HR Famous

In episode 36 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett, Kris Dunn and Jessica Lee discuss big tips for housekeepers from NBA players leaving the bubble, the TrustRadius 2020 People of Color in Tech Report, and what shoe brand collaborations we want to see!

Listen (click this link if you don’t see the player) and be sure to subscribe, rate, and review (Apple Podcasts) and follow (Spotify)!

SHOW HIGHLIGHTS

2:00 - How does pumpkin spice scented cleaning supplies sound to you?

3:00 - NBA player Russell Westbrook left an $8000 tip for the cleaning staff at the hotel he was staying at in the NBA bubble. JLee says the cleaning staff are the hardest people working in the hospitality industry. 

4:30 - Are you the type of person who steals things off of the cleaning staff’s cart? JLee takes some of those good hotel toiletries. 

7:30 - KD thinks these stories of high tips put downward pressure on those with average incomes who want to treat wait staff well. 

8:45 - KD brings up the hit that credit cards have left on the tips baristas may receive. Fill up those tip jars again!

9:45 - Do you like when wait staff asks if you’d like to leave a tip? Tim thinks it leaves a little too much pressure on the customer.

11:30 - TrustRadius released the 2020 People of Color in Tech Report in September. Tim shares some findings from the report including People of Color (POC) reporting that 57% of them haven’t had issues with race at work. Tim is shocked by this number and thought it would be much lower. 

13:30 - KD reminds us that we have to think about what industry this survey took place in and that the tech industry may differ greatly from other ones. 

16:15 - Tim shares a few more survey findings. He said almost equally POC and white people believe D&I initiatives are effective but executives had less faith in the initiatives. JLee hopes that there would be more faith in these initiatives among all respondents. 

19:30 - Tim compared faith in D&I initiatives to some other system in a business and he thinks the effectiveness numbers would be considered a failure in other parts of the business. 

21:00 - JLee is not surprised that many people don’t feel comfortable talking about race with HR based on her experience working in HR. 

22:00 - Tim asks KD if he thinks the cat is out of the bag and people have discovered that HR works for the company, not for the people. KD thinks the best HR employees have a balance between serving the company’s interest and the employee’s interest. 

27:00 - The report asks POC how they would prefer to be supported by their company. The #1 answer was diversity recruitment followed by a diversity task force. 

30:30 - Last topic of the day: Tim is a shoe addict. Cole Haan (one of his favorite brand) made Slack inspired shoes. Tim asks the crew what collaboration do you want to see of a shoe brand and a non-apparel brand. 

In episode 35 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett, Kris Dunn and Jessica Lee discuss their favorite Halloween candy, dig into BlackRock’s recent policy change that mandates employee report all romantic relationships, including those with all company partners and vendors, and wrap it up with a discussion on Performance vs. Trust via a famous Simon Sinek video. 

Listen (click this link if you don’t see the player) and be sure to subscribe, rate, and review (Apple Podcasts) and follow (Spotify)!

SHOW HIGHLIGHTS

1:30 - Halloween is right around the corner! JLee is modifying the normal Halloween routine for her two young kids. She’s excited because her kids are getting into Star Wars and they’re doing a Star Wars family costume.

3:00 - Tim’s family is doing a Michigan vs. MSU football/Halloween neighborhood tailgate. He is trying to decide if he wants to be Biden or Trump for his costume.

4:15 - What is your favorite Halloween candy? Tim is team Reese’s pumpkin because of the peanut butter to chocolate ratio. KD likes the bite size (better known as fun size) Snickers. JLee likes a classic Kit Kat.

6:45 - First topic: BlackRock is now requiring all employees to disclose any sort of romantic relationship with anyone in the company or anyone related to the company, including all vendors and partners, which includes 1/5 of the known world by definition. The company may make alternative work arrangements depending on reporting from employees. 

8:00 - Tim, the HR Famous workplace harassment expert, thinks that this new policy is stupid because it limits so many romantic or sexual relationships.

9:30 - JLee doesn’t want to know every possible relationship between employees from an HR perspective. She says it’s TMI!

10:30 - KD says that this policy follows a few scandals with relationship reporting at BlackRock involving high level employees. 

14:30 - The gang suggests a hashtag for Blackrock - #sexlessnation

15:00 - JLee tells us what questions would have to be asked about these relationships. 

16:20 - The HR Famous crew wishes the best to the BlackRock HR crew with this new policy. #sexlessnation

19:30 - Second topic of the day: Simon Sinek’s video Performance vs. Trust. In this video, Sinek talks about the Marines and how value trustworthiness vs. high level performance.

22:40 - JLee thinks that this is a hard lesson for a leader to learn because you often only learn you can’t trust someone once someone has made a mistake.

23:30 - Tim brings up Malcolm Gladwell’s most recent book Talking To Strangers and how humans tend to default to trust when often people are not being trustworthy.

26:00 - Shoutout to Ed Baldwin and the book The Thin Book of Trust by Charles Feltman. He defines trust in his book as sincerity, reliability, and competence. 

27:00 - KD and JLee would love if Simon would button up his shirt one more button!

In episode 34 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett, Kris Dunn and Jessica Lee come together to discuss a recent employment lawsuit that claims United Airlines grants assignment privileges to young blonde females and discusses the stock price of Slack tanking once Wall Street determined it's growth wasn't going to blow up in the WFH world aka Zoom.

Listen (click this link if you don’t see the player) and be sure to subscribe, rate, and review (Apple Podcasts) and follow (Spotify)!

SHOW HIGHLIGHTS

2:45 - WTF is WFT? KD teaches us what the Washington Football Team is. Formerly known as the Washington Redskins, WFT is the new name for the team that didn’t have a name ready for a rebrand, and all Tim and KD want to know is how Jlee, a DC native, feels about it.

5:45 - KD takes a shot a what his company’s name would be if they had to turn to something generic like WFT. Spoiler alert - It's bland.

7:15 - First topic of the day: United Airlines has taken a lawsuit from flight attendants. Bloomberg reports this lawsuit has to do with preferential treatment to young blonde females based on physical attributes on flights chartered by major league sport teams. Shocking. 

11:00 - JLee talks about how she gets upset about reviewing creative collateral due to the lack of size and physical diversity. She also wonders about the role the unions play into who gets the more coveted charter flights.  KD covers what the collective bargaining agreement says, turns out the flight attendants union bargain the right away. 

12:30 - The website Live And Let’s Fly published an article saying that clients can request specific flight attendants to work their flights if their schedule allows. The same article includes unnamed sources who provide some information provided by United Airlines in the initial discovery.

16:00 - Tim talks about how he thinks most judges won’t get into collective bargaining agreements and will try to push it back to the union to deal with.

19:15 - The HR Famous crew gives their favorite profile of flight attendant. KD likes the middle aged women who are afraid to push back on people. Tim likes the ones who recognize frequent flyers. 

22:30 - Last topic of the day: Slack! Slack recently reported quarterly results and it was in line with analysts expectations for their growth but their stock tanked.  The gang discusses whether Slack is must have work tech, compares it to Zoom and talks about how the greatest generation - GEN X - likes to communicate, which is all that really matters to Gen Xers. The gang identifies JLee as non-Gen X, but bets she can still muscle on on email without ever signing into Slack or the equivalent.

29:00 - Time for the CHRO Move of the Week! Nadia Rawlinsen is the new CPO of Slack! She comes from companies like Live Nation and Groupon and colleges like Harvard and Stanford. The gang takes a look at her career and thinks out loud about what's in front of her at Slack.

Resources:

Jessica Lee on LinkedIn

Tim Sackett on Linkedin

Kris Dunn on LinkedIn

HRU Tech

The Tim Sackett Project

The HR Capitalist

Fistful of Talent

Kinetix

Boss Leadership Training Series

In episode 33 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett, Kris Dunn and Jessica Lee  discuss Harvard Business Review’s 21 HR jobs of the Future and their personal strategies for working from home with children who are doing online school.

Listen (click this link if you don’t see the player) and be sure to subscribe, rate, and review (Apple Podcasts) and follow (Spotify)!

SHOW HIGHLIGHTS:

1:15 - Starting off the episode with a big question: in 10 years, what is your dream HR job? JLee wants to be the #2 in line to a great #1 HR employee at a certain organization. Tim says he wants to be Chief Performance Officer for the US government (sounds pretty tough...).

3:20 - Harvard Business Review published an article about the 21 HR jobs of the future and KD wrote a blog post on his blog about it. Some of these jobs include chatbot and human facilitator, algorithm bias auditor, and work from home facilitator. Do you think any of these jobs will really come to fruition? JLee thinks that these jobs really just live in skills and trends rather than full jobs. 

5:30 - KD comments on how a lot of job titles have changed over the years to better reflect or change the perception of what kind of function a job has. 

7:30 - KD is interested in the idea of a second act coach and a gig economy manager. What new jobs brought up by this article do you like?

9:00 - Time for the CHRO Move of the Week! This week’s CHRO move comes from Jennifer Cornelius at Pinterest! She comes from Starbucks, Apple and Sweetgreen and now is the top HR dog at Pinterest. 

12:00 - Tim worries that she might regret leaving Apple since her role at Pinterest is only a contract position and Apple is a very powerful brand. 

14:45 - KD thinks that Jennifer added the “future of work” tag to her LinkedIn and praises it as a good move.

15:45 - Shoutout to Lars Schmidt and his podcast 21st Century HR!

16:30 - Second topic of the day: working from home with children in online school! JLee has two young kids that are in virtual school and she walks us through some struggles she has experienced in her household including wifi bandwidth issues. The HR Famous team is struggling with so many video calls on top of general tasks that use up wifi connection. JLee calls for more grace when people are experiencing video issues. 

20:45 - JLee is seeing a lot of panic and stress from parents that are trying to manage their children’s schooling while on work calls. She sees a lot of parents apologizing often about any issues and thinks people should stop apologizing for having to parent during work. 

24:00 - Tim is starting to see some backlash against parents who are getting breaks for dealing with their children and their kid’s schooling. JLee says she can’t think of an answer for this issue.

25:15 - JLee says she locks the door when she’s busy with work to keep her kids out. She also recommends getting wireless earbuds or taking work calls from parts of the house where you can multitask. 

26:30 - Tim recommends creating a specific work space for his kids, creating an in house video schedule for wifi connection, and putting signs on the door to keep people out if important calls are going on. 

27:45 - JLee mentions a Google device that helps manage device connection on a certain wifi network. 

29:00 - Tim thinks people are desperate to get back to the office and WFH may not stay as long as we think it is. JLee thinks that people are still worried about health and safety. 

30:00 - Shoutout to all the parents doing their best working from home and managing their kids schooling! We see you!

Resources:

Jessica Lee on LinkedIn

Tim Sackett on Linkedin

Kris Dunn on LinkedIn

HRU Tech

The Tim Sackett Project

The HR Capitalist

Fistful of Talent

Kinetix

Boss Leadership Training Series

In episode 32 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett, Kris Dunn and Jessica Lee come together to discuss crazy overtime pay at the USPS and harassment issues via messaging on LinkedIn. 

Listen (click this link if you don’t see the player) and be sure to subscribe, rate, and review (Apple Podcasts) and follow (Spotify)!

SHOW HIGHLIGHTS

Listen below and be sure to subscribe, rate, and review (iTunes) and follow (Spotify)!

1:45 - We got an HR Famous boys trip coming up! Tim is heading down to Alabama to visit KD for a good ole trip with the boys.

3:50 - First topic of the day: It has come out recently that 4,000 USPS employees made more money in overtime than their base pay. The crew plays a game to guess what the average North East mail handler makes. How much do you think they make?

6:00 - KD breaks down the talking points for various stakeholders to explain runaway OT. 

7:45 - Tim points out that it would be clear to most business people that the amount of overtime the USPS is paying is out of hand and requires hiring of more employees. 

9:30 - Tim mentions the stats behind the overtime hours for the average North East mail handler and how there might be some fraud in hours reporting. 

10:30 - JLee discusses a podcast she listened to about the UPS and how they analyzed a ton of different data points for their delivery drivers and how some of that data monitoring could help with efficiency at the USPS.  KD points out that criticism of the OT won't be pitched during the election due to party affiliation of unions.

13:00 - Second topic of the day: creepy dudes on LinkedIn! Friend of the show, Laurie Ruetimann, often posts about her interactions with being hit on by men on LinkedIn. Tim did a Twitter poll asking his female followers if they’ve had similar interactions. Many respondents said that they’ve been hit on but not propositioned for sex. However, many thought that if they engaged, it would have moved to that step. 

16:00 - Tim is surprised this is still an issue in 2020. He discusses a statement from LinkedIn in January to help fight against harassment on their platform. LinkedIn took down 16,000 instances of harassment in the first 6 months of 2019.  KD points out in a world where LinkedIn provides AI to tell us how we want to respond to a message, they can probably stop harassment-based messaged and the accounts that send them.

19:45 - Listener of the show, Cindy Gallop, wrote into Tim and mentioned she has logged 14 male harassment issues from LinkedIn. She gave Tim some of her suggestions to help fight harassment on the platform. 

23:00 - KD asks for an example of a type of message that is perceived as being “hit on”. JLee gives some examples such as commenting on physical looks and certain flirtatious emojis.

27:00  - Tim thinks LinkedIn can do more from a tech perspective but notes some of the issues from just taking down profiles as the top strategy to combat this harassment. 

28:45 - The HR Famous crew tells men to stop being creepy on LinkedIn!

In episode 31 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett, Kris Dunn and Jessica Lee discuss Google's move to a very uncool/unhip annual performance review cycle (called a "perf" which is dangerously close to bad stuff), David Blaine’s recent dangerous endeavor, and the latest CHRO move of the week involving IBM's new HR leader.

Listen (click this link if you don’t see the player) and be sure to subscribe, rate, and review (Apple Podcasts) and follow (Spotify)!

SHOW HIGHLIGHTS

1:30 - Did you watch David Blaine’s balloon descension excursion? Tim doesn’t think that he’s human. 

4:30 - Do you ever dress up at home just to feel better? JLee dressed up today because she’s sick of athleisure

5:30 - Time for the CHRO Move of the Week! IBM Senior Vice President of HR and CHRO Diane Gherson announced her successor, Nickle LaMoreaux, this week as she has decided to retire. JLee commends IBM for this classy move of publicly passing the gauntlet onto their next CHRO

9:00 - KD points out her former positions at IBM and how that helped her get into the top HR spot at the company. 

12:00 - KD talks about how IBM was one of the first to move people to remote work and also the first to take it away, and why it had a number of lawsuits around age discrimination based on allegations of a strategy to bring in younger people that would cost less. 

14:20 - The HR Famous crew doesn’t know what IBM does anymore! Does this mean that they’re on the outs?

15:00 - Who remembers the old adage “No one ever got fired for buying IBM”? JLee has never heard it but Tim and KD remember those days.

17:00 - Next topic of the day: Business Insider published an article about Google’s performance reviews being resumed and how some employees are concerned that the new 12 month cycle will hurt their chances for promotions. 

18:00 - Internally, Google’s performance reviews are known as “perf”... That’s something the HR Famous crew has never seen! Tim sees this as a sign as Google growing up.  The gang also has fun with the word "perf" which borders on the worst corporate slang ever.

21:30 - A lot of companies had to or chose to pause performance reviews during the beginning of the pandemic. KD thinks it was a good move to pause performance reviews for the first months of the pandemic to allow employees to focus on other worries. 

24:30 - JLee and Tim comment on how their frustration with the fact that Google employees are so worried about their pay increases when so much else is going on in the world. KD reminds everyone that there are a lot of people in the company that aren’t complaining about their lack of a raise. 

27:45 - One of the things that Google is doing to make performance reviews more simple is having employees list up to 5 of their biggest accomplishments/achievements but they must say less than 160 words for each item. KD notes the fact that via this strategy, managers at Google are like everyone else - they'd prefer you write your own review!!

28:30 - Reach out to Tim Sackett if you need help writing your perf!

30:30 - Tim laughs at the fact that the pandemic has forced HR to go back in time to once a year performance reviews, when research for years has shown that more frequent performance reviews are more effective. 

32:00 - JLee brings up the fact that those with children they are taking care of at home may be negatively affected by performance reviews right now. Tim thinks that people are going to be judged by their performance during the pandemic anyways and there’s not much you can do to change that. 

38:30 - Who else has become a cycler in the pandemic? JLee and Tim are now fans!

In episode 30 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett, Kris Dunn and Jessica Lee link up to discuss Senator Tom Carper’s senate hearing mishap with Zoom and Johnny Taylor’s time at SHRM, asking and discussing the question “is Johnny Taylor for good for SHRM and HR?”

Listen (click this link if you don’t see the player) and be sure to subscribe, rate, and review (Apple Podcasts) and follow (Spotify)!

1:30 - Do you like “what up?” or “how are you?” better? HR Famous prefers what up as a greeting!

2:30 - Do you have any monster.com swag from an HR conference? Tim still has it on his desk! KD isn’t a swag guy and wants to avoid the lines at all costs. 

5:00 - First topic of the day: tech mishaps in US Senate hearings! Senator from Delaware Tom Carper didn’t realize he wasn’t muted and was caught using some profanity in this video. KD wrote about this occurrence on his blog and called him the worst boss ever. 

9:15 - Tim calls this the most embarrassing leadership moment that a leader can have around their staff. What is your most embarrassing moment as a leader?

11:30 - KD thinks the abrupt nature of Senator Carper’s three f-bombs to a staffer gives the signal that he’s the worst boss ever. He thinks the nature of the interaction gives off bad boss vibes. 

14:00 - Second topic of the day: is Johnny Taylor good for HR?Business Insider discussed the reign of the CEO of SHRM in their new article and noted the turnaround under his leadership and allegations of a cutthroat culture he has created for SHRM employees. 

17:00 - Although some may call Tim a Johnny Taylor fanboy, he praises him for turning a company around and helping SHRM start to turn a profit again. Tim says that the out of touch SHRM of the past is being transformed under Johnny and the new culture he’s creating is trying to update the company.

19:20 - JLee thinks that it’s important to try and bifurcate some of Taylor’s accomplishments from some issues that have arisen at SHRM. She says that it’s hard to deny some of his results even though there have been issues with SHRM’s work culture and their handling of certain situations with their employees. 

23:00 - KD sets the table for a balanced discussion on Taylor at SHRM, doing a balanced scorecard he calls "Johnny's W's and Johnny's L's (wins and losses), noting that any leader in any organization is going to have some wins and losses - that's just life.

23:30 - Johnny’s wins: financial turnaround, diverse leader of an organization, speaking out about recidivism, DEI programming among others. Jlee comments on the fact that Johnny's involvement and visibility has limited the need for paid media. Tim comments on his charisma and how his dynamic presence may positively affect membership. 

27:40 - Johnny’s losses: perceived alignment with the Trump administration creates polarization and vocal critics, SHRM’s slow response to the Black Lives Matter movement and the killing of George Floyd, and a perceived relationship with the Koch brothers on issues of recidivism. 

31:00 - Tim thinks the messaging about police brutality and the BLM movement is something that SHRM could’ve clarified in order to create a more clear message. Jlee talks about perception vs reality. 

33:56- The crew answers the question of the segment. What do you think?

In episode 29 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett, Kris Dunn and Jessica Lee discuss how HR Generalists are rapidly becoming the preferred choice for HR Leaders with shrinking staff/team size due to their "do it all" mentality, and discuss how specialists in the HR field can protect themselves vs further cuts as furloughs turn into layoffs.

The gang also provide a "hot take" round of reactions to recent workforce announcements from Salesforce. We learn JLee doesn't want a stipend for a printer or a Chromebook.

Listen (click this link if you don’t see the player) and be sure to subscribe, rate, and review (Apple Podcasts) and follow (Spotify)!

SHOW HIGHLIGHTS

3:00 - First topic of the day: Salesforce has come out this week with a list of announcements including that all employees can work from home until July 31, 2021, the plan of the slow reopening of their many offices, an expansion of benefits for those working from home, and an additional 6 weeks of PTO for parents. KD asks JLee and Tim to react with hot takes on each of the announced benefits.

6:00 - Salesforce is giving their employees $250 to help them buy supplies to work from home. JLee doesn’t think it’s enough to buy too many things of actual value. Hello, Chromebook.

8:00 - JLee says she is not able to use all of her current PTO so she doesn’t need more time and would prefer a subsidy for childcare rather than more time. KD thinks that Salesforce is trying to create a monopoly being an employer of choice for people with kids after the trendy period of their lives "inside the perimeter".

13:30 - Second topic: KD and Kathy Rapp talked on his podcast Best Hire Ever about the current phenomenon of HR Leaders  looking for HR Generalists over specialists as teams are shrinking and people are getting cut. Tim says that to get noticed by a HR Leader you typically have to have deep knowledge in one area and it’s very hard for new people to the HR world to have a lot of knowledge in many areas as required to be a great generalist. 

16:30 - JLee shouts out boss president at HRQ, Kathy Rapp! She also comments on how many people working in HR don’t want to be a generalist and they want to specialize with something they’re more fascinated by. 

19:00 - Tim thinks that in a low unemployment world, HR generalists are undervalued and are often passed up for promotions due to their lack of specificity in one area. Do you think HR generalists value changes with time?

20:00 - KD asks JLee and Tim to comment on how difficult/easy it is for different HR specialist types to broaden their role and avoid being laid off in a recession. Tim thinks it's possible for a modern compensation/benefit person to prove themselves because they’re often driven by data.

22:00 - JLee thinks that employee relations specialists have a lot of opportunity to broaden out their experience but thinks they need to be proactive rather than reactive in their actions. 

23:00 - Tim says that recruiters must be knowledgeable about where the money is coming from in their organization and bolster that area to the best of their ability to protect themselves.

24:00 - JLee says that OD/talent management folks need to be seen on the forefront of bringing in talent in order to show their value. 

25:00 - KD thinks the ultimate skill for any HR employee to possess right now is the ability to communicate. Tim says that all VP’s and Directors of HR right now need to be driving performance right now in order to stay important within their company. 

31:30 - KD thinks that a great HR generalist can come from anywhere and they rise to the top via their ability to analyze data, communicate, and ship actual product rather than talking about it.

Resources:

Jessica Lee on LinkedIn

Tim Sackett on Linkedin

Kris Dunn on LinkedIn

HRU Tech

The Tim Sackett Project

The HR Capitalist

Fistful of Talent

Kinetix

Boss Leadership Training Series

In episode 27 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett, Kris Dunn and Jessica Lee discuss 100K jobs with the least competition (spoiler - that means only really smart people should apply) and break down California going after Uber and Lyft with California Assembly Bill 5, which seeks to classify more contractors such as Uber/Lyft drivers into full-time employees

Listen (click this link if you don’t see the player) and be sure to subscribe, rate, and review (Apple Podcasts) and follow (Spotify)!

SHOW HIGHLIGHTS

2:30 – Tim and Kris decide Jessica is beginning to fall in love with Hamilton because her kids are watching and singing the songs all the time.

4:05  - The crew breaks down $100,000 salary jobs with the least competition, and most are technical and medical, except for the number one job.

6:30 – Tim is ranking doctors on which ones are the dumbest even though he could never be a doctor and passed out at the birth of all three of his kids.

10:30 – The crew decides which six-figure jobs should have been on the list but weren’t, and Tim shares how a used car salesman in his town has a way bigger house than he has, so he believes the best six-figure job with the least competition is probably great sales jobs, because not many want to do sales, and very few are great at sales.

13:35 – KD wants the crew on a future episode to break down the best jobs for liberal art school grads. Also, Tesla, KD is open for a HR Famous sponsorship! KD has Tim break down what makes a great salesperson.

16:22 – The crew digs into California Assembly Bill 5 lawsuit by Uber and Lyft that puts in a three prong test to determine is a person an employee or contractor, which has a major impact to Uber and Lyft drivers moving them from contractors to employees. Both Uber and Lyft have threatened to end operations in California if AB5 goes through.

18:45 – KD believes that ultimately the customers of Uber and Lyft will end up paying for this bill in the end, but Jessica disagrees and believes the market will answer the challenge to fill the void. Or that Uber and Lyft will find a middle-ground to continue business where they can have both employees and contractors.

21:55 – Californians will vote in November on an amendment to exempt rideshare companies from AB5 anyway, so does it really matter? Well, it might not for rideshare, but it could national impact to tech contractors, over the road drivers, etc.

22:30 – Tim hates California and believes doing business in California in the biggest pain in the ass in the entire world.

24:00 – The voice of reason Jessica comes in and explains how California should create a safety net for its citizens versus forcing companies to create the safety net by changing their employment status.

31:00 – KD asks the HR Famous crew what do we think Californian’s will do when voting in November in terms of amending AB5 and letting Uber and Lyft off the hook.

33:00 – Tim tells the crew he has to go because he’s having a Spirit Painting being done and has to go, but will update everybody next episode on the experience!

In episode 27 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett, Kris Dunn and Jessica Lee discuss JLee's knowledge on the best flowers, the crew gives theories on why meeting times have decreased during the pandemic (but the number of meetings is up), and workplace relationship issues that have reemerged surrounding former McDonald’s CEO Steve Easterbrook (McLovin from episode 2 of HR Famous) are covered.

Listen (click this link if you don’t see the player) and be sure to subscribe, rate, and review (Apple Podcasts) and follow (Spotify)!

SHOW HIGHLIGHTS

1:00 - The resident ginger of HR Famous is back from vacation! Welcome back Tim!

4:40 - Tim got some flowers for his wife and tried to share the great deal with the HR Famous crew and Jlee had to kindly reject (she doesn’t like roses!) and KD had bought flowers for his wife 30 minutes prior to Tim's text. Jlee also implores her vast knowledge of flowers onto the men of the group. 

7:00 - First topic of the day - a new study was released from the National Bureau of Economic Research about changes in the workday. The study shows that the number of meetings and number of attendees per meeting have increased during the pandemic but there is a reduction in meeting length. 

9:20 - Jlee thinks the reduction in meeting time can be attributed to less travel time from meeting to meeting and the convenience of meeting remotely. How far do you have to travel to get to meetings in your office? KD thinks the reduction is due to having more meetings. Tim thinks it can be attributed to the digital platforms. 

12:30 - KD had to lead his first in person, socially distanced, masked up long meeting recently and he said it was horrible. He would prefer to do it through Zoom. 

15:00 - One more stat from this study: the average work day has increased by 48.5 minutes from working remotely. Tim doesn’t believe people are actually working more but they are just working at different times of the day. 

17:15 - How early do you schedule your meetings? Jlee is a fan of 7:30 am meetings. 

19:30 - Second topic of the day - since most American children aren’t returning to in person schooling, some employees are giving benefits to their employees to help care for their children. CNBC published an article about the benefits some companies are and aren’t affording their employees surrounding child care. 

22:40 - Jlee thinks the benefits in the article shouldn’t be considered benefits but rather resources given to employers with children. Tim thinks a true benefit would be to give a subsidy to those with children to help pay for child care. 

26:30 - Final topic of the day - the former CEO of McDonald’s Steve Easterbrook was let go in 2019 with a $40 million severance package and now McDonald’s is suing Easterbrook because they have found explicit pictures he exchanged with several other former employees in addition to the single relationship he was previously removed for. 

28:30 - Jlee is disappointed because she is a McDonald’s alum. She points out that at the time, the board of directors thought he was being forced out without cause and therefore, he got a big sum of money upon his dismissal. 

29:45 - KD thinks McDonald’s will seek out all of the impacted parties and try to settle with all of them. Also, he thinks the company will have to conduct a big investigation and find everything that happened with Easterbrook and his misconduct. 

33:00 - Tim thinks McDonald’s will want to negotiate all of the dealings behind closed doors. He also thinks the company didn’t do their due diligence when Easterbrook was leaving and tried to push him out too quickly.