January 29, 2026 • 33 mins
A hot take roared across X: “HR is useless—fire 90% and business will run happier.” We lean into the controversy and pull it apart with real stories, practical examples, and a clear look at where HR earns its seat. From ADA moments that avoid lawsuits to manager coaching that prevents blowups, we show how accountability—not buzzwords—separates meaningful work from noise.
First, we swap winter war stories and a few travel mishaps, then pivot to a candid breakdown of a truly awful presentation and the simple fixes that make complex information land: fewer codes, more context, cleaner slides, and clear narrative. That sets the stage for the debate that follows. We explore why the anti-HR sentiment resonates for some employees, how corporate language can block trust, and why AI won’t replace HR but will reveal which teams do real leadership. Compliance is not a punchline; it’s the baseline. Risk management is not fear; it’s care with foresight.
We get specific. Need a special chair for back pain? Handle it fast, document it, and move on—protecting the company while treating the person with respect. We talk through the less visible wins: Secure 2.0 changes, ACA and ADA realities, and the slow, unglamorous work of turning laws into payroll and process that actually function. Then we spotlight a growing threat to candidates: recruiter impersonation scams that exploit hope and urgency. You’ll get crisp verification steps to stay safe, plus a reminder to trust your gut when something feels off.
We wrap with community shout-outs and a simple invite to text us from the show notes. If you care about real HR, better leadership, and cutting through rage bait with practical, human solutions, this one’s for you. Subscribe, share with a manager who needs it, and leave a quick review to help others find the show.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_03 (00:02):
Had you actually read the email, you would know
that the podcast you are aboutto listen to could contain
explicit language and offensivecontent.
These HR experts' views are notrepresentative of their past,
present, or future employers.
If you've ever heard, my manageris unfair to me, I need you to
reset my HR portal password, orcan I ride up my employee for
(00:25):
crying too much?
SPEAKER_02 (00:26):
Welcome to our little safe zone.
Welcome to JR.
SPEAKER_01 (00:49):
Welcome to JDHR, the podcast by two HR professionals
who want to help you get throughthe workday by saying everything
you're thinking, but say it outloud.
I'm Warren.
SPEAKER_00 (00:58):
I'm CeC.
SPEAKER_01 (00:59):
All right.
Hopefully we have better audiothan our last episode because
that was uh almost embarrassingto post as I'm editing it.
That my microphone of five and ahalf years just decided no moss,
no moss.
Yeah, but hopefully this onedoes better.
Thank you.
I really debated not publishingit at all.
(01:21):
So we did miss a week last week,but we are back with you.
We've uh survived the snow, orin my case, rain, and we're
about to get hit with snow.
But wow, it's been a crazy fewweeks.
SPEAKER_00 (01:32):
We got 13 inches, and uh I gotta be honest, we
lucked out because we didn't getany sleet and any rain, only
snow.
But it's a powdery wonderlandout there, and it's so cold it's
not going away.
So it's just gonna eternally besnow on the ground.
SPEAKER_01 (01:47):
Is Bean enjoying it?
SPEAKER_00 (01:50):
It's been too cold to take her out.
Oh, it's been like nine degrees.
School's been canceled, and Ihave not seen any kids in our
neighborhood playing outside.
That's how cold it is.
SPEAKER_01 (02:01):
Oh, yeah.
Our highs have been in the 20s,which is horrible.
During the snowstorm we weresupposed to get, some forecasts
put us like 10 inches, some putus in the sleek snow line.
We just got rain.
We had a few flurries for a fewminutes, and that's all we had.
Nice.
I'm happy with that, but itlooks like this weekend we're
(02:22):
gonna get our dumping on.
So we'll see.
Maybe they'll be wrong yetagain.
SPEAKER_00 (02:27):
Maybe they'll be wrong.
But I do have to say they were ahundred percent right on this
one.
They were saying we were gonnaget 12 inches and we got 13.
So I was like, oh, that's prettyaccurate.
Uh it is now nine degrees here.
Oh wow.
Yeah, no children are playingoutside.
SPEAKER_01 (02:42):
Yeah, I don't think I could handle that.
I would say, yeah, oh wow, we'vegone up since I got home from
work.
We're up to 32.
So something's warm front.
SPEAKER_00 (02:51):
Something's coming on, but I do have to say, one of
my best friends, her dad turned80 and they went on this really
bougie trip to the Bahamas.
She just came back today, andall of her photos the past week
have been her on boats withcocktails and sun.
And I'm like, welcome home.
SPEAKER_01 (03:10):
Oh, yeah.
My wife had to make a trip totheir headquarters outside of
Washington, D.C.
this week.
And I was hoping they wouldcancel it, but she she's up
there in the snow.
At first, I was hoping they'dcancel it.
Second, I was trying to convincemy wife to take the train.
I would drive her up to theclosest train station.
(03:31):
It is uh a four-hour ride on onetrain, a transfer in DC, and
then a metro ride undernon-horrible snowy conditions,
because their area got like 24inches of snow where her office
is.
You could walk to either thehotel or her office from the
metro station.
But I told her, just take anUber.
(03:52):
Yeah, the guy give him a 200%tip that you're gonna he's going
like 200 yards or something likethat.
But she even when he lived up inDC, she hates the trains.
If I was with her and we wantedto go somewhere and we'd take
the train, that was fine.
She will not navigate thatsystem by herself.
SPEAKER_00 (04:08):
So I went to grad school in Connecticut and I
would go to New York City likeall the time.
And I so appreciate really goodpublic transportation.
Like I love the train, I lovethe subway.
I was not responsible fordriving on the road.
(04:30):
And mind you, this was gradschool, so I would just wander
drunk with my friends and no onehad to drive.
It was amazing.
I love public transportation.
SPEAKER_01 (04:39):
When we lived up there, two stops down, once a
week, they had an express trainto New York City.
And I kept saying that I wasgoing to try and get Lime King
Broadway tickets and trick mywife one day.
Hey, we're going into DC.
Let's hop the train because shewouldn't have a clue where we're
doing.
And take the train once andbefore.
SPEAKER_00 (04:58):
True passenger princess.
I love it.
SPEAKER_01 (05:01):
And take the train, get off the platform.
We just have to get on probablythe same platform when the
express came through and goscrape New York City.
We could have gotten off rightone subway station or two stops
from the Amtrak station toBroadway, I think it was.
I was like, I can do this, andshould we be an hour away before
she even realizes we're not inDC.
(05:23):
Wait a minute.
Surprise her that way.
I always wanted to try and dothat, but never did.
I'm bacheloring it this weekend.
So my dinner tonight was apeanut butter and jelly and a
root beer.
And I am perfectly fine withthat.
SPEAKER_00 (05:38):
I love it.
SPEAKER_01 (05:39):
Yeah, we had some interesting good things going
on, but you had some fun stuffin the LD world.
SPEAKER_00 (05:44):
Oh yeah.
I have spent years creating,facilitating, selecting
individuals to be in variousprograms, like leadership
development.
And this is the first time in mylife that I have been nominated
to participate in a program.
I started this cohort, and I amso thrilled to be a participant
(06:10):
instead of the architect.
I am just having the time of mylife.
Always a bridesmaid, never abride, until today.
SPEAKER_01 (06:17):
Oh, congratulations.
And being so new there, I guessyou really made an immediate
impact.
SPEAKER_00 (06:24):
Look at me.
Who would have guessed?
Love it.
SPEAKER_01 (06:28):
Awesome.
SPEAKER_00 (06:29):
Yeah, it's been fun.
I love it.
So I'm having a blast.
SPEAKER_01 (06:33):
Good for you.
I've just had a crazy couple ofweeks in, like I said, we're
about to start open enrollment,and that's gonna be a little bit
crazy.
SPEAKER_00 (06:40):
Nice.
Yeah, I got performance reviewscoming up.
So I'm just finishing that.
And I have a presentationtomorrow to our HR team letting
them know the wonderful changesthat are coming down the pike
because honestly, I'm trying tomake it as easy as possible.
I hope they like it.
So fingers crossed.
SPEAKER_01 (06:58):
Off topic, we didn't talk about this.
The presentations, I had attenda presentation day, and I kid
you not, it was one of the worstpresentation.
I got up and walked out.
There was a little technicalglitch, and that was my cue.
I even just said in front of theroom, this is god awful.
I can't do this any longer.
The presenter English is not herfirst language.
SPEAKER_00 (07:21):
Okay.
SPEAKER_01 (07:22):
If you're presenting to a group of people, especially
remotely, you Englishcommunication skills might need
to be increased verysignificantly to do the job
adequately.
On top of that, she keptreferencing all these code
numbers for government codes forstuff.
And it just grinding, there wasa slide of nothing but code,
(07:44):
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,supports code, blah, blah, blah.
Nobody can follow it.
It was absolutely awful.
I just said, I'm out.
I can't do this anymore.
This is god-awful.
And I just a good presentationis really, really worth it.
And it's gonna make me nextpresentation I do for open
enrollment.
We'll get rid of all that out.
(08:05):
I want to make sure every T iscrossed, every diet is dotted,
and I am ready and ultraprepared so I can speak well
about the products and the planswe have and the changes we're
going through in front ofeverybody because I just I could
not do it.
I'm sorry.
I'm I've been having a littlebit of a day, so I was a little
(08:26):
bit moody already.
That was just another strongcamel's back for I have to be
honest.
SPEAKER_00 (08:32):
The first time I worked at a global company, like
the okay, so first of all,backtrack.
Like I grew up, my dad's mydad's originally from Turkey.
I grew up with my dad having avery thick Turkish accent.
Uh-huh.
And it would be funny because Iwould never hear it.
But my friends would be like,your dad has such an accent.
And I'm like, I don't hear it.
And then I started working inglobal companies, and it took it
(08:56):
a while.
It took fairly quickly, but atthe beginning, there was like
certain accents where I waslike, oh crap, I have to pay
real close attention todecipher.
But then all of a sudden withina week, I'm like, oh, okay, I
got this.
SPEAKER_01 (09:08):
Yeah, it's amazing.
My two quick stories aboutaccents, English proficiency.
My brother-in-law, he'soriginally from Chile, and he
speaks, I've known, I don't knowhow long he's been in the
country.
I've known him at least 10years.
He speaks beautiful English, andit's almost who's the puss and
boots actor of Antonio Benderis.
(09:29):
Yeah.
And he's got an awesome voice.
Now, flip the switch to mywife's sister-in-law, is from
Colombia.
I was in their wedding 30 yearsago.
She's been in the United Statesprobably 40 years, but her
Spanglish is ridonkulous becausepart of it is she works for a
(09:50):
company, she does internationalcustomer support, so she's
speaking Spanish all day and sheloves her job.
She's just the happiest claimyou've ever had doing that.
But she has not lost any bit ofher accent or her spanglish.
SPEAKER_00 (10:03):
It's like my dad.
SPEAKER_01 (10:05):
In the same room with her, I understand her just
fine.
But over the telephone or video,it loses something in being
electronically communicated.
SPEAKER_00 (10:14):
Funny.
SPEAKER_01 (10:21):
Not better.
I won't say that.
She speaks well.
It's just heavy, heavy.
It's like Sofia Bagara onsteroids that you'd say.
I love it.
She speaks very well.
It's fine.
SPEAKER_00 (10:30):
Whatever.
I can't judge because they speakmore languages than I do.
SPEAKER_01 (10:34):
Yes, absolutely.
Absolutely.
Maybe our discussion onlanguages threw you into a
little bit of a rage, but one ofour most popular episodes last
year was our rage bait episodewhen we talked about Jennifer
Say from XXXY Athletics, whostarted doing some rage baiting.
Somebody else.
SPEAKER_00 (10:55):
I took the bait and I got rageful.
I'm keeping it calm tonight.
SPEAKER_01 (11:00):
Apparently, last week, someone else did a very
similar thing.
Her name is Amanda Goodall.
And on January 12th, so a littlebit over a week, I guess it's
right, she put on X.
I still want to call it Twitter.
She posted on X.
HR is the only department thatgets a free pass for being
(11:20):
completely useless.
They produce zero revenue, killmorale with endless policies,
protecting the company, not you,and somehow still get invited to
every meeting like they'reessential.
Move 90% of HR tomorrow, and thebusiness would run smoother,
faster, and happier.
Change my mind with the littleflaming emoji.
Cool.
SPEAKER_00 (11:40):
And uh I can't I can't change your mind.
I'm now yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (11:46):
Her Twitter handle is the job chick.
I meant to check out herLinkedIn or something like that
to see what her is she when shesays the job chick, what does
that mean?
But anyhow, it's your M1A1stereotypical hate HR.
You can say something just likethis, and it's gonna get on when
I copied and pasted this onwhatever day I did it, she
(12:10):
already had 2.1 million views onthis tweet.
There were some interestingresponses to her, and uh yeah,
there were some interestingresponses to her.
Some were like pro-HR and somewere anti-HR.
I found this tweet from JacobMorgan.
He referenced her tweet.
(12:30):
One of the things he wrote wasthe frustration is clear, and
many people can relate.
However, while that take isemotionally satisfying and also
strategically lazy, AI isn'tmaking HR irrelevant, it's
making bad HR impossible tohide.
And then he goes on MIT's humanin loop studies consistently
(12:52):
find that AI drives productivitywhen accountability stays with
human, not when decisions arefully automated.
Uh and he just goes on indefending HR to a certain
extent.
Uh, why is the future of HR notabout becoming more technical?
It's about becoming moreaccountable.
AI doesn't replace HR, itreveals whether HR is ever doing
(13:12):
real leadership to work to beginwith.
And that's a reckoning thatwe're heading towards.
And frankly, it's overdue.
And so I like that.
He was both pro and con HRbecause I've said it any number
of times in the podcast.
HR is an industry full of peoplewho are not HR professionals.
They were their good secretary.
(13:32):
And then they because they're agood secretary or a good
customer service person, they'llbe a good HR person.
And that's not the way lifeworks all the time.
Not saying those people can'tlearn.
SPEAKER_00 (14:17):
Yeah, it goes with the whole it's the same idea of
promoting a really goodperformer into a manager.
Just because you're good atpeople, it doesn't necessarily
mean you're going to be aproficient HR person.
SPEAKER_01 (14:29):
Yeah.
It's the bad HR people that makeus look bad.
I'm going to butcher this name,not intentionally.
It's from Medium Online.
The name is Inraidi Saha, andI'm sorry for butchering that
name.
But uh she wrote when leadershipadvisor made a goodall tweeted
that companies should fire 90%of HR tomorrow.
(14:51):
It didn't spread because it waspolite or balanced.
It went viral because itcaptured something many
employees already feel butrarely articulate.
She goes into why employeesshared the tweet so aggressively
in her words.
Because HR protects the company,not the employee.
Same old policies over people,blah, blah, blah.
Corporate language instead ofclarity, a performance system
(15:13):
that rewards compliance, notcontribution.
And over time it creates abelief that HR exists and made
at risk, not people.
It's just the real issue isn'tHR.
It's power withoutaccountability.
SPEAKER_03 (15:26):
Yes.
SPEAKER_01 (15:26):
Authority without transparency.
She goes on.
It creates a dangerous imbalancebecause HR influences careers,
employees lack meaningful appealmechanisms, and decisions are
final, not fair.
It's once again regurgitatingthe same stuff.
SPEAKER_00 (15:44):
Ah, okay.
Like I, and this is one of thosethings.
It's just it just really dependson the company.
I worked at companies where HRis respected and does the right
thing, and it's all about thepeople first.
And yes, is HR there to protectthe company?
Of course.
But at the same time, that's nota dirty secret.
I don't know.
But but then you have then Iworked at companies where it was
(16:07):
like HR was referred to asprofit sucking overhead.
And like literally verbatim.
And it's just like why whatrespect does that company have
for HR?
For me, it just depends onleadership, like the C-suite and
how the C-suite seriously takesHR.
And if they don't, then no oneelse is going to.
(16:29):
And also, if you just have HR asjust administrative pencil
pushers, then you're doing itwrong.
SPEAKER_01 (16:34):
Absolutely.
My favorite response to thiscame from our friends, Suzanne
Lucas.
She put this on Inc.
magazine, and some of the thingsshe referenced the XXXY Jennifer
Save person who called HRofficious whole monitors.
But here's some of her mainpoints that she put in her
(16:54):
article there.
First, compliance isn'toptional.
And that's a fair portion of HRin any if you're in benefits, if
you're an LD, if you are inemployee relations, it doesn't
matter what you do.
Compliance is a huge portion ofHR.
You gotta play do it.
(17:15):
She writes, risk doesn't manageitself.
At what point do you put anemployee on a performance
improvement claim?
When do you terminate?
You have to know how to handleit.
And you I one thing I'm glad Ihave other people.
I'm not a uh on an island uponmyself because I do need someone
(17:36):
to balance me out becausesometimes I just want to say, F
you, get the hell out of hereand be gone.
I need someone to balance me outand say, let's think of this
way.
Because I do get very reactionalsometimes when, especially just
stupid people.
But, anyways, Suzanne continues,managers don't know what they're
doing.
Hey, boss, my back really hurts.
Can I get a standing desk?
(17:57):
Do your managers know how torespond to that?
And uh a few years ago, we haduh someone go to our my
assistant, a former assistant ofmine, and ask for a specific
chair for their back situation.
And she wanted this, that.
I said, I said, just have hersend us some links to the chair
she wants and let's take a lookat what she's done.
She wanted like a$250 chair, andI think the normal office chairs
(18:19):
are not.
I was like, just get it.
Don't ask her about ADA oranything like that.
She wants this chair.
250 bucks, get it, done.
SPEAKER_00 (18:28):
See, and that's what I was talking about before.
Like when we say HR is there toprotect the company.
That's honestly a really goodexample of what the average
employee doesn't think of interms of protecting the company,
because we're protecting thecompany from the employee who
could turn around and belitigious.
So, in one point, it's we'rehelping you, we're also helping
the company, but people don'tsee that.
(18:49):
It's we're still gonna help youout.
And also, we do want to justhelp you out because we're
fucking human.
Yeah.
Spend$200 on a chair.
I don't care.
In the grand scheme of things,$200 is a drop in the bucket to
satisfy an employee with anykind of ADA needs they have.
So just do it.
SPEAKER_01 (19:06):
Now she'd come back and need this$3,000 chair or
something, then we're gonna haveto begin the interactive
process.
And see, but when I said, Hey,just send us the links, we'll go
from there.
And she sent three links andthey were all right around the
same process.
I said, Pick your favorite oneand and I'll order it.
That was the extent of ourinteractive process on that.
SPEAKER_00 (19:24):
Could you imagine if there was no HR and the manager
was like, I don't want to spend$200, how quickly that could
escalate?
Yeah.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (19:31):
I'm not conserving $250 or whatever.
SPEAKER_00 (19:34):
Just like all the things under HR, if you're
thinking compliance, conflictresolution, recruiting,
onboarding, performancemanagement, like you really want
to put all that on a managerwho's not trained.
And by the way, managers who arealready stretched, because not
only are they doing their owncontributor work, but they're
(19:55):
also like leading a team.
So now you're gonna put that onthem without training.
Okay.
Like that's fine.
All I know is that at thereferring back to the same
company that thought HR was justprofit-sucking overhead, we
would be like, you you have tocoach your employees, you have
to do performance management.
And they would literally turnaround and be like, but I have
real work to do.
And I'm like, that is your realwork.
(20:16):
Like so if you're complainingthat you have to coach someone
on something, okay, throwrecruiting on there too.
Go find your next director forit.
Oh, and then do an onboardingplan for them and all the
things, just put it on yourplate on top of your quote
unquote real work.
SPEAKER_01 (20:30):
Yeah, exactly.
They don't realize.
The value of HR for instance.
We see these magic ratio numbersfor this type of company should
be one to one hundred, and thistype of company should be two to
five hundred or whatever theseratios they have.
But it depends on what thecompany is doing and the type of
employees you're hiring andthings like that.
How many people do you need inyour team?
(20:52):
But you can't, I have myself arecruiter and an HR journalist.
That's our HR team.
And it works perfectly.
If we get I I think we'd have toprobably double in size before I
needed to add a headcount to us.
We'll see.
We are slate for a heck of a lotof growth in 2026.
So we'll put that to the test.
(21:13):
But I might be changing my mindafter that.
Let's see here.
Suzanne Lucas goes on.
HR does the stuff you voted for.
And it's like the ACA, handlingthe ACA, ADA, all those other
wonderful acronyms that we haveto know that are laws that
people voted for.
So now we have to figure out howto make it happen.
(21:35):
And this whole Secure 2.0 act onyour benefits and 401k.
This has been a little bit crazywith that working with our
payroll company to make surethat uh these provisions of
Secure 2.0 can work.
And it's not just something, ohyeah, sure.
It requires some strategy, someplanning, some forethought.
It just doesn't happen byitself.
unknown (21:55):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (21:56):
Our final point was HR does protect your business,
and that's okay.
But does HR protect thebusiness?
Absolutely.
Just as the finance departmentensures the business has money
to in the right place.
You would never expect thefinance department to go around
paying people's mortgagesinstead of putting revenue in
the proper places.
Why should you think HR shouldgo around prior prioritizing the
(22:16):
employees over the company?
If you hate HR, then reach outto your congressional
representative about updatingand changing laws.
If you don't like policies, talkto the CEO CEO.
And if you're a manager, learnhow to manage.
Until then, HR doesn't bring inmoney, but they surely prevent
you from spending money onlawsuits and ridiculous terms.
SPEAKER_00 (22:34):
See, that's my point.
Articulated perfectly.
Mic drop.
Mic drop.
That's it.
That's it.
And that's a sucky thing becauseit's like we're a cost center,
we're not a profit center.
So like it you can't seetangibly at the end of the year,
like all the money that we bringinto a company because we don't,
but all the money that we save acompany.
SPEAKER_01 (22:53):
Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00 (22:54):
It's just a bunch of HR haters.
You can't be as cool as us.
So you just gotta write nonsenserage bait.
SPEAKER_01 (23:01):
Yep, exactly.
SPEAKER_00 (23:02):
Rage bait is you can't sit with us.
SPEAKER_01 (23:05):
We're cool kids.
SPEAKER_00 (23:07):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (23:07):
I've never been one of the cool kids.
SPEAKER_00 (23:09):
Never.
No.
SPEAKER_01 (23:11):
Oh Eddie How I got it.
I gotta kick out a that littlearticle and some of the replies.
SPEAKER_00 (23:17):
I get it.
I get the trust piece, but atthe same time, the trust piece
is company specific.
And I think it probablyresonates with I think it's
pretty ratioed in the comments.
It looks like it's about 50-50.
So I'm like, if people are likereally negative, that's the
company you work for.
And that's an issue with thecompany you work for.
SPEAKER_01 (23:34):
And like I said, there is a hell of a lot of bad
HR out there.
SPEAKER_00 (23:37):
I've witnessed some.
SPEAKER_01 (23:39):
I I wouldn't go to John Hyman's worst employers
list.
I think the most recent one waspretty interesting.
Check that out.
You can see his last article.
He said this was not only acomplete HR failure.
I forget what he called it, butcheck that article out on his
blog or on like that.
It's a good read about the mostrecent addition to that.
SPEAKER_00 (23:56):
The only one I can think of off the top of my head
that was the most haunting wasthe CVS employee who was
complaining to people that thecoworker was creepy, and then
the coworker ended up murderingher.
So I was like, oh God, that wasthe yeah.
And the company CVS didn'treally do anything about it or
didn't act on it, and she endedup getting murdered.
SPEAKER_01 (24:15):
Someone I know, I was talking to you about this a
couple weeks ago offline, thatis having to do with some bad
HR.
And I'm trying to help themnavigate through it.
But it's been three weeks andthere's been no follow-up.
So I'm like, maybe somebody grewup and realized that there was a
big nothing burger there.
So anyhow.
SPEAKER_00 (24:34):
Yeah.
It sounded like a nothingburger.
I wouldn't have, I don't knowhow I would have entertained
that, but whatever.
I will say, speaking of badactors in the HR space, I have a
friend who got a solicitationfrom a recruiter basically
finding them on LinkedIn andsaying, We have this role
(24:55):
available.
Here's the job description.
What do you think?
And my friend was like,absolutely, sent the resume in.
This is a very well-knowncompany.
If you haven't heard of them,you've heard of their products.
The person's email address had acompany signature.
It went to the company page.
They linked the job descriptionto the actual site.
(25:16):
It looked very legit until therecruiter responded and asked my
friend, oh, great resume.
I see that you have XYZexperience.
We're really looking for that.
I think your resume could use alittle sprucing up so I could
best put forward to the hiringmanager.
Here I have a resume coach or aresume writer.
(25:37):
It was a link to an email.
And I was like, I've never heardof one internal recruiter doing
this.
If it was an external recruiter,I could totally understand
because they want their peopleto be a step ahead.
So he took the feedback, did alittle chat GPT magic, sent it
back, said, no need.
(25:58):
I did it myself.
Here you go.
The person basically copied andpasted the same exact response
from the first email to thesecond.
And it was really funny becausewhen you read a little closer,
it looked a little AI-ish, likesomething weird.
My friend went to LinkedIn,found the recruiter.
Recruiter on LinkedIn is a realperson, posts like everything
(26:22):
for the company, interacts withthe company's LinkedIn pages,
just a really good LinkedInrecruiter.
And I was like, I think this issocial engineering.
I think this is somebody who ispushing this service that you'll
probably have to pay out ofpocket for, who is mirroring an
actual recruiter.
(26:43):
So anyway, my friend ended upLinkedIn, like messaging that
recruiter and being like, hey,just to let you know, like
something someone is using yourinformation for nefarious
reasons.
Just want to give you a headsup.
And yeah, so we'll see whathappens.
But bad actors in the HR spacejust scams, just scams.
In this economy, we're scamming.
SPEAKER_01 (27:03):
And the they're scamming people who are looking
for jobs, and many of them mightbe desperate for work.
My wife has a very good friendwho lost their job four months
ago, and they got a three-monthseverance package.
The day that severance packageexpired, they got an email from
(27:24):
this company saying, We've beenhired by your former company to
help me find another job.
And I was like, this doesn't addup because I would think the
company would have given youthis resource day one and A,
told you about no direct contactat that time.
I haven't spoken to them since,has come directly from the
company about, oh yeah, we didthis for you.
(27:45):
We're helping the people weoutplace.
You would think that would bepart of the exit package.
We're going to give you yourseverance and use the service to
help you find another job, etcetera.
No mention of it.
And this person, it's been nowfour months, they've been out of
work.
They're, I'm not trying to saydesperate, but they're getting
at that desperate level.
And I just cautioned them, goahead and start this process.
(28:09):
But as soon as they starttalking money and you're going
to need to do this and that, Isaid, this just isn't passing
the smell test for me.
I think there's somebody outhere who's trying to take
advantage of you.
I can't prove it, but thisdoesn't seem right.
It's in the company's bestinterest to get you a new job as
soon as possible.
Because also she thought she wasgoing to be able to find another
job pretty quick and double dipfor some period of time and have
(28:30):
the severance plus a new salary.
But that just hasn't happened.
And now, like I said, they'rethey're certainly a little
desperate.
I feel very badly for them.
I wish I could do a deep divewith them and figure out I want
to, because there was a livein-person meeting that they've
probably already gone to, and Iwanted to go myself with them.
And so bad just to check thisout.
(28:51):
But I it I need to find out.
I'll have to ask my wife whatthe final result of that is.
Was it legit?
Was it not?
I don't know.
Doesn't sound like it.
That really sucks.
And there's speaking which,there was a I'm trying my
hardest to give up LinkedInbecause I think it's the worst
of all social media, in myopinion.
But I TikTok's pretty bad.
(29:15):
I was I I went on a few weeksago, and there was a person
that's claims to be a job searchcoach and a job coach or
whatever.
And they were posting about howthey were taken by a scammer who
wanted money.
They actually paid the scammerin there in the industry.
I'm like, there's a lot ofscammers out there.
And there are especially ifsomeone's desperately looking
(29:37):
for a job, it really sucks.
SPEAKER_00 (29:39):
It does suck.
And like my friend's not lookingfor a job, but at the same time,
the opportunity to work remotelyis really something that they're
interested in.
And this job happened to offerthat.
You just kind of get your hopesup.
But here's the kicker.
My friend's friend works forthat company.
Oh.
So anyway, it was really funny.
(29:59):
I'm like, I just didn't just askyour friend to look in the
company Rolodex and see if thatperson exists.
Get in there, get in their workday and see if that person
exists.
But yeah, it's crazy.
SPEAKER_01 (30:13):
It is crazy, but yeah, I think that's about all
that I had for today.
SPEAKER_00 (30:22):
Yeah.
Stay smart out there.
If it doesn't feel right, itisn't right.
SPEAKER_01 (30:29):
No.
SPEAKER_00 (30:29):
Follow your intuition.
SPEAKER_01 (30:31):
You have that spiny sense for a reason.
SPEAKER_00 (30:33):
Yeah.
Eat your vitamin C.
Apple of Day.
SPEAKER_01 (30:39):
I did not think our do our thank you.
So Andra Copa, the voice artist,the underscore orchestra, or the
theme song Devil with the Devil,and of course our Patreon
supporters, Hallie, the originalJ D HR rock star, Bill and Mike.
Hey, one quick story.
We're doing this.
Uh I've been there's a podcast Ilisten to.
It's about making podcasts, andthey use the same post that we
(31:02):
do, where in the show notesthere's a send us a text link.
So you go to our show notes,first thing on the show notes
line is a link that says send usa text.
So uh a few episodes ago, theyasked the person you listener
feedback.
I said, you know what?
I've got some feedback for them.
I clicked it and they read mycomment on the air and they
discussed it, they engaged init.
(31:23):
And I'm like, wow, that'd be socool if our people did that.
So please check out the shownotes and send us a link.
SPEAKER_00 (31:30):
I'm lonely.
I want to test.
SPEAKER_01 (31:33):
We haven't gotten any user interaction.
I did search for abuse.
We don't have any on Apple, buton Spotify, that number seems to
be growing regularly.
There's no narrative associatedwith that, just people writing
it on stars.
I'm glad to see that.
But I one note is one thing Ipicked up.
I looked at our stats over thelast month.
Okay.
(31:53):
By far and away, United Statesis our number one country of
listeners.
Canada is a very strong numbertwo.
SPEAKER_00 (32:01):
Now historically, I know I know one of our Canadian
listeners.
Okay.
Shout out to Barb.
SPEAKER_01 (32:09):
Thanks, Barb.
Review us.
Because we have one CanadianApple review, if you use Apple.
But uh the third and fourthusually alternate between Great
Britain and Australia.
However, the third, mostrecently, has been Germany
specifically, Frankfurt.
We've been getting a lot ofdownloads, and it's not it's
like they've downloaded quite afew of our library and things
(32:32):
like that.
Thank you from FrankfurtGermany.
I'm glad if you've been with usin season one, you knew that one
of our early internationallisteners was from France.
We haven't had any downloadsfrom France in a very long time.
Maybe they moved to Germany.
I don't know.
Freak for Germany is numberthree now of Great Britain and
(32:53):
Australia.
So leave us a review on ApplePodcasts in Germany.
I just found that reallyinteresting.
So with all that said, I thinkwe're ready to call this one an
episode and wrap it up.
As always, I'm Warren.
I'm Cece.
And we're here helping yousurvive HR one what the fuck
(33:14):
moment at a time.
Had you actually read the email, you would know
that the podcast you are aboutto listen to could contain
explicit language and offensivecontent.
These HR experts' views are notrepresentative of their past,
present, or future employers.
If you've ever heard, my manageris unfair to me, I need you to
reset my HR portal password, orcan I ride up my employee for
(00:25):
crying too much?
SPEAKER_02 (00:26):
Welcome to our little safe zone.
Welcome to JR.
SPEAKER_01 (00:49):
Welcome to JDHR, the podcast by two HR professionals
who want to help you get throughthe workday by saying everything
you're thinking, but say it outloud.
I'm Warren.
SPEAKER_00 (00:58):
I'm CeC.
SPEAKER_01 (00:59):
All right.
Hopefully we have better audiothan our last episode because
that was uh almost embarrassingto post as I'm editing it.
That my microphone of five and ahalf years just decided no moss,
no moss.
Yeah, but hopefully this onedoes better.
Thank you.
I really debated not publishingit at all.
(01:21):
So we did miss a week last week,but we are back with you.
We've uh survived the snow, orin my case, rain, and we're
about to get hit with snow.
But wow, it's been a crazy fewweeks.
SPEAKER_00 (01:32):
We got 13 inches, and uh I gotta be honest, we
lucked out because we didn't getany sleet and any rain, only
snow.
But it's a powdery wonderlandout there, and it's so cold it's
not going away.
So it's just gonna eternally besnow on the ground.
SPEAKER_01 (01:47):
Is Bean enjoying it?
SPEAKER_00 (01:50):
It's been too cold to take her out.
Oh, it's been like nine degrees.
School's been canceled, and Ihave not seen any kids in our
neighborhood playing outside.
That's how cold it is.
SPEAKER_01 (02:01):
Oh, yeah.
Our highs have been in the 20s,which is horrible.
During the snowstorm we weresupposed to get, some forecasts
put us like 10 inches, some putus in the sleek snow line.
We just got rain.
We had a few flurries for a fewminutes, and that's all we had.
Nice.
I'm happy with that, but itlooks like this weekend we're
(02:22):
gonna get our dumping on.
So we'll see.
Maybe they'll be wrong yetagain.
SPEAKER_00 (02:27):
Maybe they'll be wrong.
But I do have to say they were ahundred percent right on this
one.
They were saying we were gonnaget 12 inches and we got 13.
So I was like, oh, that's prettyaccurate.
Uh it is now nine degrees here.
Oh wow.
Yeah, no children are playingoutside.
SPEAKER_01 (02:42):
Yeah, I don't think I could handle that.
I would say, yeah, oh wow, we'vegone up since I got home from
work.
We're up to 32.
So something's warm front.
SPEAKER_00 (02:51):
Something's coming on, but I do have to say, one of
my best friends, her dad turned80 and they went on this really
bougie trip to the Bahamas.
She just came back today, andall of her photos the past week
have been her on boats withcocktails and sun.
And I'm like, welcome home.
SPEAKER_01 (03:10):
Oh, yeah.
My wife had to make a trip totheir headquarters outside of
Washington, D.C.
this week.
And I was hoping they wouldcancel it, but she she's up
there in the snow.
At first, I was hoping they'dcancel it.
Second, I was trying to convincemy wife to take the train.
I would drive her up to theclosest train station.
(03:31):
It is uh a four-hour ride on onetrain, a transfer in DC, and
then a metro ride undernon-horrible snowy conditions,
because their area got like 24inches of snow where her office
is.
You could walk to either thehotel or her office from the
metro station.
But I told her, just take anUber.
(03:52):
Yeah, the guy give him a 200%tip that you're gonna he's going
like 200 yards or something likethat.
But she even when he lived up inDC, she hates the trains.
If I was with her and we wantedto go somewhere and we'd take
the train, that was fine.
She will not navigate thatsystem by herself.
SPEAKER_00 (04:08):
So I went to grad school in Connecticut and I
would go to New York City likeall the time.
And I so appreciate really goodpublic transportation.
Like I love the train, I lovethe subway.
I was not responsible fordriving on the road.
(04:30):
And mind you, this was gradschool, so I would just wander
drunk with my friends and no onehad to drive.
It was amazing.
I love public transportation.
SPEAKER_01 (04:39):
When we lived up there, two stops down, once a
week, they had an express trainto New York City.
And I kept saying that I wasgoing to try and get Lime King
Broadway tickets and trick mywife one day.
Hey, we're going into DC.
Let's hop the train because shewouldn't have a clue where we're
doing.
And take the train once andbefore.
SPEAKER_00 (04:58):
True passenger princess.
I love it.
SPEAKER_01 (05:01):
And take the train, get off the platform.
We just have to get on probablythe same platform when the
express came through and goscrape New York City.
We could have gotten off rightone subway station or two stops
from the Amtrak station toBroadway, I think it was.
I was like, I can do this, andshould we be an hour away before
she even realizes we're not inDC.
(05:23):
Wait a minute.
Surprise her that way.
I always wanted to try and dothat, but never did.
I'm bacheloring it this weekend.
So my dinner tonight was apeanut butter and jelly and a
root beer.
And I am perfectly fine withthat.
SPEAKER_00 (05:38):
I love it.
SPEAKER_01 (05:39):
Yeah, we had some interesting good things going
on, but you had some fun stuffin the LD world.
SPEAKER_00 (05:44):
Oh yeah.
I have spent years creating,facilitating, selecting
individuals to be in variousprograms, like leadership
development.
And this is the first time in mylife that I have been nominated
to participate in a program.
I started this cohort, and I amso thrilled to be a participant
(06:10):
instead of the architect.
I am just having the time of mylife.
Always a bridesmaid, never abride, until today.
SPEAKER_01 (06:17):
Oh, congratulations.
And being so new there, I guessyou really made an immediate
impact.
SPEAKER_00 (06:24):
Look at me.
Who would have guessed?
Love it.
SPEAKER_01 (06:28):
Awesome.
SPEAKER_00 (06:29):
Yeah, it's been fun.
I love it.
So I'm having a blast.
SPEAKER_01 (06:33):
Good for you.
I've just had a crazy couple ofweeks in, like I said, we're
about to start open enrollment,and that's gonna be a little bit
crazy.
SPEAKER_00 (06:40):
Nice.
Yeah, I got performance reviewscoming up.
So I'm just finishing that.
And I have a presentationtomorrow to our HR team letting
them know the wonderful changesthat are coming down the pike
because honestly, I'm trying tomake it as easy as possible.
I hope they like it.
So fingers crossed.
SPEAKER_01 (06:58):
Off topic, we didn't talk about this.
The presentations, I had attenda presentation day, and I kid
you not, it was one of the worstpresentation.
I got up and walked out.
There was a little technicalglitch, and that was my cue.
I even just said in front of theroom, this is god awful.
I can't do this any longer.
The presenter English is not herfirst language.
SPEAKER_00 (07:21):
Okay.
SPEAKER_01 (07:22):
If you're presenting to a group of people, especially
remotely, you Englishcommunication skills might need
to be increased verysignificantly to do the job
adequately.
On top of that, she keptreferencing all these code
numbers for government codes forstuff.
And it just grinding, there wasa slide of nothing but code,
(07:44):
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,supports code, blah, blah, blah.
Nobody can follow it.
It was absolutely awful.
I just said, I'm out.
I can't do this anymore.
This is god-awful.
And I just a good presentationis really, really worth it.
And it's gonna make me nextpresentation I do for open
enrollment.
We'll get rid of all that out.
(08:05):
I want to make sure every T iscrossed, every diet is dotted,
and I am ready and ultraprepared so I can speak well
about the products and the planswe have and the changes we're
going through in front ofeverybody because I just I could
not do it.
I'm sorry.
I'm I've been having a littlebit of a day, so I was a little
(08:26):
bit moody already.
That was just another strongcamel's back for I have to be
honest.
SPEAKER_00 (08:32):
The first time I worked at a global company, like
the okay, so first of all,backtrack.
Like I grew up, my dad's mydad's originally from Turkey.
I grew up with my dad having avery thick Turkish accent.
Uh-huh.
And it would be funny because Iwould never hear it.
But my friends would be like,your dad has such an accent.
And I'm like, I don't hear it.
And then I started working inglobal companies, and it took it
(08:56):
a while.
It took fairly quickly, but atthe beginning, there was like
certain accents where I waslike, oh crap, I have to pay
real close attention todecipher.
But then all of a sudden withina week, I'm like, oh, okay, I
got this.
SPEAKER_01 (09:08):
Yeah, it's amazing.
My two quick stories aboutaccents, English proficiency.
My brother-in-law, he'soriginally from Chile, and he
speaks, I've known, I don't knowhow long he's been in the
country.
I've known him at least 10years.
He speaks beautiful English, andit's almost who's the puss and
boots actor of Antonio Benderis.
(09:29):
Yeah.
And he's got an awesome voice.
Now, flip the switch to mywife's sister-in-law, is from
Colombia.
I was in their wedding 30 yearsago.
She's been in the United Statesprobably 40 years, but her
Spanglish is ridonkulous becausepart of it is she works for a
(09:50):
company, she does internationalcustomer support, so she's
speaking Spanish all day and sheloves her job.
She's just the happiest claimyou've ever had doing that.
But she has not lost any bit ofher accent or her spanglish.
SPEAKER_00 (10:03):
It's like my dad.
SPEAKER_01 (10:05):
In the same room with her, I understand her just
fine.
But over the telephone or video,it loses something in being
electronically communicated.
SPEAKER_00 (10:14):
Funny.
SPEAKER_01 (10:21):
Not better.
I won't say that.
She speaks well.
It's just heavy, heavy.
It's like Sofia Bagara onsteroids that you'd say.
I love it.
She speaks very well.
It's fine.
SPEAKER_00 (10:30):
Whatever.
I can't judge because they speakmore languages than I do.
SPEAKER_01 (10:34):
Yes, absolutely.
Absolutely.
Maybe our discussion onlanguages threw you into a
little bit of a rage, but one ofour most popular episodes last
year was our rage bait episodewhen we talked about Jennifer
Say from XXXY Athletics, whostarted doing some rage baiting.
Somebody else.
SPEAKER_00 (10:55):
I took the bait and I got rageful.
I'm keeping it calm tonight.
SPEAKER_01 (11:00):
Apparently, last week, someone else did a very
similar thing.
Her name is Amanda Goodall.
And on January 12th, so a littlebit over a week, I guess it's
right, she put on X.
I still want to call it Twitter.
She posted on X.
HR is the only department thatgets a free pass for being
(11:20):
completely useless.
They produce zero revenue, killmorale with endless policies,
protecting the company, not you,and somehow still get invited to
every meeting like they'reessential.
Move 90% of HR tomorrow, and thebusiness would run smoother,
faster, and happier.
Change my mind with the littleflaming emoji.
Cool.
SPEAKER_00 (11:40):
And uh I can't I can't change your mind.
I'm now yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (11:46):
Her Twitter handle is the job chick.
I meant to check out herLinkedIn or something like that
to see what her is she when shesays the job chick, what does
that mean?
But anyhow, it's your M1A1stereotypical hate HR.
You can say something just likethis, and it's gonna get on when
I copied and pasted this onwhatever day I did it, she
(12:10):
already had 2.1 million views onthis tweet.
There were some interestingresponses to her, and uh yeah,
there were some interestingresponses to her.
Some were like pro-HR and somewere anti-HR.
I found this tweet from JacobMorgan.
He referenced her tweet.
(12:30):
One of the things he wrote wasthe frustration is clear, and
many people can relate.
However, while that take isemotionally satisfying and also
strategically lazy, AI isn'tmaking HR irrelevant, it's
making bad HR impossible tohide.
And then he goes on MIT's humanin loop studies consistently
(12:52):
find that AI drives productivitywhen accountability stays with
human, not when decisions arefully automated.
Uh and he just goes on indefending HR to a certain
extent.
Uh, why is the future of HR notabout becoming more technical?
It's about becoming moreaccountable.
AI doesn't replace HR, itreveals whether HR is ever doing
(13:12):
real leadership to work to beginwith.
And that's a reckoning thatwe're heading towards.
And frankly, it's overdue.
And so I like that.
He was both pro and con HRbecause I've said it any number
of times in the podcast.
HR is an industry full of peoplewho are not HR professionals.
They were their good secretary.
(13:32):
And then they because they're agood secretary or a good
customer service person, they'llbe a good HR person.
And that's not the way lifeworks all the time.
Not saying those people can'tlearn.
SPEAKER_00 (14:17):
Yeah, it goes with the whole it's the same idea of
promoting a really goodperformer into a manager.
Just because you're good atpeople, it doesn't necessarily
mean you're going to be aproficient HR person.
SPEAKER_01 (14:29):
Yeah.
It's the bad HR people that makeus look bad.
I'm going to butcher this name,not intentionally.
It's from Medium Online.
The name is Inraidi Saha, andI'm sorry for butchering that
name.
But uh she wrote when leadershipadvisor made a goodall tweeted
that companies should fire 90%of HR tomorrow.
(14:51):
It didn't spread because it waspolite or balanced.
It went viral because itcaptured something many
employees already feel butrarely articulate.
She goes into why employeesshared the tweet so aggressively
in her words.
Because HR protects the company,not the employee.
Same old policies over people,blah, blah, blah.
Corporate language instead ofclarity, a performance system
(15:13):
that rewards compliance, notcontribution.
And over time it creates abelief that HR exists and made
at risk, not people.
It's just the real issue isn'tHR.
It's power withoutaccountability.
SPEAKER_03 (15:26):
Yes.
SPEAKER_01 (15:26):
Authority without transparency.
She goes on.
It creates a dangerous imbalancebecause HR influences careers,
employees lack meaningful appealmechanisms, and decisions are
final, not fair.
It's once again regurgitatingthe same stuff.
SPEAKER_00 (15:44):
Ah, okay.
Like I, and this is one of thosethings.
It's just it just really dependson the company.
I worked at companies where HRis respected and does the right
thing, and it's all about thepeople first.
And yes, is HR there to protectthe company?
Of course.
But at the same time, that's nota dirty secret.
I don't know.
But but then you have then Iworked at companies where it was
(16:07):
like HR was referred to asprofit sucking overhead.
And like literally verbatim.
And it's just like why whatrespect does that company have
for HR?
For me, it just depends onleadership, like the C-suite and
how the C-suite seriously takesHR.
And if they don't, then no oneelse is going to.
(16:29):
And also, if you just have HR asjust administrative pencil
pushers, then you're doing itwrong.
SPEAKER_01 (16:34):
Absolutely.
My favorite response to thiscame from our friends, Suzanne
Lucas.
She put this on Inc.
magazine, and some of the thingsshe referenced the XXXY Jennifer
Save person who called HRofficious whole monitors.
But here's some of her mainpoints that she put in her
(16:54):
article there.
First, compliance isn'toptional.
And that's a fair portion of HRin any if you're in benefits, if
you're an LD, if you are inemployee relations, it doesn't
matter what you do.
Compliance is a huge portion ofHR.
You gotta play do it.
(17:15):
She writes, risk doesn't manageitself.
At what point do you put anemployee on a performance
improvement claim?
When do you terminate?
You have to know how to handleit.
And you I one thing I'm glad Ihave other people.
I'm not a uh on an island uponmyself because I do need someone
(17:36):
to balance me out becausesometimes I just want to say, F
you, get the hell out of hereand be gone.
I need someone to balance me outand say, let's think of this
way.
Because I do get very reactionalsometimes when, especially just
stupid people.
But, anyways, Suzanne continues,managers don't know what they're
doing.
Hey, boss, my back really hurts.
Can I get a standing desk?
(17:57):
Do your managers know how torespond to that?
And uh a few years ago, we haduh someone go to our my
assistant, a former assistant ofmine, and ask for a specific
chair for their back situation.
And she wanted this, that.
I said, I said, just have hersend us some links to the chair
she wants and let's take a lookat what she's done.
She wanted like a$250 chair, andI think the normal office chairs
(18:19):
are not.
I was like, just get it.
Don't ask her about ADA oranything like that.
She wants this chair.
250 bucks, get it, done.
SPEAKER_00 (18:28):
See, and that's what I was talking about before.
Like when we say HR is there toprotect the company.
That's honestly a really goodexample of what the average
employee doesn't think of interms of protecting the company,
because we're protecting thecompany from the employee who
could turn around and belitigious.
So, in one point, it's we'rehelping you, we're also helping
the company, but people don'tsee that.
(18:49):
It's we're still gonna help youout.
And also, we do want to justhelp you out because we're
fucking human.
Yeah.
Spend$200 on a chair.
I don't care.
In the grand scheme of things,$200 is a drop in the bucket to
satisfy an employee with anykind of ADA needs they have.
So just do it.
SPEAKER_01 (19:06):
Now she'd come back and need this$3,000 chair or
something, then we're gonna haveto begin the interactive
process.
And see, but when I said, Hey,just send us the links, we'll go
from there.
And she sent three links andthey were all right around the
same process.
I said, Pick your favorite oneand and I'll order it.
That was the extent of ourinteractive process on that.
SPEAKER_00 (19:24):
Could you imagine if there was no HR and the manager
was like, I don't want to spend$200, how quickly that could
escalate?
Yeah.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (19:31):
I'm not conserving $250 or whatever.
SPEAKER_00 (19:34):
Just like all the things under HR, if you're
thinking compliance, conflictresolution, recruiting,
onboarding, performancemanagement, like you really want
to put all that on a managerwho's not trained.
And by the way, managers who arealready stretched, because not
only are they doing their owncontributor work, but they're
(19:55):
also like leading a team.
So now you're gonna put that onthem without training.
Okay.
Like that's fine.
All I know is that at thereferring back to the same
company that thought HR was justprofit-sucking overhead, we
would be like, you you have tocoach your employees, you have
to do performance management.
And they would literally turnaround and be like, but I have
real work to do.
And I'm like, that is your realwork.
(20:16):
Like so if you're complainingthat you have to coach someone
on something, okay, throwrecruiting on there too.
Go find your next director forit.
Oh, and then do an onboardingplan for them and all the
things, just put it on yourplate on top of your quote
unquote real work.
SPEAKER_01 (20:30):
Yeah, exactly.
They don't realize.
The value of HR for instance.
We see these magic ratio numbersfor this type of company should
be one to one hundred, and thistype of company should be two to
five hundred or whatever theseratios they have.
But it depends on what thecompany is doing and the type of
employees you're hiring andthings like that.
How many people do you need inyour team?
(20:52):
But you can't, I have myself arecruiter and an HR journalist.
That's our HR team.
And it works perfectly.
If we get I I think we'd have toprobably double in size before I
needed to add a headcount to us.
We'll see.
We are slate for a heck of a lotof growth in 2026.
So we'll put that to the test.
(21:13):
But I might be changing my mindafter that.
Let's see here.
Suzanne Lucas goes on.
HR does the stuff you voted for.
And it's like the ACA, handlingthe ACA, ADA, all those other
wonderful acronyms that we haveto know that are laws that
people voted for.
So now we have to figure out howto make it happen.
(21:35):
And this whole Secure 2.0 act onyour benefits and 401k.
This has been a little bit crazywith that working with our
payroll company to make surethat uh these provisions of
Secure 2.0 can work.
And it's not just something, ohyeah, sure.
It requires some strategy, someplanning, some forethought.
It just doesn't happen byitself.
unknown (21:55):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (21:56):
Our final point was HR does protect your business,
and that's okay.
But does HR protect thebusiness?
Absolutely.
Just as the finance departmentensures the business has money
to in the right place.
You would never expect thefinance department to go around
paying people's mortgagesinstead of putting revenue in
the proper places.
Why should you think HR shouldgo around prior prioritizing the
(22:16):
employees over the company?
If you hate HR, then reach outto your congressional
representative about updatingand changing laws.
If you don't like policies, talkto the CEO CEO.
And if you're a manager, learnhow to manage.
Until then, HR doesn't bring inmoney, but they surely prevent
you from spending money onlawsuits and ridiculous terms.
SPEAKER_00 (22:34):
See, that's my point.
Articulated perfectly.
Mic drop.
Mic drop.
That's it.
That's it.
And that's a sucky thing becauseit's like we're a cost center,
we're not a profit center.
So like it you can't seetangibly at the end of the year,
like all the money that we bringinto a company because we don't,
but all the money that we save acompany.
SPEAKER_01 (22:53):
Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00 (22:54):
It's just a bunch of HR haters.
You can't be as cool as us.
So you just gotta write nonsenserage bait.
SPEAKER_01 (23:01):
Yep, exactly.
SPEAKER_00 (23:02):
Rage bait is you can't sit with us.
SPEAKER_01 (23:05):
We're cool kids.
SPEAKER_00 (23:07):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (23:07):
I've never been one of the cool kids.
SPEAKER_00 (23:09):
Never.
No.
SPEAKER_01 (23:11):
Oh Eddie How I got it.
I gotta kick out a that littlearticle and some of the replies.
SPEAKER_00 (23:17):
I get it.
I get the trust piece, but atthe same time, the trust piece
is company specific.
And I think it probablyresonates with I think it's
pretty ratioed in the comments.
It looks like it's about 50-50.
So I'm like, if people are likereally negative, that's the
company you work for.
And that's an issue with thecompany you work for.
SPEAKER_01 (23:34):
And like I said, there is a hell of a lot of bad
HR out there.
SPEAKER_00 (23:37):
I've witnessed some.
SPEAKER_01 (23:39):
I I wouldn't go to John Hyman's worst employers
list.
I think the most recent one waspretty interesting.
Check that out.
You can see his last article.
He said this was not only acomplete HR failure.
I forget what he called it, butcheck that article out on his
blog or on like that.
It's a good read about the mostrecent addition to that.
SPEAKER_00 (23:56):
The only one I can think of off the top of my head
that was the most haunting wasthe CVS employee who was
complaining to people that thecoworker was creepy, and then
the coworker ended up murderingher.
So I was like, oh God, that wasthe yeah.
And the company CVS didn'treally do anything about it or
didn't act on it, and she endedup getting murdered.
SPEAKER_01 (24:15):
Someone I know, I was talking to you about this a
couple weeks ago offline, thatis having to do with some bad
HR.
And I'm trying to help themnavigate through it.
But it's been three weeks andthere's been no follow-up.
So I'm like, maybe somebody grewup and realized that there was a
big nothing burger there.
So anyhow.
SPEAKER_00 (24:34):
Yeah.
It sounded like a nothingburger.
I wouldn't have, I don't knowhow I would have entertained
that, but whatever.
I will say, speaking of badactors in the HR space, I have a
friend who got a solicitationfrom a recruiter basically
finding them on LinkedIn andsaying, We have this role
(24:55):
available.
Here's the job description.
What do you think?
And my friend was like,absolutely, sent the resume in.
This is a very well-knowncompany.
If you haven't heard of them,you've heard of their products.
The person's email address had acompany signature.
It went to the company page.
They linked the job descriptionto the actual site.
(25:16):
It looked very legit until therecruiter responded and asked my
friend, oh, great resume.
I see that you have XYZexperience.
We're really looking for that.
I think your resume could use alittle sprucing up so I could
best put forward to the hiringmanager.
Here I have a resume coach or aresume writer.
(25:37):
It was a link to an email.
And I was like, I've never heardof one internal recruiter doing
this.
If it was an external recruiter,I could totally understand
because they want their peopleto be a step ahead.
So he took the feedback, did alittle chat GPT magic, sent it
back, said, no need.
(25:58):
I did it myself.
Here you go.
The person basically copied andpasted the same exact response
from the first email to thesecond.
And it was really funny becausewhen you read a little closer,
it looked a little AI-ish, likesomething weird.
My friend went to LinkedIn,found the recruiter.
Recruiter on LinkedIn is a realperson, posts like everything
(26:22):
for the company, interacts withthe company's LinkedIn pages,
just a really good LinkedInrecruiter.
And I was like, I think this issocial engineering.
I think this is somebody who ispushing this service that you'll
probably have to pay out ofpocket for, who is mirroring an
actual recruiter.
(26:43):
So anyway, my friend ended upLinkedIn, like messaging that
recruiter and being like, hey,just to let you know, like
something someone is using yourinformation for nefarious
reasons.
Just want to give you a headsup.
And yeah, so we'll see whathappens.
But bad actors in the HR spacejust scams, just scams.
In this economy, we're scamming.
SPEAKER_01 (27:03):
And the they're scamming people who are looking
for jobs, and many of them mightbe desperate for work.
My wife has a very good friendwho lost their job four months
ago, and they got a three-monthseverance package.
The day that severance packageexpired, they got an email from
(27:24):
this company saying, We've beenhired by your former company to
help me find another job.
And I was like, this doesn't addup because I would think the
company would have given youthis resource day one and A,
told you about no direct contactat that time.
I haven't spoken to them since,has come directly from the
company about, oh yeah, we didthis for you.
(27:45):
We're helping the people weoutplace.
You would think that would bepart of the exit package.
We're going to give you yourseverance and use the service to
help you find another job, etcetera.
No mention of it.
And this person, it's been nowfour months, they've been out of
work.
They're, I'm not trying to saydesperate, but they're getting
at that desperate level.
And I just cautioned them, goahead and start this process.
(28:09):
But as soon as they starttalking money and you're going
to need to do this and that, Isaid, this just isn't passing
the smell test for me.
I think there's somebody outhere who's trying to take
advantage of you.
I can't prove it, but thisdoesn't seem right.
It's in the company's bestinterest to get you a new job as
soon as possible.
Because also she thought she wasgoing to be able to find another
job pretty quick and double dipfor some period of time and have
(28:30):
the severance plus a new salary.
But that just hasn't happened.
And now, like I said, they'rethey're certainly a little
desperate.
I feel very badly for them.
I wish I could do a deep divewith them and figure out I want
to, because there was a livein-person meeting that they've
probably already gone to, and Iwanted to go myself with them.
And so bad just to check thisout.
(28:51):
But I it I need to find out.
I'll have to ask my wife whatthe final result of that is.
Was it legit?
Was it not?
I don't know.
Doesn't sound like it.
That really sucks.
And there's speaking which,there was a I'm trying my
hardest to give up LinkedInbecause I think it's the worst
of all social media, in myopinion.
But I TikTok's pretty bad.
(29:15):
I was I I went on a few weeksago, and there was a person
that's claims to be a job searchcoach and a job coach or
whatever.
And they were posting about howthey were taken by a scammer who
wanted money.
They actually paid the scammerin there in the industry.
I'm like, there's a lot ofscammers out there.
And there are especially ifsomeone's desperately looking
(29:37):
for a job, it really sucks.
SPEAKER_00 (29:39):
It does suck.
And like my friend's not lookingfor a job, but at the same time,
the opportunity to work remotelyis really something that they're
interested in.
And this job happened to offerthat.
You just kind of get your hopesup.
But here's the kicker.
My friend's friend works forthat company.
Oh.
So anyway, it was really funny.
(29:59):
I'm like, I just didn't just askyour friend to look in the
company Rolodex and see if thatperson exists.
Get in there, get in their workday and see if that person
exists.
But yeah, it's crazy.
SPEAKER_01 (30:13):
It is crazy, but yeah, I think that's about all
that I had for today.
SPEAKER_00 (30:22):
Yeah.
Stay smart out there.
If it doesn't feel right, itisn't right.
SPEAKER_01 (30:29):
No.
SPEAKER_00 (30:29):
Follow your intuition.
SPEAKER_01 (30:31):
You have that spiny sense for a reason.
SPEAKER_00 (30:33):
Yeah.
Eat your vitamin C.
Apple of Day.
SPEAKER_01 (30:39):
I did not think our do our thank you.
So Andra Copa, the voice artist,the underscore orchestra, or the
theme song Devil with the Devil,and of course our Patreon
supporters, Hallie, the originalJ D HR rock star, Bill and Mike.
Hey, one quick story.
We're doing this.
Uh I've been there's a podcast Ilisten to.
It's about making podcasts, andthey use the same post that we
(31:02):
do, where in the show notesthere's a send us a text link.
So you go to our show notes,first thing on the show notes
line is a link that says send usa text.
So uh a few episodes ago, theyasked the person you listener
feedback.
I said, you know what?
I've got some feedback for them.
I clicked it and they read mycomment on the air and they
discussed it, they engaged init.
(31:23):
And I'm like, wow, that'd be socool if our people did that.
So please check out the shownotes and send us a link.
SPEAKER_00 (31:30):
I'm lonely.
I want to test.
SPEAKER_01 (31:33):
We haven't gotten any user interaction.
I did search for abuse.
We don't have any on Apple, buton Spotify, that number seems to
be growing regularly.
There's no narrative associatedwith that, just people writing
it on stars.
I'm glad to see that.
But I one note is one thing Ipicked up.
I looked at our stats over thelast month.
Okay.
(31:53):
By far and away, United Statesis our number one country of
listeners.
Canada is a very strong numbertwo.
SPEAKER_00 (32:01):
Now historically, I know I know one of our Canadian
listeners.
Okay.
Shout out to Barb.
SPEAKER_01 (32:09):
Thanks, Barb.
Review us.
Because we have one CanadianApple review, if you use Apple.
But uh the third and fourthusually alternate between Great
Britain and Australia.
However, the third, mostrecently, has been Germany
specifically, Frankfurt.
We've been getting a lot ofdownloads, and it's not it's
like they've downloaded quite afew of our library and things
(32:32):
like that.
Thank you from FrankfurtGermany.
I'm glad if you've been with usin season one, you knew that one
of our early internationallisteners was from France.
We haven't had any downloadsfrom France in a very long time.
Maybe they moved to Germany.
I don't know.
Freak for Germany is numberthree now of Great Britain and
(32:53):
Australia.
So leave us a review on ApplePodcasts in Germany.
I just found that reallyinteresting.
So with all that said, I thinkwe're ready to call this one an
episode and wrap it up.
As always, I'm Warren.
I'm Cece.
And we're here helping yousurvive HR one what the fuck
(33:14):
moment at a time.
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