How fake is your employment brand?

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I think most employment brands are completely fake. The reason I feel this way is because HR and Executives approve the messaging.  We, HR and Executives, are the last people who really know what our employment brand truly is.

So, we end up with stuff like this:

Seems really cool!  Makes us feel good about ourselves and our organization.  But for the most part, it’s one big lie.

That’s marketing.  It’s not marketing’s job to tell you the truth.  It’s marketing’s job to get you to buy something.  Sometimes it’s just some crappy product or service. Sometimes it’s the church down the street with the cool young pastor and rock band.  Sometimes it’s working for your organization.

Many HR Pros and Executives get really pissed off when I say something like this.

That’s because they drink their own Kool-aid.  They truly believe the messages brought forth are the truth.  Those messages are what they hope and dream the organization to become, so they’re all bought in on making it happen.  I actually really like these people. I like people who are bought into making their organizations what their commercials are telling us they are, even when they aren’t.

Who wants to go work for an organization that puts up a commercial of some manager unable to communicate what needs to be done, and Bobby down in the accounting bitching he only got a 14 lb. turkey from the company when last year he got a 15 lb. turkey?

No one!

But that’s truly your organization.  Organizations are like families. You have some folks in your family you don’t want the rest of the world to see, but when you take the family photo it looks like everyone is fairly normal and well adjusted.

So, how fake is your employment brand?  On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being Goldman Sachs and 10 being Google, where does your organization fall?

You might decide your job just isn’t worth it!

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Linds Redding, a New Zealand-based art director who worked at BBDO and Saatchi & Saatchi, died at 52 from inoperable esophageal cancer. Turns out Linds didn’t really like his old job and made hours he spent creating a successful career. Here is what Linds wrote before he died:

“I think you’re all f—— mad. Deranged. So disengaged from reality it’s not even funny. It’s a f—— TV commercial. Nobody gives a s—.

This has come as quite a shock I can tell you. I think I’ve come to the conclusion that the whole thing was a bit of a con. A scam. An elaborate hoax.

Countless late nights and weekends, holidays, birthdays, school recitals, and anniversary dinners were willingly sacrificed at the altar of some intangible but infinitely worthy higher cause. It would all be worth it in the long run…

This was the con. Convincing myself that there was nowhere I’d rather be was just a coping mechanism. I can see that now. It wasn’t really important. Or of any consequence at all really. How could it be? We were just shifting products. Our product, and the clients. Just meeting the quota. Feeding the beast as I called it on my more cynical days.

So was it worth it?

Well of course not. It turns out it was just advertising. There was no higher calling.”

When faced with death, I wonder how many of us will look back on all the time and effort we put into our careers and will feel the same?

That all being said, sometimes I think a job might be worth it as well.  Here’s the other side of the coin.  I frequently see articles and blog posts, recently, written by people who have given up their careers to travel the world.  It all seems so glamorous and adventurous. Until you realize you had a career and job to pay for all those glamorous adventures! From Adweek, “The Couple Who Quit Their Ad Jobs to Travel the World Ended Up Poor and Scrubbing ToiletsThe uglier side of a year-long creative journey”:

 “You remember Chanel Cartell and Stevo Dirnberger, the South African couple who quit their agency jobs this year to travel the world and document the experience. It sounded like a dream, and the lovely Instagram photos have made it look like one.

But halfway through their year-long odyssey, they posted a reality check on their blog—a post titled “Why We Quit Our Jobs In Advertising To Scrub Toilets”—in which they share “the uglier side of our trip.” It turns out that following one’s dream—while working odd jobs in exchange for room and board—involves a lot of dirty work, and more than a few tears.

“The budget is really tight, and we are definitely forced to use creativity (and small pep talks) to solve most of our problems (and the mild crying fits),” Cartell writes. “Don’t let the bank of gorgeous photography fool you. Nuh uh. So far, I think we’ve tallied 135 toilets scrubbed, 250 kilos of cow dung spread, 2 tons of rocks shoveled, 60 meters of pathway laid, 57 beds made, and I cannot even remember how many wine glasses we’ve polished.

“You see, to come from the luxuries we left behind in Johannesburg … we are now on the opposite end of the scale. We’re toilet cleaners, dog poop scoopers, grocery store merchandisers, and rock shovelers.”

We work for a reason. Your reasons might be vastly different than my reasons, but we all have reasons. I hope if I look death in the face I won’t regret my choices to work and create a successful career. I’ve missed my fair share of school events and sporting events that my kids have participated in. I’ve missed many of their most joyful and sad moments. Those I already regret. What I won’t regret is that I work to allow my family to have so many of these moments.

I’ve lived poor.  I lived with a single mother who wasn’t quite sure how she was going to put dinner on the table that night. I work because I never wanted my family to feel this anxiety.  Sometimes a job is worth it, sometimes it isn’t.  It’s all up to you to decide, though.

The Primary Work Element That Creates Happiness!

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Oh, I bet it’s working for a great boss! Or, maybe it’s having a best friend at work! No, it must be dog-friendly! Puppies make me happy! I wonder if it’s money or free tacos or something like that!?

No, you’re all wrong!

In fact, the one thing that correlates to high employee happiness at the office is the one thing you’re destroying! Isn’t that great! We’ve got one shot, one opportunity, to seize everything our employees ever wanted, but in that moment we let it slip…

There was a study done recently that asked about their modern workplaces. What was it in their office that made them the happiest? Turns out 90% of us want a private office. Yet, on the flip side, in all of our brilliance over 54% of us are converting our offices to open floor plans! Why? Because we’re stupid!

Also, because employees are kind of stupid in answering these kinds of surveys! They will tell you they want one of those cool, open office concepts with the bean bag chairs and picnic tables in a big room because look at those pictures of all the smiling faces of those employees. Also, is it just me, or do those smiling faces seem really attractive as well!? You know what? If we had open offices we would be more attractive!

For a decade, idiots like me and every media outlet known to man as talked about how Millennials just want open, collaborative spaces. We’ll be more productive, and have better teamwork, and make faster decisions, and be more collaborative, and we’ll solve global warming! The reality is much different. Turns out, working in a big, loud room with a bunch of fellow idiots employees makes you less productive.

Oh, great I get to sit in the middle of a giant room, across a giant table, and watch Steven pick his nose.

Here’s what happy productive employees actually want in an office:

  • Private.
  • Great WiFi and up to date technology.
  • Quiet.
  • Comfortable.
  • Cool design (which doesn’t equal ‘open concept’).
  • Well lighted.
  • Professional.
  • Clean, but not sterile.

Do we really hate cubes? Well, we hate cube farms that remind us of the 1979 Soviet Union. I don’t think most hate cubes that are designed for modern workspaces. The problem is we tend to not think about how we can use cubes in a modern design that lets people have a private space, but also open space for times they want that as well. It’s either cube farm or giant open warehouse, we tend to not think in between.

Ultimately, our employees want privacy and cool if you’re working for an organization that has made the decision that coming into the office is important to the success of the organization. I’m also going to guess if this study was done today, employees would also add “Flexibility” to the mix of what would make them most happy at work!

Being Named “Tim” Pays Way Better Than “Jessica”! Why?

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Data is amazing! It can also be funny and sad. Take a recent data analysis of names on resumes and salaries put together by Adzuna who put together a tool that allows you to search your own first name and find your own value (ValueMyResume).

It turns out the amount of money you make based on your name is vastly different on average. Meaning, my average salary for “Tim” is around $103,723. Now, my friend “Jessica” Lee her first name gets her on average $50,571.

Seems weird, right?

My other friend, “Kris” Dunn, gets $0 because as it turns out, not too many dudes have the name “Kris” or “Kristian” with a “K”, but when I put in the traditional spelling of “Chris” he gets $98,257, while “Christopher” only gets $77,554.

From the data here are the top-paying Men and Women names:

Top Paying Women Names
Top Paying Men Names

So, immediately you see top women getting paid way less than top men names. Interestingly, you’ll also notice a bunch more “ethic” derived names on the men’s list. So, this is where data sometimes doesn’t give us the full story. The study found 16,000 unique names on 40,000 resumes. So, “Murat” might be the only “Murat” found and thus if he’s got a great job, his salary is going to be very high.

On the flip side, they might have had hundreds of “Kari’s” and now the overall salary is going to come down because of the extra data available.

Let’s look at the lowest paid Names on average:

Lowest paid female names
Lowest paid male names

Again, males on average make more on the low end than females on the low end. We don’t get specific data points to determine or occupations, so it’s hard to really make any true inferences about what this says.

Do the names on the low end have anything in common or different from the high end? The only real difference I can tell is really on the high-end males seem to have non-traditional American names. Names are derived from Arabic, Indian, and Chinese/Vietnamese. So, we could assume these males are most likely in STEM careers that are on the high end of the salary scale on average, based on college graduation programs correlated to names. You also see a few of these names on the high-end female names as well.

The other part of this data is based on “resume” data. Who has a resume? Usually professional, white-collar folks. So, overall you are going to see a higher overall pay rate on the high and low end than the national average.

You can go to the site and search on your own name and see where you fall. In terms of my own “high” salary average for “Tim”, I’m again going to assume there weren’t many “Tim’s” in the data set, so the ones they got had good jobs! Also, “Tim” is a very GenX name, meaning the Tim’s in the data set were probably late-career and in their prime earning years, so also more likely to have a higher than average salary.

Does this data show a larger problem in America when it comes to Pay Equity?

It might.

The hard part is that with only salary and name data you are going to make a gigantic jump to correlate pay equity issues based on those two data points. There are so many other factors at play that we don’t know from the resumes. Maybe the resumes that were gathered were heavy on males in the IT fields and the female resumes were heavy on non-technical careers. Maybe the male resumes had a higher overall average of experience and female resumes tended to be less experienced. Etc.

But, you can’t not see what you see. And what you see is what we already know to be true, on average, men make more than women, and pay equity is still a major issue that we must fix.

I broke down hundreds of HR Tech Pitches into one winning formula!

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Over the past seven years, I estimate that I’ve listened to roughly 1,000 different HR and TA Technology pitches. As you can imagine, some of these have been super successful and many have failed and were never heard from again. I remember meeting Eightfold’s President, Kamal Ahluwalia, in a bar in Vegas when they probably had eight employees and angel funding and he was telling what this new company was all about and I’m like, yeah, that’s going to do well! Unfortunately, he didn’t offer me founder’s stock!

I’ve got a bunch of those stories, it’s amazing to see technology being born, and down the road thousands of companies using it!

Here’s how about 90%+ of new HR and TA technology startups pitch:

  1. Act like they are the next unicorn and have something no one else does.
  2. Listen to way too many people
  3. Build something they believe their potential buyer wants because they had a potential buyer tell them this is what I want.
  4. Keep building.
  5. Keep building.
  6. Try to sell a little.
  7. Blow it up and build something else, but mostly the same with a new user interface.
  8. Add on, build some more.
  9. Run out of money.

Here’s the winning formula:

  1. Don’t act like a unicorn, but get very curious about real problems organizations are having.
  2. Don’t listen to what HR or Talent pros want.
  3. Listen to what HR and Talent pros can’t get done and if they could get it done what impact would that have to the organization.
  4. Build a working product.
  5. Sell the sh*t out of that product. Get users using it. Sell more of it! No, more!
  6. Go back and make the product better and add on stuff users aren’t asking for because they don’t even know what is possible, but you do.

The single biggest fail of technology startups in the HR ecosystem is they don’t sell and market their product. They just keep hiring engineers and they keep building, mostly without a proof of concept. Or, even worse, they have one proof of concept with one company, and everything they are building is based on what one company wants.

The second biggest mistake startups make is believing they don’t need to be profitable. That’s what VC money is for. We just keep building and gaining users and one day this thing will magically be profitable. You can’t give your tech away for free because “real” users won’t value it. You see, we are willing to pay for stuff we’ll actually use. If I’m not willing to pay you, I probably don’t find very much value in what you built.

The final mistake is HR technology startups underfund sales and marketing by a factor of a hundred! Almost any technology you can build, someone probably has something similar in this space that is around 80-90% of what you do. In fact, there are probably at least ten companies selling something similar to what you’re building. So, you aren’t as unique as you feel you are, but those who market and sell their stuff the best, almost always win.

I see great technology every year that doesn’t make it to the next year, not because the technology doesn’t work, because the founder and the team they’ve assembled, well-meaning, smart, caring folks who want to be successful, don’t know how to sell or market their product. Yes, it’s that simple, and that hard!

How can an HR Tech startup win?

If you get $10 Million in funding, spend $1 million on engineering and $9 million on selling your product. You can shop your engineering out to the Ukraine or India or where ever in the world development is cheaper. You can not shop out sales when selling to the US market.

“Well, if we make great tech, people will find it!” Nope! No, they won’t! Because someone making a good product will be sitting in the office of your buyer and your buyer won’t know who the hell you are.

Tech folks hate this concept. They just want to build great tech. These are the same folks who hate iPhones but love the Google phone. “The iPhone sucks, the Google phones have better technology by a factor of a thousand!” Yeah, but Apple is a genius at marketing and sales. So, we all have iPhones and you have the best phone, congratulations, I hate that I have to text you with a green bubble.

Careerbuilder survived way longer than Monster in the job board wars not because they were better. They were virtually the same! Monster had a bigger brand! CB sold the crap out of their clients! Take a look on LinkedIn and see where most of Indeed’s sales force came from!

The average HR buyer couldn’t name more than a handful of HR Technology companies. There are over 10,000 worldwide. No. One. Knows. Who. You. Are! So, it doesn’t matter what your tech does or doesn’t do if no one knows you!

This isn’t just an HR functional issue. Finance, operations, sales, marketing, IT, etc., we all buy what is sold to us. There might be twenty potential technologies to solve the thing I need solving, but if I only know of three, guess what? I’m buying one of those three! And, all three of those I know, might suck! Why do you think we constantly complain about our technology!?

I sat with an ATS out of Australia that no one has ever heard of. They are awful. Literally, ATS technology from the early 2000s. They found out how to sell to the US government and now have over $500M in US gov’t contracts to provide ATS technology to a number of US agencies. They are still awful, but they figured out how to sell and they are making stupid money delivering an inferior product.

I’m not telling you to make bad technology. Make good technology and be proud of it, and then sell it like it’s the antidote for Covid!

Don’t know how to do that? Let’s talk.

Could You Be Elon Musk’s HR Leader?

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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 the 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 (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 an 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 150k to 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 who 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 this could happen or would be happening soon.

18:30 – KD asks JLee for any guidance from HR leaders who 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 money 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 Tesla out of reach for some lower and middle-class buyers, which he considers ironic due to the fact that elites will still buy a Tesla regardless of the price.

42:30 – KD asks Tim and 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.

Follow Your Talent…Not Your Passion!

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The worst advice you can get as a new professional in the world is to follow your passion. I’ll blame social media and the fake B.S. that proliferates Instagram, TikTok, etc. This one phrase, “Follow Your Passion” is probably the main culprit for the growth of the entire life coaching industry, and has probably ruined more careers than alcohol and drugs combined.

This is the first time I’ve written about this. I love puppies. Petting puppies is my passion. Puppies are awesome! Turns out, no one wants to pay me six figures a year to pet puppies. Ugh…there goes my passion. Honestly, from a talent standpoint, I’m not even sure I’m very good at petting puppies. I mean, I love it, but I don’t think I am necessarily better at it than anyone else.

The other day I heard someone say, “Follow your talent, not your passion.” and I thought, Oh, I like that!

When I tell some young person, you’re stupid, don’t follow your passion. I look like an old ogre who doesn’t get it. I mean I do get it, but when you’re young the world hasn’t beaten you down enough yet to understand what’s real vs. what’s fantasy. What every person can easily understand is “what is your talent”, what are you good at. There might be a number of answers to this. Some of the answers might seem like there isn’t much value, at least to a young person.

“I can easily talk to people I’ve just met.” What value does that have?! Oh, boy, let me tell you! You can work in all kinds of great positions because that skill isn’t something everyone has. I went to school for marketing, and I can talk to people easily, and I actually really like technology. Okay, now we are building up some really great skills that lead to some cool career opportunities.

We all have talents. Individually some of those talents don’t seem like much. You might have a talent of I can get up each day full of energy and ready to work. Great! That isn’t as common as you think! The reality is most of our talents, by themselves don’t seem like much, but when we combine them with other talents, and training, and the right culture fit, some amazing results can happen.

Follow Your Passion is the World’s Worst Advice

Unless your passion has some real value. That part is always missed by people giving that advice. Usually, those giving out that advice have abnormal passions. “My passion was coding and developing game theory and design…” Oh, really, well following that passion in this economy is probably a great idea!

The combination of talent + passion is really difficult for most people. People would say, oh, you love puppies, you should become a breeder or trainer of dogs. No, I have no desire to watch a dog give birth, yuck! Or work with dogs and train them, I just like snuggling them and petting them. I have passion, but no talent.

So, we begin to see there are caveats to following your passion. Basically, you should follow your passion if:

  1. Your passion has real value to earning a living.
  2. Your passion aligns with your talents.
  3. Your passion doesn’t cost your parents their retirement.

Now, my friend, Kris Dunn, believes that the most talented people you will run into usually have a high passion for the industry and/or profession they are thriving in. I believe this is true. So, in that case, yes, follow your passion. But, I wonder, is this a little bit of the chicken or the egg scenario. Do I have passion for this job, because I happen to be really freaking good at this job?!

I think many of us found success in professions we never even thought about doing when we were young. I know I wasn’t in high school thinking, “Oh, boy, I can’t wait to be a Recruiter!” I wasn’t in college thinking that either! But, I became a Recruiter, I became successful recruiting, and I’m really passionate about our profession! I love it! I talk about it every day! I’m proud to call myself a Recruiter.

My passion in college was coaching volleyball. Not very many people know that about me. I was actually pretty good at it as well. Turns out, coaching pays for crap for a lot of years and there aren’t many jobs that pay well. So, I had to make a business decision. Be a poor volleyball coach, or go make some good money and then do some coaching on the side. Some folks will say, I should have stuck it out with my passion, but it all worked out well for me in the end, and I found a passion I didn’t even know I had.

You will never hear me in front of young people telling them to follow their passion. At best, that statement is incomplete and bad advice. I will tell young people to try all kinds of stuff. Find out what you’re good at and determine if that thing is also something you can see yourself doing for a long time. Follow your talent and see if it might turn into a passion. At worse, you’ll be successful, but unhappy with your choice, and still have choices, because you’re successful.

What if you allowed anyone in your company to hire?

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Let me walk you through a scenario and you tell me what I’m missing.

We all have hiring needs right now. Almost all of us are struggling to fill those needs. We love employee referrals! We also have great employees, doing great work who work with us, that we trust.

What would happen if we went to our employees and said, “Hey, we love you and trust you, so we are going to allow you to hire one person. You have total say in whether this person gets hired. We have a few parameters around HR stuff, drug screen, background check, etc., but the hiring decision is yours”.

You could probably add in some fun parameters like:

  • Here are the positions we have open that you can hire someone for. (IE., you might have some positions you don’t want the run of the mill making hiring decisions on)
  • If your hire fails, you won’t get this chance to hire another person for at least a year, so make it a good one!
  • If your hire succeeds, you will be given the ability to hire another person.
  • Maybe you want to throw some sort of bonus to your folks for successful hires, explain what “success” looks like, etc.

What might happen?

Honestly, I don’t know. I’ve never done it, but I think I would be willing to test it out.

Let’s dig into what we think would mostly happen.

My best guess is you would have some employees who would be like, awesome, I’ve got a friend or family member I think would do a great job, and I’m going to hire them. Yes! Some positions get filled and they have some employee sponsorship that will probably help hold them accountable and be more successful.

You will probably have a few misses. Yeah, I thought Johnny would do well, and since he has a record no one will hire him, but he’s my sister’s kid and I really thought he turned his life around and this was a great chance, but ultimately he’s a loser.

You will probably have some employees who think you are nuts and not serious.

The big question is would you allow this for any positions, or just low/no-skill type of positions? I mean, really, conceptually, it works for any level. If I have a finance position open, and there are certain requirements needed for the job, then it isn’t really that hard to see if the person can conceptually do the job or not with their experience and education. So, it could work for any level job, blue-collar or white-collar.

Does this empower your employees?

Imagine being an individual contributor in your organization and one day you wake up and go to work and you realize you can actually hire someone. I can have that experience of making a life-changing decision for someone else. That seems like it would be pretty powerful!

Do you remember the very first person you ever got to hire? That’s a giant career moment. I tend to think every person you hire is a pretty great career moment, but the first one is big!

I think being able to hire someone would be super empowering and it’s really just a next-level employee referral program. Instead of you just referring someone, just take it few more steps and make it happen!

I tend to look at our current staffing problems with a strong testing mentality. Let’s try a bunch of stuff and see what might work. Most of it won’t work, but we might run into something amazing! Maybe our first test of this concept is to go to a hand-selected group of 10 or 20 employees and give them the first shot. Measure the results, gather feedback, decide if it should be rolled out further or what changes should be made.

All that I know is that early in my career if the CEO came into my cube and said, “Tim, we are going to allow you to hire one person to work here!” I would have taken that assignment very seriously and would have thought that was super cool!

What do you think? Tell me how crazy this is.

The Future of Work is Adulting! @disrupt_hr @disrupthrlansing

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Last month we had a little bit of fun with the HR community in downtown Lansing, MI at DisruptHR Lansing. Here is my video from the night:

The Future of Work? Adulting | Tim Sackett | DisruptHR Talks from DisruptHR on Vimeo.

If you want a DisruptHR event in your city, go to the site and check out how. It’s fun and inexpensive, and one of the best ways to have good HR fun in your community! I love speaking at these events because each time is a new challenge, but the crowd is so supportive!

Shout out to my team on DisruptHR Lansing for all their help – Patty Davis and Tina Sutterlin, and my HRU team, especially Lori Johnson for all of her help as well. And our Emcee, Cassie Goodband, from Keyser Insurance (also the main sponsor!)! Behind me, she’s the best Emcee in the business! 😉

To our sponsors – Keyser Insurance, Ultimate Software (UKG), Providence Consulting, MessageMakers, Urban Beat, and HRUTech.com.

HR Famous Talks Vaccine Mandate & Are Millennials Afraid of GenZ?!

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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 the 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.