HR Famous

On episode 96 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett, Jessica Lee and Kris Dunn come together to discuss a reported uptick in Glassdoor reviews mentioning inflation and the power dynamics (or lack thereof) of making someone use your Calendly scheduler.

Listen below (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 - JLee’s dry January quickly devolved into drinking wine on a Wednesday. She just finished Station Eleven and is watching And Just Like That. 

5:20 - Tim has been loving season 2 of Righteous Gemstones. He says it’s his guilty pleasure. 

9:00 - KD recommends Southside on HBO Max. He calls it “lighter fare” in comparison to the post-apocalyptic Station Eleven. 

11:45 - KD found a Twitter thread from an economist about the rising concern from employees about inflation and how it affects their pay. KD asks JLee how much concern there actually is about inflation. 

18:00 - Tim doesn’t think the average Glassdoor reviewer is mentioning raises due to inflation but the average employe e may be discussing inflation while asking for a raise. 

21:20 - KD poses a situation to Tim where an employee comes in and tells him that his company’s pay isn’t keeping up with inflation. 

23:20 - Next topic: the power dynamics of using automated calendars. KD mentions this tweet about the etiquette behind Calendly. 

26:00 - Tim doesn’t get how it’s a power play for someone to send a meeting link to someone else for a pre-arranged meeting. JLee offers a different power play scenario that fits the bill. 

28:30 - If you click a Calendly link, does that make you somebody’s b****? JLee and Tim don’t see what the big deal is. They also both do not use an automated calendar system. 

33:00 - KD says that the person that sends their Calendly link after someone has already sent one is the true power graber. 

40:00 - We’re pulling for an early summer!!!

On episode 95 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leader Tim Sackett is joined by HireEZ’s (formerly Hiretual) CMO, Shannon Pritchett, to discusses Outbound Recruiting strategies and the real struggles of modern TA.

Listen below (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 - It’s a Tim solo pod today! He is joined by special guest Shannon Pritchard. She is the Head of Marketing from HireEZ (formerly Hiretual). 

6:30 - Tim notes that in marketing, we often don’t devote enough resources to building communities when that could be a great strategy for the longevity of a business. Shannon notes that this is something that HireEZ (formerly Hiretual) has learned from being at a start-up. 

9:15 - Tim asks Shannon to explain what HireEZ is to those who might not know. Shannon notes it’s an outbound recruiting process. They want to bring in automation and AI to speed up the recruiting process. 

10:00 - Tim discusses how the modern recruiter will say the most difficult part of their job is finding talent. He says that it’s not really the hardest thing but it’s getting talent to respond to you and talk about your position. 

12:00  - You heard it here first! Hiretual will now be known as HireEZ. 

15:00 - Shannon notes that they’re giving referral bonuses for interviews.

17:30 - Tim tells a story about how a TA leader took several months to get back to him from a LinkedIn message. What are they doing??

20:00 - Tim says that some TA leaders will ask him if they should hire another recruiter or add more tech. He says they will probably need both. 

23:30 - Shannon says that it’s important to not stop advertising but to reinvest in outbound tactics. 

25:00 - Tim asks Shannon to discuss the mini-conference HireEZ is hosting in Mountain View this week. They’re calling it Outbound RecruitCon. It’s only an hour long!

26:50 - Tim thinks the future of TA may be having an inbound team and an outbound team. 

30:00 - Tim says that he doesn’t see himself in a corporate TA role in the future but he would set up an inbound and outbound team if he were in that role. 

36:30 - You can find Shannon on Twitter @sourcingshannon and check out HireEZ.com!

On episode 94 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett and Jessica Lee come together to discuss bathrooms in the workplace, Wordle, and why you shouldn’t let your employees choose their WFH days. 

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

1:30 - KD is out sick this week! Just Tim and JLee. 

3:00 - Tim mentions that he had a conversation with a co-worker in the bathroom before they hopped on their call. JLee asked if they make eye contact while they talk…

5:00 - JLee talks about how genderless bathrooms can bring about new bathroom dynamics. Tim says he’s only seen genderless bathrooms where it’s single-use only. 

7:30 - Tim asks JLee if she’s the type of Mom that lets her kid in the bathroom or locks the door. She says she tries to lock the door so she can play Wordle.

9:45 - JLee is a Wordle strategy queen. Tim has failed but JLee is still undefeated. 

13:30 - The draft of KD’s second book is done! Look out for Best Boss Ever coming soon. 

15:45 - Tim and JLee are big fans of footnotes in books. More footnotes in books!

17:45 - Harvard Business Review released their top articles of 2021 and the top one of the year was “Don’t Let Your Employees Pick Their WFH Days”. This article discusses the realities of making WFH successful long term. 

19:30 - One main reason to not let your employees choose their WFH days is the idea of “mixed modes”. This refers to the reality where some people are in the office and some are at home.

22:00 - JLee thinks it’s important to designate and create criteria for in-office work so you can reduce your office footprint and optimize in-person work. 

24:00 - The vast majority of people want to WFH on Mondays and Fridays. 

27:20 - Tim thinks it’s naive to “treat people like adults” when it’s very prevalent that there are WFH/hybrid work issues. 

29:00 - Tim talks about a discussion he had with an employee about a “blacklist”. He jokes that there isn’t an industry “blacklist” but he has his own personal one. 

31:00 - Tim is a fan of an employment blockchain. JLee is less of a fan.  

On episode 93 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett, Jessica Lee and Kris Dunn come together to discuss eating on video calls, hiring during the holidays, and choosing your own salary and benefits.  

Listen below (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:

3:30 - JLee ponders the etiquette of eating on camera during WFH meetings. She’s had co-workers eat hot dogs and many other things. Tim asks why someone is eating hot dogs at home during the day…

5:45 - KD thinks it’s fine to eat during normal eating hours but not with any external clients. 

8:00 - JLee is a regular on-camera eater. She says that she often goes to the pantry in the middle of calls and comes back in with a snack. 

13:20 - JLee has a job opening and she’s ready to post the job but is worried about posting it during the holidays. KD says she should post the job right away with no hesitation. Tim talks about how post-new year’s, many people will have new found motivation.

16:30 - Here is the link to the Marriott job JLee is hiring for! Go work with her!

18:30 - KD mentions a consulting job where the company he worked with had a strategy that consisted of solely on reposting jobs and money on monster.com.

21:00 - JLee is the best hiring manager. She’s responsive, does some of her own sourcing, and writes stellar job descriptions. 

23:00 - JLee mentions an article about a company in France that let their employees choose their own salary and hours to help prevent burnout. JLee asks the crew what they think their employees’ response was. 

26:00 - KD mentions how sales people at a company carry a huge burden to bring in the revenue for a business. Tim says that his sales employees have to bring in 5 to 6 times their salary in order to provide for the entire company. 

28:30 - JLee mentions that Tim’s answer was pretty spot on. Some asked for more money, some asked for more benefits, and some didn’t ask for anything more. 

30:00 - KD thinks the baller move is to ask for a 3-day work week rather than a pay increase. 

32:00 - JLee mentions that some Audi employees get free cars, comped car insurance, and some money for gas!

On episode 92 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett, Jessica Lee and Kris Dunn come together to discuss how HR and Recruiting could be more like Uber, then shift to the promise of legal immigration in the USA to help fight worker shortage issues. 

Listen below (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 - Tim recently went and sat on the floor at an MSU game. He said he doesn’t know how to go to a basketball game ever again. 

9:45 - Bruce Springsteen recently sold his music catalog for $500 million. Tim asks the group what artist/group they would buy a catalog from. JLee chose Mariah Carey. KD chose Nirvana. 

13:00 - Tim mentions that Taylor Swift’s catalog got sold but she is now re-recording all of her catalog to get back at the owners. Tim chose Michael Jackson just over Prince. 

15:15 - JLee saw Yao Ming in her office once and was blown away by how big he was and how it impacts every part of his life. 

16:30 - Tim mentions an article about how Uber made it’s users okay with waiting. He relates to a candidate experience perspective and asks how HR pros and recruiters could put something in place to make waiting better. 

18:00 - KD thinks that hiring managers need to commit to a day that they will make their decision and communicate that date. It's the equivalent of arrival time for Uber!

20:00 - Tim says that ATS status updates are too high-level and unspecific. 

24:00 - JLee has the idea to do “hiring manager ratings” just like “driver ratings” that are on rideshare apps. Tim iterates off that and comes up with “number of interviews/hires” just like “number of rides”.

25:15 - In 2021, the US population grew .1%. This is the lowest amount since 1918, when the influenza pandemic and World War 1 were happening. Tim thinks this is a major demographic issue where we aren’t replacing as fast as we are losing people. 

27:30 - Tim asks the crew how revamping immigration could help fight against this problem. JLee and Tim discuss making it easier for people to immigrate by focusing on the process. 

31:00 - KD mentions how 300,000 visas sounds miniscule for what is actually needed to help with the lack of workers issue in this country. 

On episode 91 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett and Kris Dunn come together to discuss Jeff Bezos’ carbon footprint and the major blunder related to Zoom-based layoffs at better.com. 

Listen below (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 - It’s boy’s week on HR Famous! Please stay with us JLee fan club!

3:00 - Follow Tim on Insta @timsackett! 

4:30 - Amazon founder Jeff Bezos recently went to space and his carbon footprint for the 9 minute flight was equal to the carbon footprint of 1 billion people on Earth…

7:00 - Tim doesn’t like it when people on vacation tell you what to do. 

10:30 - The CEO of Better.com, Vishal Garg, decided to announce layoffs of 9% of their workforce. He had a call with 900 employees that were getting laid off and rather than having the entire company on the call, they laid off everyone on the call.

13:00 - Tim says that both him and KD have been in companies that had to do massive layoffs and they still found time to make it personal and not so heartless.

16:30 - The Better.com CEO accused his employees of only working 2 hours a day and “stealing from the company”. 

21:00 - Garg is taking time off effectively immediately. Better.com is rated as the best place to work in NYC…

26:30 - Tim says that he can recognize why the PR and comms execs resigned because they could get a lot of flack if they stayed and had to take ownership for Garg’s failures. 

37:30 - Tim thinks that Garg needs to resign as CEO and stay on the board but hire a real CEO to run this company.

On episode 90 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett, Jessica Lee and Kris Dunn come together to discuss characters on HBO's Succession, wearing company branded apparel on Zoom calls to attempt to build culture, and increases in health insurance costs. 

Listen below (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 - JLee had a call with her chief legal counsel and she forgot she had a hoodie on and felt underdressed. 

4:15 - JLee is late to the Succession game but now she is obsessed. Tim and KD are long time fans. JLee asks “who is the least worst of the Succession siblings?”. 

9:40 - Tim didn’t realize while watching Schitt’s Creek that Catherine O’Hara (Moira Rose) was the mom in Home Alone… 

11:30 - A recent Business Insider article reported that a CEO of an established company expects all employees to wear baseball caps/hats on Zoom calls to represent being a part of the company. 

16:45 - Tim mentioned that when he worked at Applebee’s, they loved when their employees wore their logo on the clothes they wore to work and often gave out clothing with the logo. 

19:30 - JLee just realized she’s a perpetrator of this because she bought every member of her team the same hat on a team outing…

26:00 - JLee has noticed that benefits rates are going up and she’s curious about how companies are communicating to their employees why the rates are increasing. Tim said his rates were going to go up by a 34% increase. 

28:00 - Tim says that during the pandemic, health insurance companies had really low utilization and so it looks like this is a cash grab. 

32:00 - Tim has often run into a problem with Blue Cross where they always try to make you pay more than you actually need to and then, employees need to fight back against the insurance company. 

35:00 - JLee is a brand loyalist, even when it comes to medicine!

On episode 89 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett, Jessica Lee and Kris Dunn come together to discuss gifted book recommendations, letting employees hire for new roles, and helping your children negotiate job offers. 

Listen below (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 - Shoutout to JLee’s brother-in-law, Eugene!

5:00 - Tim is on yet another vacation with his wife and family to Hawaii! He bought a few books for this trip and he asked the crew if they were going to give a book to someone for the holidays, what book would they give?

6:30 - KD’s recommendations include Conspiracy by Ryan Holiday and American Kingpin by Nick Bilton. 

8:00 - JLee recommends Plant Therapy for the plant lovers and Act like a leader, Think like a leader by Hereminia Ibarra for the business folk. Tim recommends Living, Loving, and Learning by Leo Buscaglia. 

13:00 - Lots of great book recs this episode! KD recommends fiction writer Douglas Copeland

14:20 - Tim recently wrote a blog post asking “what if we let our normal employees make a hire?”. This would involve almost none of the normal application process; no interview, no resumes, no filler. 

17:00 - KD says that to an extent, companies already do this with the adage “everyone’s a recruiter”. 

19:45 - Tim thinks that small orgs can test this hiring practice and do it on a much smaller scale rather than a huge scale at a major corporation. 

23:45 - JLee tells a story about her first interview at Marriott. JLee wasn’t a typical hire since she didn’t come from a huge brand and a prestigious university. 

26:00 - Tim says you have to be careful on who you hand this hiring responsibility too but notes that some companies that are struggling to find employees have nothing to lose.

27:00 - Tim’s son and podcast producer, Cam, just recently accepted a new job offer. He asked Tim if he should negotiate his job offer and Tim said of course. Tim was super nervous that as soon as he negotiated, that his offer would get pulled. 

31:30 - KD asks JLee about how many managers would step away from an offer if someone tried to negotiate with them. JLee thinks less than 10%. 

---------------Jessica Lee, Kris Dunn and Tim Sackett

Kinetix

HRU Tech

Jessica Lee on LinkedIn

Tim Sackett on Linkedin

Kris Dunn on LinkedIn

The Tim Sackett Project

The HR Capitalist

Fistful of Talent

Boss Leadership Training Series

On episode 88 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett, Jessica Lee and Kris Dunn come together to discuss Elon Musk as a maverick leader (his move of HQ location without discussing with leadership team, firing of longtime assistant, etc) and whether they could work for him as his SVP of HR. Drinking at Michigan State tailgates is also discussed.

Listen below (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 - The Michigan attorney general (Michigan fan) recently released an apology for getting too drunk at a MSU football game. She said there was more alcohol than food at the tailgate. KD said the MSU tailgates are quite aggressive…

6:30 - When MSU and U of M play each other, anywhere from 150-250k people are on the respective campus. Tim says it’s the “biggest cocktail of the North”. 

9:30 - Today’s episode is dedicated to the one and only Elon Musk. A few months ago, Elon announced that the Tesla headquarters are moving from California to Texas. He didn't tell his leadership team before he made the announcement, according to California officials trying to spin the move in a negative way. 

12:30 - Tim can’t believe in a modern world that a CEO would do this since even small moves can cause major change for many employees.  KD notes that it really didn't impact as many people as some might think, since Elon wanted to move to Texas and the top Talent at Tesla is either tied to a plant or as specialists can work where they want as long as they are willing to travel.

14:00 - JLee mentions that Elon is the new “boogeyman”. KD mentions that his leadership team must have had enough experience with him to know that something like could happen or would be happening soon. 

18:30 - KD asks JLee for any guidance from HR leaders that work with CEOs like Elon. She notes that the best strategy may be to not try and control the leader.

20:30 - Tim mentions that Tesla is still considered a startup, even though most startups don’t grow as quickly or to the scale of Tesla. 

24:30 - JLee calls Elon a little petty in response to his former assistant’s story.  The gang makes a note to discuss the dynamics of asking for more $$$ in the future - there's always a chance the answer is no!

33:00 - Elon recently took to Twitter to ask his followers if he should sell 10% of his stock. Tim notes that he had to do this since he has tax bills coming due. 

37:30 - KD talks about some potential tax rebates for purchasing EVs and how the current administration is proposing greater rebates for auto companies with unions. KD notes the administration is penalizing one of the great innovators of the last 100 years, and also notes that the lower rebates may put the Tesla out of reach for some lower and middle class buyers, which he considers ironic due the fact that elites will still buy a Tesla regardless of the price. 

42:30 - KD asks Tim & JLee if they would be Elon’s HR leader. Tim says yes because of his extreme innovation. JLee won’t answer but KD says he would too. 

On episode 87 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) long-time HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett and Jessica Lee  come together to discuss the new vaccine mandates and Millennial Fear of Gen Z.  Welcome to grown up world, Millennials! The kids are crazy!

Listen below (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:

1:45 - JLee and Tim got dinner this week and KD was a little jealous…

5:15 - Tim recently met with the folks at SHRM and he heard that whenever they put out any content piece about COVID or vaccines, it gets 100 times more engagement than any other posts. 

7:30 - Tim notes that OSHA said all employees that choose not to get vaccinated can be forced to pay for their mandatory tests. He doesn’t know how companies are going to attract new employees and force them to pay for COVID tests. 

9:00 - Congrats to OSHA! You’ve made it!

11:30 - CNBC recently released an article about actor Kal Penn applying for a job at the White House under the Obama administration. He didn’t receive a response from his application until he mentioned to Michelle Obama at a White House gala that he had applied. 

18:00 - JLee has thought about working for the federal government to help fix their hiring process. She applied through a similar website to the one Kal Penn used and she never received a response. 

22:00 - JLee thinks the federal government needs someone with private sector sensibilities to come in and fix their hiring processes. 

23:30 - Tim recently sent JLee an article from the NY Times titled “The 37-Year-Olds Are Afraid of the 23-Year-Olds that Work For Them”. Tim asked JLee if she’s afraid of her twenty-something employees. 

27:00 - JLee wonders how we can still encourage young people to be bold and unapologetic with some more grown up sensibilities. 

31:00 - Tim’s advice for young people is to always run ideas/suggestions/comments by a trusted mentor before going to the broader public at a corporate level.