm is having about their annual conference.
Speaker 1:So let's rewind a year ago, to 2024, when jason sudeikis was supposed to be the keynote speaker ah, yes and he backed out at the 11th hour so he could watch Caitlin Clark play a game and things like that. So they got Al Roker to fill in at the last minute, which I thought was funny, interesting, but they got Al Roker to fill in and he is a funny person.
Speaker 2:Your future is so bright You're going to need stage.
Speaker 1:Well, let's now fast forward to 2025. Back in May, they announced that the keynote speaker was going to be Bradley Cooper and, yeah, it seems pretty good. Well, all of a sudden, he had a scheduling conflict.
Speaker 2:Oh man.
Speaker 1:And on top of that, who's replacing him? Jason Sudeikis is coming back. Oh, it's full circle, it's full circle. And then the announcement sure made was yep, we're trying this again.
Speaker 2:That is too funny.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm like, why would you want? Unless they got like bargain basement pricing for him, why would you want him back after just oh yeah, yeah, your conference I committed to I'd rather go see a basketball game when I'm a multimillionaire. I can fly to whatever city Caitlin Clark is in at any given time and watch as many basketball games as I want.
Speaker 2:Well, remember, I had a theory that it was his silent protest of all the stuff that Sherm was announcing with equity, diversity and inclusion. I thought because I need everything to have a plot. I thought maybe he got a whisper of it and backed out to go watch Caitlin play a WNBA player. That's my conspiracy theory.
Speaker 1:And it makes sense because Sherm at that time was just stepping in it left, right, up and down, supposedly. Like I said, when I saw JCT speaking at the Virginia Sherm conference, he was very direct and open and talking about it and he said my people tell me not to talk about this, but I'm going to talk about it anyway. I don't know, but anyways it was the plan. And removing the equity yeah, the equity. I can't remember what they removed now. They removed one of the letters. Maybe I should have done some more homework.
Speaker 1:They removed one of the letters. Maybe I should have done some more homework, they should. They removed one of the letters I think it was equity from dei and therefore caused a shit show. But jct says they were ahead of the curve and they saw the writing on the wall, given some court things and stuff like that. So if you want to give them a bit of it up, maybe they were ahead of the curve, maybe they weren't, maybe they were just shaking things up and things fell in the right places. I do not know yeah anyways.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sherm and if you have, if you aren't already listened to hr besties is they're going to be covering the sherm trials in colorado. All three of them are going to be there and in the courtroom listening to the the trials. So that's going to be pretty interesting to follow. More drama, drama, drama around SHRM. So, yeah, let's see what's the under over, I wonder, to Vegas. It's in Vegas again, isn't it? No it's in Vegas or San Diego, where is it?
Speaker 2:Oh, it's San Diego. I think it's 50-50. Everything is either in Vegas or or san diego or new orleans yeah, so they're gonna be in san diego.
Speaker 1:So what's the, what's the under over for jason sudeikis showing up is? He'll show up this time yeah, I, I think you can't not show up after ditching us the last time it was or ditching, sure, not that ditching us is. I'm not going. I'm going to hit the register now. How much is this, this shit show, to attend? Let's see here's why.
Speaker 2:To attend in person oh, showing all these people with their swag bags you know what I always appreciate about these conferences that close to the registration page they will have a basically building a business case for your boss to let you go. Yes, I'm actually just clicked on that for your boss to let you go.
Speaker 1:Yes, I actually just clicked on that. Convince your boss to make a case for attending SHRM 2025.
Speaker 2:And I got to say honestly no notes Perfect, like that's the barrier that people have. So help them get over the barrier.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just so. Oh, here's the rates page.
Speaker 2:Ooh can I guess? Okay, member pricing, standard prices. Okay, I'm gonna guess, I'm gonna guess, I'm gonna guess standard pricing and I'm gonna guess standard pricing is gonna be 1300 oh no, you're.
Speaker 1:You're low, higher, higher, higher higher.
Speaker 2:Higher oh my gosh, is it 17?
Speaker 1:Higher, higher higher.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, Is it breaking two? Is it two grand? Higher, higher, higher. Get the fuck out of here For a SHRM conference. Oh my gosh, 2,500? Higher, higher, higher.
Speaker 1:No, oh my gosh 2,500?. Higher, higher, higher. No 28.45 is the standard price. Now, the early bird special was 22.95, but they're sold out of the early bird.
Speaker 2:Okay so, but if you want to turn that's so cost prohibitive. That's crazy.
Speaker 1:Well, virtual. You want to take a shot at how much the standard price of a virtual is oh, what is it knocking?
Speaker 2:like $200 off of it exactly $200.
Speaker 1:So, okay, you're spinning. Let's just be real about it. You're spending $3,000 to attend, probably spending so bare minimum 500, unless you're in the San Diego area probably bare minimum 500 for airfare and then hotel for so many nights that's got to be over a thousand. So you're you're $4,000 in very quickly and I have a hell of a lot I would rather do with $4,000 than go to Sherm.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know it's funny. I was while I was in California and my like the team, we were like talking, and the one of our team members went to PSYOP, which is the society for industrial organizational psychology, and she went to that and that was freaking beneficial when she came back with a whole bunch of stuff about what's going on in the industry, stuff like that. And, yeah, like I would love. I would love to give psyop a try, because I know like I feel like sherm is just a. It's just like we've discussed it before. We don't need to beat a dead horse about it, but it's just like they don't provide that much insight for what they offer. And then I always feel like I'm being sold at and I think with psyop it's more like science, it's more scientific and it's more data driven and stuff like that. So I think it's going to be less touchy-feely, less fluffy and more hard-hitting data, hard-hitting science, and I would love to give PSYOP a try.
Speaker 1:And I forgot I did see this as well. Other keynote speakers are going to be Jenna Fisher and Angela Kinsley from the office.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, I would love to go just for that actually.
Speaker 1:I take everything back. Sure, I'm going to throw out some free tickets. I would love to go meet them. Thank you, you're the best. You're the best of the day of the seminar, and last year I started to go down the rabbit hole and try and classify them as touchy, feely or substantive.
Speaker 2:And I didn't get that far.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's just too many to look at them all. But yeah, I, just this person, owner of this, feels right. That seems like that could be a sexual harassment case waiting to happen with it. Oh, this person, professional speaker at her name, speaks in there. I just love some of these people that. Anyways, it'll be interesting If they put one in my backyard, even at $3,000,. I don't think I'd go at $3,000. I, I don't think I may and I don't think I'd go at $3,000, even if it was in you know my town and I didn't have to commute or get a hotel or anything like that, I was like, nah, just don't, you could get like you know what for that much money you can get like three nights at a really decent resort.
Speaker 1:Oh I, I tell you what my wife and I, next month, are going to. We're going to Costa Rica. We're going for eight days. We're staying in an all-inclusive resort, airfare hotel and everything, our excursions. We haven't even hit $5,000 yet and that's two of us going for eight days out of country and we're doing something we want to do. So there you go. Our budget is not. Actually. Our budget was $5,000.
Speaker 2:We're below that, including our excursions and things like that.
Speaker 1:So new conference idea I'm going to call it free range conferencing and you get a couple really good audio books and a couple really good podcasts and you just go to a resort for a week. Yes, yes. I'm not listening to anything in HR. Welcome to our little sex zone.
Speaker 2:Well, that's the business case to get your company to pay for it. So you have to do some work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, gosh, rearrange conferencing, that could catch on.
Speaker 2:I'm going to trademark that one quick, I know right.
Speaker 1:Oh boy. So anyways, that's. Yeah, that's. I do recognize some of the names of presenters here the Sherm but yeah, I just couldn't do that. But I bet you, of these 300 sessions that they're having or whatever I could, probably hopefully I'd be able to fill up my schedule with just substantive things. I would hope I would hope so. Anyways, if you attend, have fun, give us some feedback what you're doing, when is it? It's usually like I don't even know. So you had something to cover before we moved to another. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So there's an article that was released today by work life, which is just an online magazine, because paper magazines are dead, anyway. So basically they're talking about Gen Zs and how Gen Z employees are opting out of those middle management positions. So your managers, your senior managers and they're doing it out of work-life balance but having like a values-driven life. So a lot of them are just rejecting those leadership roles. So the article then went on to basically talk about how this comes to fruition. And you have a lot of people who just want to be in that specialist zone and just really focus their career on becoming more of a subject matter expert. How the organization should basically plan for that to happen, because you'll have kind of a small, like a subset I don't want to say small, but you know you have like a subset of individuals who may not even be interested in leadership roles.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've heard that. I've heard it more about work-life balance and not wanting responsibilities and things like that. But I think what's concerning about that is, right now, the boomers they're almost all retired out of the workplace. We have a few, but not many, left in our workplace, but they're retiring and it's good for them.
Speaker 1:And then you've got the Xers, the me's, out there. I'm looking very desperately forward to, and remember, generation X is the smallest of all these generations, we're just the smallest. So there's not many of us, to begin with, that are in those leadership, to be in those leadership roles. And I know some people that are Xers that are starting to retire already. I'm severely jealous, but they're in that point in their life where they can do that. I'll be working until I'm 67 and a half or whatever it is.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I think that we need people to be able to step up because leadership and that's where maybe some leadership development and training and once again going back to maybe identifying hypos in your organization Maybe you have what it takes to be a good leader, you're very well organized, you're charismatic, you can follow through and things like that Maybe you could be a leader and start developing that talent. Because I've heard those things that, oh, I'd rather not be in management so I can have my work-life balance. Or maybe they're like I said, they're looking for values-based organizations and things like that. It's just scary. But I mean, well, everything will over, adapt and overcome.
Speaker 2:But wow yeah. So here's what they said that here's some considerations and a couple of them I think are pretty good. So it basically says to rethink career progression. So don't force everyone who is a top performer into managing others.
Speaker 1:Build dual career paths Awesome. I can't agree with that more.
Speaker 2:A hundred and 27%. Yeah, so, and that was the one thing that, at a previous organization, we focused on. It's okay if you don't want to be a manager, and here's how you can grow your career, and we called it like the SME path, so like, if you want to be like a subject matter expert within the company, then here's ways that you can develop and we encourage that, because you can't have not everyone can be a leader. So there's that. And then they also said redesign development. So this is what I thought was interesting Instead of focusing in on the leader as a position or as a role or as a title, encourage project-based leadership, so not just formal hierarchies. So put people in charge of projects and make them that leader of the project, instead of having them have the title.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it is so I don't know what the right word is. Important not to force people into leadership positions. We're doing the office thing. Michael Scott was a great individual contributor. He was so good. They promote him to manager where he sucks, he sucks.
Speaker 1:That happens so often that it's almost a joke now that, oh you know, this person is such a great individual contributor we need to make them a manager. And they can't do it. Well, you might have that mediocre performer, but they have the innate leadership skills. And I do think leadership is, you know, like they say in sports you can't teach speed. I think you can develop and enhance people's abilities, but if you don't have it to start with, you don't have it. And so those people that maybe they have great organizational skills, planning skills, start developing those people that maybe they could be struggling as an individual contributor because they're more big picture and they get, they feel they get weeded down by the minute details of an individual contributor has to do and yeah, businesses and hr have forced that for so long and I think that's probably one of the biggest things that need to change.
Speaker 1:And as much as everybody talks about it, it's still happening rampantly. And then again there's people who want to be promoted into leadership roles. That can't handle it. I worked somewhere we had someone been a long-time employee, great individual contributor, did some little minor leading on things and so they decided they were going to give him a shot as a leader when he had to lead a team. Oh my gosh, it was a dumpster fire from the word go and I like the person. I felt bad for them. But they also realized that it took two tries and they said, no, I don't like this, I don't want to be a leader anymore. I'm like yeah, thank you, you saved us from a hard decision or a difficult conversation, but anyways, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's funny. So I was looking at this one bullet where they're talking about redesigning what the leadership structure could look like and really focusing on project-based leadership rather than a formal hierarchy. And I want to say, like 10 years ago I was working at a company and we had a fairly like fairly large for most companies, but we had like a very large talent management team and our leader at the time was exiting the company and we were in a stage of waiting to hear who's like our replacement leader was. And one one guy on the team said we should just do like a round Robin, Like every month someone on the team gets to lead the team and blah, blah, blah and everyone he's like we can make it like a reality show.
Speaker 2:And everyone on the team laughed Cause they're like that is so like weird and dumb. No, I thought it was brilliant. And now the funny thing is is like I thought it was brilliant, as if it was like funny, but then, as I'm thinking about it, I was like things like that actually sound fun. And I know we think about it in terms of career development for an individual, of like, oh, let's give them like a project to manage for their development. And this is saying, if you don't have the bench for leaders because let's say, in this, in this hypothesis, we have an entire generation who wants to avoid these positions entirely to save their mental health and stuff if you don't have the bench for leaders or you don't have the leaders, that's like kind of an interesting way to go about it, because you do need someone to make sure things are getting done. So, yeah, I just think that's interesting.
Speaker 1:I think, essentially, I've been thinking about it. If you're going around, you're taking turns leading, if you're all developed, if you start with developing, okay, here's our goal, here's where we want to be, here's our goal. And everybody take a certain amount of time a week or so leading. That I can see that being beneficial, as long as but everybody in the team has to work together, because you're going to get that person, who they're going to be in, over their head from the word go, and the rest of the team's still going to have to to pick up. And but yeah, as I'm digesting it, I'm thinking that could be in the right circumstance, with the right people. That could be a really good thing.
Speaker 2:But yeah, interesting, it's funny that you said that because it also says that, for this to work, organizational structures should be like flattened and really based on trust, because the whole thing works on constant communication, constant collaboration and, yeah, so to your point, like it has to work in a very open, trusting and collaborative environment.
Speaker 1:And communication is going to be more important than ever with that, because, as you're doing the leadership handoff, you know you're handing the leadership baton over to me for next week to communicate. Ok, here's where we are to communicate. Okay, here's where we are, but it's not just at the handoff time, but complete transparency and everything, because if you're all quote unquote leaders at some point you can't. Holy crap, nobody told me about this. I got sandbagged. You know what's? You know? Yeah, well, this is.
Speaker 2:This is saying that it's not like a time-based thing. Like this is you're the leader of running the engagement survey for the organization that's your baby, and like you can pull people as resources on the team as you need and direct them as needed. You, on the other hand, you'll be doing like performance management and dipping out that way, so everyone kind of has they're all like little, they're all like project managers and then, when they're not focusing on leading their one project like their main project, they're playing as a specialist on other projects. Oh my god, I love this.
Speaker 1:I'm kind of nerding out time to write a self-published book and get on the speaker.
Speaker 2:Let's do it.
Speaker 1:Let's see. No, I do like the idea. There. You're leading me into an article I read on LinkedIn and I don't have the data. I copied and pasted it from LinkedIn and it says three days ago then and I couldn't tell you why I copied and pasted this. So this comes to us from Jennifer McClure and so she wrote this thing. She goes HR. This might sting. Dr John Sullivan recently published a scathing list of failures that expose what is really happening in many HR departments, and the stats are hard to ignore.
Speaker 2:So I'm going to go down these stats. I can't wait. I'm waiting with bated breath.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, hr has a diversity problem. Stat number one 71% of professionals are women and 65% identify as white.
Speaker 1:Okay, Okay are women and 65% identify as white. Okay, 71% is women. I totally get, as I've worked with like three men in my career, not that many. 65% is white. I don't know if I agree with that, but where I live is one of the most racially diverse areas in the country and I don't know, maybe you go to middle America where everybody's as white as the wind-driven, snow and stuff like that. Maybe I don't know.
Speaker 2:I will say I believe that could be real, I think that's probably real.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And now I'm curious. So I'm like let me ask the robot.
Speaker 1:Oh, let's chat. Gbt say oh, I'll go on to the next stat. Only 46% of executives perceive HR as contributing strategic value. Okay, I don't buy that. I've worked places where I feel HR didn't have all the respect they deserve, but I don't think HR was ever perceived as not contributing a strategic value. Even in the worst of places I've been, I don't think that that's the case. But then again, a lot of these HR pros they're the fuzzy sweater should be a kindergarten teacher. Let's all get along and have a pizza party type thing. And there's a lot of those out there and you just go to a showroom conference and you'll see them in droves and you know they should be in HR.
Speaker 2:I think, for the most part, I've been lucky enough to work at companies where HR is seen as a strategic partner. Yeah, I worked at one where they were not. We were actually called profit sucking overhead, you know. But I don't. I think again, I feel very lucky to have worked at decent companies and I do want to let you know that, just digging into it just a little bit, those, those seem to be correct, those demographics seem to align. Okay, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:Interesting. Well, here's a fun next stat for that 70% of employees say they don't trust HR.
Speaker 2:Okay, yep.
Speaker 1:And you see the anti-HR and you see all these people who just have some stick up their ass about HR and I loved when Jamie was on she goes. Just because your uncle got fired for grabbing Sally's ass once upon a time doesn't mean HR is the problem or whatever. She said something to that extent when she was on board with us. Hr is not the problem in that instance.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, well, we're the problem in that instance.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, we're the messengers.
Speaker 1:We're the messengers.
Speaker 2:Because people somehow also think that HR are like the decision makers, especially let's talk about like termination or pay, because those are the things people are the most sensitive about. But they just kind of feel like HR because they're the ones that are telling power. They have all the power and it's like no, by the time it gets to hr's desk it has. It has been come an issue like yeah, and honestly it's a lot of the things that have that go on all the business decisions. We're probably part of it, or at least we consult on it, but at the end of the day, a lot of things are like leadership decisions.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I couldn't agree more. But I still don't see a reason why people would say they don't trust HR.
Speaker 2:They've been watching too much TV.
Speaker 1:They've been reading too much anti-HR or anti-work Reddit posts and things like that.
Speaker 2:Just think of who terminates people when layoffs happen or who's like standing in your way to get a promotion, like it can't be your completely inept manager who can't give you proper feedback so you can develop. It has to be the HR person.
Speaker 1:HR said I couldn't give you more than a 1% raise. This year.
Speaker 2:Oh HR said Grow a backbone, oh yeah.
Speaker 1:When HR says something, when they say HR says you can almost guarantee HR didn't say shit. Oh, when you hear that HR says this, you know I tell you how many times, and that's one of the stories I have for later, but I'll probably get to that one today at least. Now here's one I really wanted your feedback on. This is the final stat that Jennifer quoted Dr Sullivan on. A staggering 90% of individual L&D programs fail to achieve their intended outcomes 90% 90%.
Speaker 2:That number seems ridiculous. I will say this I think the stat is that you only remember 10% of what you learned from an in-person session or a point-in-time training. Okay, so we can flip that number and we can then say, oh, 90% of all training is horrible, but that just means that whoever is doing that training is not doing a good job.
Speaker 1:Or maybe the training is not right for the audience, or maybe the issue isn't a training issue, it's a leadership issue. Yeah, that blew me away. Well, jennifer goes on. That's not a good look, especially for a function responsible for driving culture, capability and leadership. And to top it off and here's another stat HR has the highest turnover rate of any corporate function. Linkedin data shows HR's turnover is 38% higher than the corporate average.
Speaker 2:I'm going to call BS on those stats.
Speaker 1:I agree, my time where I'm at now. The entire accounting department has turned over more than once there and that's not uncommon, but I, you know average person's now saying what it's staying at a job of what they say approximately three years now I'm above that and it's interesting. So, anyways, someone going back to someone replied based on the work we've been doing at his company, I think human resources professionals have a choice to make A quit. If you believe HR is a joke, it's time to get out of the profession. Don't quite quit, just quit. Or B transform those who are adding strategic value or want to. I implore you to continue the fight, to fight, et cetera. So it goes on from there, but HR is not the problem generally speaking. Now, like I said, there's a lot of bad HR practitioners out there. People are just oh, you were a good receptionist, so you're going to be a great HR person. You get that all the time and some do develop into a great HR professional.
Speaker 1:That's what happened to my wife when she worked at Target. She started at 16 years old in what was called at the time Food Avenue Express and they served hot dogs, popcorn and shit like that. Now they got Starbucks in every Target. But she ended up becoming cashier, cashier team leader, guest service team leader and then moved into HR. Actually, first she did the cash handling, counting the money. She would have to come in at way early hours in the morning, count the money and get the deposits ready for the previous day and things like that. I forget what that job was called. Then she moved into HR and she rocked HR for a while. She stayed in HR with Target for a very long time but when the economy turned down, they told her they wanted her to do all of her HR functions plus spend 20 hours a week working on the floor. And she said no, thank you, I'll get another job.
Speaker 2:That's a lot.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:All right, you want to go down a fun rabbit hole really quick.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:I take it back Yep, hr professionals have the highest turnover rate of all functions in corporate. The corporate average is 11% turnover. Hr professionals come in at 14.6%. I thought that the number one turnover was going to be sales I would think so they come in at number two they're just below average wow and then they talk about like why, and it's, what is it inside? Stress and visibility, remote work, pressures and then emotional labor with limited autonomy. So yeah, I see.
Speaker 1:One of the things I love about my job. Now I have unlimited autonomy, I can do anything I want. Pretty much that's what I love about my job right now. So, okay, two quick things I'm going to try and get in before we wrap this thing up. Lying candidates situation. You know I started these show notes to be our May 28th, I think, episode recording, so anyways. So I probably had this could be two weeks before that, but anyways, lying candidates Now you always hear all this bullshit about recruiters lying and cheating and whatever.
Speaker 1:And I have a personal story I won't get into because of time on lying recruiters. But so ran into a situation recently. We put screening questions in our applicant tracking system so the recruiter can look at it and she can take care of things. So she loaded up a question and says I understand that, due to the nature of this work, remote slash, hybrid work is not available for this position. Check yes or no. The applicant checks yes, the recruiter in her question when she does her screening. I want to make sure you understand, because this work is physically done at our client site. Remote and hybrid work is not available. Candidate says yep, got it. Hiring manager interview. Rinse and repeat, I read the interview notes, because this work's done at our client site. We don't offer remote work. Interviewee agrees Offer goes out, comes back two things. A offer goes out, comes back two things. A wants $20,000 more than they told our recruiter initially and she says I want to either work fully remote or hybrid, but no more than two days a week in the office.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:The audacity to think they're just going to love me so much. They're going to, and we explained not only that it's not available but the why this work is physically done at a client site. You can't bring the client site to your living room, or what have you? So we, we hit it one, two, three, four, three times screening question, recruiter, hiring manager and then comes back, but yeah, warren, they are probably very special at what they do and they probably deserve an exception to do exceptional work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but the work is at a. There's a physical nature to this work and it's not in your living room. It will never be in your living room, so anyways.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's so good.
Speaker 1:So my final thing and this is another HR sort of this turns into a rant. I have the actual email in front of me that I received. I'm going to try and edit this as I read it. I should have edited it before. So I got an email asking a question which was discussed in the meeting just the day before and they wrote I wanted to request clarification on, in which we discussed in the meeting the day before. I don't believe it got answered clearly or misunderstood. It either didn't get answered clearly or misunderstood.
Speaker 1:Grammar people and this particular employee is the type of employee that I know is absolutely definitely going to hold on to my email and they're going to say well, warren said this and I have just into running through all these scenarios in my head because I knew they were going to try and manipulate what I said into something that I didn't mean. So I wanted to make explicitly sure my meaning could not be mistaken out of any context that it could, because I just know that this is one of the downsides of being in HR and this is why people hate HR. Because I've been there, I've done that. Maybe if I was a rookie I would say I'd just answer the question in two sentences and be done with it. But I just know the games that people play and I want to make because, aha, I've got you. You said this, it's in writing, and I don't care what's in writing. You misunderstood what I'm saying, just like I don't believe it got answered clearly or misunderstood. Well, I don't believe it got misunderstood, it's just anyways that was a fun thing.
Speaker 1:But in HR you have to be on the defense, you have to think like that.
Speaker 1:And answering that three-line email took me 90 minutes because I was thinking, okay, how can they manipulate, how can they take this, how are they going to be able to do this? And, knock on wood, I haven't had any. They didn't reply to my email once. I replied to them, so I think I did my job. But it's just like really people it's, it's life Isn't that hard. Or just to stop making things more difficult than they need to be. Do your job, that's what it comes down to. So it becomes happy.
Speaker 2:I just want to do a really quick one. Yeah, we're both. Listen, we missed a week. We're both really quick one. Yeah, listen, we missed a week, we're both. Yeah, we got a lot.
Speaker 1:I've got a lot more stories in my show notes that I I I'm probably pretty good for next week or next episode too.
Speaker 2:So I was on Reddit and this is in Reddit, the subreddit jobs, and somebody had been interviewing for a job. You reminded me by talking about the lying job candidate. So, anyway, this, this person had been interviewing for a job. You reminded me by talking about the lying job candidate. So, anyway, this person it's a guy, his name is Bart, which I think is fantastic. He said that he received an email or an invitation for an interview and he then immediately got an email that he was not supposed to be CC'd on from the hiring manager saying I thought we all agreed bart was out, cancel his interview and apologize.
Speaker 2:So he was like shit so he's like how do I respond to this? Because this is awkward. So he posted it to reddit and like a lot of people.
Speaker 1:Respond you posted online?
Speaker 2:well, yes, because, honestly, the, the, the community, did a fantastic job. So today he reported back and he said he composed an email and he sent it back to all which I loved, power move and basically said hi all, I thought we all agreed Bart was in Winky face emoji, but I'm sure that message wasn't meant for me. But no worries, no apology necessary. I appreciate the opportunity to interview with the team and get a feel for the role. If you find yourself looking for someone whose skill set includes a strong focus on awareness, attention, yada, yada, feel free to reach out, wishing you all the best in your search. And I was like mic drop that is the perfect response.
Speaker 1:It is, it absolutely is, and I bet you they're going to remember him. Yeah, and if there is another opportunity Now, if they're not too embarrassed to hey Bart I'm sorry about last time, but let's not too embarrassed to hey Bart, let's stop. You know I'm sorry about last time, but let's talk to you again, type thing. So no great, you know golf clap for Bart.
Speaker 2:you know good job, good for you, bart, and honestly, you're going to find a role that's better suited for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:Man. Anyway, I thought that was cute, and sometimes Reddit delivers.
Speaker 1:Yes, it does so. Anyways, well, before we wrap things up, we haven't thanked our supporters Hallie, the original Jaded HR rockstar, and then Bill and Mike. You can join them too by supporting us on Patreon. There's links in the show notes. You can contact us any number of ways. Send us a text link in the show notes is awesome. So go ahead and try that.
Speaker 1:I'd love to get some feedback, love to get some more reviews. I didn't check this week, but I did check last week and I didn't have any new reviews. So get us some reviews and we will read them. So let us know and, of course, spread the word. You know, if we had recorded an episode at the end of May, like we were intended to, we came so close, without another episode, to breaking a monthly record for number of downloads. If we had put out an episode, I feel as close to 100% confident we would have broken a record for downloads if we had put out that episode. So just tell your friends, get the word out and we will talk to you.
Speaker 1:In two weeks We'll have a regular episode and in three weeks we will have the benefits episode of the Office. So a lot to look forward to here, and plus I still have half a page of show notes that I took over the last four weeks that I can go back to. So already doing some future work, love it, yay. Well, I want to thank the Underscore Orchestra for using their theme song Devil to Devil. And then the voice artist at the beginning is Andrew Kolba, so now I can say, as always, I'm Warren, I'm Cece and we're here helping you survive. Hr1. What the Fuck moment at a time. The Fuck Bye.
