S2E3: The Insurgence, Employee Rights and advocacy from employment lawyer Bryan

Episode Transcript
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Nicola (00:00):
Good morning Brian.
How are you?

Bryan (00:02):
Hello, I am well.
How are you?

Nicola (00:05):
Wonderful, wonderful, what good.
Well, I can't remember wherewere you called and you were
calling us from somewhere.
Cool DC.

Gina (00:14):
Not really.

Bryan (00:15):
Orlando, not, that's not.

Gina (00:16):
Orlando, that's right.
Oh no, we just remember youabout DC.
But just kidding, becauseyou're really Orlando and I'm
going.
I'm taking my daughter toDisney in like a month and I've
never been there before.
What should I do Jump off?

Bryan (00:33):
of her.
Yeah, I mean, there's not go.
How old is your daughter?

Gina (00:39):
She'll be three.

Bryan (00:42):
Oh, she'll enjoy it.
Ok, so you're aware MagicKingdom now allows alcohol, so
they didn't use to sell alcohol.
So that's, that's good you can.
You can carry some wine around.

Gina (00:54):
I'll ask Lucia, my three year old, what kind of wine she
likes.
Does she like?

Nicola (00:58):
you know, you know, I'm on board with that Magic Kingdom
.
You're not, but I'm on boardwith Magic Kingdom.

Gina (01:04):
Even if I wanted to drink, I can't because I'm on bikini
prep, but anyway, so that's good.
Ok, but like, what should I beaware of?
Should I be aware of first ofall?
Is it a?
Is it safe to even go, justlike me and my daughter?

Nicola (01:17):
Yeah, of course it is.
Don't be dumb.

Gina (01:19):
Shut up, you haven't even been there.

Nicola (01:21):
I went to the other Disney.
It's the same thing.

Gina (01:24):
All right, anyway, just oh , can I my top.

Nicola (01:27):
As an adult, though, write your telephone number in
Sharpie down her arm.
Why?
Because if she gets lost on theday and she doesn't know your
telephone number and someonefinds her, your telephone number
is on her arm.

Gina (01:41):
Oh, I thought you said to write it on mine.
I'm like I don't wanteverywhere on her arm.
Ok, because I was like oh, Idon't want weird creeps calling
me, I'll just make sure that youdo?

Nicola (01:51):
Yes, you do.
You want to fucking creepercalling you please fuck off.

Gina (01:55):
No, I don't.
My phone's so dry anyway, somaybe I would enjoy it.
Maybe I'd be like oh, a littlelittle something for today.
I'm sorry.

Nicola (02:05):
Brian, back to you.
I.
What do I know about Orlando?
Fucking nothing, it's OK.

Bryan (02:10):
Yeah, I think, I think she'll have a great time.
Magic Kingdom will be fun.
There it's it's.
They've changed the like, thereservation system and stuff
like that.
So you kind of I would suggestlooking up some YouTube videos
on folks are called Genie Pass,I think.
Oh yeah.

(02:32):
Yeah, like it's.
I went, my wife and I went afew months ago with one of my
wife's best friends and her twolittle girls, and my wife's
friend now has like a PhD inDisney.
Because, like, you have to dothat on the app Apparently, yes,
because you like have to be onthe app at like six, fifty eight

(02:54):
am In order to get thereservations that you want, get
in in queue early for thecertain rides that are popular,
like at Magic.

Gina (03:02):
Kingdom like Pirates of the Caribbean and stuff like
that.
And no for me.

Nicola (03:07):
It's why I didn't like the preplanning was more intense
than the day there, and thenthe day there was like fucking
it's fucking Disney.

Gina (03:15):
I don't know I got like really, but so so here's the one
before we get into it.
I did download the app, sothere's that.

Bryan (03:22):
The apps are easy to that's good, yeah, yeah, you
just have to be.
You have to be prepared thatyou won't get to see everything
that you, that you or yourdaughter want to see, I'm not a
Disney person at all.

Gina (03:36):
Even was I like will, neither am I like I'm like if I
never go to Disney, I will betotally OK, my life will move on
.
Like I remember when I firstmoved to Florida I like went to
go get my hair done and thiswoman was getting what do they
call it?
Like, before you get married,you get like the trial run of
the hair and the makeup.
I guess the trial right and shewas getting married at Disney

(03:58):
and it was Disney themed and shehad like Disney bobbles in her
hair and I was like why am Ihere?
Why do I live in this God awfulstate?

Nicola (04:05):
Who is this woman?
Like she had like like littlelike tinkerbell like or your
wife is what's happening?
Because the he's the only onethat's married here and, I'm
guessing, being ever married.

Gina (04:18):
Someone did that Brian, who was like, hey, babe, my hair
, how does my hair look and like?
And then I was like thinkinglike this is going to be your
wedding pictures for all ofposterity and you're going to
have like Mickey Mouse ears andlike a tinkerbell.

Bryan (04:33):
Yeah, that's.
That would be way too much forme.
I mean, I've been to Disney afew times.
Most of the times I'm there, Iam hammered, I'm doing like
drinking around the world orsomething.
Yeah, especially since my wifeand I don't have kids.
Like there's no, I mean some ofthe stuff there is fun, but
like yeah we just want to go anddrink and watch.

Nicola (04:55):
I am rethinking this whole thing, Anyway she's a
little bit older, like I'm fouror a five there, because I feel
like it would be fun if they'refour or five, like it was like
moderately fun for Quentin andhe's teen yeah yeah, all right,
well, anyway, so that's, that'sour Disney chat.

Gina (05:14):
So and my PTSD from Disney hair trial.

Bryan (05:20):
Yeah, I guess I'll leave you with this.
The first time I went, myparent, when I was still living
in the Midwest my parentsbrought my brother and I down
for a trip to Disney and I was,I think, 12 and my brother was
like six.
Those, I think, were great ages.
I remember it.
My brother claims he has norecollection of ever being at

(05:41):
Disney, which kind of pisses myparents off because they spent
so much money on it.
But I do remember us bothhaving a good time like those
were good ages for us.
He didn't get to ride some ofthe rides, but yeah.

Gina (05:52):
I don't know because, like I, live in this area where
everybody has more money thanGod and I don't, and they're
like, oh, we're going to Disneyfor the weekend and I'm like,
okay, I'm going to go have apeanut butter jelly sandwich,
thanks Bye.

Nicola (06:06):
Okay, I'm sorry.
You know how much Disney was inNew Zealand dollars.

Gina (06:11):
Oh yeah, no, I know you tell me one day for one stupid
day.
It was like two grand orsomething like two grand US
dollars, what yeah?

Bryan (06:20):
Yeah, that is, that is insane.
I mean, that is just that iscapitalism and it's worst that
is.
That is horrible.

Nicola (06:31):
Okay so anyway, despite that, I think.

Gina (06:36):
Disney may not be happening for Luchia this year
because I just like I also don'tknow if I'm in the right
mindspace to be dealing with allthat shit why don't we have
Ryan and introduce himself?
Besides being a PhD in Disney,what else are you a PhD in?

Bryan (06:55):
Definitely not a PhD in Disney, that is, that is for
sure.
I'm there to tag along and andhave a drink or seven.
My, my, my focus in real lifeis to fold on on legal writing.
As a lawyer, that was a naturaltransition to writing for law

(07:16):
firms and writing for otherpublications like Forbes and
LegalZoom, and then the other.
The other side of my, my day today work, is HR consulting,
which is some of the fun thatwe're here to discuss today, and
that is the HR consulting,especially over the last like
three years, actually, maybe tothe to the day, the last three

(07:36):
years has been a roller coasterwhirlwind of of the, the
ridiculous and the stuff that Ithought I might never see or
never even thought that would besomething like all stops
happening Totally totally justnot, not, even, not even in the

(07:58):
realm of reality that I wouldhave conceived of.

Gina (08:03):
So can you tell us sort of being an HR consultant I'm
assuming you're kind of cuttingoff like pre, pre pandemic, post
pandemic, because the pastthree years was either we were
in the pandemic or were post.
So what would normal, likethings that would come across
your desk be as an HR consultantpre pandemic, that were semi

(08:26):
normal, like what would youmostly be consulting on?

Bryan (08:30):
Generally boring stuff for what most people would
consider boring operational typethings.
So a company says we're growingto the point where we need to
revise our handbook or we needto create a handbook because we
don't have one yet.
We don't have policies writtendown, or we're about to hit 50
employees, so we need to startthinking about FMLA compliance
and and ACA and stuff like that,though it very operational,

(08:54):
sort of behind the scenes typeof stuff where HR was more
focused on not not as beingfront facing, more focused on
the business side of things andnot so much of the human centric
side of it, like your ducks arein a row from a legal
standpoint kind of exactly legal, and compliance is basically
what it, what it all boils downto yeah, Okay, now what's going

(09:17):
on for the past three years?
The past three years have beensome of those unfathomable
things those are.
Those are the last three years.
I mean there's there's a lot oflegal and compliance stuff, new
stuff that has happened overthe last three years,
specifically remote work.
A lot of companies don't evenknow that they have employees in

(09:37):
other states because theemployees may not be reporting
to the company where they'reworking from.
And then, in turn, even if thecompany does know that they have
employees in other states, theymay not know that they have to
be compliant with those statelaws where those employees are
living, not just where thecompany is located, even if they
have an office.
So those are things, that those,those that that right, there is

(09:58):
probably the biggest eyebrowraise that I get, especially
from new clients, where they'relike wait, we have to, we're
based in Texas, but we have tocomply with with California law
because we have an employee inSan Francisco.
Yes, to some degree you have.
You have to be in compliancewith with California law, which
means you've got to pay dailyover time, not just weekly over

(10:20):
time.
If they're an hourly employee,you're subject to other
requirements, depending on yourheadcount within California and
as a company size as a whole,that are above and beyond what
what Texas requires.
Yeah, that is that is thebiggest eyebrow raise over the
last three years is is allrelated to remote and hybrid

(10:42):
work.

Nicola (10:43):
Wow.

Gina (10:44):
Okay and so wait.
So just randomly, have you seenthe Amazon show the consultant?

Bryan (10:53):
I just saw a trailer for it last night and I definitely
want to watch it.
It does look good.

Gina (10:59):
Please watch it, please watch it.

Nicola (11:01):
Okay, I almost feel like I almost feel like we need
Brian to come in for episodethree of our review of the show.

Gina (11:11):
Yeah, because it's it's it's insane and anyway.
So so okay.
So, yeah, I mean, I don't knowif I would have known like what
state am I, you know?
So does that, with this wholestate and compliance thing, does
that make businesses not wantto continue to be remote or like
what happens there Sometimes?

Bryan (11:31):
yeah, sometimes it makes them not want to be remote, or
they come up with ways to nothire people in certain states,
which which you can do.
You can just post your job inTexas.
You know we're only hiringwithin Texas.
Yeah, because.
I've seen that before, likejobs eligible for like, and then
there's like a bunch ofdifferent states, but not

(11:54):
exactly or like even in the jobposting they'll say hey, we're,
we're, we're hiring for a remoteposition, but you do have to be
located in Texas and that's nota little yeah.
No companies can can absolutelydo that, and that has happened.
That actually started happeningsomewhat before the pandemic
when a couple of states likeColorado and California started

(12:15):
implementing pay transparencylaws so that in the public job
posting you had to post a jobrange for the position you were
hiring for.
So some states decided, or somecompanies decided, they didn't
want to do that because theydon't want people to know what
they're going to make, I guess,and so they would not hire, they

(12:38):
would not accept applicantsfrom, from those particular so
that they wouldn't, have to putin a range exactly.

Nicola (12:46):
People so dodgy.

Gina (12:48):
Yeah, why do companies do that?
I mean, new York just got a alaw just passed in New York,
brian, which you probably knowof that you have to put the
salary range.
If the company's based in NewYork, you have to put the salary
range in the like classifiedads or the job posting.
I'm old classified ads but youknow what I mean.

Bryan (13:09):
Yeah, and, and actually using New York as an example,
recently there was a companythat posted a job with a range
of 90 to 900,000 to comply withthat law.
Obviously that is not areasonable range.

Gina (13:22):
What was the range?
90 to 94 dollars 90 to 900,000.
Wait, wait what company wasthat we'll believe that.
I don't know.

Bryan (13:38):
I don't, I don't, I don't recall.
I know I saw the job post itwas.
It might have been like 88 to880, it was some, it was some
like it was such a huge rangeoddly specific number, but it
was also yeah, huge range it was, it was it was almost intended
to be a joke, I think, or atleast I hope.

Gina (13:57):
Yeah, but it's also a way to get around the law.
Yeah, it's also a way to getaround and they're not wrong,
right, because they are postinga range and nobody said you had
to post an accurate range.
But doesn't that open you up tolike?
Well, they said I could earn upto like 900,000 dollars.
How come I'm not earning up to900,000 dollars?

Bryan (14:16):
Because it's a job ad, not a guarantee.
So the guarantee, the guaranteeis.
It is going to be an employmentagreement, offer letter,
employment contract, somethinglike that exactly, yeah this
reminds me of.

Gina (14:30):
did you see that documentary about Pepsi with the
jet?

Bryan (14:38):
I have.
I watched the first part ofthat.
Yes, you remember that I do.

Gina (14:44):
I do know what you're talking about part of our era,
like where you would collectenough bottle caps and you could
like trade it in formerchandise.
And one of them was like thislike crazy, I don't know, some
like military grade jet, andthis kid figured out a way to do
it.
Oh, hey, pepsi yeah, and Pepsinever gave them the jet really

(15:04):
he was like, yeah, and he was inlike lawsuits forever, but
that's what that reminds me of.
He didn't win, but there waslike so much more to the story,
but it was, it was.
It was actually reallyfascinating.
I was like this is going to beso fucking boring and then I was
like glued and I bingeed thewhole thing.
So another one you might likeis is the McDonald's one.

Bryan (15:23):
If you haven't watched that, that's a couple years ago
about the monopoly pieces forMcDonald's and and the I never
watched that one, but everyonehas told me stuff like it's good
like such a great.

Nicola (15:34):
I need to watch that because I collected the monopoly
reasons for.

Bryan (15:37):
McDonald's, it's really good.
It's, I mean, like the mob getsinvolved, like it's.
It's really, yeah, the mob isinvolved.

Gina (15:44):
Yeah, and also, it was rigged that no one could ever
win right, wasn't that the main,at least the big ones.
Yeah, no, the main prize islike it was yeah you, no one was
ever gonna win the big prizes,surely?

Bryan (15:57):
that's why in New Zealand , surely that's and family
members of people who were, like, involved in the game would
miraculously win a hundredthousand dollar prize or
something like that.

Gina (16:08):
I started watching this, but then I think I might have
had my baby, and then I stoppedwatching it okay and fully
subscribe to that like a sign meup.
Congrats on your baby yeah, btDub I don't know if you heard
that that, that one episode wehave where somebody's boss was
like she was an act of labor andthe boss yes, yes and at the

(16:32):
end she was like congrats onhaving a baby BTW yes, yes.

Nicola (16:39):
I can't.
Even that's my friend.
Okay, so you've got pre andpost pandemic.
We've got like all this weirdshit unfolding in the HR space.
I'm curious to know you knowkind of getting to Gina's needs
and potatoes, and I'm curious toknow what are some of the
wildest things that you haveseen in the last three years so

(17:07):
there are.

Bryan (17:08):
I've got some notes here on my other screen that just to
just to remind me of the bigones.
There are four big ones I think, or maybe three big ones and
one related smaller one that wecan definitely discuss.
That I I don't think I wouldhave expected three or four

(17:29):
years ago.
So we can, we can discuss thoseand dive into those and let's
hear it.

Gina (17:39):
What's number one?

Bryan (17:41):
So number one?
Number one is a company, a truesmall business, less than 50
employees.
That was owned family ownedbusiness, and they made an

(18:03):
announcement to the company inthe beginning of January 2021
that they had a family emergencyand they were going to be
unavailable for three days to goand take care of this family
issue.
Okay, it turns out that theirfamily emergency was the

(18:27):
insurrection that they flew toDC for to participate in the I
don't know to what extent, butthat they were present and near
or at the capital for the daysevents.
I guess I'll just leave itthere and see if you have any

(18:50):
questions.

Nicola (18:51):
The whole family going.
If it's a family, if there's afamily emergency, is the whole
family going, like what'shappened.

Bryan (19:01):
I mean, I don't know.
There's a lot that I don't knowabout the exact details of this
particular instance.
I doubt the entire family wouldhave gone, but I know that at
least the owner of the companyand their spouse were present in

(19:24):
DC for that day.

Gina (19:25):
Okay questions.
Was it important for the ownerand the spouse, whom I'm
assuming worked there, to be onpremise for this business to
operate?
So, in other words, if theyjust decided to call in sick,
would the company be able tofunction for like a day or two

(19:47):
on its own?

Bryan (19:50):
There's two answers to that One answer from my
perspective and another answerfrom their perspective.
Their perspective no, thecompany could not survive
without them.
My perspective it absolutelycan and does.

Gina (20:02):
Okay, that was question number one, Because my follow-up
to question number one is whydo we need to know that?
If you can't make it to work,you're just my boss.
I don't need to know what thefuck you're doing.
Maybe you have to get like ahemorrhoid removed, I don't care
right.
Why do we need to know that?
So, number one that's superridiculous.
And number two it's a small,family-owned business run.

(20:24):
Whenever you hear small andfamily-owned, get to step in,
because I don't feel likeanything good ever comes out of
that.
Number two did this ever comeout to the employees Like what
actually happened?

Bryan (20:43):
Yeah, so it was sort of a slow drip, but that is sort of,
I guess, the overall impact ofsharing this story.
As the first one is the impactthat it had on the employees,
but also on the company as awhole.

Gina (20:58):
That's what I'm saying.
So what happened when theystarted to find out?
Like, yeah, tell us, I mustknow.

Bryan (21:07):
So the way?
Yeah, once they started to.
Once the employees started tofind out, it became apparent
that the owner of the companywas not always looking out for
the company or the employees'best interests, and so employees

(21:28):
quickly became disengaged andmany departed.
Within 90 days of January 6th,I ended my contract.

Gina (21:40):
Did you end it voluntarily or did they ask?

Bryan (21:43):
you to leave.
No, you were like I'm out ofhere, okay.
Yeah, I don't want to beassociated with this.

Gina (21:48):
Yeah, I wouldn't want to be any part of that.
Yeah, go ahead.

Bryan (21:52):
Yeah, and about 80% of the staff that I had hired train
to help to manage andfacilitate and engage and help
the business grow were gone inthat same window as well.
So it had a massive impact, notonly on the individual
employees who made sometimes thetough decision to leave At that

(22:14):
point in what was stillsomewhat of an uncertain global
pandemic and, in many cases,without a job to go to.
That's how bad it was for them.
Yeah, that they would just upand leave, but also an impact to
the company and the remainingemployees, because the company
now had to put extra financialresources into replacing so many

(22:35):
positions so quickly.

Nicola (22:35):
That's a bit of a way to understand the take-off.
That's like a really intensestand.
You're like I don't love whatthese people have done.
I'm done Exactly.

Gina (22:48):
But also I feel like it just is indicative.
So here's where my lastquestion and I think you were
getting there on your own anyway, brian, but how fucking toxic
was it that this was justcommonplace?
I'm sure there was alreadyrumblings of all this other
nonsense before this one thinghappened.

(23:12):
First of all, why did they hireyou as a consultant?
Did they give you a hard timein your consultancy?
What happened there?
I just, without you evenanswering the question, I can
already imagine what you'regoing to say, but go ahead and
say it yes.

Bryan (23:32):
There were lots of red flags leading up to this.
This was obviously like a redexplosion.
Yeah, yes, so to speak.
Yeah, and it really lit thefire under a lot of people to
find something else and get outthe door and to be clear.

(23:52):
I've kept in touch with a lotof people who were there.
Some of the people are of arightward political persuasion
and even they were like I'm out,I don't want to be a part of
this.

Gina (24:04):
And I think that speaks to more like the duplicity, the
duplicitous nature of what theowner said.
It's like I might not believein whatever politics you believe
in, but if you're respectfulabout it, fine, like to each
their own, I don't care right.
But it's like the fact thatyou're going to say it's a
family emergency and then justgo trot off and do something

(24:27):
Like it's really, like it's icky, it's they lie.
They lie to their entireemployee, their entire company.
So I think, yeah, I don't likethat.
It's not good Family.
So, but wait, why did they hireyou, brian Like?
What was the reason why theyfelt they needed a consultant?

Bryan (24:49):
To help with employee engagement, to develop some
additional policies.
They had an aggressive growthplan and we achieved it, but a
lot of it was buttoning somethings up which was tough for
the ownership to handlesometimes because, as I know

(25:11):
both of you are aware like thatsort of new business startup
mentality is, you know, let'sjust do things, let's just do it
and we'll deal with anyrepercussions later, whereas
from my perspective it's let'sthink about what possible
repercussions there are, put insafety measures to prohibit
those and then not have to dealwith them, because it's always

(25:33):
more expensive and more timeconsuming to deal with something
after the fact that it is toprevent it.
So that's sort of where I wascoming in, but also helping to
achieve some of those growthplans and do some strategic
hiring Hiring instead of doingone hiring at one, hire at a
time.
Let's hire a group for hiringsalespeople.
Let's hire a group ofsalespeople, train them all at

(25:54):
once, let them develop bonds andrelationships together as they
go through the training.
Let's develop a real trainingfor them, as opposed to some
random person taking an hour outof their day to say here's what
you need to do and then leavingthem be Like just buttoning up
a lot of things and putting somestructure and some process
around it.

Gina (26:14):
Were they resistant to any of your ideas?

Bryan (26:19):
Yes, in their defense most business owners are,
because it takes work, effort,time and money and a lot of
business owners aren't willingto put that time and effort in,
so then why hire?
When I do find a client thatdoes understand what it takes,

(26:42):
it's a match made in heaven,Because they may not always
agree with me, they may notalways like what I have to say,
but they understand why I'msaying it.
They don't dislike me forsaying something.
They don't think that I'm justtrying to up the billables or
something like that, that it'strying to achieve their goals.
The reason that they wanted topartner with me Sure, yeah, it

(27:06):
is difficult sometimes, butthat's also sort of my role is
you've hired me to give you thebest answer.
It's up to you whether youimplement that best answer.

Nicola (27:20):
Yeah, Brian, I'm curious to know what did you think when
you studied law.
Did you think this is where youwould be?

Bryan (27:28):
Not a chance in hell, no.

Nicola (27:32):
Where did you think your trajectory was going to take
you?

Bryan (27:40):
I thought that I would be more of a paper practice type
lawyer doing estate planningespecially here in Florida
there's plenty of work for thatProbate guardianships, doing
family law to some extent.

(28:02):
That is sort of what Ianticipated, what I thought,
especially after law school,what I thought my trajectory was
going to look like.
I think I kind of stumbled intothis somewhat related to the
writing that I do because when Iwas working for a small law

(28:25):
firm this was years ago when lawfirm websites were becoming a
thing I started doing thewriting for the website.
One of the areas that the firmpracticed in was employment law.
I got to learn some moredetails about employment law
because of the writing that Iwas doing for it and then also
took over the operations and HRfor that law firm and realized

(28:50):
that I actually enjoyed doingthese two things the writing and
operations, hr stuff more thanactual practice of law.
And that's sort of how thatfork in the road happened for me
.
Wow.

Nicola (29:01):
Do you maintain your like?
I'm assuming it's similar toNew Zealand?
Do you maintain, like apracticing certificate for that?

Bryan (29:08):
I do not no.

Nicola (29:09):
Okay.

Gina (29:10):
So you're yeah, okay, yeah , okay.
So what was number two on yourcrazy?

Bryan (29:17):
list On my crazy list.
So number two was see here's.
So one of the things that Igenerally try and stay away from
with clients and withdiscussions is politics and
religion.

(29:37):
You know, like sitting atdinner with in-laws or something
you know.
It's, while those can be funtopics and topics that we should
be discussing as a society,sometimes it makes for
inappropriate discussions in theworkplace and that's why I try
and steer companies away fromthat.
Agreed.

Nicola (29:56):
But as I look at, my list.

Gina (29:57):
Almost everything is political related, so I feel
like this is leading up tosomething.
I feel like this is a totalsetup.

Nicola (30:04):
I feel like we're like okay, what did these Muppets say
?

Gina (30:10):
I'm on the edge of my seat , yeah carry on Different
company here.

Bryan (30:16):
This is much more recent.
This is in the days after theDobs decision was released from
the US Supreme Court OverturningRow.
There was a company this is amuch larger company too, a
couple hundred employees One ofthose companies that has
employees in multiple states andhas to deal with the

(30:38):
jurisdictional issues and allthat compliance.
They posted, as many companiesdid.
They posted a message on theirfull company Slack channel
expressing concern and supportfor people who are affected by
the Supreme Court ruling andbasically they did a good job of

(31:00):
not really taking any politicalstance but saying look, here
are some options that areavailable based on our insurance
for counseling for people thatyou can talk to.
Here are some internal companygroups that you may find
supportive.
They did a great job ofproviding support when it was
needed.

Nicola (31:20):
Love that.

Gina (31:21):
They also.
They also said, they was like,they was like the biggest bot
here.

Bryan (31:27):
They also said so far they're doing a great job.
Yeah, they also said that weare developing a company policy
where we will reimburse up to acertain amount for employees who
need to travel to a differentstate from where they reside to
have some healthcare needs takencare of.
They didn't say for abortion,they said for your healthcare.

(31:48):
Again, great move, great policy.
It was drafted well.
It is good.
What they did wrong was thatthey made this company
announcement on the whole team,the whole company Slack channel,
and didn't turn off comments.

Gina (32:08):
The first comment to that Wait, do you have any like?
Do you have any comments?
Like, like you know, memorizing.

Nicola (32:18):
I feel like Brian's coming into his brain.

Gina (32:22):
Just reading the comments, not participating.
Just eat my popcorn reading thecomments.
Take it away, brian.
What do you remember?

Bryan (32:31):
So one of the comments yes, not verbatim, I'm not
quoting, this, is paraphrasebased on my memory A comment
from someone who looks like me,a white male said if anybody His
username was incel1984.

Gina (32:52):
Yep, that was probably like Chad, Chad19, or Ryguy1998,
some bullshit like that.
Okay, go ahead.

Bryan (33:06):
The response was.
The comment was basicallyanybody who wants to talk about
alternatives to abortion, I'mhere for you.
That was not well received bymany people in the company and a
good portion of the company gottogether sort of off on the
side, made an appointment withthe CEO, spoke with the CEO.

(33:30):
The company decided to take noaction, left that comment up,
closed commenting for the restof it, so shut off any rebuttals
to that particular comment,continued their policy,
continued everything, but thedamage was done.
They did everything right upuntil they did it and the thing

(33:52):
that they did wrong was moredamage than them saying nothing
on Dobs Day than what they did.
A lot of employees left.
Like I said, this was a muchlarger company, a few hundred
employees, but a lot ofemployees left.
A lot of employees were visiblyupset by this and withdrew from

(34:16):
their work, withdrew from thecompany.
From an engagement perspective.
It had an impact, and not juston liberal women but on people
from all walks of life.
It had a negative impact at thecompany because so many people

(34:37):
saw that, as the company did somany things right and they had
an opportunity to do somethingelse right, to either delete the
comment or to respond to it andsay yeah, this is really
appropriate.

Gina (34:48):
Yeah, why didn't they delete?

Nicola (34:49):
it.
Why didn't they just delete it?
I'm sure that they're like PRperson or marketing person,
having been a marketing PRperson.
There's also that fine line ofdo we leave the comment up,
because then people are gonnathink we're censoring people's
opinions, Like there's thecensor here.

Bryan (35:08):
Yeah, that was, I think, some of the justification for
leaving the comments up.
But my approach was, if you'regoing to turn the comments off
after that comment is there andnot allow any rebuttals to that,
I understand not wanting tomake it a place for a political
debate on a company Slackchannel, I get that.
But if you leave that, thenyou're saying that's the last

(35:29):
word and that is what I think alot of people are wrong with.

Gina (35:32):
They have just deleted everything retroactively, just
had the statement and then beenlike whoops, we didn't just say
like own up, whoops we forgot toturn off comments.
This is our stance.
That's it, this is anon-mocational like your
opinions yourself.
Not even saying that, just sayoh whoops, we forgot to turn off

(35:53):
comments.
Like behind the screen thereare humans.
People will forget to do shit.
Like it's like we forgetcompanies are made up of
individuals who are human andtherefore are going to make
mistakes.
So it's like I feel like if youhad just owned up and been like
we're deleting all the commentsbecause we should have never
had the comments on to beginwith, like sorry if we offended

(36:16):
anyone or something better saidthan that, do you think that
would have been the better wayto go?

Bryan (36:22):
I think so, and not to toot my own horn here, but
before they made thisannouncement, I said we should,
and I said this to many of myclients even before the Dobs
decision came down.
You need to have anannouncements channel on Slack
where only certain people canpost, and there's no reaction to
it and there's no commenting toit After this debacle.

(36:43):
Then they made an announcementschannel where only certain
people could post.
Yeah, that was a mistake.
Slack is great for makingcompany announcements and making
sure that everybody sees them.
It's much better than email forthat, because it's more instant
, especially when things need tobe made timely.
But you have to do it right andthis was not handled well.

Gina (37:05):
Yeah, no, it doesn't sound like it.
And then like I mean, docompanies even have to get
involved with anything remotelylike that?
I guess if they're givinghealth care they do right.
But sometimes I wonder, can youjust not say anything?
How is that?
I don't know, because I'm notan HR.
I've never been in a positionwhere I have to make

(37:27):
announcements of anything ofthat important.
So, for instance, we're productdevelopment.
I would never dream mycompany's product development, I
would never dream to even makeany announcement about that
decision because, a I'm noteducated enough in the ins and
outs of it and B it has nothingto do with the services we

(37:51):
provide.
Is that ignorant of me?

Bryan (37:56):
No, companies don't have to take a stance on anything.
They don't have to make anannouncement about anything.
They do need to makeannouncements if they're making
changes to something like foropen enrollment for health care.
You need to remind employeesthat it's open enrollment time.
Here are the new plans, ifthey're new or if they're

(38:17):
staying the same, and thendirect them any questions you
have about medical stuff.
You need to talk to theinsurance company or to the
nurses that are provided forplan selection not to internal
employees.

Gina (38:31):
I guess it's like when it's a dicey situation.
This was a dicey situation.
What would have been thedownside of not saying anything?

Bryan (38:43):
So the downside of not saying anything especially
speaking post-2020 world thedownside of not saying anything
is it's also seen as a negativeby a decent number of employees.
Companies or employees todaydon't look at work and don't

(39:08):
look at their employers as anine to five.
For 40 years they look at it assomebody, some institution that
at least shares some of myvalues and will stand up for
some of the things that Ibelieve in.
I may not always agree withwhat the company does, always
agree with what the company says, but on big issues, I want my

(39:32):
employer to take a stand and Iwant my employer to do what they
think is right, even if I maydisagree with it.
I want them to do somethingthat they think is right and
take a stand.
Yeah, if I disagree with it,that may push me away to another
company, but that's sort of theprice of business today.
I think that it is detrimentalwhen, on big issues like this,

(39:59):
companies don't take a stand,even internally, like for this
company, for example.
If they had just said nothing,they probably would have ended
up with the same result ofdisengagement and employees
leaving.

Gina (40:13):
I guess I'm just like, how does a company go about doing
that when, like, how do you takea stance without getting it to
be overly political or overlyreligious?
Right, like it's a really fineline, and I think the example
you gave was so good though,because they didn't push either
agenda right.

(40:34):
But I think it's so hard to getto that point.
I don't really know whathappened, but the place that
Nicola and I met at, thatdecision happened.
Nicola had already been gone,but apparently the owner went on
to Instagram Live and saidsomething.
I don't know what was said, butshe got such like backlash for

(40:55):
it that she I don't know whatshe said.
Oh no, I think what it was is wehad a mental health day, the
same the day after the decision.
So the decision came on Friday,right, like the Friday, I think
it was and then there was theweekend, and then that following
Monday, we had a mental healthday, and the company worded it
like we're so upset about whathappened that we're giving all

(41:18):
of our staff a mental health day.
But that wasn't the reality.
The reality was the mentalhealth day had already been
scheduled for months.
So, like, what did she do wrongthere?

Bryan (41:34):
It trying to play something off as though it were
it were in reaction to somethingto have this positive effect
when it was in reality somethingalready on the books.
Like that's another thing thatemployees want today is more
transparency from their employer, and like, if you but we feel
so everybody knew, everybody inthe company knew it had already

(41:54):
been planned.

Gina (41:56):
So then when you have them announcing, oh well, we're so
sad, we're giving every themajor, like we're giving all of
our employees the day off, andmost of them were women, what
message does that send to youremployee?
And then I think it kind of gotout that that wasn't actually
what happened.
And also, like, why do you need?
I mean, I don't know, it wasjust a fucking hot mess.

(42:18):
But like, what does that do toyour business when you do
something so stupid like that?

Bryan (42:24):
Yeah, it has the same negative effect on the workforce
because they see for thetransparency point, they see
right through it, employees seeright through it and it doesn't,
you know there is a lot moreWell, she fucking lied.

Gina (42:38):
Right, right, she straight up fucking lied to all of her
audience, at the same ofemployees, and then she got
upset when people called her outon it.

Bryan (42:50):
Yeah, and there is a lot of pressure on companies today
to toe that line, like you said,and to make the right choice
every time, all the time, andthat is tough.
But there are some instanceswhere the right thing is clear

(43:10):
and companies still eitherstruggle with it and trip over
doing the right thing, or theyjust do the wrong thing entirely
, like in your example, the.
Yes, it would be wonderful ifyou gave us an extra mental
health day based on this, Notyou know, let's tag it on and
make it a long weekend.

(43:30):
Give people time to just relaxand go spend some time with
family and friends, processeverything, not like, hey, we're
gonna turn this alreadyscheduled mental health day into
Adobe's mental health day.
That's not the right approach.
I definitely agree with you,but I think that either approach
that they had taken becausethey tried to piggyback on

(43:51):
something that was alreadyhappening.

Gina (43:52):
This was already scheduled .
It was a negative.
Yeah, we're gonna address thisdecision, you know when we're
all back and whatever.
I just thought it was hilariousbecause she was like crying and
upset about how it backfiredand I'm like you dumb fuck.
Of course it did Like.

Nicola (44:09):
Was she actually.
But I'm sorry, that's kind oflook.
I didn't actually know muchabout the story until like two
seconds ago, and I'm sorry.
Like PRYs, either don't fuckingcomment at all or make a
fucking proper comment.

Gina (44:23):
Don't play off that bullshit, like you suck Well,
and I think that's what peoplewere getting upset about.
And then there was anotherportion of people that were like
what is giving everyone amental health day off helping
the cause, right?
Like shouldn't you be out thereprotesting or shouldn't you be

(44:45):
out there?
I don't know.
I mean, I'm not a protester bynature.
I am cool with anyone who wantsto, but the idea of standing
outside in the hot sun inFlorida doesn't strike me as
anything that I would like to do.
But I don't know.
I guess the bottom and we'relike way off track, but the
bottom line here is she fuckinglied and that goes to show the

(45:07):
type of person she is and whattype of company she's running.

Bryan (45:15):
Right because that's the mindset that employees have.
Then If you're so blatantlylying about this, what else are
you lying about?
What else are you doing behindthe scenes?

Gina (45:24):
What else is shady is going on A lot of shit, Brian, a
lot, but this isn't about us.

Nicola (45:29):
It's not about us, it's about you, Brian.
It's about you.

Gina (45:32):
Yeah, so what was the third thing that happened?
Or are we still on number two,because that was a pretty big
one?
So can you go back into thecompany Slack and still see that
comment?

Bryan (45:44):
It still exists, I'm not.

Gina (45:46):
Probably like in the archives or in the cloud or
something.

Bryan (45:50):
Yeah, it definitely still exists.
Yeah, I think it's a greatexample of just how to do almost
everything right, but then tripover something pretty easy to
do right at the end.

Gina (46:07):
So ridiculous?
All right, what's number three?
What do you got for us?

Bryan (46:11):
So the third thing we have, the third big one, is a
little bit more operational, alittle less political.

Gina (46:19):
So this is.

Bryan (46:22):
There's a lot of companies.
One of the things that a lot ofcompanies come to me for is to
help button up processes, to putsome structure in place.
Employees many times createstructure or at least need some
guardrails around what each roleis supposed to do, what each
department is supposed to dohiring processes, training

(46:46):
that's one of the biggest thingstoday is that people don't get
trained.
They're just expected to comeon the job and figure it out.
So hiring and onboarding isdefinitely a big focus,
especially again in the lastthree years with remote.
It has put in some additionalhurdles to do it effectively.

(47:07):
But there are definitely waysto do it and the best way is to
start thinking about it like, asa company, how can we make this
process positive for ouremployees and give them what
they need to be successful inthe job?
Obviously, you've investedenough in the hiring process and
paying this person.
Let's give them every chance atsuccess, and so that starts

(47:28):
with hiring and onboarding.
And there is someconfidentiality out there that
is related to hiring andonboarding.
A lot of notes are taken duringthe interview process, during
the hiring process.
Those are notes that are good,especially to reflect back on if
, in 30 days, 90 days a year.

(47:51):
You're having some issues withan employee, you can look back
and say, okay, did we spot somered flags early and just didn't
know they were red flags.
But those notes should beretained and they should be kept
confidential.
The employee who is hiredshould not be able to find those
notes in Google Drive or in aSlack message.

(48:16):
So that is a.
It's not a breach of any law.

Gina (48:22):
So somebody found that right, but it's just like that's
like Business 101.
So somebody found like thecompany bad-mouthing them.

Bryan (48:34):
So an employee found out that found a slack thread of the
people that they interviewedwith commenting about their
interview just after it occurredjust moments after it occurred
and concede the thread about it.
They could also see documentsthat were attached.

Gina (48:57):
Okay, what were the comments?
Were they like?
Were they like appropriatecomments or were they like she's
dumb or whatever like?
What kind of comments were?

Bryan (49:06):
there.
Yeah, it was nothing that Ithink is would necessarily be
out of line, but it was theywere.
They were sort of borderlinecomments.
There were some comments, likeyou know, the candidate was math
Didn't wow me, did a, did anokay job, but didn't wow me,

(49:27):
stuff like that.

Nicola (49:28):
Hey, I feel like an interview.
That's like when you findlooking for fit.
I don't dislike, like.

Gina (49:34):
I would.
I would have been more like.
You know like, if they werelike, did you see the knockers
on?
Or something like that.
You know like.

Nicola (49:41):
I would have been all over that.
This is why you need aconsultant.

Gina (49:46):
I know, but no, no, but I think, but I, but I get what
you're saying, brian.
Like it's a like, while it'snot inappropriate, they don't
need to see that or read that,or know that it's, it exists,
they don't need to know that.
It's like the records room,nicola.
It is the you have to watch theconsultant, Brian is so creepy.

Bryan (50:07):
I definitely will, I definitely will.

Gina (50:09):
I definitely will get my reference to the records room
now.
Okay, God.

Bryan (50:14):
Okay, yeah, so those comments themselves?
Yes, they're not.
They're not any any threateningor legal legal actionable
comments legally actionablecomments.
But an employee shouldn't beable to see those comments about
themselves, and especially intheir first like month on the

(50:34):
job.
They also shouldn't be able tosee the attached documents in
that thread, where they are,where, where there are
additional notes about not theircandidacy but also other
candidates for the same role,and to find out that they
weren't the company's firstchoice, that there was somebody
else who was a first choice overthem.

(50:56):
Of course we all know that atsome point we've probably been
hired as the second, third,fourth, seventh choice, but to
know that is different thanassuming that or having that
thought running in the back ofyour head, and that has a
negative impact again on theemployees level of engagement.
Because if they, if they, ifthe company, if they perceive

(51:19):
the company not all in with themnot being their number one
we're all in with you choicethen they are not going to
provide the same in return.

Gina (51:29):
So it's simple leave, though, like did she find, he or
she find the comment and thenleave, or what happened there?

Bryan (51:36):
This person has not left.
This person is still still withthe company, still and and
still trying to navigate throughsome of this, but is really
trying to to give it their bestand and put those comments aside
and go with the, with thepositive comments they have
received while on the job, asopposed to looking at some of

(51:59):
the past comments when thesethese now colleagues only knew
this individual, only knew thecandidate for 30 minutes at the
time.
Now, now they've gotten to knowthis candidate and this person
can provide solid and exemplarywork.
So, now that this person istrying to focus more on on the
present as opposed to to some ofthe past.

(52:21):
But I think it would have beeneasy for the company to avoid
this, this potentialdisengagement scenario, by
simply having a process in placefor having private slack
channels, for having passwordprotected folders on Google
Drive or outlook or you knowwhatever, whatever cloud service

(52:44):
they want to keep their theirresumes and and and applicant
notes.
And it's not, it's not hard todo that.
It's a simple, easy step totake that that could avoid all
of this, this headache andheartache for an employee that
that really just wants to do agood job.
It sets the stage forpotentially actionable items to

(53:07):
be discovered, because if theprocess and policies are not in
place to to protect some of thisinformation, what other
information might bediscoverable by employees that
would actually be confidentialinformation like medical records
or write ups and employment,further employment records,

(53:30):
salary information that isconfidential in certain areas,
so it I had that issue aroundsalary, like confidential salary
information, because I had useda group email.

Nicola (53:46):
Well, it wasn't originally a group email account
, it was my email account, butas we went, as we got bigger, it
ended up having to become agroup email account and I had to
move information.
I had to move archivedinformation out of that account
into somewhere safe, but beforeI had the chance to, the people

(54:07):
that had access to the accounthad already gone looking for the
information, the salaryinformation.

Bryan (54:15):
Yeah, and that's that is something that that is something
that I get a lot from employeeswho who come to me.
They come to me with a policy.
You know a screenshot orsomething from a policy from
their company saying you're notallowed to discuss salary
information with with oneanother.

(54:35):
That's, companies can't do that.
You can't restrict employeesfrom discussing their salaries.
What companies can't do isdisclose an employee's salary to
everyone else.
So you can't just simply say,hey, sally makes 34,000.

Nicola (54:55):
John makes 36,000 in a company meeting unless those
employees give their specificconsent to do that, oh my god,
like when her boss announced howmuch she was earning in the
company.
That was ridiculous, so that'sillegal.
Just to clarify that's illegal,yeah.

Bryan (55:15):
Yeah, you can't prevent.
The National Labor RelationsBoard has actually taken taken
some action against companieswho are who had these policies
in place or attempting toprevent employees from
discussing their their salarieswith one another.
Yeah, you can't.
You can't.
You can't prevent that.
But some, some employees don'twant their salary note.

(55:36):
Some people still see that asas personal, confidential
information, and so it's up tothe individual employee whether
that information is released tothe rest of the company.
Obviously, people on the financeteam, people doing payroll,
they're going to know that theyshould also be subject to some
confidentiality and they're notallowed to disclose someone
else's salary.
They can talk about their own,they can't talk about other

(55:57):
people's, and that kind of, Ithink, is a good segue into sort
of the one of the overarchingultimate points that I wanted to
make today, which is thatemployees need to know their

(56:18):
rights.
Obviously, companies come to meand ask me for help, you know,
building policies and puttingstructure in place and dealing
with some tough situationsoperationally or legally
compliance, and so many of themcome to me to and so many of
them don't know their rights andcompanies take advantage of

(56:39):
that, whether knowingly or orunknowingly.
Companies take advantage ofthat in the US, employee rights
are a lot like the, the ADA.
There's no enforcement agencyfor it.
Yeah, there's the EOC.
But you have to make acomplaint first, which means you
have to know that your rightshave been violated before you
even go to the EOC.

Nicola (56:58):
And.
I feel like so many states andso many laws and so many
different things.
It would be really difficultfor average Joe blogs to
navigate your rights like justnavigate your basic rights.

Bryan (57:13):
It's extremely difficult, because not only are some
things rights across the board,are some things, things that you
think should be rights, butaren't rights across the board.
Some of those things may thenactually be rights in certain
states but not in others.
And yeah, it's this whole.
It is an incredibly complex.

(57:33):
It's a complex area and it'stough to navigate for both
companies and employees, becauseemployees may feel that their
rights are being violated when,in reality, they aren't.
And that's just the way the USemployment law works, that it
very heavily favors businessesor employees.

(57:53):
Rights are being violated, butthey don't know that they're
being violated.

Gina (57:57):
So what happens?

Nicola (58:00):
I'm going to I'm going to hop in before you finish your
question there because I'mcurious what are some of like
the the top employee rights weshould be hyper aware of?
Like what are some of the oneswhere you're like fuck this shit
, these are the ones you need toknow, like always.
Look at this.

Bryan (58:20):
And from an employee focus, it's overtime and at an
accurate pay.
So a lot, of, a lot ofcompanies will try and avoid
overtime pay by classifyingsomebody as a manager or or on
salary and thinking, justbecause they pay them a salary,
that they're automaticallyexempt from overtime.

(58:41):
That's, that's not the case andemployees oftentimes don't know
any better, so they just acceptit and using using the nuance
of different state laws here,overtime is different in in
California, for example, that itis in Texas.
In Texas it's federal, it's 40.
Anything over 40 hours is istime and a half in a single work

(59:03):
week.
In California it's anythingover eight hours a day plus 40
hours in a work week, plusthere's also.
There's some nuance of this,but there's also if you, if if
you're working more than 12hours, then it's double time and
so like.
Those are things that a lot ofemployees just don't know that
they're entitled to.
But that also comes.
That also relatedly goes alongwith misclassification of

(59:28):
employees, which is somethingthat companies need to be aware
of.
So if you classify youremployee as exempt but they're
not, you could be if thatemployee learns that their
rights are being violated andfiles a complaint and the EOC
file finds that the company hasviolated the employees rights by

(59:48):
not paying them overtime andmisclassifying them as an exempt
employee when they're actuallynon exempt, then that company is
subject to not only fines andpenalties for that
misclassification but also topaying that employee back
overtime pay and, in some cases,paying the back taxes for both
the company and the employee forthe additional pay.

(01:00:11):
So it can become extremelycostly for companies to do a mis
, to engage in misclassification, and that also happens between
contractors and employees.
A lot of companies, especiallytoday, again going into the post
2020 world, a huge part of theUS workforce today is fully
freelance fully 1099 contractors, yeah, and companies oftentimes

(01:00:35):
take advantage of that and sayyou know, we want to hire, we
want to, we want to partner withsomebody who's a contractor so
that we don't have to pay them,we don't have to pay them
overtime, we don't have to covertheir benefits, we don't have
to pay the payroll taxes, we'rejust going to pay them straight
1099.
But if a company determineswhen an employee works, how they
work and what they do whenthey're on the clock, they're an

(01:00:55):
employee.

Nicola (01:00:57):
They're not the same rule in New Zealand.

Bryan (01:01:00):
Right and so that that again the company's engaging in
misclassification, knowingly orunknowingly, and could be
subject to massive fines,penalties and and disengagement
from from the rest of theworkforce as they learn that the
company is doing something,something shady, even if they,
even if the company didn't knowthemselves.
A lot of companies don't evenknow that that misclassification

(01:01:20):
is a thing.

Nicola (01:01:21):
Okay, so we've got misclassification, We've got.
I feel like I feel like withsome of these, though, again
like how, where do people go tofind out what their rights are?
Because I feel like with someof these were like yeah, okay,
cool, Make sure you know aboutovertime, Make sure you know
about, you know, employeeclassification, yada, yada, yada
.
But again, like it's so trickyto navigate if you're just

(01:01:45):
averaged your blogs and you'recoming in and you know, sign in
your contract and off you go,Like you're not looking out for
these big kind of blaringly redflags, right?
So where can people kind of goto kind of work out what their
rights actually are?

(01:02:06):
Like what's Joe blocks?
He's a plumber down in Orlandoat Disney.
Where's he going to get hisfucking rights?
Like, where is he going?

Bryan (01:02:18):
So in Florida he isn't going to find much help.

Gina (01:02:24):
Where he's going to find yeah.

Bryan (01:02:27):
Where he's going to find help is in blue states.
Many of the blue statesCalifornia, colorado, washington
, for example have greatworkforce rights webpages, faqs,
information on their statelabor department websites.
Yes, it still takes a littlehunting sometimes to find

(01:02:50):
exactly what you're looking for.
It's not always straightforwardfront and center, but a lot of
states do put that informationon their webpages so that
employees can have a better ideaof what their rights are.
But, honestly, your best bet isto just start Googling.
If you think you have some sortof violation, start Googling

(01:03:16):
and ideally you'll end up with ahit in one of those states that
will give you some detailedinformation.
Hopefully you live in one ofthose states, because then their
contact information is thereand you can easily get in touch
with the labor department inthat state.
If you're not, then yeah, youneed to do a little bit of
digging and sometimes peoplehave to go to employment lawyers

(01:03:40):
for assistance.
Some employment lawyers do somepro bono stuff, especially in
more red states, because theyknow that employees workers just
don't have the resources andjust need five minutes to answer
a question.
Do I?
Is there a cause of action here?

(01:04:01):
Is there something that?
Is there some right that'sbeing violated.
I feel like it should be.

Gina (01:04:06):
I feel like some right is being violated.
Aren't most employees at Wailin the United States?
Like you, don't really need areason to fire them.

Bryan (01:04:15):
Correct, but the if you have an employee who thinks
their rights have been violatedand here we can use an example
that I didn't even have on mylist, but this is a great segue.
Say there's an employee who'sbeen on the job for eight months

(01:04:39):
and they have done not a greatjob, they have been given some
training and they just haven'tmet the expectations.
And now the owner of thecompany says we need to
terminate this person and find areplacement.
So the person is terminated, asyou said at Wail, no reason

(01:05:03):
given, just termination.
The employee is four monthspregnant, so now we have a
potential discrimination clauseon our hands because the
individual was pregnant.
They go to an employment lawyerand the employment lawyer then

(01:05:25):
writes a letter to the companysaying you have wrongfully
terminated, you violated myclient's rights, Even if there
was justification.
This is where the systemsometimes manages to screw
everybody.
Even if there is justificationfor that termination let's
assume that there is in thisexample the company is still

(01:05:50):
most likely going to pay theterminated employee a settlement
just to make the whole thing goaway, because it's going to be
cheaper than litigating anddefending it.
And so that's where you haveemployees who, in this case knew
their rights but also were ableto in some ways take advantage

(01:06:14):
of the situation because of theemployer terminating them while
they were pregnant, even thoughthey knew the employer had a
just cause for doing so.
So let's assume now that therewas no just cause for doing so.
Now the employee is just out ofthe blue terminated and

(01:06:37):
therefore months pregnant.
Now they think, of course I'vebeen terminated because I just
told my employer a month agothat I was pregnant and now I'm
going to need to go out andleave in a few months.
They just want me off the books.
They don't want to have to dealwith that hassle.
So it creates complexities andchallenging situations for

(01:07:01):
everyone involved, partlybecause of the at-will
employment, because, even if noreason is given, if someone
alleges wrongful termination,then the burden shifts back to
the company to provide alegitimate reason for the
termination, anon-discriminatory reason.

Gina (01:07:20):
So I was told that I was being let go because I went
against the company's corevalues, and the core values more
or less summed up or like thecompany comes before you, like
lead with kindness, like thingsthat really don't amount to much

(01:07:42):
, it's not instead of like beinglike don't steal, don't lie,
like, which of course, I'm notgonna do.
Is there any recourse there?

Bryan (01:07:56):
I mean.
So yes, in America there'salways recourse.
Whether it's worth it to godown that path is an entirely
different question.

Gina (01:08:06):
I mean that's the thing that you always have to, kind of
like, do the checks andbalances for.
So I just was like reallyshocked that they wouldn't even
really give me a reason.
And does a company have to giveyou a reason, or can they just
say it's not working out?

Bryan (01:08:23):
Yeah, companies often say it's not working out or this
position is no longer availableand you're like but I hold the
position right now.
Yeah, no, companies do not haveto give a reason, unless a
cause of action occurs where alawyer gets involved or a

(01:08:44):
government agency gets involved,to say this could potentially
be a wrongful termination.
We need you to justify thiswith a legitimate business
reason.

Gina (01:08:54):
So violating.
Because, like I still, don'tunderstand why I got fired.
Oh, I mean, I technicallyresigned, but I also don't know
why I then got fired.

Bryan (01:09:04):
So I'm like that's a shitty position because there's
so many, so many workers inAmerica who had that happen
frequently.
They just don't know, and Ithink again, part of that is a
symptom of at will, becausecompanies are trying to cover
their own ass and just notgiving any reason in the hopes

(01:09:26):
that they won't end up with awrongful termination lawsuit, as
opposed to giving some reasonand then having it be more clear
that there's a wrongfultermination because they
stumbled over the reason or theygave some discriminatory reason
for it.
So many companies just say,just do nothing and then go
silent on the employee and sothey never know and so that
doesn't help the employee, evenif the reason was legitimate,

(01:09:50):
that there was some true issuewith the employment relationship
, the employee doesn't know andthen they go on to another job
and they experience the samething all over again and it's
just yeah, I see it more as asymptom.

Gina (01:10:04):
It just and I know for Nicola it felt really fucked up
and I think it feels reallyfucked up for a lot of people
and for America is not proemployee, it's not, it's pro
capitalist.
I mean, that's at least how Ifeel.
What do you think?

Bryan (01:10:22):
I agree.

Gina (01:10:24):
It's like fuck the employee.
We could just figure it outfrom you, know, yeah, so.

Bryan (01:10:32):
Employees are the replaceable robots.
And so then, how do you?

Gina (01:10:37):
advocate for yourself, because I felt like, like I got
so angry and so upset and youknow, and I know Nicola got
really depressed but, like, aspeople who get fired and
continue you know this is notthe first time, it's not the
last time how can you advocatefor yourself?
Like I, the only thing I couldthink of doing was I forced them

(01:10:59):
to write me a terminationletter, like I was like I don't
know why I feel like I need this.
I should just have it outlining, like when my like the dates of
my employment, what myseverance was gonna be, all of
that.
Like I don't know why I feltlike I needed that, but I made
them do it and I did get it, butlike it was only a consultancy

(01:11:25):
for me.
So I don't like I shouldn'teven gotten severance, but
they're so dumb.
They gave it to me because theydon't know they're asked from
their elbow.
But I really feel like I couldhave, like I really feel like I
didn't know how to advocate formyself and that made me really
upset.

Bryan (01:11:43):
And again, I think that's a symptom of the system, that
employees just don't know theirrights and even if they do, they
don't know where to turn.
And unfortunately, one of thebest ways to turn is also one of
the most prohibitive, andthat's to an employment lawyer,
and employment lawyers usuallyare not cheap.

Nicola (01:11:59):
And so and it's also really like the minute you're
getting in the big guns like youknow, an employment lawyer is
considered a big gun and thenyou come in and all guns fucking
blazing and then your employeris gonna turn around and be like
er anyway.

Bryan (01:12:12):
Right.
And if you live in a state likeCalifornia or Washington or
Colorado, new York, that havesome good labor departments,
that have some level of advocacyfor employees, they are swamped
, overworked, overburdened.
So it won't be as quick asspending money out of your own

(01:12:33):
pocket to go to an employmentlawyer, but you can always file
a claim with your state's labordepartment and have them.
They will investigate.
It may not be quick, it may notbe the answer that you want, it
may not be as in depth as youthink it needs to be, but they
will take action on it.
But the outcome is it's.

(01:12:53):
The outcome is often justdisappointing.
It's just never.
It's never what you think iswarranted or is necessary.
And again to your point, gina,that's kind of a it's kind of a
symptom of not only the at willemployment system but also

(01:13:16):
capitalism, that the business isvalued over the worker.

Gina (01:13:20):
So what can you do, like going into taking a new job.
You know, obviously, if you'regonna go work for like a huge
conglomerate you're not gonnahave too much ability to amend a
contract right Like anemployment contract.
But what can you do to kind ofadvocate for yourself when you
do, when you do decide to take ajob with a new company assuming

(01:13:45):
you can amend the contract Likewhat should I have done
differently?
Or should anyone do differently.
Because, you know, I just atthe end of the day, I just felt
very like, like and I'm surethat I'm not unique in this but
I felt like how is this bumblefuck of a company that's barely

(01:14:06):
surviving like firing someonewho's actually experienced like?
What kind of twilight world amI in right now, like you know, I
mean the bottom line is andNicola knew it is I was costing
them too much money because Iasked for what I well, less than

(01:14:26):
what I'm worth, but yeah.

Bryan (01:14:30):
But that, so that is the problem that so many workers
face.
Is that, to answer yourquestion, what can you do?

Gina (01:14:40):
Yeah.

Bryan (01:14:41):
You can remember that almost everything is negotiable.
But if you negotiate a highersalary, additional benefits,
severance or you know whatever,you're also going to cost the
company more money.
So you may be one of the firstto go if you've negotiated a
higher salary and additionalbenefits.
So it-.

Gina (01:14:59):
So I guess my real nitty gritty question is if you're
coming into like a company thatisn't huge, that their contract
is an ironclad, can you addanything?
Or ask to add, like anythingthat says like, if they're
planning to fire you I'm justriffing, I don't know really
what I'm trying to get at Likethey need to give you certain

(01:15:21):
amount of days, or like can youdo anything in that vein I think
you understand where I'm goingwith this to protect yourself.

Bryan (01:15:31):
Yes, you can do that.
So you can negotiate in youroffer letter which, as long as
both parties have signed it acompany representative and the
new employee it is essentially acontract.
It's not an employment contract.
That the way in the way thatmany other countries use

(01:15:54):
employment contracts, but it'sas close in most cases as we get
in the US you can negotiate.
You can sort of negotiate out ofthe at will system by doing
exactly what you just said.
You can say you can ask for.
You have to be prepared for thecompany to say no, we're going

(01:16:15):
on to another candidate.
But you can try and negotiateand ask for a 90 day notice for
termination or, in lieu ofnotice, 90 days worth of
severance, 30 days for any ofthat.
You can negotiate that.
And sometimes if a companyreally wants you or they really
need your skill set, they willplay ball with negotiation.

(01:16:40):
You can't.
The one thing I always tellworkers who come to me is that
you'd never get what you don'task for.
And I know that's a cliche.
But if you think you wantsomething, if you think that
you're entitled to even justanother $1,000 a year, ask for
it, otherwise you're not goingto get it.
You're guaranteed not to get it.

Gina (01:17:02):
Yeah.
But yes for your direct questionyou can sort of negotiate in a
way out of at will.
So like the way that they had,it was like you had a 30 day
review, a 60 day review and a 90day review and then I guess a
six months.
Now I think a lot of us go intothat thinking, well, of course

(01:17:23):
it's gonna be good because Iknow I'm a good worker, right.
But you're not really takinginto account, like company
culture, clashing personalities,truly understanding how the
business works, what themorality of the business is Like
.
Are you working with liars andcheaters, which we happen to be
working with liars and cheaters?
So a lot of that you don't know.

(01:17:45):
But I think, having walkedthrough that now I would say
like I think that would be mynumber one thing that I would do
to safeguard myself that, ifthey're think so, I don't have
you ever heard of the EOS system?
Yeah, okay, just question whatdo you think about it?
Just generally, I'm curious.

(01:18:09):
Yeah, I'm really curious to hearthis.

Bryan (01:18:13):
I think that I think that there's there's a lot written
about and discussed about waysto make companies better, make
them more profitable, make themmore engaging for employees, how
, how to actually engage thoseemployees and make those

(01:18:36):
employees more productive.
I don't I don't every everysituation is unique, but there
are often similarities, and theone thing I can say with
certainty is that, if you wantto be, forget any, any type of
system or methodology.

(01:18:56):
If you want to be a successfulcompany with productive,
efficient and engaged employees,pay them, yeah, pay them what
they're worth, pay them morethan what they're worth.
Pay them with with benefits,pay them with with actual salary
and time off.
That that is the.

(01:19:18):
That is the way to getengagement from employees, which
then turns into productiveemployees, which turns into
revenue for the business, andthat study after study after
study, both pre 2020 and post2020, shows that is the formula.

Gina (01:19:38):
Okay.

Bryan (01:19:38):
You pay employees.

Gina (01:19:40):
I think you're thinking of something else the EOS system,
the entrepreneurial operatingsystem, that.

Bryan (01:19:47):
I was thinking.

Gina (01:19:49):
Yeah, I you're thinking of , you're thinking of stock
options, so so never mind, Iit's something, it's a very.
I got so confused there for asecond.

Nicola (01:19:58):
I didn't know what the fuck was happening.

Gina (01:19:59):
I think it's about employee stock options and and I
think that could potentially bea great thing if you're like an
IBM or something, but for likea small startup, I once.

Nicola (01:20:10):
I once got stock options in a business.
Yeah, I mean, it's exactly whatBrian said, I got like 200
bucks out of it when I left.

Gina (01:20:18):
Yeah, but I mean like if you were getting stock options,
plus all the other things thatBrian's mentioning, like, yeah,
like an actual salary, like notsubpar salary, you know you're
not being worked to death.
Then, yeah, absolutely no.
The EOS system is a wholedifferent bag of worms.

Bryan (01:20:34):
Yeah, and see, here's, here's the thing to go back to,
sort of the.
I mean, you know you caninclude this, not include this
just for our, just for the threeof us having this discussion.
It's something I always love totell people about because I do
a lot of writing for also in HRspace, and I do some some
writing on on comparisonsbetween other countries

(01:20:55):
employment laws versus the US,and one of the things that
regularly fascinates me is thatwe are one of the only countries
on earth that hasn't figuredout so many systems.
We haven't figured outuniversal healthcare.
We haven't figured outmaternity leave.
We haven't figured outmaternity leave.

(01:21:16):
We haven't figured out how to,how, to, you know, give a social
system for for employees sothat they can, they can weather
the storm between jobs ormedical bills, like I.
The other day I was just I waslooking at stuff for Norway, was
it?
I think it was Norway.

(01:21:36):
They have the bomb, everything418 days of paid maternity leave
.

Gina (01:21:42):
It's insanity, I know.
And they have like universalhealthcare, they have like
unlimited sick, it's, it's alldone, Can we?

Nicola (01:21:53):
are we all moving to Norway?
Is this what we're saying?

Gina (01:21:55):
Yeah yeah we're going to all do it.
Oh my God.

Nicola (01:21:58):
Are we getting married and moving to Norway?

Gina (01:22:00):
Yes, yes, I think we might as well have like a visa.
The three of us will be athrottle and we'll caravan to.

Nicola (01:22:07):
Norway.
So between one of us we can geta visa and then the other one
could be the the why.

Gina (01:22:11):
Why not?

Bryan (01:22:12):
One would hope, one would hope.

Gina (01:22:14):
If I can, catfish some Norwegian guy and I'll get in,
and then you know what youwouldn't do that, and then
invite me as your sister wife.
I was just watching this onceagain and, brian, you could be
my, my, my brother.

Bryan (01:22:27):
Perfect, I love it.
I love it Hold on.

Nicola (01:22:29):
This is in Norway.
Hold on, we, we are.

Bryan (01:22:33):
We are one of.
I think it's 29 countries onearth that does not have
guaranteed paternity leave.
We are one of six or seven thatdoes not guarantee maternity
leave.
Like, if, if, like, if, what?
Are there 210 countries, if 205of them have figured out,
including places like not toAgain include not include what

(01:22:55):
up to you, but like Not to putit in the right way, but
countries like Saudi Arabia thathave Paid family leave?
How can we?
Not do that.

Gina (01:23:11):
America is so far.
Like, so the more that we dothis podcast, and the more that
we have people coming in fromall over the world, the more I
realize and I'm not likeanti-American at all, I'm not,
you know.
I feel like I'm not.
I'm not like anti-American atall, I'm not, you know I feel
like I'm grateful that I wasborn here.
I'm a citizen because, yes, wedo have a lot of opportunities,

(01:23:34):
but there are some things thatare we do, that are really
fucked up, and mainly the onesthat you are discussing right
now.
It's like Like America is notbuilt to Support small
businesses, america is not builtto try to lift up, but I think
that's the way that we are.

(01:23:55):
I think that's the way that weare.
I think that's the way that weare, and I think that's the way
that we are.
You know, we're all soimpoverished.
You know areas or demographics.

Bryan (01:24:08):
We're just like slapping band-aids on things and it's,
you know, the more I talk topeople From everywhere, the more
I'm like what is going on rightnow, Like, yeah, let's go to
Norway that they have.
Like yeah, and you know, think,think about this.
I mean, I think that's the waythat we're going to be coming.
Coming I forget what theycalled it, but the the coming
financial catastrophe that isboomers retiring and going into

(01:24:31):
nursing homes Like we do nothave.
There are so many people inthat age group that are just
going to be screwed Cause theydon't have the financial
resources to go into nursinghomes, and states and the
federal government Are notPutting money in anything yeah.
They're not doing anything tobuild, to build the facilities
and to train the state, andthey're not doing anything to

(01:24:53):
support all of those people thatare going to be going into
those places Like that's like Atthis point in my, my mom and
dad's life, like I'm 43.

Gina (01:25:01):
They already had like two homes, a shit ton of money in
the bank.
I'm like I make decent moneybut I'm like barely scraping by.
I'm a one, you know, I'm asingle mom, I'm in one one
income household and I'm likeI'm lucky if I'm going to have
enough to retire on.
You know, and I think that's.
I think that's like a lot ofour generation.

(01:25:22):
We're all in that same boat.
And also cause like whatcompanies give 401ks anymore?
Very few of far between.
What companies give pensions?
None Unless you're like a firstresponder of some kind, like
it's just.
But then you want to go in andfeel like the company is like
part of your family but theyreally don't give a shit about

(01:25:45):
you.

Bryan (01:25:46):
That's exactly right.
The company, the company doesnot care about you.

Gina (01:25:50):
You are disposable to a company.

Bryan (01:25:52):
Yes, and, and that is, that is the system that we live
in, and I think, that, that, yes, we can have a debate and all
for it, about you know what,what we should do to correct the
wrongs Of this current system.
But at least if you know whatthe system is, then that is

(01:26:13):
empowering.
You can empower yourself byknowing the rules as they
currently exist.
Yes, should, should many ofthose rules be changed, and
should we have some socialsafety nets?
Should we have some of these,some of these other programs in
place?
Absolutely, but right now wedon't, and so we can advocate
for those changes.
We can, as you said earlier,protest for those changes, we

(01:26:33):
can take action for thosechanges.
But until any of that happens,knowing the system that you're
in and understanding your rightsand abilities within that
system is is the best way toempower yourself as a worker.

Gina (01:26:49):
Yeah Well, brian, you're so fucking smart and eloquent,
and no wonder why.

Nicola (01:26:55):
We love you.

Gina (01:26:55):
Brian, we love you.

Nicola (01:26:58):
And thank you.
Yes, we can we find you, Brian,like where's your?

Gina (01:27:03):
Tell everyone where we can find you if we want to annoy
you about wrongful termination,which is almost never a wrongful
termination.
I'm still trying to figure outa way to make my termination
wrongful from our can I, can I?
Can I get something?
No, but yeah, we can.
We can find you.

Bryan (01:27:23):
Yeah, I'm not.
I'm not big on on social media,I do have.

Gina (01:27:27):
I love that actually.

Bryan (01:27:29):
I'm not.
I don't really.
I don't really do much onsocial media.
The best place to find me is mywebsite, brianjdriscollcom.
That's Brian B R Y A N, andthere's a contact form there.
You can also just email me,brian, at BrianJDriscollcom, and
I am always open to having ahaving a chat with somebody

(01:27:51):
about about what's going on,whether they're an employee or
or a business.
I the idea that I have the, thesort of the mantra that I have
when I'm working with companies,is what benefits the employees.

Gina (01:28:07):
Because, as I said earlier , it's employee versus employer.

Bryan (01:28:10):
Yeah, because if, if it's , I still want to help the
company, because by helping thecompany it helps the employees
and the when, when you have anengaged workforce, you have a
productive and profitableworkforce and that benefits
everybody Sure.

Gina (01:28:25):
Well, I love that and I wish more people were like you.
And let's try to, let's try toall get on the Brian bandwagon
and help the employees with andand if the Brian bandwagon
doesn't work, we'll just caravanto Norway.
Thoughts feelings.

Bryan (01:28:42):
Yeah, I mean I, you know, I, I, I hate cold weather, but
I don't know, I might, I mightbe willing to make some
trade-offs.

Gina (01:28:50):
I mean universal healthcare and like unlimited
paternity leave.
Not that I don't know if youguys want kids or anything, but
that's.
I would brave the cult for that.
I mean, I'm a native.

Nicola (01:28:59):
It's attractive.

Gina (01:29:01):
Yeah, I like that.
It is attractive.
Well, we'll be in touch when wefigure out the logistics on
that.
We might also be dead by thattime, but we'll be in touch,
maybe.
Yeah, all right.
Well, it was so awesome havingyou on and you're so smart and
insightful and I hope you keeplistening and tell your friends
and, even though you're not onIG, put it out in the universe

(01:29:23):
that you're going to be here sopeople can listen to you.

Bryan (01:29:26):
Absolutely, and I, I thank you both for for first of
all doing something like this.
When I first found your, yourpod, it was fascinating to
listen to and I, I, I think Imentioned on our first call
together, but the one that youdid with with Taylor was was
just so resonating for me.
That's when I was like I got a,I got a, I got a.

Gina (01:29:46):
Congrats on having a baby, brian.
Like you can't even write likecongratulations, like.

Nicola (01:29:55):
I can't write.

Gina (01:29:56):
Yeah, yeah, well go enjoy the rest of your day and we will
be in touch, and if you needanything from us, you know where
to find us Absolutely.

Bryan (01:30:06):
Thank you, really appreciate it.
Thank you both.

Nicola (01:30:09):
And thank you Brian.
We really appreciate it,absolutely.
All right, speak soon.
Bye.

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