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 below) 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 to 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 33 of The HR Famous Podcast, longtime 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!

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

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 messages 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 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 below) and be sure to subscribe, rate, and review (Apple Podcasts) and follow (Spotify)!

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 an 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 on tech contractors, over the road drivers, etc.

22:30 – Tim hates California and believes doing business in California is 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 case you missed it, McDonald’s recently claimed CEO Steve Easterbrook had sexual relationships with three underlings that it hadn’t known about when it negotiated a package worth a reported $42 million over an inappropriate relationship, alleging he had “lied” and “concealed evidence” about the affairs.

The evidence includes dozens of naked or explicit photos and videos of women — some of them Easterbrook’s subordinates at McDonald’s — that he allegedly sent in attachments to his personal email account from his work email account.

McDonald’s used the finding to start the proceedings to recover and/or block the severance package it had negotiated with Easterbrook. At the time of the agreement, McDonald’s simply thought it was terming Easterbrook for a consensual relationship with an underling. A July tip by an employee opened the investigation back up, and here we are.

Which begs the following question – isn’t a hard scrub of an executive’s email a standard procedure to ensure you’re getting all the bad stuff out of the way before you hand over a package of $42M?

Easterbrook thinks so and has fired back at the fast-food giant’s allegations that he lied about his habit of sexting with multiple employees, claiming that the company should have known about the issue when it handed him a fat severance package last year.

Of course, that statement doesn’t sound like he told them, right?

We discuss it all as our second topic on this week’s HR Famous Podcast, see the player below, and the timestamps to give it a listen.

And when you’re making a move on an executive, ask IT to do a search for all *jpeg, *png and *mov files that were forwarded to an outside account from that individual’s work email. Geez.

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

4:40 – Tim got some flowers for his wife and tried to share a 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.

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.

In episode 24 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett, Kris Dunn, and Jessica Lee are back to discuss the escalation of career expectations for college students (as well as the musical Hamilton and Glassdoor/Indeed changes).

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 – KD is now a user of a standing desk. How do you like yours?

2:00 – Hamilton time! Tim convinced the rest of the crew to watch Hamilton on Disney+ and Jlee says she respects it but is not the biggest fan of musicals or history.

4:20 – Tim asks KD and Jlee who they think each of the HR Famous crew is in the Hamilton cast. Tim and Jlee both think they’re Alexander Hamilton. KD doesn’t think that Hamilton is charismatic enough to be Tim. KD wins by being compared to George Washington and King George by his friends.

11:00 – First topic of the day: Indeed and Glassdoor are merging services. Tim thinks that this is bad news for Glassdoor and worries that Indeed will sell out the mission of Glassdoor for $$$.

14:45 – Second topic of the day: new grads! We welcome Tim’s middle son, Cameron, who is a recent graduate of the University of Michigan to discuss his latest experience in the job market. Cam is looking for a job in the entertainment industry in marketing/social media and he spends a lot of his time applying for jobs and reaching out to UMich alums to network.

18:15 – KD asks Cam about the alumni network at the University of Michigan and how he tries to leverage that connection. He talks about the different types of responses he gets and the steep cost of being a member of the U of M Alumni Association.

22:00 – KD and Jlee talk about network fatigue that is occurring right now due to the many people who are currently looking for a job and how this will make it harder for anyone to make new connections.

23:30 – The HR Famous crew wants to see Cam out in the news space talking about his experience. If you want to interview a new grad on his job search or are interested in Cam for your company, find him on LinkedIn!

24:30 – Tim talks about his perspective as a parent of a new grad and an HR professional and how he’s had to watch the struggles of his son enter a bad job market.

26:15 – Tim asks Cam about candidate experience and what kind of response rate he’s getting from companies. Tim talks about how he thinks the data from this year about candidate experience is going to be really poor.

29:00 – KD discusses his worries about post-grad jobs in a COVID and post-COVID world. He thinks we’re setting difficult expectations for high performing college students who are entering the job force. Jlee worries that colleges are just using student’s successes and expectations to get the best crop of incoming students.

32:45 – Tim talks about his blog post he wrote about Cam’s college admissions experience and how the college admission system is screwed up. KD is a big fan of the comments on the blog post and still subscribes to them 4 years later.

35:30 – KD asks Cam about how he remembers his college admissions experience and the frustrations he felt during this time.

37:30 – KD asks Jlee about her experience going through college as a child of immigrant parents. She discusses the high expectations that her parents had for her and how she’s going to change and adapt those expectations for her children.

40:00 – Jlee discusses her rebellious streak as a young adult and how she did well enough to get by and still rise to the top of her field.

41:30 – HR Famous thinks the cream always rises to the top!

44:00 – KD posted a blog post on the HR Capitalist this week about a woman who reached out to him that had worked at the same call center for four years. He thinks that regardless of where anyone starts, the best will always rise and reach where they want to be.

47:00 – Cam talks about what he thinks about taking a call center and his hesitations. He says that he would be more willing to take a customer service entry-level position if he’s joining a company that has great upward mobility and career mentoring.

48:45 – The HR Famous crew gives their last words of advice to Cam on the job search.