April 17, 2025 • 42 mins
What happens when an analytical HR professional decides to break down every session at a state SHRM conference? The results are both hilarious and disheartening. Warren meticulously categorized all 64 breakout sessions and discovered that a staggering two-thirds could only be classified as "whimsical" - filled with motivational speaking and feel-good content but lacking substantive professional development.
Taking his analysis further, Warren compared this HR conference with professional gatherings across other fields - from accountants and lawyers to scientists and physicians. The contrast couldn't be more striking: while HR professionals were being told "the hardest journey is the 18 inches between your brain and your heart," other professions were engaging with rigorous, substantive content directly applicable to their work. This disparity helps explain why HR sometimes struggles to be taken seriously in the business world.
The conversation takes an unexpected turn when Warren admits that despite his past criticism, SHRM President Johnny C. Taylor delivered an impressively substantive keynote about the future of work and AI in HR - proving that meaningful content is possible when organizers prioritize it. Meanwhile, CeeCee shares her experience starting a new remote position with exemplary onboarding, highlighting how thoughtful processes can make all the difference in employee experience.
This episode poses important questions about professional development in HR: Are we setting ourselves up for failure by accepting low-quality content at our professional conferences? How can we demand better? And most importantly, what would truly valuable professional development look like for modern HR practitioners? Whether you're planning your next conference experience or evaluating your own professional development path, this candid discussion will make you rethink what you should expect from HR education.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Had you actually read the email, you would know that
the podcast you are about tolisten to could contain explicit
language and offensive content.
These HR experts' views are notrepresentative of their past,
present or future employers.
If you have ever heard mymanager is unfair to me.
I need you to reset my HRportal password, or Can I write
(00:24):
up my employee for crying toomuch?
Welcome to our little safe zone.
Welcome to Jaded HR.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
So, anyways, welcome to Jaded HR, the podcast by two
HR professionals who want tohelp you survive the workday by
saying everything you'rethinking.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
But say it out loud I'm Warren, I'm Cece, she's back
, I'm back and I'm sick withsomething different.
So you know, just keeping itspicy.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
It's been a rough year.
It's only April, come on.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
It's only April.
It's ridiculous.
I don't know what happened tomy immune system after I had a
kid, but I think that hassomething to do with it, because
I'm catching everything that'scoming at me.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
I would just wait until they get to kindergarten
and stuff and they startbringing home all the school
cuties.
I, I would just wait until theyget to kindergarten and stuff,
and they start bringing home allthe school cooties.
I think kindergarten year Idon't think I'd been my first
kid, I don't think I'd beensicker because they bring home
all the cooties and new cootiesyou haven't been exposed to and
yeah, it always seemed to besomething I'm so excited.
(01:41):
Yeah, so I mentioned I'm goingto this Virginia State SHRM
conference.
We're in the middle of it.
Today's a Tuesday, tomorrow theconference wraps up and okay,
I'm going to be shitting on it alot, but I have had some good
experiences too.
(02:02):
But yeah, and this is the firststate conference I've been to,
normally in in virginia theyrotate the state conference
among the five majormetropolitan areas and so the
hampton roads, virginia beacharea gets it like every fifth
year.
And the last year, surprise,surprise was covid I'd would.
(02:23):
I was registered and obviouslycouldn't go.
They canceled it that one.
So so here it is.
They they're doing it again,but next year it looks like for
the next three years they'regoing to be in virginia beach,
but I, at this point I don'tthink I will be going to going
to those.
So it's, it's interesting.
Uh, let's see here because it'sbeen since I've been, I since
(02:49):
it's.
There wasn't one in covet.
It's been at least 10 years,then, since I've been to a state
conference and it's.
It's a little different than Iremember, but maybe that's,
maybe that's just my old foggymemory or anything like that,
but yeah, so, um, I've alreadytitled this episode and you know
(03:09):
, sherm, you should be ashamedthat that's what.
Uh, oh, no, that's, that's whatthis, this conference, is.
I broke down.
I go to, as all of know, I godown deep rabbit holes when I
get my mind like hyper-focusedon something.
So there are 64 breakoutsessions in the three-day
(03:32):
conference and I went down thelist and I was classifying them
by the speakers, what their biosays about them.
I classified the topics, sohere's some stats, anyways that
I came together.
So, of the speakers goingthrough their bios 38 of the
speakers and there's only 64breakout sessions 38 identified
(03:54):
themselves as a consultant or acoach, which brought me to
perfect timing.
Suzanne Lucas, on LinkedIn,posted this on April 4th.
She says I have a controversialthought today Getting laid off
does not qualify you to be acoach, and it is so perfect
because every HR person wholoses their job, they're a coach
(04:19):
, they're a consultant, they aresomething else, and I thought
that that fit very, veryperfectly for this.
But, anyways, I classified sixpeople as an industry expert,
somebody who they're in theweeds, they practice it, they
know what they're talking about.
Only six of them.
I could do that.
There were 10 attorneysspeaking, three salespeople,
(04:42):
only five people who are likepractitioners not to the level
of industry expert, but they'repractitioners and then speakers
were made up the rest.
Then I further broke down thetopics and there are 18
functional topics and I knowthese numbers don't add up, it's
(05:03):
47.
I put whimsical topics, andwhimsical is like the pie in the
sky rainbows and unicornshanging their kitty cat memes
and posters and things like that.
But we're talking threequarters of the.
I can't do math, I'm an HR.
Two thirds of them are there'sno there there with them.
(05:27):
And then I looked at the titlesof the breakout sessions.
The word resilience is used sixtimes.
Empowering was used twice.
Navigating was used 15 times,but they were trying to have a
nautical theme.
It's at the beach, they'retrying to have a nautical theme.
Four of them had the words playor games in them.
(05:48):
Several had storytellingstories.
Future was in five of them, butthis is something I'd never
seen at a conference before.
In the schedule that tells youwhere the breakout session is
and the time and all that, theschedule that tells you where
the breakout session is in thetime, and all that.
Nine of them have books forsale listed in the in the front
of the schedule and yeah.
(06:10):
So, anyways, there was, intheir bios, 14 people listed
themselves as authors.
But of those 14 authors, onlyone listed themselves, listed
their publisher, which issomething I you know.
Listed themselves, listed theirpublisher, which is something I
, you know.
I'm really keen on, becauseself-published books are a dime
(06:30):
less, they're free a dozen,they're not even a dime a dozen,
they're free.
And if there's no publisherwilling to say and in the
self-help arena that a lot ofthese people are operating in,
there's so much bullshit, stupidbooks out there if you can't
get a publisher and you, you gothe self-help boat route.
(06:51):
Yeah, you're not, you're not.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
Yeah, that's not yeah , it's so easy to self-publish
right now, like you could.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Just I'm thinking like I'm going to, when I'm
finished with my, my grad school, and I actually have time to
get my head above water andbreathe again, I'll have some
more letters behind my name.
I'm going to find I've got.
The only thing I put on mysignature is term SCP and I
don't put it on my LinkedInanymore, but I use it my email
(07:18):
signature.
But I'm going to find all mylittle certificates and all my
little letters behind my name.
Get all my little bona fideslooking really nice.
And AI and I are going toself-publish like 100 books a
year so I can be this incredibleauthor.
Nobody's read one Hell.
I haven't even read them.
Chat TPT wrote it.
I haven't read it.
One of my favorite lines LouHoltz.
(07:39):
He said once I saw him speakhe's a great speaker, he's
talking about a book he wrote.
He goes and that makes me theonly person in the world to have
written more books I've readAwesome.
I like that.
But anyways, I'll follow hisfootsteps.
But more things they put intheir bios that they say they're
a professional keynote speaker.
(08:00):
Four of them have been on TEDTalks and then coaches and
things like that.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
So it was just yeah, I've told some by the way, that
was a very impressive analysisthat you just said.
Oh, I went down.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
ADD is great when you can hyper-focus, and I just
decided this is my target todayand that's what I'm going to do.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
But yeah, when you can focus in on the right thing,
ADHD is a blessing.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Oh yeah, when it's the right thing, when you're
supposed to be doing somethingelse and you're deciding to
Google these speakers, bios,things like that, not so much.
But Sunday night, well, I'll begoing back.
So, whatever day, the schedulecame out, the official final
schedule came out.
My assistant and I are bothgoing and I deferred to her.
(08:44):
I gave her the schedule, Ihadn't even looked at it and I
said you pick the sessions youwant to do and I'll go and I'll
do different breakout sessionsfrom you so that we can cover
more ground and meet later anddiscuss and have good
conversations about it Smart.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Yeah, only if I could .
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Smart?
Yeah, only if I could.
After she picked hers and Ilooked through, there was only
one time that we could break upand do different things because
I was not going to do any ofthis touchy-feely bullshit
sessions.
Actually, I have two holes inmy session where I decided I'll
(09:20):
check emails, I'll do it,because there was just nothing
of absolute interest in there.
So I have two holes in my myschedule.
But I was like, and so the onlyand the reason we could break
up, one of the touchy feelyspeakers had to cancel, and when
the attorney stepped in andfilled that slot and so she went
to the one she was going toalready go to and I went to the
(09:41):
other one.
So we got to separate, separateand you know what, this episode
is going to get jaded.
But those were some greatprofessional conversations.
Discussing she's fresh out ofcollege, she went to this what
did you think about that?
What did they say?
What did you think?
Getting her thoughts andinsight.
(10:02):
I mean those are greatconversations.
Too bad, we could only have oneof them, but so far.
Well, tomorrow's the last dayand there's nothing else there.
But anyways, that was my plan,but it couldn't be done Because,
like I said, I was not going tosit through and I did sit
through the keynote speakertoday and one of them 30 seconds
(10:27):
in she just completely lost me.
She's I don't know what this,this pose is.
You see all over Instagram, orI don't know what you call it.
You put your hands under yourchin and yeah.
Under your chin, yeah, and Idon't know what that is.
And she's like really suckingup to the crowd and I love HR.
And like 30 seconds in, I'mgrabbing my phone, I'm starting
(10:48):
to place the dukes.
I'm like, oh gosh, I'm in forit.
And then she starts going onand this was like three minutes
into the conversation.
The hardest, the toughest,longest journey you'll ever have
to take is the 18 inchesbetween your brain and your
heart.
And I just I said jesus,fucking christ, and I said it
(11:09):
probably about that loud and,yeah, I, I was just like, oh, I,
I'm not even paying attentionto what you're saying.
I'm trying not to pay attentionbecause I didn't want to do
things like that.
And the toughest journey is the18 inches between your head and
your heart.
Okay, and that tough journey isgoing to help me in my HR
career.
How so.
(11:30):
And that's where I'm going withthe whole title of this of
where.
Why Sherm should be ashamedBecause A, with two thirds of
(11:51):
the speakers being nothing thatyou're going to be, you might
leave feeling good.
You know I've made my opinionbefore that I'm not the target
for those type of things, but inthe long run, you leave those
type of sessions.
You feel good, you feelenergized, you feel positive.
What are you going to actuallytake back to work and improve
your work?
From Nothing, yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
You feel good for that.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
It's hard Until the next session when you go to an
employment law section.
And then they're saying, oh,the sky is falling and you know
everything, the shit's allhitting the fan.
And yeah, maybe that was theirplan.
Maybe I'm just not giving themenough credit.
We have so much bad news andbullshit that we're going to
have to cover.
Let's give them some rainbowsand unicorns and, you know,
fluffy little ponies and thingslike that.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
So to at least let them leave feeling okay.
I'm sorry I cut you off it'shard.
I was just gonna say it's sohard because I think a lot of
these, a lot of theseconferences, they know they have
X amount of days to fill andsome of those things are filler
and I wish it was more substance, I wish it was more like I
(12:52):
would rather sit through a twodays, a two day conference and
have nothing but substantialthings, rather than having a
three or four day conference andthen having these experiences
of I don't know, just theseinspirational quotes on a wall,
personified.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Exactly.
And walking through thecorridors I hear these people
this was so great, this is sogreat, and I can understand it,
but what are you going to dowith it?
And you're not going to getanything out.
I've told any number of people,including you.
If my COO read the agenda andthe topic titles for what I'm
(13:33):
going to be doing, what I'vebeen doing the last three days,
he would just say look, what thefuck are you doing, warren?
He goes what are you wastingour money on?
I can just picture him.
What are you wasting our moneyon?
Why do you need to know aboutIK?
I don't have the actual titlesin front of me right now of
these things.
But why, oh, gamify yourworkplace?
Yeah, that's going to.
(13:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
Gamification is big in learning, but how is it in
the workplace?
I don't know, you're like Idon't know.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
I don't know, I didn't want to go to that
session and then, whateversession was, I don't know.
I've meant to look up.
I'll have to go back to theschedule.
I was in a session with anemployment attorney.
Actually, my employmentattorney was giving the
presentation and in theconference room they're playing
like family feud music and dingsand people getting all loud and
(14:24):
stuff like that and I'm like,okay, they're having more fun
than I'm having, probably, butwhat are they going to walk out
the door with, and things likethat.
So, anyways, the next rabbithole I went down after being
very disappointed in thisoffering.
I just put into Google mysearch term was Virginia
(14:48):
Professional Annual Conferencesand I went down the list and I
started just clicking on them,not in regard to what profession
or anything, it was just searchresult 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and going
down.
Then I would look and see ifthey had an agenda.
So it took me a couple of pagesto go through this many.
But so the first one, theVirginia Society of CPAs.
(15:10):
Oh, here's the criteria If Iwas going to count them on this
list, it had to be aprofessional organization, it
had to be a multi-day conference, not just a one-day thing, and
they had to have a detailedagenda that could read the
topics and make a judgment callwhether it was substantial or
fluff.
So first one Virginia Societyof CPAs.
(15:30):
Zero fluff topics, zeroVirginia Commissioners of
Revenue.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
Yeah, it's accountants.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Yeah, virginia Commissioners of Revenue zero
fluff.
The Virginia Bar Associationzero fluff.
The Virginia Bar Associationzero fluff.
The Virginia Academy ofSciences no fluff.
Virginia Society of Toxicologyzero fluff.
Association of School Programsof Public Health no fluff.
(15:58):
The Virginia FundersAssociation I don't know what
half these things are no fluff.
Wildlife Society no fluff.
College of Physicians no fluff.
Rheumatoid Society no fluff.
Association of Museums no fluff.
Not until I got my 12th one thatactually had an agenda did I
start seeing fluffy things, andit was the Virginia Apartment
Management Association.
That goes probably on Googleresults page three.
(16:18):
Like I said, not everybody hadtheir agenda still published, or
they had their.
2025 is saying coming soon onthe agenda, so I couldn't see
what 2024 was.
But on day one they had afluffy keynote and two fluffy
breakout sessions.
Day two, three breakoutsessions and day three their
closing was I think it's I put aquote is energetic and funny
(16:43):
keynote speaker, but I think thewhole quote that I didn't write
down was you'll be enthralledby our closing.
They weren't even trying tohide that.
It was fluff.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
Yeah, that's interesting.
So, like as you're goingthrough this, all I'm thinking
is that sometimes hr has thisreputation of being the people
people and we're there asemotional support, or we're just
there for the business and likeit's.
It's two different.
There's two different sides.
(17:13):
People either think that we'relike too people-y and too
feeling-y, or people just thinkthat we're out for the business
and you should never trust us.
Those are the two sides of thecoin and this stuff it's
discouraging to hear.
It feels like we have the mostfluff in our conferences when,
(17:34):
if you think about it, thethings that we do have tangible
business results.
However, it's not as obvious asaccountants or lawyers or this
or that, but the work that we do.
I mean I could pull up theprojects I've done in the past
and I could pull up ROI and Icould talk about how we impacted
(17:56):
the business.
It's serious work that we do,but then you go to a conference
and you get discouraged with thefluffy feelings.
It makes me a little sad.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
It is sad because everybody HR needs a place at
the table.
Hr, you need your seat at thetable and all this.
Well, this is exactly why ifit's our own professional
organization, the only one outthere for us that says this is
what we think is important foryour professional organization,
the only one out there for usthat says this is what we think
is important for yourprofessional development, then
no, it's an epic fail in termsof that.
(18:28):
And yeah, if it's where they'rein San Diego this year for the
National SHRM Conference,they've only hyped it up a
couple dozen times over toconference, which I will not be
going to the National SHRMconference.
But when you have 300exhibitors and things like that
and multi-day, I'm sure I couldfind all the substantive things
(18:48):
I want, but in a three-day stateconference, yeah, it's just.
This is exactly what is wrongwith HR right now.
If you want to, you can come upwith some.
Like I said, there were about 10breakout sessions with lawyers
and I'm doing every single oneof them overall and it's just
(19:09):
such a shame is I, beside allthe jadedness, I'm passionate
about my career.
I'm passionate about myprofession, I love what I do,
but to see that the localchapter or the state chapter or
whomever it is, thinks that thisis what's going to be important
to us?
Yeah, it's.
And on top of all that, thefact that you had to pay and
(19:32):
register as it sold out.
They only allowed like 650, Idon't remember the number.
It's a really low number ofpeople this year, but it's
really not any space in theplace.
They've gone and I'm thinkingit's been 10 years since I've
been to one, but in the past Iwas thinking there was like a
thousand people or more in them.
But but yeah, there was,there's just there's no there
there and I'm I'm just reallyhighly disappointed.
(19:54):
They, they need to have somemore substantive topics and get
us out of that mind.
Space of this is what HR isimportant Because, like I said,
you take a functional person,you take your CEO, your COO, and
you show them this agenda.
They're going to laugh at you.
You go to your CFO and they goto one of these society of CPAs
where they have a four-dayconference and it's like all
(20:17):
hard-hitting stuff and here weare, we're going to learn the
second verse, the kumbaya, thatnobody knows, or something like
that.
I have no freaking clue, butthis is what is absolutely wrong
with HR right now, and I knowsome of the people on the local
board and I haven't talked tothem about this, but I think
(20:37):
it's just so disappointing and Idon't know how much control
they had over this.
My other thing, where I wasgoing before I diverted myself
again is you had to pay beforeyou know what the and register
before you knew what the topicswere.
And if I'd known, if I'd seenthe agenda, I would have said,
oh, I'll pass, I'd rather go towork and do things, but some of
(21:01):
these ones that I listed,they're future conferences.
Now, one thing I didn't do whichI wanted to do I just ran out
of time and motivation was Iwanted to go and look at other
state SHRM councils and see ifthey have.
I know there's going to be afluff, but if it's going to be,
two thirds of it is fluff, or ifit's it's, they have more
(21:23):
substantial stuff.
Because I I don't want to justthe one deal with it.
I want to, I want to go, I wantto learn, I want to improve
myself and I want to get back towork and say, hey, I think we
can do this, I think this is agood idea.
That's why I want to go when Iget back to work Thursday.
That's what I want to be doing.
(21:44):
And what'd you do?
Speaker 3 (21:49):
I learned about the hardest journey that we will
ever take.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Yeah, I go back to telling that to my COO.
Yeah, the hardest journey I'mgoing to take is the 18 inches
between my mind and my heart.
Yeah, I think my bags would bepacked and thrown out me as I'm
getting booted out the door.
Yeah, it's hard.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
And I will say, because I used to be on a board
where we did plan an annualconference and it was difficult,
not difficult but you have acall to action or a call out for
individuals who would like tobe a presenter, and there's a
whole moment like a pickingprocess and a vetting process,
but at the end of the day, likeif we have x amount of sessions
(22:40):
to fill and we're a couple short, we'll take someone from the
bottom of a pile to put them inthere to fill that up.
And I hate to say it like thatbut that's kind of like how it
was.
So yeah, like you just have thesessions and the time slots to
fill, you just have to fill them.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
And I was giving us a little bit of thought what
would I, what other topics wouldI want to see addressed that
substantively?
But that's the thing about whenthese conferences too.
You go to some of theseconferences, you don't know, hey
, that that topic I didn't knowwas going to hit me and be as
important to me, and as it endsup being, until you go there and
(23:20):
you say, oh, wow, this is, thisis something that's, that's
good, so but yeah, it's beengoing going well.
I don't know if I hit this onon the speech.
So the keynote, the closingkeynote speaker for Monday, was
Johnny C Taylor, himself JCT,and I tell you I've I've been
very hard on the man.
You can listen to any dozens ofepisodes.
(23:43):
I've been very hard on him.
He is a phenomenal speaker andI was expecting him to be more
fluff and pie in the sky.
He was not.
He was actually kind of directin all politics or whatever side
you think of JCT, because Iknow he carries a lot of baggage
(24:03):
because he was in Trump's or headvised Trump or something like
that in his firstadministration and he was the
lead.
He was the head of theDepartment of Labor.
This time was supposed to bethe person.
Everything I heard until thisother person from Oregon was
going to be him came up.
So you know, you know what,which side of the political
aisle he lines with, which isnot what I think the general HR
(24:27):
population lines up with.
But he was.
He talked about the future ofSHRM.
He talked about the future work.
He talked about the future ofAI and HR.
I mean, it was a substantialtopic and he was engaging and
lively and I will actually saythat I would give him a 10 out
(24:50):
of 10 on both presentation andcontent.
That's awesome.
I was not expecting it to likeit that much.
I went in, I went in jaded andhe converted me and one of the
things he said he said I willmisquote him here, so don't say
this is exactly it but hispeople, his handlers, whoever
(25:12):
told him not to talk about the,the diversity, removing the
diversity from DEI, and hetalked about it in.
Now his spiel on it is whateverthe court decision was, that
was really impact, negativelyimpacting diversity.
They saw the writing on thewall and they're getting ahead
of it now.
I've also said is is you know,did he get lucky?
(25:34):
Did Sherm and Johnny C Taylorget lucky.
And now, yep, because that wasSeptember, before the election
or anything, and nobody knew thedirection things were going to
change in.
And is he now just getting infront of the band with his baton
?
Look what we said.
Was he lucky?
Was he right?
Was he predicted?
I?
I don't know how it, how itcame about, but the fact is
(25:55):
that's where we are right now.
Regardless, the fact is that'swhere we are.
How you feel about it's a wholedifferent ballgame, but I I
went in very cynical and jadedand I'm not gonna say I'm a a
thousand percent jct fan now,but I have a new level of
respect for him that I did nothave before Monday evening.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
So I know that's going to be a very unpopular
opinion.
No, what I was thinking wasmaybe he no longer has that
carrot dangling in front of himfor a shiny political position.
So now he's being a little moredirect and a little more himself
, like he has nothing on theline yeah I will say that I did
(26:38):
hear him speak at a shermconvention and he is very
charismatic and he's a greatpublic speaker and honestly, you
do leave feeling good about thework you do.
And it's not fluff, it's likeyou said, it's very direct and
very state.
It's almost like state of theunion of hr exactly perfect
analogy, but see, that's what Iwant yes what if I'm going to a
(26:59):
conference?
I want a state of the union ofthe industry, a state of the
industry.
I want best practices.
I want to see how othercompanies, like best in class
companies are doing things andwhat I can learn from them.
I'm okay on the other stuff.
I'm okay with the fluffy feelystuff.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
And it's not that I want zero fluff, like some of
these other ones, but two thirdsof it being wide categorized as
fluff is a bit too much andbecause, like I said, some of
it's been quite depressing.
When you're doing an employmentlaw seminar one, you're doing
like I said I've done I don'tknow how many law ones have been
(27:42):
done thus far and it's a littlescary, it's a little depressing
and maybe you want to.
Okay, I've had enough of this.
Let's talk about gamifying yourworkplace or whatever One of
these BSE topics they had outthere were.
And, yeah, I can see me goingto my CEO and COO and say, hey,
let's gamify our place.
(28:03):
Yeah, let's gamify your resumeand see how.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
Make it into a fun puzzle piece so people can put
it together when you mail it tothem.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Yeah, so, but anyways , that's my take on it.
I'm having a good time.
I just wish I could have donemore substantial work, get more.
I.
I wanted my assistant this isour first, you know.
She just graduated from college.
She I wanted her to get alittle more experience.
She's getting a good experienceout of it, but I wanted her to
to expose, and I'm I'm.
(28:33):
I even told her.
Look, I said I feel I feel badbecause I think I'm corrupting
you with my mindset.
And then she goes well, I'mthinking a lot of these things,
I'm just not always saying them.
I'm like okay, well, because Ido feel bad, I don't want to
create another mini me orsomething like that.
(28:53):
I actually respect her so much.
I don't want her to feel thatshe has to agree with me or say
that I'm right or anything likethat.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
So yeah, I will say I do love I mean I'm I've said
before I love a conference, evenwith the fluffy stuff and
everything, because I love itenergizes me to be around people
in the same industry.
I love to network, I love tomeet people who are doing
similar things to me because Ifeel like that ups my game.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
You're in a very specialized area so there's not
you know other than you, maybetwo other people that that is
their full-time position, maybe.
Yeah, I know that, do that.
You know it's not likerecruiting or generalist role or
anything like that.
(29:43):
You're doing very specializedwork and if I were much more
specialized I'd be very muchhunting down my other cohorts
because I know I'm a generalistoverall.
I know people I can call andcontact if I have a question and
bounce ideas off of or vent toor whatever.
(30:03):
If I were in your boat Iwouldn't.
I mean, I'm sure you have morenetworking, a broader network in
that arena than I do, but wow,that must be own island a lot of
times.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
A lot of times.
Yeah, and that's a lot ofplaces.
This is new.
Oh yeah, I started a new job.
Like a lot of places I workedat, I was kind of a team of one,
or maybe one or two, and it wasalways difficult to try to keep
ahead of what's going on andtrying to see how the best
(30:37):
places are doing things, andthat's why I've always had to go
to conferences and network andgo outside of my office, so to
speak.
Now, starting a new job, I'm ona team of us, so this is
exciting.
This is a whole new game andI'm very excited.
Good, but yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
You've started a new job.
Feathers recently started a newjob.
Patrick still where he was whenwe worked together, and I'm not
going anywhere.
I'm going to become a liferwhere I'm at.
If the decision were mine, I'dbe a lifer, but the decision's
not always going to.
I hope If the decision weremine, I'd be a lifer, but the
decision's not always going to.
I know that's not my decisionall the time.
Nice, do you want to talk aboutyour new job?
(31:23):
You've told me how it came upor anything.
Anything you want to and we canedit.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
Yeah, so this is the I'm going to say, this is the
power of networking.
I had connected with the hiringmanager about five years ago
because I was interviewing for arole under her at a different
company and I was one of thefinal two and I just got edged
out and I didn't get the roleand she basically called me and
(31:52):
she said usually you get somekind of just email or something.
But she had called me and shesaid it was a very hard decision
and I do want to keep in touchbecause I feel like one day
we're meant to work with eachother.
And I was like, oh, and Ithought that was fantastic and
sure enough.
Like, over the course of fiveyears, different opportunities
kind of popped up, but they werenever the right one.
(32:14):
And then finally this onepopped up and I said I was
leaving.
So I had a really goodconversation with my old manager
, the, from the company I wasleaving and I was telling him
how this time it's the.
This is one of the hardesttimes.
Only two times in my lifeleaving a company Did I say oh,
like this is a hard leavebecause I love the people I work
(32:37):
with, I love what I'm doing, Ilove all that, but this it just,
it's just hard to leave.
And again, twice in my life andmy last company being one of
them and he said something thatwas kind of it resonated with me
in a way, because he said it'sdifferent, it's a different
feeling when you're running awayfrom something than when you're
(32:59):
running towards something.
That's cool, I was like, oh,like that is.
And he just basically said ifyou can manage to run towards
something every time, and everytime you leave, towards
something to elevate yourself orfor a better position, you're
going to have it in your heartlike leaving your past company
to be like, oh, I'm gonna missthem, but the time is right,
(33:21):
versus times where I've leftcompanies running away from them
with my middle fingers in theair, being like f you guys, yeah
, screw you, screw you, you'recool, but I like that.
I was like, yeah, so this isthe first like.
I feel like I'm really likerunning towards something bigger
, something better.
And the other thing I wanted tosay was sorry, I am in a remote
(33:46):
position again and I love being100% remote.
And the one thing about remoteroles is the onboarding is
sometimes tricky, like it's hitor miss, because your first day
you're at your home, you're inyour office.
It's not like your first day inan office where you're like
meeting people and this kind ofstuff, and it's a different
energy.
And this is the first timewhere I started a remote role
(34:10):
and the onboarding is likeperfection, perfection.
I got like this PowerPoint,like a deck that basically had
like 20 some slides sayingexactly what my role was going
to be, exactly the org structure, exactly like what we do as a
(34:31):
company, and then it went downto like okay, here's your first
two week plan.
Here's your 30 day plan, here'syour 60 day, 90 day Like.
It was so in depth that I feellike, so well prepared and,
additionally, everyone at thecompany, just the culture of the
company, is very welcoming.
(34:51):
Everyone is just let me know ifyou need anything.
I'm already setting up touchbases.
It's much more casual in theway people speak to each other
than what I'm like it's.
I've.
I've had that kind of culturein the past and I've always
tried to find a place thatrecreates it and this place
seemingly does.
It's very like we love that.
(35:12):
You here, we can't wait to seewhat you're going to do.
It's very positive.
They trust me and it's justsuch a feeling.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
And now I'm like gosh , don't let me fuck it up.
Oh no, you'll do excellent.
A good onboarding experiencereally said you know, this is
dating myself.
But when I joined the law firm,I go into you know I do you go
into a conference room I think acouple other people started the
same day as I did and you getthis, you get that.
And then they sent me to.
(35:47):
I got to see my office afterafter a while and you know I
talked to my boss real briefly,but she actually had to go to
another meeting or something.
So she said, just get yourselfset up in your office.
And I walk into my office and Ihave my computer set up there
and I have several reams ofletterhead with my name on it,
(36:07):
notepads with my name on it, myname and title, and then I'm
sitting there organizing,getting stuff and somebody comes
in and now this is gettingspoiled by a law firm and they
gave me this like a sheet Icould just sort of check out.
I want this, I want stickynotes, I want and they would say
law firms go through the amazonraven floors like there's no
(36:29):
other business.
They actually had their ownprint shop, like I think was
this I was on the 21st floor andthey were on the 17th floor.
It was like their own Kinko'sthat they could do any sort of
printing and things and if I'dwanted anything I could just put
in a request and I would haveit.
And I was like what?
And then it was just such aamazing onboarding experience.
(36:49):
You know, it wasn't high techor cool like what you have, but
was like this they have theiract together in doing this.
I was just like this was really, really cool.
And then getting to be an hrand be the one who works with
facilities and works with theall the other departments to get
make that happen for otherpeople.
I was like this you know youcan't do that everywhere, but it
(37:10):
was.
It was such a really, reallygood experience there.
And they also had ahousekeeping, the internal
housekeeping crew and I rememberone day you know I was doing
with a hole puncher and I Ipicked it up wrong.
You know what happens we put acouple of these damn hole
punchers wrong.
The little holes go everywhereand I'm in yeah, I'm in there
(37:31):
cleaning it up and someone says,oh, we'll send housekeeping.
I'm like, no, I, I cannot havesomeone else come in and clean
my mess up.
I just no, no, I created this.
I'm not going to do it and youknow, I'm sure I didn't get them
all, but I got them overnightor what have you.
But that was just such a reallygood onboarding experience, a
really good onboardingexperience.
(37:53):
And that.
That, when you have thosereally good memories, even
thinking back and like, wow, youknow, yeah, there's going to be
crappy days and stuff, but whenthe table is set right, you
know, it's just like yeah it'sso like even I got to choose my
computer, Like I never got tochoose a computer.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
They're like oh, you're just going to get
whatever we send you.
But they let me choose whatkind of computer I wanted, which
.
I'm on a Mac now because I'm aMac girlie, so thank you.
And then the IT person was likeplease let me know what else
you need, like, and do you needdual monitors?
Do you need this?
Do you need that?
And I was like this is nice,just being a, because you don't
(38:34):
know what you don't know and youdon't want to ask for too much
if it's.
You know not the standard andyou don't know what the standard
is.
So you don't know what to askfor.
And yeah, they were just likeyeah, let us know what you need
to make work better.
And you know my manager.
She's amazing.
(38:54):
My new peers are fantastic.
I'm on like the.
What is it?
The meet and greet show rightnow or the meet and greet tour
right now?
Where?
I'm trying to meet all thebusiness partners and getting to
know exactly what they do, andit's just great, it's just fun,
I feel welcomed, it feels good.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
Awesome, happy for you.
Speaker 3 (39:14):
Thank you, and some of them know about the podcast.
So now I'm like, please don'tjudge me.
I say stupid things sometimes,but don't hold it against me,
thank you oh yeah, welcomeaboard all you cc co-workers.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
You can support us on patreon like hallie, the
original jaded hr, rock starbill and michael.
You can support us on patreon.
Buy us a beer, yeah, so yeah,anyways had to.
That's a good way to segue thatone in.
So, oh man, so we've beenpromising this office episode
for has it been two months since?
Speaker 3 (39:54):
Probably it's been two months yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
And it's only episode two it is coming.
We're doing great.
Speaker 3 (40:01):
We're doing great.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
It is.
It will be released before theend of April.
So it is coming because we'regoing to re-record it tonight.
I'm just tired of the editing,so we're re-recording right
after this.
So, anyways, yeah, what else isgoing on in the HR world?
Is there anything that left tocover?
Speaker 3 (40:25):
Yeah, I'm just trying to survive with a new sickness,
so you know.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
Well, you're working remote, so you're not getting
your co-workers sick and thingslike that and you don't have to.
You know, I I felt bad a fewmonths ago.
I felt I didn't have a fever, Ijust didn't feel very well and
I think I might have beenpatient zero, you know, having
minimal symptoms and a coupleother people.
You know, maybe it's justcoincidence someone's going
around at the same time orsomething like the death, or
(40:51):
well, people are going on likemaybe I should actually work
from home that day or stay athome, but you don't have to
worry about that and worry aboutno, take your sick or pto time
or anything like that.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
So yeah, no, I am wearing a mask around the baby
because, oh like I don't want toget her sick.
I can handle being sick myself,but I can't handle taking care
of a sick baby.
It is a nightmare so I'm tryingso hard, just hand-washing
Purell and a face mask.
I feel like it's COVID all over, wow.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
So well, I think this is a good place to end it, but
yeah, I do have a couple moreepisode ideas that are coming to
me from this SHRM conference.
Like I said, tomorrow's thelast day, so maybe something
wild or crazy will come up andhappen the next two days, or I
don't know.
Who knows what it is.
But yeah, SHRM, you need to beashamed if this is what you
(41:45):
think is important.
So, as all oh that guy's likeDo our thank yous.
Andrew Kolpa is the voiceartist who does the intro and
then the intro.
Outro music is the UnderschoolOrchestra.
The song is Devil with theDevil.
So now I'll say, as always I'mWarren, I'm Cece and we're here
helping you survive.
(42:06):
Hr one.
What the fuck moment at a time.
Thank you.
Had you actually read the email, you would know that
the podcast you are about tolisten to could contain explicit
language and offensive content.
These HR experts' views are notrepresentative of their past,
present or future employers.
If you have ever heard mymanager is unfair to me.
I need you to reset my HRportal password, or Can I write
(00:24):
up my employee for crying toomuch?
Welcome to our little safe zone.
Welcome to Jaded HR.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
So, anyways, welcome to Jaded HR, the podcast by two
HR professionals who want tohelp you survive the workday by
saying everything you'rethinking.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
But say it out loud I'm Warren, I'm Cece, she's back
, I'm back and I'm sick withsomething different.
So you know, just keeping itspicy.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
It's been a rough year.
It's only April, come on.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
It's only April.
It's ridiculous.
I don't know what happened tomy immune system after I had a
kid, but I think that hassomething to do with it, because
I'm catching everything that'scoming at me.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
I would just wait until they get to kindergarten
and stuff and they startbringing home all the school
cuties.
I, I would just wait until theyget to kindergarten and stuff,
and they start bringing home allthe school cooties.
I think kindergarten year Idon't think I'd been my first
kid, I don't think I'd beensicker because they bring home
all the cooties and new cootiesyou haven't been exposed to and
yeah, it always seemed to besomething I'm so excited.
(01:41):
Yeah, so I mentioned I'm goingto this Virginia State SHRM
conference.
We're in the middle of it.
Today's a Tuesday, tomorrow theconference wraps up and okay,
I'm going to be shitting on it alot, but I have had some good
experiences too.
(02:02):
But yeah, and this is the firststate conference I've been to,
normally in in virginia theyrotate the state conference
among the five majormetropolitan areas and so the
hampton roads, virginia beacharea gets it like every fifth
year.
And the last year, surprise,surprise was covid I'd would.
(02:23):
I was registered and obviouslycouldn't go.
They canceled it that one.
So so here it is.
They they're doing it again,but next year it looks like for
the next three years they'regoing to be in virginia beach,
but I, at this point I don'tthink I will be going to going
to those.
So it's, it's interesting.
Uh, let's see here because it'sbeen since I've been, I since
(02:49):
it's.
There wasn't one in covet.
It's been at least 10 years,then, since I've been to a state
conference and it's.
It's a little different than Iremember, but maybe that's,
maybe that's just my old foggymemory or anything like that,
but yeah, so, um, I've alreadytitled this episode and you know
(03:09):
, sherm, you should be ashamedthat that's what.
Uh, oh, no, that's, that's whatthis, this conference, is.
I broke down.
I go to, as all of know, I godown deep rabbit holes when I
get my mind like hyper-focusedon something.
So there are 64 breakoutsessions in the three-day
(03:32):
conference and I went down thelist and I was classifying them
by the speakers, what their biosays about them.
I classified the topics, sohere's some stats, anyways that
I came together.
So, of the speakers goingthrough their bios 38 of the
speakers and there's only 64breakout sessions 38 identified
(03:54):
themselves as a consultant or acoach, which brought me to
perfect timing.
Suzanne Lucas, on LinkedIn,posted this on April 4th.
She says I have a controversialthought today Getting laid off
does not qualify you to be acoach, and it is so perfect
because every HR person wholoses their job, they're a coach
(04:19):
, they're a consultant, they aresomething else, and I thought
that that fit very, veryperfectly for this.
But, anyways, I classified sixpeople as an industry expert,
somebody who they're in theweeds, they practice it, they
know what they're talking about.
Only six of them.
I could do that.
There were 10 attorneysspeaking, three salespeople,
(04:42):
only five people who are likepractitioners not to the level
of industry expert, but they'repractitioners and then speakers
were made up the rest.
Then I further broke down thetopics and there are 18
functional topics and I knowthese numbers don't add up, it's
(05:03):
47.
I put whimsical topics, andwhimsical is like the pie in the
sky rainbows and unicornshanging their kitty cat memes
and posters and things like that.
But we're talking threequarters of the.
I can't do math, I'm an HR.
Two thirds of them are there'sno there there with them.
(05:27):
And then I looked at the titlesof the breakout sessions.
The word resilience is used sixtimes.
Empowering was used twice.
Navigating was used 15 times,but they were trying to have a
nautical theme.
It's at the beach, they'retrying to have a nautical theme.
Four of them had the words playor games in them.
(05:48):
Several had storytellingstories.
Future was in five of them, butthis is something I'd never
seen at a conference before.
In the schedule that tells youwhere the breakout session is
and the time and all that, theschedule that tells you where
the breakout session is in thetime, and all that.
Nine of them have books forsale listed in the in the front
of the schedule and yeah.
(06:10):
So, anyways, there was, intheir bios, 14 people listed
themselves as authors.
But of those 14 authors, onlyone listed themselves, listed
their publisher, which issomething I you know.
Listed themselves, listed theirpublisher, which is something I
, you know.
I'm really keen on, becauseself-published books are a dime
(06:30):
less, they're free a dozen,they're not even a dime a dozen,
they're free.
And if there's no publisherwilling to say and in the
self-help arena that a lot ofthese people are operating in,
there's so much bullshit, stupidbooks out there if you can't
get a publisher and you, you gothe self-help boat route.
(06:51):
Yeah, you're not, you're not.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
Yeah, that's not yeah , it's so easy to self-publish
right now, like you could.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Just I'm thinking like I'm going to, when I'm
finished with my, my grad school, and I actually have time to
get my head above water andbreathe again, I'll have some
more letters behind my name.
I'm going to find I've got.
The only thing I put on mysignature is term SCP and I
don't put it on my LinkedInanymore, but I use it my email
(07:18):
signature.
But I'm going to find all mylittle certificates and all my
little letters behind my name.
Get all my little bona fideslooking really nice.
And AI and I are going toself-publish like 100 books a
year so I can be this incredibleauthor.
Nobody's read one Hell.
I haven't even read them.
Chat TPT wrote it.
I haven't read it.
One of my favorite lines LouHoltz.
(07:39):
He said once I saw him speakhe's a great speaker, he's
talking about a book he wrote.
He goes and that makes me theonly person in the world to have
written more books I've readAwesome.
I like that.
But anyways, I'll follow hisfootsteps.
But more things they put intheir bios that they say they're
a professional keynote speaker.
(08:00):
Four of them have been on TEDTalks and then coaches and
things like that.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
So it was just yeah, I've told some by the way, that
was a very impressive analysisthat you just said.
Oh, I went down.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
ADD is great when you can hyper-focus, and I just
decided this is my target todayand that's what I'm going to do.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
But yeah, when you can focus in on the right thing,
ADHD is a blessing.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Oh yeah, when it's the right thing, when you're
supposed to be doing somethingelse and you're deciding to
Google these speakers, bios,things like that, not so much.
But Sunday night, well, I'll begoing back.
So, whatever day, the schedulecame out, the official final
schedule came out.
My assistant and I are bothgoing and I deferred to her.
(08:44):
I gave her the schedule, Ihadn't even looked at it and I
said you pick the sessions youwant to do and I'll go and I'll
do different breakout sessionsfrom you so that we can cover
more ground and meet later anddiscuss and have good
conversations about it Smart.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Yeah, only if I could .
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Smart?
Yeah, only if I could.
After she picked hers and Ilooked through, there was only
one time that we could break upand do different things because
I was not going to do any ofthis touchy-feely bullshit
sessions.
Actually, I have two holes inmy session where I decided I'll
(09:20):
check emails, I'll do it,because there was just nothing
of absolute interest in there.
So I have two holes in my myschedule.
But I was like, and so the onlyand the reason we could break
up, one of the touchy feelyspeakers had to cancel, and when
the attorney stepped in andfilled that slot and so she went
to the one she was going toalready go to and I went to the
(09:41):
other one.
So we got to separate, separateand you know what, this episode
is going to get jaded.
But those were some greatprofessional conversations.
Discussing she's fresh out ofcollege, she went to this what
did you think about that?
What did they say?
What did you think?
Getting her thoughts andinsight.
(10:02):
I mean those are greatconversations.
Too bad, we could only have oneof them, but so far.
Well, tomorrow's the last dayand there's nothing else there.
But anyways, that was my plan,but it couldn't be done Because,
like I said, I was not going tosit through and I did sit
through the keynote speakertoday and one of them 30 seconds
(10:27):
in she just completely lost me.
She's I don't know what this,this pose is.
You see all over Instagram, orI don't know what you call it.
You put your hands under yourchin and yeah.
Under your chin, yeah, and Idon't know what that is.
And she's like really suckingup to the crowd and I love HR.
And like 30 seconds in, I'mgrabbing my phone, I'm starting
(10:48):
to place the dukes.
I'm like, oh gosh, I'm in forit.
And then she starts going onand this was like three minutes
into the conversation.
The hardest, the toughest,longest journey you'll ever have
to take is the 18 inchesbetween your brain and your
heart.
And I just I said jesus,fucking christ, and I said it
(11:09):
probably about that loud and,yeah, I, I was just like, oh, I,
I'm not even paying attentionto what you're saying.
I'm trying not to pay attentionbecause I didn't want to do
things like that.
And the toughest journey is the18 inches between your head and
your heart.
Okay, and that tough journey isgoing to help me in my HR
career.
How so.
(11:30):
And that's where I'm going withthe whole title of this of
where.
Why Sherm should be ashamedBecause A, with two thirds of
(11:51):
the speakers being nothing thatyou're going to be, you might
leave feeling good.
You know I've made my opinionbefore that I'm not the target
for those type of things, but inthe long run, you leave those
type of sessions.
You feel good, you feelenergized, you feel positive.
What are you going to actuallytake back to work and improve
your work?
From Nothing, yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
You feel good for that.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
It's hard Until the next session when you go to an
employment law section.
And then they're saying, oh,the sky is falling and you know
everything, the shit's allhitting the fan.
And yeah, maybe that was theirplan.
Maybe I'm just not giving themenough credit.
We have so much bad news andbullshit that we're going to
have to cover.
Let's give them some rainbowsand unicorns and, you know,
fluffy little ponies and thingslike that.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
So to at least let them leave feeling okay.
I'm sorry I cut you off it'shard.
I was just gonna say it's sohard because I think a lot of
these, a lot of theseconferences, they know they have
X amount of days to fill andsome of those things are filler
and I wish it was more substance, I wish it was more like I
(12:52):
would rather sit through a twodays, a two day conference and
have nothing but substantialthings, rather than having a
three or four day conference andthen having these experiences
of I don't know, just theseinspirational quotes on a wall,
personified.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Exactly.
And walking through thecorridors I hear these people
this was so great, this is sogreat, and I can understand it,
but what are you going to dowith it?
And you're not going to getanything out.
I've told any number of people,including you.
If my COO read the agenda andthe topic titles for what I'm
(13:33):
going to be doing, what I'vebeen doing the last three days,
he would just say look, what thefuck are you doing, warren?
He goes what are you wastingour money on?
I can just picture him.
What are you wasting our moneyon?
Why do you need to know aboutIK?
I don't have the actual titlesin front of me right now of
these things.
But why, oh, gamify yourworkplace?
Yeah, that's going to.
(13:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
Gamification is big in learning, but how is it in
the workplace?
I don't know, you're like Idon't know.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
I don't know, I didn't want to go to that
session and then, whateversession was, I don't know.
I've meant to look up.
I'll have to go back to theschedule.
I was in a session with anemployment attorney.
Actually, my employmentattorney was giving the
presentation and in theconference room they're playing
like family feud music and dingsand people getting all loud and
(14:24):
stuff like that and I'm like,okay, they're having more fun
than I'm having, probably, butwhat are they going to walk out
the door with, and things likethat.
So, anyways, the next rabbithole I went down after being
very disappointed in thisoffering.
I just put into Google mysearch term was Virginia
(14:48):
Professional Annual Conferencesand I went down the list and I
started just clicking on them,not in regard to what profession
or anything, it was just searchresult 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and going
down.
Then I would look and see ifthey had an agenda.
So it took me a couple of pagesto go through this many.
But so the first one, theVirginia Society of CPAs.
(15:10):
Oh, here's the criteria If Iwas going to count them on this
list, it had to be aprofessional organization, it
had to be a multi-day conference, not just a one-day thing, and
they had to have a detailedagenda that could read the
topics and make a judgment callwhether it was substantial or
fluff.
So first one Virginia Societyof CPAs.
(15:30):
Zero fluff topics, zeroVirginia Commissioners of
Revenue.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
Yeah, it's accountants.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Yeah, virginia Commissioners of Revenue zero
fluff.
The Virginia Bar Associationzero fluff.
The Virginia Bar Associationzero fluff.
The Virginia Academy ofSciences no fluff.
Virginia Society of Toxicologyzero fluff.
Association of School Programsof Public Health no fluff.
(15:58):
The Virginia FundersAssociation I don't know what
half these things are no fluff.
Wildlife Society no fluff.
College of Physicians no fluff.
Rheumatoid Society no fluff.
Association of Museums no fluff.
Not until I got my 12th one thatactually had an agenda did I
start seeing fluffy things, andit was the Virginia Apartment
Management Association.
That goes probably on Googleresults page three.
(16:18):
Like I said, not everybody hadtheir agenda still published, or
they had their.
2025 is saying coming soon onthe agenda, so I couldn't see
what 2024 was.
But on day one they had afluffy keynote and two fluffy
breakout sessions.
Day two, three breakoutsessions and day three their
closing was I think it's I put aquote is energetic and funny
(16:43):
keynote speaker, but I think thewhole quote that I didn't write
down was you'll be enthralledby our closing.
They weren't even trying tohide that.
It was fluff.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
Yeah, that's interesting.
So, like as you're goingthrough this, all I'm thinking
is that sometimes hr has thisreputation of being the people
people and we're there asemotional support, or we're just
there for the business and likeit's.
It's two different.
There's two different sides.
(17:13):
People either think that we'relike too people-y and too
feeling-y, or people just thinkthat we're out for the business
and you should never trust us.
Those are the two sides of thecoin and this stuff it's
discouraging to hear.
It feels like we have the mostfluff in our conferences when,
(17:34):
if you think about it, thethings that we do have tangible
business results.
However, it's not as obvious asaccountants or lawyers or this
or that, but the work that we do.
I mean I could pull up theprojects I've done in the past
and I could pull up ROI and Icould talk about how we impacted
(17:56):
the business.
It's serious work that we do,but then you go to a conference
and you get discouraged with thefluffy feelings.
It makes me a little sad.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
It is sad because everybody HR needs a place at
the table.
Hr, you need your seat at thetable and all this.
Well, this is exactly why ifit's our own professional
organization, the only one outthere for us that says this is
what we think is important foryour professional organization,
the only one out there for usthat says this is what we think
is important for yourprofessional development, then
no, it's an epic fail in termsof that.
(18:28):
And yeah, if it's where they'rein San Diego this year for the
National SHRM Conference,they've only hyped it up a
couple dozen times over toconference, which I will not be
going to the National SHRMconference.
But when you have 300exhibitors and things like that
and multi-day, I'm sure I couldfind all the substantive things
(18:48):
I want, but in a three-day stateconference, yeah, it's just.
This is exactly what is wrongwith HR right now.
If you want to, you can come upwith some.
Like I said, there were about 10breakout sessions with lawyers
and I'm doing every single oneof them overall and it's just
(19:09):
such a shame is I, beside allthe jadedness, I'm passionate
about my career.
I'm passionate about myprofession, I love what I do,
but to see that the localchapter or the state chapter or
whomever it is, thinks that thisis what's going to be important
to us?
Yeah, it's.
And on top of all that, thefact that you had to pay and
(19:32):
register as it sold out.
They only allowed like 650, Idon't remember the number.
It's a really low number ofpeople this year, but it's
really not any space in theplace.
They've gone and I'm thinkingit's been 10 years since I've
been to one, but in the past Iwas thinking there was like a
thousand people or more in them.
But but yeah, there was,there's just there's no there
there and I'm I'm just reallyhighly disappointed.
(19:54):
They, they need to have somemore substantive topics and get
us out of that mind.
Space of this is what HR isimportant Because, like I said,
you take a functional person,you take your CEO, your COO, and
you show them this agenda.
They're going to laugh at you.
You go to your CFO and they goto one of these society of CPAs
where they have a four-dayconference and it's like all
(20:17):
hard-hitting stuff and here weare, we're going to learn the
second verse, the kumbaya, thatnobody knows, or something like
that.
I have no freaking clue, butthis is what is absolutely wrong
with HR right now, and I knowsome of the people on the local
board and I haven't talked tothem about this, but I think
(20:37):
it's just so disappointing and Idon't know how much control
they had over this.
My other thing, where I wasgoing before I diverted myself
again is you had to pay beforeyou know what the and register
before you knew what the topicswere.
And if I'd known, if I'd seenthe agenda, I would have said,
oh, I'll pass, I'd rather go towork and do things, but some of
(21:01):
these ones that I listed,they're future conferences.
Now, one thing I didn't do whichI wanted to do I just ran out
of time and motivation was Iwanted to go and look at other
state SHRM councils and see ifthey have.
I know there's going to be afluff, but if it's going to be,
two thirds of it is fluff, or ifit's it's, they have more
(21:23):
substantial stuff.
Because I I don't want to justthe one deal with it.
I want to, I want to go, I wantto learn, I want to improve
myself and I want to get back towork and say, hey, I think we
can do this, I think this is agood idea.
That's why I want to go when Iget back to work Thursday.
That's what I want to be doing.
(21:44):
And what'd you do?
Speaker 3 (21:49):
I learned about the hardest journey that we will
ever take.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Yeah, I go back to telling that to my COO.
Yeah, the hardest journey I'mgoing to take is the 18 inches
between my mind and my heart.
Yeah, I think my bags would bepacked and thrown out me as I'm
getting booted out the door.
Yeah, it's hard.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
And I will say, because I used to be on a board
where we did plan an annualconference and it was difficult,
not difficult but you have acall to action or a call out for
individuals who would like tobe a presenter, and there's a
whole moment like a pickingprocess and a vetting process,
but at the end of the day, likeif we have x amount of sessions
(22:40):
to fill and we're a couple short, we'll take someone from the
bottom of a pile to put them inthere to fill that up.
And I hate to say it like thatbut that's kind of like how it
was.
So yeah, like you just have thesessions and the time slots to
fill, you just have to fill them.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
And I was giving us a little bit of thought what
would I, what other topics wouldI want to see addressed that
substantively?
But that's the thing about whenthese conferences too.
You go to some of theseconferences, you don't know, hey
, that that topic I didn't knowwas going to hit me and be as
important to me, and as it endsup being, until you go there and
(23:20):
you say, oh, wow, this is, thisis something that's, that's
good, so but yeah, it's beengoing going well.
I don't know if I hit this onon the speech.
So the keynote, the closingkeynote speaker for Monday, was
Johnny C Taylor, himself JCT,and I tell you I've I've been
very hard on the man.
You can listen to any dozens ofepisodes.
(23:43):
I've been very hard on him.
He is a phenomenal speaker andI was expecting him to be more
fluff and pie in the sky.
He was not.
He was actually kind of directin all politics or whatever side
you think of JCT, because Iknow he carries a lot of baggage
(24:03):
because he was in Trump's or headvised Trump or something like
that in his firstadministration and he was the
lead.
He was the head of theDepartment of Labor.
This time was supposed to bethe person.
Everything I heard until thisother person from Oregon was
going to be him came up.
So you know, you know what,which side of the political
aisle he lines with, which isnot what I think the general HR
(24:27):
population lines up with.
But he was.
He talked about the future ofSHRM.
He talked about the future work.
He talked about the future ofAI and HR.
I mean, it was a substantialtopic and he was engaging and
lively and I will actually saythat I would give him a 10 out
(24:50):
of 10 on both presentation andcontent.
That's awesome.
I was not expecting it to likeit that much.
I went in, I went in jaded andhe converted me and one of the
things he said he said I willmisquote him here, so don't say
this is exactly it but hispeople, his handlers, whoever
(25:12):
told him not to talk about the,the diversity, removing the
diversity from DEI, and hetalked about it in.
Now his spiel on it is whateverthe court decision was, that
was really impact, negativelyimpacting diversity.
They saw the writing on thewall and they're getting ahead
of it now.
I've also said is is you know,did he get lucky?
(25:34):
Did Sherm and Johnny C Taylorget lucky.
And now, yep, because that wasSeptember, before the election
or anything, and nobody knew thedirection things were going to
change in.
And is he now just getting infront of the band with his baton
?
Look what we said.
Was he lucky?
Was he right?
Was he predicted?
I?
I don't know how it, how itcame about, but the fact is
(25:55):
that's where we are right now.
Regardless, the fact is that'swhere we are.
How you feel about it's a wholedifferent ballgame, but I I
went in very cynical and jadedand I'm not gonna say I'm a a
thousand percent jct fan now,but I have a new level of
respect for him that I did nothave before Monday evening.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
So I know that's going to be a very unpopular
opinion.
No, what I was thinking wasmaybe he no longer has that
carrot dangling in front of himfor a shiny political position.
So now he's being a little moredirect and a little more himself
, like he has nothing on theline yeah I will say that I did
(26:38):
hear him speak at a shermconvention and he is very
charismatic and he's a greatpublic speaker and honestly, you
do leave feeling good about thework you do.
And it's not fluff, it's likeyou said, it's very direct and
very state.
It's almost like state of theunion of hr exactly perfect
analogy, but see, that's what Iwant yes what if I'm going to a
(26:59):
conference?
I want a state of the union ofthe industry, a state of the
industry.
I want best practices.
I want to see how othercompanies, like best in class
companies are doing things andwhat I can learn from them.
I'm okay on the other stuff.
I'm okay with the fluffy feelystuff.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
And it's not that I want zero fluff, like some of
these other ones, but two thirdsof it being wide categorized as
fluff is a bit too much andbecause, like I said, some of
it's been quite depressing.
When you're doing an employmentlaw seminar one, you're doing
like I said I've done I don'tknow how many law ones have been
(27:42):
done thus far and it's a littlescary, it's a little depressing
and maybe you want to.
Okay, I've had enough of this.
Let's talk about gamifying yourworkplace or whatever One of
these BSE topics they had outthere were.
And, yeah, I can see me goingto my CEO and COO and say, hey,
let's gamify our place.
(28:03):
Yeah, let's gamify your resumeand see how.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
Make it into a fun puzzle piece so people can put
it together when you mail it tothem.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Yeah, so, but anyways , that's my take on it.
I'm having a good time.
I just wish I could have donemore substantial work, get more.
I.
I wanted my assistant this isour first, you know.
She just graduated from college.
She I wanted her to get alittle more experience.
She's getting a good experienceout of it, but I wanted her to
to expose, and I'm I'm.
(28:33):
I even told her.
Look, I said I feel I feel badbecause I think I'm corrupting
you with my mindset.
And then she goes well, I'mthinking a lot of these things,
I'm just not always saying them.
I'm like okay, well, because Ido feel bad, I don't want to
create another mini me orsomething like that.
(28:53):
I actually respect her so much.
I don't want her to feel thatshe has to agree with me or say
that I'm right or anything likethat.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
So yeah, I will say I do love I mean I'm I've said
before I love a conference, evenwith the fluffy stuff and
everything, because I love itenergizes me to be around people
in the same industry.
I love to network, I love tomeet people who are doing
similar things to me because Ifeel like that ups my game.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
You're in a very specialized area so there's not
you know other than you, maybetwo other people that that is
their full-time position, maybe.
Yeah, I know that, do that.
You know it's not likerecruiting or generalist role or
anything like that.
(29:43):
You're doing very specializedwork and if I were much more
specialized I'd be very muchhunting down my other cohorts
because I know I'm a generalistoverall.
I know people I can call andcontact if I have a question and
bounce ideas off of or vent toor whatever.
(30:03):
If I were in your boat Iwouldn't.
I mean, I'm sure you have morenetworking, a broader network in
that arena than I do, but wow,that must be own island a lot of
times.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
A lot of times.
Yeah, and that's a lot ofplaces.
This is new.
Oh yeah, I started a new job.
Like a lot of places I workedat, I was kind of a team of one,
or maybe one or two, and it wasalways difficult to try to keep
ahead of what's going on andtrying to see how the best
(30:37):
places are doing things, andthat's why I've always had to go
to conferences and network andgo outside of my office, so to
speak.
Now, starting a new job, I'm ona team of us, so this is
exciting.
This is a whole new game andI'm very excited.
Good, but yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
You've started a new job.
Feathers recently started a newjob.
Patrick still where he was whenwe worked together, and I'm not
going anywhere.
I'm going to become a liferwhere I'm at.
If the decision were mine, I'dbe a lifer, but the decision's
not always going to.
I hope If the decision weremine, I'd be a lifer, but the
decision's not always going to.
I know that's not my decisionall the time.
Nice, do you want to talk aboutyour new job?
(31:23):
You've told me how it came upor anything.
Anything you want to and we canedit.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
Yeah, so this is the I'm going to say, this is the
power of networking.
I had connected with the hiringmanager about five years ago
because I was interviewing for arole under her at a different
company and I was one of thefinal two and I just got edged
out and I didn't get the roleand she basically called me and
(31:52):
she said usually you get somekind of just email or something.
But she had called me and shesaid it was a very hard decision
and I do want to keep in touchbecause I feel like one day
we're meant to work with eachother.
And I was like, oh, and Ithought that was fantastic and
sure enough.
Like, over the course of fiveyears, different opportunities
kind of popped up, but they werenever the right one.
(32:14):
And then finally this onepopped up and I said I was
leaving.
So I had a really goodconversation with my old manager
, the, from the company I wasleaving and I was telling him
how this time it's the.
This is one of the hardesttimes.
Only two times in my lifeleaving a company Did I say oh,
like this is a hard leavebecause I love the people I work
(32:37):
with, I love what I'm doing, Ilove all that, but this it just,
it's just hard to leave.
And again, twice in my life andmy last company being one of
them and he said something thatwas kind of it resonated with me
in a way, because he said it'sdifferent, it's a different
feeling when you're running awayfrom something than when you're
(32:59):
running towards something.
That's cool, I was like, oh,like that is.
And he just basically said ifyou can manage to run towards
something every time, and everytime you leave, towards
something to elevate yourself orfor a better position, you're
going to have it in your heartlike leaving your past company
to be like, oh, I'm gonna missthem, but the time is right,
(33:21):
versus times where I've leftcompanies running away from them
with my middle fingers in theair, being like f you guys, yeah
, screw you, screw you, you'recool, but I like that.
I was like, yeah, so this isthe first like.
I feel like I'm really likerunning towards something bigger
, something better.
And the other thing I wanted tosay was sorry, I am in a remote
(33:46):
position again and I love being100% remote.
And the one thing about remoteroles is the onboarding is
sometimes tricky, like it's hitor miss, because your first day
you're at your home, you're inyour office.
It's not like your first day inan office where you're like
meeting people and this kind ofstuff, and it's a different
energy.
And this is the first timewhere I started a remote role
(34:10):
and the onboarding is likeperfection, perfection.
I got like this PowerPoint,like a deck that basically had
like 20 some slides sayingexactly what my role was going
to be, exactly the org structure, exactly like what we do as a
(34:31):
company, and then it went downto like okay, here's your first
two week plan.
Here's your 30 day plan, here'syour 60 day, 90 day Like.
It was so in depth that I feellike, so well prepared and,
additionally, everyone at thecompany, just the culture of the
company, is very welcoming.
(34:51):
Everyone is just let me know ifyou need anything.
I'm already setting up touchbases.
It's much more casual in theway people speak to each other
than what I'm like it's.
I've.
I've had that kind of culturein the past and I've always
tried to find a place thatrecreates it and this place
seemingly does.
It's very like we love that.
(35:12):
You here, we can't wait to seewhat you're going to do.
It's very positive.
They trust me and it's justsuch a feeling.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
And now I'm like gosh , don't let me fuck it up.
Oh no, you'll do excellent.
A good onboarding experiencereally said you know, this is
dating myself.
But when I joined the law firm,I go into you know I do you go
into a conference room I think acouple other people started the
same day as I did and you getthis, you get that.
And then they sent me to.
(35:47):
I got to see my office afterafter a while and you know I
talked to my boss real briefly,but she actually had to go to
another meeting or something.
So she said, just get yourselfset up in your office.
And I walk into my office and Ihave my computer set up there
and I have several reams ofletterhead with my name on it,
(36:07):
notepads with my name on it, myname and title, and then I'm
sitting there organizing,getting stuff and somebody comes
in and now this is gettingspoiled by a law firm and they
gave me this like a sheet Icould just sort of check out.
I want this, I want stickynotes, I want and they would say
law firms go through the amazonraven floors like there's no
(36:29):
other business.
They actually had their ownprint shop, like I think was
this I was on the 21st floor andthey were on the 17th floor.
It was like their own Kinko'sthat they could do any sort of
printing and things and if I'dwanted anything I could just put
in a request and I would haveit.
And I was like what?
And then it was just such aamazing onboarding experience.
(36:49):
You know, it wasn't high techor cool like what you have, but
was like this they have theiract together in doing this.
I was just like this was really, really cool.
And then getting to be an hrand be the one who works with
facilities and works with theall the other departments to get
make that happen for otherpeople.
I was like this you know youcan't do that everywhere, but it
(37:10):
was.
It was such a really, reallygood experience there.
And they also had ahousekeeping, the internal
housekeeping crew and I rememberone day you know I was doing
with a hole puncher and I Ipicked it up wrong.
You know what happens we put acouple of these damn hole
punchers wrong.
The little holes go everywhereand I'm in yeah, I'm in there
(37:31):
cleaning it up and someone says,oh, we'll send housekeeping.
I'm like, no, I, I cannot havesomeone else come in and clean
my mess up.
I just no, no, I created this.
I'm not going to do it and youknow, I'm sure I didn't get them
all, but I got them overnightor what have you.
But that was just such a reallygood onboarding experience, a
really good onboardingexperience.
(37:53):
And that.
That, when you have thosereally good memories, even
thinking back and like, wow, youknow, yeah, there's going to be
crappy days and stuff, but whenthe table is set right, you
know, it's just like yeah it'sso like even I got to choose my
computer, Like I never got tochoose a computer.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
They're like oh, you're just going to get
whatever we send you.
But they let me choose whatkind of computer I wanted, which
.
I'm on a Mac now because I'm aMac girlie, so thank you.
And then the IT person was likeplease let me know what else
you need, like, and do you needdual monitors?
Do you need this?
Do you need that?
And I was like this is nice,just being a, because you don't
(38:34):
know what you don't know and youdon't want to ask for too much
if it's.
You know not the standard andyou don't know what the standard
is.
So you don't know what to askfor.
And yeah, they were just likeyeah, let us know what you need
to make work better.
And you know my manager.
She's amazing.
(38:54):
My new peers are fantastic.
I'm on like the.
What is it?
The meet and greet show rightnow or the meet and greet tour
right now?
Where?
I'm trying to meet all thebusiness partners and getting to
know exactly what they do, andit's just great, it's just fun,
I feel welcomed, it feels good.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
Awesome, happy for you.
Speaker 3 (39:14):
Thank you, and some of them know about the podcast.
So now I'm like, please don'tjudge me.
I say stupid things sometimes,but don't hold it against me,
thank you oh yeah, welcomeaboard all you cc co-workers.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
You can support us on patreon like hallie, the
original jaded hr, rock starbill and michael.
You can support us on patreon.
Buy us a beer, yeah, so yeah,anyways had to.
That's a good way to segue thatone in.
So, oh man, so we've beenpromising this office episode
for has it been two months since?
Speaker 3 (39:54):
Probably it's been two months yeah.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
And it's only episode two it is coming.
We're doing great.
Speaker 3 (40:01):
We're doing great.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
It is.
It will be released before theend of April.
So it is coming because we'regoing to re-record it tonight.
I'm just tired of the editing,so we're re-recording right
after this.
So, anyways, yeah, what else isgoing on in the HR world?
Is there anything that left tocover?
Speaker 3 (40:25):
Yeah, I'm just trying to survive with a new sickness,
so you know.
Speaker 2 (40:30):
Well, you're working remote, so you're not getting
your co-workers sick and thingslike that and you don't have to.
You know, I I felt bad a fewmonths ago.
I felt I didn't have a fever, Ijust didn't feel very well and
I think I might have beenpatient zero, you know, having
minimal symptoms and a coupleother people.
You know, maybe it's justcoincidence someone's going
around at the same time orsomething like the death, or
(40:51):
well, people are going on likemaybe I should actually work
from home that day or stay athome, but you don't have to
worry about that and worry aboutno, take your sick or pto time
or anything like that.
Speaker 3 (41:02):
So yeah, no, I am wearing a mask around the baby
because, oh like I don't want toget her sick.
I can handle being sick myself,but I can't handle taking care
of a sick baby.
It is a nightmare so I'm tryingso hard, just hand-washing
Purell and a face mask.
I feel like it's COVID all over, wow.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
So well, I think this is a good place to end it, but
yeah, I do have a couple moreepisode ideas that are coming to
me from this SHRM conference.
Like I said, tomorrow's thelast day, so maybe something
wild or crazy will come up andhappen the next two days, or I
don't know.
Who knows what it is.
But yeah, SHRM, you need to beashamed if this is what you
(41:45):
think is important.
So, as all oh that guy's likeDo our thank yous.
Andrew Kolpa is the voiceartist who does the intro and
then the intro.
Outro music is the UnderschoolOrchestra.
The song is Devil with theDevil.
So now I'll say, as always I'mWarren, I'm Cece and we're here
helping you survive.
(42:06):
Hr one.
What the fuck moment at a time.
Thank you.
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