I’m at The HR Technology Conference this week in Vegas and it’s amazing to see all of the new Leave technology on the market! We were talking about this on the pod this week, check it out!

On episode 81 of The HR Famous Podcast, longtime HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett, Kris Dunn, and Jessica Lee come together to discuss texting in the workplace, the Theranos trial and the proposed paid leave bill.

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

2:40 – KD recently was on a run while on vacation in Florida and pulled out his phone and checked out the Zillow app while running, a normal KD trait.

4:30 – KD asks JLee to speak about an instance when she made a business mistake over texting. JLee mentions a co-worker who had a misspelling error.

7:15 – Tim talks about how the “meeting after the meeting” is now happening during the meeting on Zoom.

9:15 – How cognizant are you of your exclamation point usage in emails? JLee says she doesn’t limit herself like she once did.

12:00 – KD mentions the book Bad Blood by Ramesh Balwani that is about Theranos and their blood testing.

14:00 – KD reads text messages between Elizabeth Homes and Sunny Balwani that were uncovered by the prosecutors at the ongoing Theranos trial.

19:00 – KD thinks that the prosecutor should have a running screen at the trial of the best text exchanges between Holmes and Balwani.

22:30 – JLee warns everyone that text messages can be discovered even if they are deleted.

24:00 – The People Infrastructure Bill coming from the Biden administration has a lot of things that impact the workplace. KD brings up paid leave and the new policy. This policy includes paid leave for almost all workers who have earned wages in the last six months.

26:00 – Tim’s initial reaction is torn because he wants to have the paid leave benefits for American people and families, but he worries about the actual financial cost of these policies.

29:00 – JLee mentions how it’s hard to manage paid leave in a multi-state work environment and how some of these policies could help ease those complications.

31:00 – Tim says that HR pros may be the worst to talk about paid leave because they see all the people that take advantage of systems that are in place to help people.

36:00 – KD reads the nine states that currently have paid leave laws. JLee says she’s surprised Maryland doesn’t have paid leave laws. Tim says that he’s surprised Vermont isn’t included and KD says Minnesota.

On episode 80 of The HR Famous Podcast, longtime HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett and Kris Dunn come together to discuss hiring men to listen to you, generational wealth gaps and how money is dispersed generationally, and in-person HR conferences!

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 and KD are together recording live in Miami! They are seeing the Michigan State Spartans football team take on the Miami Hurricanes.

2:30 – Tim found a new article that discusses a new phenomenon where Chinese women rent men to listen to them.

7:30 – KD wonders what the training for these men is like. He thinks it might involve some body-language training, non-verbal affirmations, and listening skills.

10:30 – KD asks if a young Chinese man would rather go into an industrial career or this type of job. Tim notes that women hiring these men want them to be college-educated, pop-culturally savvy, amongst other qualifications.

12:45 – Recently an economic study found that 30-year-olds across time and generations don’t have any major change in acquired wealth, although there has been a growing dissatisfaction with the wealth gap in the U.S. among young people.

15:15 – KD mentions that he doesn’t know a lot of Boomers who grew up with a lot of wealth or privilege and how our transition into a consumption society has tainted young people’s view of the world.

17:30 – “Comparison is the thief of joy.” — Kris Dunn

21:40 – Tim recently went to the SHRM annual conference and is headed to another SHRM conference with KD. Tim has noticed a small but vocal group on social media trying to stop people from going to these in-person conferences.

24:50 – Tim thinks it’s brave of HR Tech to mandate vaccines for their in-person conferences since it’s alienating about 30% of the potential audience. KD thinks that it’s not brave because they were trying to maximize the biggest audience possible.

28:30 – Tim noticed that there were a lot of extroverts at the SHRM conference and that they were very engaged.

31:40 – Catch Tim and KD at HR Tech from Sept. 28 to Oct. 1.

In episode 79 of The HR Famous Podcast, longtime HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett, Kris Dunn, and Jessica Lee come together to discuss the declining participation rate of males across colleges and universities in America.

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 – KD sent a note to JLee about women’s workplace fashion coming out of Covid and learned a lot in the back and forth.

7:15 – What would you tell someone in 2021 who was sick of their job and wanted to quit? Should they wait before they have another job and join what’s been called “The Great Resignation,” where people quit before having their next gig lined up. Is this a generational thing?

9:30 – JLee thinks that the ability to quit a job before getting another job has a privilege that many people don’t have.

11:00 – Tim says it’s a proven fact that it’s easier to get a job when you have a job. He says don’t quit a job until you have the next.

13:00 – KD mentions an article from the Wall Street Journal about the declining rate of men choosing to attend college. College campuses are becoming a split 60/40 female-to-male.

15:00 – Tim says this is only an issue if we have a functional way to get men into trade-skills careers and similar types of jobs. KD thinks that pointing to alternatives to college as a reason for the drop is not the whole story.

19:30 – KD asks JLee if she can’t fathom a world where men become a focus point for colleges and the companies they serve, or if she believes the world will be unwilling to do that. She thinks both.

20:00 – JLee wonders if there is too much pride in this country to develop programs to build up and take care of young boys through programming. Kris discusses how cultural changes and resulting shifts on campus have created a mismatch between how young men view themselves from a masculinity perspective and their view of campus life.

24:30 – JLee notes that she thinks educational environments don’t often do a good job catering to a diverse set of students and that this could be part of the larger issue of men choosing not to attend college.

26:45 – Tim thinks there are only three avenues for graduates from public schools and that a lot of students aren’t ready or aren’t a good fit for college.

31:45 – JLee says that a man cannot be the one that is the voice and the face of a male-centered campaign to help with this declining rate. Tim points to the fact that a man trying to lead the cause would be seen as an über-conservative. KD wonders aloud why the topic of masculinity can only be viewed as negative and viewed in an extreme way when different versions of masculinity exists and all are not toxic.

On episode 77 of The HR Famous Podcast, longtime HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett, Kris Dunn, and Jessica Lee come together to discuss come together to discuss what back-to-school shopping looks like, Lululemon’s culture issues, and what a real entry-level job looks like.

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 – Back-to-school season is here! Tim saw an article about a Delaware school district that is paying their students’ families to drive their kids to school because there is a bus driver shortage.

6:00 – JLee’s son is obsessed with Nike Dry Fit, but he doesn’t know the difference between Target and Nike because he can’t read. Target it is!

7:45 – Tim’s youngest son does not care at all what he wears, so no new clothes for back to school!

10:00 – Some Lululemon employees have come forward recently and complained about a bullying environment in their workplace. Many employees get asked before they work if “they sweat today.”

16:00 – Tim thinks that this is a startup vs. a growth-company issue. Startups will go to great lengths to find employees who match their culture, but the more you grow, the more people will stray from that culture.

19:15 – JLee wants her kids to live as she did with no brand names. Tim said his dad would pay for half of whatever brand-name shoes he wanted in high school.

21:30 – KD mentions that this is a lighter version of the same issue that faces Hooters when hiring since the brand revolves around people’s appearances.

22:30 – JLee noticed a report on LinkedIn about the shrinking number of entry-level jobs and that now, entry-level jobs require years of experience.

26:00 – Tim says that a job is not an entry-level job when they require years of experience in the field of the job, and he doesn’t like it when companies act like these jobs are truly entry-level.

29:00 – Tim mentions Enterprise’s management training program and how everyone tried to replicate it because it was so successful.

33:00 – KD likes a group or a cohort of new hires where they can experience it together and demonstrate a strong alumni base post-entry-level position.

In episode 74 of The HR Famous Podcast, longtime HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett, Kris Dunn, and Jessica Lee come together to discuss fears of employee communication monitoring, how much bosses are really monitoring their employees, and LinkedIn’s latest announcement on their plan for remote work.

Show Highlights

3:00 – Tim mentions a county in Michigan that is offering new residents $15,000 to move there and buy property. He asks the crew how much money they would move for.

6:00 – Jessica mentions a program in Italy right now where they’re selling properties for dirt cheap in hopes that people will come and revitalize and invest in small Italian towns.

8:30 – Tim asks the crew if they’ve ever been nervous that a boss was monitoring their communications. JLee says that only when she’s said something bad about that boss.

10:30 – JLee asks Tim and KD if they think people are worried their bosses are reading their actual emails. Tim says that it partly is an HR narrative issue, and he says most times actual people aren’t monitoring; it’s technical processes that are.

13:15 – While Tim was working at Applebee’s, his boss got flagged that he was spending a lot of time on Facebook. At the time, they were trying to do some recruiting initiatives on the platform.

17:00 – JLee asks if it’s OK for her to judge her team members for having such expensive phone plans.

19:30 – Tim loves to mess with KD and JLee by sending them annoying messages while they’re presenting in a meeting so the notifications pop up for everyone to see.

24:00 – LinkedIn’s CEO recently published a post titled “We Trust Each Other.” The company decided to go back to work half-time, and this post reflects on that decision and revises the org’s policy, where moving forward LinkedIn is offering more flexibility to its employees and where they work.

27:00 – JLee applauds this messaging, even though LinkedIn is backpedaling on its original announcement. She likes messages with the word “trust” and thinks it’s smart from a communication perspective.

On episode 73 of The HR Famous Podcast, longtime HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett, Kris Dunn, and Jessica Lee come together to discuss weird tactics companies are using to find employees, TikTok resumes, and their reactions to the Olympics!

Show Highlights

2:00 – The whole crew was very into the 2020 Summer Olympics, even though they’re confused on why it’s called 2020 and not 2021. KD is watching the NBC primetime coverage

4:30 – KD wonders why the divers take showers after every dive. JLee tells him that it’s to keep their muscles warm since the pool is so cold. The more you know!

7:00 – Shout out to Katie Ledecky, who’s from JLee’s home area! What a beast.

9:30 – JLee is teaching her children about the Olympics and how they should root for everyone to do well and be happy for all the winners. Great sports life lessons!

11:00 – The majority of the U.S. Olympic team are women. This is the third straight Olympics where women outnumber men for Team USA.

12:15 – JLee asks Tim and KD about the weirdest thing they’ve seen to help with hiring. She saw a Wendy’s that was offering a free meal to do an interview for a job. KD says that the lack of change by some companies has been the oddest thing to him.

15:45 – JLee shouts out Chipotle for hopping on TikTok to ramp up hiring.

17:20 – Tim talks about how Chipotle got an influencer to come in and make a video about her past employment there. He thinks this is a really smart recruitment marketing tactic.

19:30 – JLee talks about an influencer Marriott uses that makes content about being a foster mom of teenage girls.

22:30 – Tim praises TikTok Resumes for being innovative, unlike many other social platforms, but he’s upset that their job-description language is the same traditional, boring descriptions from the past.

27:00 – Tim thinks that smaller brands can have more impact using TikTok for hiring since the bigger brands have more risk involved.

31:30 – JLee asks the crew what they would say if their kids asked if they should do a TikTok resume. Tim says that if a brand is on TikTok Resumes, they should know what they’re getting themselves into.