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 (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 years, many people will have newfound 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 lets 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 salespeople 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 five to six times their salary 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 U.S. to help fight worker-shortage issues.

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 – 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 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 its users OK 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 U.S. population grew by 0.1%. This is the lowest amount since 1918 when the influenza pandemic and World War I 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 sound minuscule for what is actually needed to help with the lack of workers in this country.

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 (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 longtime 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 34%.

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 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.

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. 

On episode 82 of The HR Famous Podcast, longtime HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett, Kris Dunn, and Jessica Lee come together to discuss TikTok hiring, recruitment marketing on social media, and Gen Z job-hopping.

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 – Tim is a TikTok user and often sends clips to his closest friends and family, including KD and JLee. JLee deleted the app, so she only gets them from Tim now.

5:00 – There is a new TikTok trend where someone asks a question like “tell me blank” and people respond. The Amazon brand account created one where the question was, “What was the best thing you ever got off of Amazon?” and an employee responded and said, “My career”. Tim thinks Amazon has a great TikTok employment branding presence.

8:15 – KD thinks that social media recruiting only works on platforms that display company and job titles.

13:00 – JLee thinks that recruiters may get off the rails and try to improve their own personal brand. She thinks that a lot of recruitment marketing content is cheap and unoriginal.

15:00 – Cameron, Tim’s son, recently shared a TikTok with Tim where a young worker was sharing the advice to job-hop in order to increase salaries.

16:00 – JLee thinks the only reason to job-hop is to get different experiences and try new things.

17:30 – KD says the concept of job-hopping is not new but the advice is. He also thinks that two years is the perfect time for a young person to job-hop.

21:30 – Tim and JLee say that if you’re hopping laterally to several different jobs, there has to be a story behind it.

24:30 – JLee worries that if you’re making progression in your career but you are hopping from company to company, you aren’t good enough to ever get promoted internally.

26:00 – AppCast recently came out with data for companies that are struggling to get applicants. Some of their advice includes shortening your apply cycle and posting jobs at the start of the week and the end of the month.

29:00 – Tim says that only 1/10 TA leaders know where applicants are dropping off in their application process.

32:00 – Another piece of advice is to include at least two specific benefits in the job posting. This improved application rates by at least 40%.