October 16, 2024 • 44 mins
In this engaging podcast, Shelly Morales, founder and CEO of Morales HR, takes us on an inspiring journey—from her early days working at her family’s hot dog stand, “Sandy’s Happy Hot Dogs,” in the Bay Area to holding influential HR leadership roles in top tech companies and ultimately establishing her own HR consulting firm. Shelly shares how grit and determination fueled her path from a receptionist manually tracking resumes to impactful HR leadership positions at companies like LinkedIn, Quantenna, Atlassian, and Cadence Design Systems. Reflecting on her growth from an HR generalist to a strategic business partner, she discusses how her dedication to connecting people with meaningful work, improving employee experiences, and advocating for flexible employment practices has shaped her career.
A pivotal chapter of her career was at Atlassian, where she saw firsthand the power of technology in building connectivity and engagement within remote teams. Atlassian’s early commitment to remote work, long before the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighted the essential role of tools like Confluence, Slack, and the now-retired HipChat in fostering team cohesion and a strong company culture across continents and time zones. These tools not only allowed dispersed teams to stay connected in real time but also encouraged personal storytelling that bridged physical distances. The onset of the pandemic accelerated the acceptance of remote work and highlighted how blending work and personal life could enhance productivity and work satisfaction, shifting companies’ focus from rigid office hours to outcome-based performance and helping establish a more human-centered work culture.
Through Morales HR, Shelly aims to create a supportive network for professionals seeking roles that align with today’s flexible and dynamic work environments—from remote and fractional engagements to gig work opportunities. Her firm connects members across industries and roles, from CHROs and CFOs to customer support, without relying on traditional job postings.
Kindness is at the heart of Morales HR’s intake process, where prospective members engage in a personal interview to ensure alignment with the company’s values. Shelly firmly believes that kindness and inclusivity are essential yet often overlooked qualities for creating a supportive workplace. By working with companies that value these principles, Morales HR builds relationships that uphold professionalism and empathy, benefiting both employees and employers.
Shelly also highlights Morales HR’s role in the expanding gig economy, a trend she has championed for years. While not all early predictions around the gig economy and digital currency came to fruition, Shelly notes that the demand for flexible, project-based roles has steadily grown.
Shelly Morales’s story is one of resilience and transformation. Her career represents the evolution of HR from administrative support to a people-centered, strategic practice that embraces flexibility, kindness, and the power of technology. Her mission is clear: to build connections between employees and employers that prioritize human connection, work-life balance, and mutual respect, setting a foundation for a thriving future in HR.
Learn more about Shelly:
- Shelly’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shellymorales/
- MoralesHR’s webpage: https://moraleshr.com/
More about us:
- Remotely One’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/remotelyone
- Remotely One’s Webpage: https://www.remotelyone.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Shelly (00:00):
Just so you guys know, my mom owned a restaurant called
(00:02):
the happy hot dog.
Kaleem (00:03):
Wait.
So the hot dog experience washappy hot dogs.
It's that's so cool.
Shelly (00:08):
Yes.
It's called the happy hot dog.
Um, that's correct.
Kaleem (00:12):
So what did the happy hot dog look like?
Shelly (00:15):
looked like a hot dog with hands that were happy.
That was the
Rick (00:19):
That's amazing.
Kaleem (00:21):
Do you watch the hot dog eating contest with the dude?
Dips, dips the hot dog bun inthe water and like shoves up.
Well, have you ever
Shelly (00:27):
but that kind of makes me want to vomit.
Like, why would I
Rick (00:30):
I can't even think about
Kaleem (00:31):
So you've never, you've never seen the hot
Shelly (00:34):
I know.
Of course I've seen it, but Idon't like, I don't like, well,
let's stop on that and watch it.
Rick (00:41):
Oh my good god.
Shelly (00:42):
Yeah.
Kaleem (00:43):
thank you.
That's
Shelly (00:45):
you.
Like my mouth is actuallywatered for, um, um, happy hot
dog with mustard, tomatoes andonions.
Like it's just like my mouth iswatering right now.
Rick (01:00):
Welcome back to Remotely One.
I am your co host, Rick Haney,joined by my esteemed colleague
and co host, Kaleem Clarkson.
What is happening, my brother?
Kaleem (01:09):
Oh, my brother from another mother, nothing much,
man.
I'm just enjoying life rightnow.
We're on the pod, right?
We're not doing work.
We're going to talk to some,some cool people.
So I'm enjoying it.
How about you, man?
What you up to?
Rick (01:21):
I'm digging it.
Life is good.
Right now, it's Friday.
The sun is out.
It's about 90 degrees here inCharlotte.
I can't complain.
Kaleem (01:29):
Let's do it.
Let's do it.
That's
Rick (01:31):
Hey, everybody.
Everyone out there, viewers,listeners, since you know how to
find us now, do us a huge favor.
Go to RateThisPodcast.
com forward slash RemotelyOneand just leave us a review.
Again, RateThisPodcast.
com forward slash RemotelyOne.
If you could do that for us, wewould be ever so thankful.
Since 2015, RemotelyOne is oneof the largest communities of
(01:54):
remote work professionals.
With over 3, 500 Slack members,RemotelyOne.
com And over 5, 000 emailsubscribers and those numbers
are going up by the day.
That is amazing.
It's free to join.
So go check it out at remotelyone.
com.
And with that out of the way,Kaleem, please, if you would
give us a teaser to abouttoday's guest.
Kaleem (02:14):
Whoo, Rick, you know how I get man with these guests, you
know what I'm
Rick (02:18):
You know what the word is, right?
You know what today's word is.
You love so much.
The word is doozy.
Kaleem (02:25):
we love
Rick (02:25):
got a doozy.
Kaleem (02:26):
We love a good doozy our guests today Rick They're
intimidating because of how manygreat things they've done But
you know what?
We're gonna we're gonna I'mgonna calm myself down I'm gonna
try to bring my stuff up totheir level.
So the first thing Rick Is ourguest today.
They are originally from andcurrently reside in the bay.
Rick (02:48):
Oh, San Francisco.
Go.
Kaleem (02:50):
Come out and play.
Yes.
The bay, the bay.
Let's see.
Um, oh, their, their HR careerkicked off in 99 as the director
of human resources for the wholebunch of software companies in
the bay area.
Rick (03:08):
Oh, that was a good time for software companies.
Kaleem (03:10):
course, of course.
Well connected.
Well connected.
Our guest is for sure, for sure.
Oh, Rick, I just love this.
This is probably the highlightof my week.
Okay, our guest, our guest, theygot their career.
They kicked off their career ata happy hot dog.
(03:32):
Sandy's happy hot dogs back inthe day.
Rick (03:36):
There is no shame in a good hot dog, I'll be honest.
It's one of my favorite culinaryitems.
Kaleem (03:41):
some reason the hot dog mascot
Rick (03:43):
Makes you want to do that hot dog strut.
Do that hot dog
Kaleem (03:47):
guess how many hot dogs have you eaten?
Guess.
Just tell us the truth.
How
Shelly (03:51):
goodness.
I I don't know.
Like back in the day, I probablyate a lot of hot dogs.
I would say today.
You know, it's a different day,we're mindful of our nutrition,
you know, like, not so many hotdogs today, but the Costco hot
dog is a good competitor thesedays,
Kaleem (04:10):
Oh, wow.
Wow.
So, you know, Rick and I areboth from Maine.
Have you ever tried a redsnapper?
As we would say snapper.
Have you tried one?
Shelly (04:21):
I would say, I would probably, if I read the sign,
call it a Red Snapper, likethat's probably what I would
call it, but no, I have nottried a Red Snapper hot dog.
Rick (04:30):
That's okay.
Kaleem (04:31):
there's no Oz, there's no
Rick (04:34):
you got the dialect down and we respect that.
Thank you.
Kaleem (04:36):
That's awesome.
Awesome.
Rick, something else about ourguests, right?
They had a great early career,but then they just kept going
higher and higher.
Our guests, they worked atlinked in and remote work, giant
Alassian guests.
Did I say that right?
Is it Alassian?
Yeah.
Shelly (04:55):
Yes.
You said it Alassian correctly.
I went back in the day that is,I almost feel like that's back
in the day.
It's not as back in the day asthe happy hotdog, but it was a
minute ago.
And I actually, the funniestthing was back then I thought
the name of the company wasJira.
I was wrong.
It was Alassian and then therewas a lot of amazing products
underneath that.
Rick (05:16):
Oh, that's wonderful.
And Kaleem said it right.
That's crazy.
He's notorious for misspeaking.
Kaleem (05:22):
I used to call it Alagian, you know, and I was
like, I don't even know whyAlagian.
I don't know why.
Rick, Rick, our guest.
It's currently the founder andCEO of Morales HR, which
connects talent toopportunities.
(05:42):
Rick,
Rick (05:43):
Okay.
Kaleem (05:44):
please give a warm welcome.
To Shelly Morales!
Rick (05:52):
Oh yeah.
Welcome to the show, Shelly.
Kaleem (05:58):
Yeah! Let's go, baby! Shelly Morales! Woo! Settle
down,
Rick (06:03):
Okay.
All right.
Take it down a
Kaleem (06:06):
Down Shh! Shh! Woo!
Rick (06:09):
to be professional here.
Kaleem (06:10):
Shelly, Shelly.
They're excited to hear fromyou, Shelly.
They're excited to hear fromyou.
Shelly (06:15):
Lord have mercy.
That's all I have to say.
Lord have mercy.
I am pretty excited that it'sFriday, but I will tell you that
most times, by the time we getto Friday, which actually is
today as well, I go, Oh, it'sFriday.
Oh, shoot.
It's Friday.
Like I still have so many morethings to do.
I think the one fun thing forme, honestly, is that not only
(06:36):
am I the founder and CEO ofMorales HR, but I'm also a city,
uh, sitting.
Um, and so I kind of live inboth worlds and I get a big
exposure to what are we doingaround remote work.
And in fact, this company, whichis called Snapdocs is phenomenal
mortgage tech company is a fullyremote work environment.
So I have the best of bothworlds.
(06:57):
I'm have this opportunity toconnect people to opportunities
and I also get to see every daywhat it's like to be in the
inside a company.
Rick (07:06):
Well, you're very busy and we thank you so much for taking
the time to spend with us.
We appreciate it.
Shelly (07:12):
I'm so grateful to be here with all of you.
And the crowd, it's such anamazing
Rick (07:17):
I, well, you know, they are hard to deal with.
So you got to kind of smack themaround a little and
Kaleem (07:21):
tell them, we tell them, no,
Rick (07:23):
You know, you got to set them straight.
Yeah, we got to set themstraight, but you know, we did
that and you know, they're calmnow, but you know, if they get
out of line, you just
Kaleem (07:31):
We'll tell him to settle.
We'll sell, settle down, settle
Rick (07:33):
Yeah.
Shelly (07:34):
I will.
Rick (07:35):
So Shelly, I I'm fascinated by your story.
You've worked with so manywonderful people.
How do you go from hot dogs torunning an HR company?
I know it's been a long time,but kind of walk me through,
your experience and, how youstarted out and, and how you got
to where you are now.
Shelly (07:53):
So I will answer the question and then I will tell
you about how, uh, the way thatI've done it is through pure
grit and determination.
So, the early story is that Iwas, um, I grew up here in the
Bay Area.
Literally about an hour fromwhere I live today.
I live in San Jose, Californianow.
I have four kids, two dogs, acat, a lizard, a husband.
(08:15):
It's like Wally World going onover here, you guys.
I mean, I'm talking about neverending fun, drama, something
happening.
But back in, like, when I firstgraduated from high school, my
mom owned these stores calledSandy's Happy Hot Dogs, and that
was the plan.
I was going to be a hot dog shopowner.
So I didn't go to college.
All my friends went, I did not.
(08:35):
And then my mom sold thosestores and I was like, wait,
what?
Like, no, what am I going to do?
And so I got super lucky.
I fell into lucky.
I fell into a receptionist job.
And I was like, this is a great,but what else can I do?
Cause this is boring.
And so I just like.
Kept saying, what else, whatelse, what else?
(08:57):
I happen to be able to take onsome HR related things in that
company where I was areceptionist.
And this is back in the day whenwe had to track every resume
with by hand that came in.
That was the beginning of my HRcareer.
That evolved over the years tobecoming a business partner, to
leaders, to driving, differentprograms and initiatives, which
(09:18):
then just gave me more of aninsight to.
Gosh, this function of HR.
Really has the ability to impactpeople's lives.
And so I was blessed with anopportunity to work at some
amazing companies.
You've mentioned a couple ofthem.
I also worked at Cadence DesignSystems.
I worked at Juniper Networks.
I got my first head of HR gig ina publicly traded company Called
(09:41):
Quantenna, which was in the WiFi semiconductor space.
And from there, I did a few preIPO startups and about, gosh,
almost two years ago now,decided in house was not giving
me the opportunity to affect asmany people's lives in a
positive way.
I decided to start thisfractional gig, which is what I
(10:04):
do today, is fractional CHROwork, but at a different level
now.
That work plus connecting peopleto opportunities across all
professions and all industriesand all levels of professionals.
And so that's how I got started.
And along that journey, there'sbeen this in house was the way
(10:25):
it was.
And now not in house is the wayit is in many cases.
And there's a big push to,should we go back to in house?
And the reason for that isreally about the connection
that's lost sometimes.
And so you have to find thesereally unique ways to think
about remote work that keep youremployees engaged.
(10:48):
And so that's what we talk aboutall the time.
Kaleem (10:52):
know, looking at some of those companies that you worked
at, I can't, you know, as we'reon the remote work podcast, you
were talking about remote work,you know, when you have somebody
that works at a company likeAlassian, That is worldwide
known for being a remote firstcompany.
Everybody.
(11:12):
I believe Annie Dean is nowthere.
She's talking about how, youknow, she's, I think they had
her roles ahead of remote work,like, like they're all in on
this idea of being fullydistributed.
So can you talk about what itwas like working at that company
at that time?
And this was what, six yearsbefore the pandemic, roughly,
(11:35):
what was the timeline just sothat our listeners and viewers
understand remote work has beenaround long before 2020.
So can you talk about thatexperience?
Shelly (11:44):
absolutely.
It really has been around for along time.
And you could see the evolution.
You could see it headed thisway.
Atlassian is phenomenal.
I mean, Mike and Scott, whofounded Atlassian so many years
ago, have done such an amazingjob of thinking ahead about what
remote would be and could be.
And so working there wasfabulous.
(12:05):
And not only was it remote, butwe're talking Australia to the,
to California.
Yeah.
Kaleem (12:12):
So Alassian, so audience, just so you know,
Alassian is an Australian basedcompany.
Shelly (12:18):
Yeah.
With a large presence in the U.
S.
obviously, and even more so,like you mentioned, I was there
a long time ago.
But I know so many people whoare there today who have been
there for years or come and gonefrom Atlassian.
And the story is always thesame.
It's a phenomenal company towork for with great values that
really does think about remoteand how to enable talent.
(12:40):
A really quick, funny story.
When I joined Atlassian.
Want the first thing that theyhave you do.
And I don't know if this is the,I imagine it's the case today is
to create your own confluencepage.
And I can remember going, Oh mygosh, like really?
Like what is this confluencething?
And I have to tell everybodyabout myself.
Oh, like it just kind of made melike, I didn't even like
(13:01):
Facebook.
This is a long time ago.
And so I did my confluence pageand I remember that day
thinking.
Oh my gosh, this, there's somuch potential to this.
And when I left, I thought, ohmy, how am I ever going to live
without confluence, which is a,it is such a tool for connecting
across all boundaries, right?
When I went to cadence,something came across my desk
(13:23):
and I was like, that'sconfluence.
I can tell like the link, Icould tell the link.
And I was very excited.
I use all those Atlassianproducts today in Morales HR.
And I fundamentally believe theyare helping us be a remote work.
We're also an entirely remotecommunity as
Rick (13:40):
huh.
Cool.
While you were working with,with Atlassian what are some of
the challenges that you werepresented with and helped
resolve that, that so manycompanies might be dealing with
today?
Shelly (13:51):
Oh, gosh.
I think, Rick, I think I wouldexpand that to the time that I,
from the time that I worked atAtlassian, even to today and the
clients that we work with andthe challenges that they face
and the things that we face withSnapdocs.
Working remotely is So we allknow that the pandemic has, was
terrible in so many ways.
It really negatively affectedpeople's lives.
(14:13):
And if you are like me and theglass is half full, what you do
is you think about the positivethings that come out of.
of events or things that happen.
And in my mind, what thepandemic did for all of us is
how to think about workdifferently.
Had us be more, you know, whatis the word I'm looking for?
(14:35):
More tolerant of, you know, itused to be, I'm sure you can all
remember this, right?
Like life, right?
If you were, if you were an inhouse employee and you had
somebody on the polycom, whichwas the way it was,
Kaleem (14:48):
the polycom.
What's the
Rick (14:49):
the video conference,
Shelly (14:51):
Holy calm.
Like the big thing that sat,come on man.
Like the big phone thing that novideo.
And you, you know, if you're onthe other end of that, you want
to like poke your eyeballs outbecause you're just like, you
can't hear anything.
And if your dog barked or yourkid cried, people thought you
weren't paying attention.
I mean, so terrible.
(15:12):
Roll forward.
Everyone's at home.
The kids are crying.
They're on their people.
They're, you know, the laps.
And of course those aredistractions, but they are
distractions that made you beable to be more invested in
getting your work done.
And so we've
Kaleem (15:26):
empathy.
Shelly (15:27):
of that.
Yeah.
Kaleem (15:27):
Right?
Yeah.
people are basically like, wow,you're a human being CEO.
I've never seen.
Now I'm seeing the C, even ifI'm on a company wide call, the
CEO is on a company wide zoomcall.
So the whole company scene, Thehouse of the CEO, the visual.
So I love what you said.
It just, it allowed it to bemore human.
I'm sorry.
(15:48):
I just, when you were justsaying that, it just really,
really stuck with me.
Was there something that youfeel like Alassian like solved
that people are like still, youtalked about confluence
documentation.
Are there some things that youfeel like most people are still
having challenges with today?
Shelly (16:08):
I think that, Collaboration is the biggest
thing that Atlassian solved forearly on.
And it is the biggest thing thatwe still have challenges with is
how do we collaborate?
What, there's so much technologyout there.
Right?
Like people will say, Oh, youshould use SharePoint.
Well, SharePoint is a documentrepository.
SharePoint is not acollaboration vehicle, but
(16:32):
Microsoft has lots ofcollaboration things now.
So everyone is like findingtheir way.
And I do think too, it's,there's.
The biggest thing that we haveto think about in remote work is
how do we effectivelycollaborate as a company.
And sometimes it's aboutcollaboration inside your
company and sometimes aboutcollaboration outside and
(16:53):
bringing it in.
So tools like Slack have beenphenomenal in this remote work
environment because you almostcan't get your work.
you need a couple of differentlike mediums.
Kaleem (17:06):
Mmm,
Shelly (17:06):
to be able to get a hold of somebody quickly.
I cannot walk next door to theother office.
I have to say, Hey, do you havea second on slack versus.
You know, just like real timethings.
So I think it's aboutcollaboration.
I think it's about, quickresponse time and you get those
from tools like slack and you,and actually the funniest thing
is back in the day, Atlassianhad a tool called hip chat, I
(17:30):
think.
Yes.
Do you remember hip chat?
Yeah.
Which is, and I can rememberlike Slack was this competitor
to Hip Chat and I thinkAtlassian long after I was gone,
I think they divested in hipchat.
But it was this like, that'swhere my first like real
exposure to how to be able totie things together, right?
(17:51):
So you can tie, these are thedocuments we're working on that
are actually embedded insideConfluence that we're actually
using for the conversation thatis.
Both could be both internallyand externally.
And so I think those are thethings I'm seeing.
Kaleem (18:04):
Async.
That's what it was.
Shelly (18:06):
Yeah.
Async without, at first whenpeople started saying async, I
was like, what the hell are theytalking about?
Um, so, yeah.
Kaleem (18:12):
Me too.
Me too.
Rick (18:13):
Took me a while as well.
Kaleem (18:14):
was Tammy B.
Allen who from workplaces waslike, why does everyone keep
saying async?
I don't know what that is.
And there's like, oh, they'retalking about asynchronous.
I was like, oh, asynchronous.
That makes sense.
Shelly (18:25):
You know, the other thing that I'll tell both of you
are just, are listeners as well,that I see as there's a little
bit of a generational push andpull, meaning folks who are used
to being in the office five daysa week really like that folks
who are younger generation.
Those folks who have spent fivedays a week, Monday through
(18:46):
Friday, 8 to 5 are typicallyolder than the, you know, that's
they enjoy that connection.
Folks that are younger.
Oftentimes, and I have, I can'tremember if I said in the
beginning or not because I sayit so often, four kids, two
dogs, a cat, a lizard, ahusband, like I have been
married for 30 years.
So I've seen like this flow andmy children, my older children
(19:07):
are older.
They're out of college already.
So I've watched them actually gointo the workplace and they have
a different desire, a differentneed of what, how they
collaborate.
They are used to remoteworkplaces.
It is what they know older folkswere forced into, I should say
more seasoned professionals whowere kind of forced into work
(19:29):
from home.
Some of them
Kaleem (19:30):
CHRO.
Shelly (19:33):
cheap anyway.
So, I think that there's a, uh,when I think about the
generational divide, when itcomes to that, I think the magic
is in the middle.
Remote work is never going awayin my opinion for a lot of jobs.
Some jobs, there is no remotework, but there's still this
desire to cross functionallycollaborate.
(19:53):
And so it's about how do we pullall these things together and
how do we appeal to all workers?
That's what's important at thecompany level and the things
that I'm seeing the most pushand pull on remote work now.
We'll be right back after thesewords.
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And now, back to the show.
Rick (22:12):
So now.
you've created your own company,Morales HR, excuse me for
mispronouncing that.
What was the spark that kind ofled you to where you are now
with creating Morales HR?
Was there a moment like, ah,aha, this is what I need to
pursue.
Shelly (22:28):
Yeah, there were a few factors that led into that.
One was the, when you are an inhouse head of HR for one
company, you can only affectpeople's lives positively at
that one company.
And my aspirations are muchlarger than that.
And so that's one factor.
The other factor was that, Ilove being in charge of my own
(22:52):
destiny and being able toinfluence how things are going.
Developed how people are treatedlike if I'm leaving the
business, I have influence overthat.
So those were the two biggestfactors.
And I, it started out small andit's just gotten very large
where, you know, anyone whojoins the Morales HR community,
(23:14):
which is literally just acommunity of professionals.
There's no fee.
It's just like, be part of thecommunity so that we can
potentially help you or yourspouse or your, you know, Family
in the future.
And now it's about like, what isthat experience of getting
employment?
So the nature of employment ischanging.
This leads into the remote work,like how people get jobs, how
(23:34):
people want to work.
All of that is changing.
We've moved so much to like,What is this gig economy thing?
What is this fractional workthing?
And so you see a lot of peopleare moving towards that.
Some do it because they wantflexibility.
Some do it because they want toengage with companies before
they commit.
(23:55):
Some do it because they're like,I am a more seasoned
professional.
I don't really want to work 75hours a week anymore.
I would choose to work 30 hoursa week, I can do that
fractionally.
So we're seeing a big movementthere.
And some people are saying, Ionly want remote work.
Therefore, I will only go tocompanies that will be, allow me
(24:15):
to be flexible and remote.
And maybe that means 10 or 20hours a week instead of 40.
So I'm seeing a lot of them.
So what drove me is, ability toimpact people's lives and more
flexibility.
Rick (24:26):
Wow, that is so concise and wonderful to hear.
I love it that way.
It's great.
Kaleem (24:32):
She wants to save the world Rick.
She wants to save the world isbasically what she said.
I want it's for the children.
She said it's for the children.
Yeah,
Shelly (24:39):
It's for my children.
No, I'm just kidding.
No, it is.
I think it is for, it does makea difference.
I wish I could save the world,but I can at least have a big
impact on them.
Rick (24:49):
You certainly can.
Well, you mentioned thecommunity.
Can you explain a little bitmore about How the community
works and are you interviewingpeople and then connecting them
with companies or is this justkind of like a, an open forum
for people?
Shelly (25:02):
Uh, it's a little bit of both.
So we've launched, the, I didn'tactually launch Morales HR as a,
as a, as a, External companyuntil August of last year, and
we tried a few different models.
We tried kind of like managedservices where we would hire
people underneath and then weplace them out.
And to me, I was like, this isalso not scalable.
It's not big enough.
It doesn't have enough impact.
(25:23):
And so where we leaned is let'screate a community where people
can.
Everybody has the opportunity tospeak to somebody live.
They join, they talk to ourintake person, our recruiting
coordinator.
As long as they're not ajackass, they can go forward
because I choose to only workwith kind people.
It's the biggest, like, be akind human is my number one
(25:43):
value.
So, as long as they, when theyjoin the community, and
sometimes they're looking andsometimes they're not.
Sometimes they're just like, letme just be in that.
But we know about them, whatthey want, what they need.
And then when we find the roles,we push them out to our
community.
We don't post on LinkedIn.
I don't put things in thewebsites and nothing can be
scraped.
It's all about that true valueof that community and
(26:06):
connection.
So people join there's, we justcreated a Slack channels.
We have about a thousandprofessionals.
I'm totally going to come bepart of your community too.
I like the 3000 number better.
So, we have about a thousandprofessionals inside the
community, all roles, alllevels, all professions.
So from CHOs, CFOs, heads ofproduct engineering down to
(26:27):
customer support, benefitsoperations, people like the
gamut, they come, they join andthen they just get to see those
opportunities as they come.
There's about four, five to.
Five or so.
Come eat in and go out eachweek.
Rick (26:41):
Hm.
That's great.
That, that's really wonderful.
Let's hit the rewind button realquick, if you would.
You mentioned something a momentago that is, is very, to me,
it's sacrosanct.
I Feel like it's so important,especially these days.
You mentioned, the importance ofbeing a kind human being.
And I really would like to know,like, you know, what does that
(27:02):
mean to you?
And as a value why is it soimportant?
Kaleem (27:06):
Straight to the heart.
Straight to the heart, Shelly.
Straight to the heart as we'dsay.
Shelly (27:10):
That's very New York ish of you.
Uh, so, you know, for me, I havein my career, I have had the
opportunity to work with amazinghumans.
I have also had the misfortuneof working with.
It's very unkind humans and themore, yeah, yeah, jackasses,
(27:32):
assholes pick your, pick your
Kaleem (27:34):
Some bitches.
Shelly (27:35):
Yeah, exactly.
And I just choose not to bearound those people.
I get no energy, I get no joyand I have no time in life for
anyone who is not a kind human.
I have worked for CEOs who havesaid, I care about diversity,
but only hire from Stanford andMIT.
(27:56):
I'm like, dude, like, do youreally?
Like, come on, man.
You know, I do think that it's,um, you know, treat people as
you want to be treated is sotrue.
I want people to treat me withkindness and grace and give me
the benefit of the doubt becausemy intentions are always pure.
Do I sometimes do things thatdon't come off?
Yes.
Just tell me.
(28:17):
And that's the kind of humansthat I choose to be with.
I will tell you that sometimes.
Sometimes you guys like there'stwo things that happen with
Morales HR So we have a verylike it is very my team is like,
okay, we get it.
We get it We know like if youare not kind I do not want you
in this network I will not referpeople who are can't have a
(28:39):
decent conversation with theintake person.
And senior people, sometimesthey're like, I'm too good to
talk to this junior person.
I'm like, you're not good enoughfor us then.
And by the way, not only are younot, you should be nice to
everyone, right?
Like that at the core, butsecondly, you actually are not
very intelligent either becausethe person that's the, well,
(29:03):
that, and honestly, you guyslike, The person who does the
intake, her name is CamilleMorales.
If you can't figure out that youshould, you know, not be unkind
or be a jerk to Camille Morales.
Like that's not like, come onanyway.
Kaleem (29:19):
Same last name.
Get it.
Shelly (29:21):
last thing, get it, let's get it.
But, but more importantly, it isabout how you treat somebody.
It's like, I think everybodyshould be a server at one point
in their life.
Okay.
You can't be a waitress server.
Like how do you watch your bustables?
I, by the way, have done allthose things, you know, and so I
ran a happy hot dog.
(29:42):
All right.
We talked about that, you know,so I just think it's about being
a kind of human.
So when you ask me, it is at thecore.
It's just, I just know, and mygut is usually right.
And now I've seen that my team'sgut is usually right.
And I also say, but make sureyou're having like show them
grace to like sometimes peoplejust have a bad day.
(30:05):
You never know.
So this is one of like mybiggest learnings as an HR
business partner in my career.
And this is what I take forwardall the time is you actually
don't know what's happening insomebody's life.
Kaleem (30:16):
Yeah.
You gotta dig a little.
You gotta dig a
Shelly (30:18):
You've got to dig.
And this actually is so like,think about this from a remote
work perspective.
We went from, you could leaveyour house at any time.
7 o'clock in the morning.
You could de like completelyseparate yourself from what was
happening at home too.
And then you came home at sevenor eight and maybe the kids were
(30:39):
crying all day, but you didn'tknow.
Or maybe the dog was likethrowing up, but you didn't know
until you actually got home.
Now it is so It is integration.
It is all mixed in.
And so that grace and yeah.
And so I always say, even thoughwe see people on zoom, you
actually, cause zoom actuallycuts out a lot of the background
noise now.
So you might have like the kidcrying in the other room.
(31:02):
They don't hear it, but you hearit.
So that's the thing I alwaystalk to people about, even
though it is, um, there's abetter face of it now.
It's something to watch.
Kaleem (31:11):
So earlier you were talking about why you kind of
created it and you wanted tohave more control and I guess
this is kind of more of acomment and I'll follow up with
a question.
I totally feel for a lot of HRprofessionals right now,
because, you know, we're kind ofcaught in the middle, right?
We're working with the executiveteam.
(31:31):
But then we're also working withthe employees and with a lot of
these return to office policies,and you even mentioned kind of
like, Oh, you care aboutdiversity, but you only want to
hire from there.
Gosh, it's really, I feel forall of us trying to implement
these return to office policieswhen in fact, many of us
probably don't even agree withthem, you know?
(31:52):
So I just kind of wanted tostate that's a challenge, but,
um, on the fractional.
Like this idea of fractional,you have a great set of clients
that are listed on your LinkedInthat you're working with.
Can you just kind of talk to ouraudience a little bit about what
fractional is?
And then where do you seefractional heading?
(32:13):
Because we're also in the samekind of space.
So I'd love for you to talkabout why fractional, you know,
Shelly (32:19):
Yeah.
There is, um, a lot, I thinkthat is great to articulate what
fractional means to me, becauseit doesn't mean the same thing
for everybody.
To me, fractional is a non inhouse, non full time role.
So that could be 10 hours, 20hours, 30 hours a week for a
(32:40):
company.
To me, it does not mean a, it isnot reserved for executives.
Some people will say fractionalis just for executives.
So to me, fractional is justthat non in house non full time
engagement.
Kaleem (32:55):
And when you say non in house, are you saying they are
not hiring the person, they'recontracting the person.
Is that
Shelly (33:00):
correct.
Correct.
They're not an employee of thatis where this, like, you would
see this kind of like blurrinessof part time.
Isn't it just part time?
It is not.
There are part time employees.
Of course they work less than 40hours a week and they are paid
by the company as an employee.
Fractional is that non in houseengagement
Kaleem (33:23):
Okay.
Shelly (33:23):
paid for by the company or sometimes a third party, like
sometimes there's a third partyperson that is, that is bringing
the fractional leaders in.
I will tell you that I thinkit's 15 years ago.
And by the way, why on earthwould you tell everybody that I
started my career in 1999?
Like, are you trying to make melook old?
Like, come on, man.
Kaleem (33:41):
Hey, we're pretty close to the same age.
Shelly (33:44):
Jiminy Christmas.
Okay.
Anyway.
Yeah.
15 years ago, I was at JuniperNetworks.
I ran employee relations, HRoperations globally.
I had maybe 15 people on myteam, big team.
We had, of course we had, it wasJuniper was 10, 000 people back
then.
Right.
And so we were having thisoffsite for HR leaders.
(34:05):
So, and there was probablyactually, I think it was all
leaders, about a hundred people,and this woman who ran a big
piece of learning anddevelopment for us, her name is
Courtney Harrison.
She, said three things will betrue in the future.
You'll be able to smell fromyour phone.
We will exchange goods viadigital currency
Kaleem (34:24):
that's a check.
Shelly (34:25):
and the gig economy will be real.
And I said, I say to her now,she's so very dear friend of
mine.
I'm like, well, two out ofthree, my friend is not
Kaleem (34:34):
Hey, smelling from the phone is going to be amazing.
I can't wait.
Shelly (34:37):
So we are seeing, I am seeing fractional in more than
just HR.
I think it is popular at theexecutive level in HR because
the role itself has gotten sobroad that people are like, I
actually, I can't be a therapistand an operational genius.
(34:59):
and a talent acquisition person.
Like I can't, I don't have it.
I don't have that skill set.
So I'll go be a fractionalleader in what I love and what
I'm really good at.
And what if we had two?
What if we had somebody who wasan operational genius and we had
somebody who's like talentpartner, who's a thought partner
to the CEO, those types ofthings.
(35:19):
So I'm seeing a lot of that.
I see, in the more senior rolesas people get older, they don't
want to work 60, 70 hours aweek.
So there's a fractional.
They're the flexibility.
They're not done, but they'renot willing to do that for a
host of reasons.
I also am seeing it in peoplewant to try engagements before
and they feel like thefractional is a good way to test
(35:40):
the waters and then also sadly,some people are doing fractional
out of pure necessity and thatis because they couldn't get a
job.
I mean, they haven't been ableto get, they got, let it go and
they haven't been able to landtheir next role.
So they say, I'll just try afractional.
So there's some of that, andthen the folks who have been
really burned in layoffs, arelike, I could have two
(36:03):
fractional roles, make the sameor more and not be so nervous
about losing one.
Kaleem (36:09):
That's, that's a really good point.
You know, um, filling the gapof, Maternity leaves or, you
know, like when some, whensomeone goes on a maternity
leave, sometimes companies arelike, well, we have too much
work.
We still need to have this done,but we don't want to hire
somebody, you know, full time.
(36:29):
I was like, wow, I didn't eventhink of that.
Shelly (36:31):
Yeah, that one I'm seeing as interim.
So I, it is like, but they doblend.
And so.
Snapdocs is a phenomenal exampleof that.
I was contracted to be afractional interim coverage.
So the person who was therebefore me, it's kind of a blend
of what we just talked about.
The person who was there beforeme, she was a full time
(36:54):
employee.
She was going on maternityleave.
They said, we need somebody, howabout 30 hours a week?
So I was a fractional interim,I've seen companies that are
like, we're going to hire a fulltime person to do this person's
full job while they're out onmaternity leave or short term
disabilities are very, verypopular because they are, it
(37:17):
happened for us in particularbecause it happens, oh my gosh,
so and so just got, you know,cut their leg, they can't come
to work, whatever the exampleis, and they need somebody right
now with the skill set thatmatches this.
And we have that, thoseresources already vetted because
they joined the community and wealready know about them.
Yeah.
We have everything honestly fromthose engagements where they
(37:40):
want the interim, they want to,they actually are going to do
full contract to full time thatthey're hired in less than a
week because it's they'retrying, they're actually doing
on the job interviewing by fulltime, by doing an interim or a
fractional person first.
Oh,
Rick (37:54):
That's really cool.
So uh, Shelly, do us a favor.
If you would, share with us acomical or inspiring moment you
might have had while workingremotely.
Shelly (38:06):
I don't know.
Kaleem looks too excited aboutthis.
I'm not sure I can.
Okay.
So
Kaleem (38:10):
it's my favorite part of the show.
Shelly (38:12):
know, right?
Okay.
So, um, I told y'all that I havefour kids, two dogs, a cat, a
lizard, a husband, live in SanJose, been married 30 years.
And I will tell you.
I know, right?
My husband, I have to say reallyfast, like people always say,
why is he last?
I go, Oh, he's made a big jokeout of it.
Like he says, I saved the bestfor last, but you know, when you
(38:33):
have been married 30 years, thatkind of does go back to that,
you know, whatever.
So, um, the funniest thing waslike, when we stood there, I was
probably not the funniest.
There's so many, but if I thinkabout, we had a fourth grader.
So my kids are 14.
So think about the pandemic.
We started, we had a fourthgrader, we had six of us in my
(38:56):
house nonstop.
Let me just tell you, it wascray over here.
And we would be literallyfighting for internet space.
Kaleem (39:05):
All right.
Okay.
Shelly (39:06):
And I would be fighting for these kids to stay out of my
office.
Okay, so here they come you guysand it's like they're trying to
talk to me I'm on a boardmeeting in my flip flops and
Kaleem (39:18):
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
What's the board meeting for?
How many people on the call?
Give me
Shelly (39:22):
Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, board meeting, they're VCs,
they're bankers, they're for oneof my companies that I worked
for, I'm in my flip flops and ofcourse a cute shirt like I have
on today, but I have shorts onand flip flops and they're like
these kids, like they just keepcoming in, they're bugging me
(39:43):
and I'm like, Oh, like I, I'mtrying to do that, like the hand
up mom thing and they are notbugging me.
They're not biting.
They're not understanding.
And I'm like talking like I'mtalking to you right now.
And I finally like there's abreak and I can just put the
thing on the, I can close thecamera and I can just quickly
like tell them to get out.
Kaleem (40:02):
A quick curse out.
Basically a quick curse out.
You can curse them out.
Shelly (40:06):
Yeah.
And like everyone else has done,I'm sure at least once I didn't
actually click the button andtherefore I'm on running to the
door telling my Children.
I'm yelling at my Children andthe dogs are barking and I come
back and I'm like, Oh my God,I'm so embarrassed.
Like, I cannot even tell youthat.
(40:27):
And you know, it goes back towhat we talked about earlier,
like
Kaleem (40:30):
Right?
That is great.
Shelly (40:36):
I'm like, don't you guys see me?
Like I am on a very importantcall.
Oh, dude.
I
Rick (40:46):
I mean, it sounds to me like it was it was a human
moment while being a parent.
Shelly (40:51):
It was a human moment while being a parent.
The challenge that that one atthat time, you guys is that was
early days.
That was like, you know, thefirst board meeting two months
into COVID.
It's like, oh my God, I'm soembarrassed.
Anyway, they're like, it's allright.
They really, we didn't havepeople who didn't give enough
grace yet, like at that one, butthey're like, yeah, yeah, we get
it.
It's fine.
(41:11):
So, I mean, those stories,they're plentiful.
Rick (41:15):
it's funny.
Yeah, those are, you mentionedit earlier.
Speaking of the early days, whenyou threw out Polycom, it threw
me for a loop because I was aPolycom video conference
technician at the University ofMaine.
And I only know the, I only knowthe video conference aspect of
it.
I never did anything with theteleconference part, but we did
(41:36):
have those giant, they were likehexagonal speakers that just
laid flat on the table.
They were so unnoticeable and Iwas like, man, I totally forgot
about that.
So that's why it threw me for aloop.
Shelly (41:47):
I do want y'all to know, let me just say one other thing
really fast.
So I do want you to know that Iwent from working at Atlassian,
which was super cutting edge,super remote, like all these
things, the two cadence designsystems, which is a 30 year old
semiconductor company, it was alittle bit of an adjustment, but
they have come like they'rephenomenal.
And you know, they have corneredthe market on so many things and
(42:10):
Tina HR there is a phenomenalmentor and friend of mine.
And so I feel very grateful tobe part of that, but that was a
little bit of a shift.
Kaleem (42:17):
awesome.
Rick (42:17):
would imagine.
So, yeah.
So where can our listeners andviewers find you?
Shelly (42:22):
It's a super hard, um, URL, moraleishr.
com and, um, there, I wasjoking, obviously.
So yeah, moraleishr.
com can learn about what we'redoing and how we're doing it,
how we're thinking about thattalent, bridging that talent gap
differently.
You can join the communitythere.
There's a link just to straightto join our community.
(42:42):
Um, It's free, a hundred percentfree.
And then from there you get thelink to join slack and do all
those things.
And then like, you know, you canfind me on LinkedIn.
I love to connect with folks.
I do a lot in the Bay area.
I do a lot in, events anddifferent types of bringing
folks together.
And I would love to be connectedto anyone who wants to be part
(43:03):
of our community.
Oh,
Kaleem (43:05):
Thank you so much Shelly.
I appreciate it.
You've been an awesome guestCan't wait for this episode to
release.
You've been so happy to talk toyou.
Can't wait to see you again
Rick (43:15):
We, certainly appreciate you tolerating us for the last
hour.
But I just wanted to say thankyou for your kindness.
It shows you are changing theworld, whether you realize it or
not.
So thank you for yourcontribution.
Shelly (43:27):
you two are amazing.
Have a beautiful day.
Kaleem (43:29):
All right, you too.
Rick (43:30):
See you next time.
Just so you guys know, my mom owned a restaurant called
(00:02):
the happy hot dog.
Kaleem (00:03):
Wait.
So the hot dog experience washappy hot dogs.
It's that's so cool.
Shelly (00:08):
Yes.
It's called the happy hot dog.
Um, that's correct.
Kaleem (00:12):
So what did the happy hot dog look like?
Shelly (00:15):
looked like a hot dog with hands that were happy.
That was the
Rick (00:19):
That's amazing.
Kaleem (00:21):
Do you watch the hot dog eating contest with the dude?
Dips, dips the hot dog bun inthe water and like shoves up.
Well, have you ever
Shelly (00:27):
but that kind of makes me want to vomit.
Like, why would I
Rick (00:30):
I can't even think about
Kaleem (00:31):
So you've never, you've never seen the hot
Shelly (00:34):
I know.
Of course I've seen it, but Idon't like, I don't like, well,
let's stop on that and watch it.
Rick (00:41):
Oh my good god.
Shelly (00:42):
Yeah.
Kaleem (00:43):
thank you.
That's
Shelly (00:45):
you.
Like my mouth is actuallywatered for, um, um, happy hot
dog with mustard, tomatoes andonions.
Like it's just like my mouth iswatering right now.
Rick (01:00):
Welcome back to Remotely One.
I am your co host, Rick Haney,joined by my esteemed colleague
and co host, Kaleem Clarkson.
What is happening, my brother?
Kaleem (01:09):
Oh, my brother from another mother, nothing much,
man.
I'm just enjoying life rightnow.
We're on the pod, right?
We're not doing work.
We're going to talk to some,some cool people.
So I'm enjoying it.
How about you, man?
What you up to?
Rick (01:21):
I'm digging it.
Life is good.
Right now, it's Friday.
The sun is out.
It's about 90 degrees here inCharlotte.
I can't complain.
Kaleem (01:29):
Let's do it.
Let's do it.
That's
Rick (01:31):
Hey, everybody.
Everyone out there, viewers,listeners, since you know how to
find us now, do us a huge favor.
Go to RateThisPodcast.
com forward slash RemotelyOneand just leave us a review.
Again, RateThisPodcast.
com forward slash RemotelyOne.
If you could do that for us, wewould be ever so thankful.
Since 2015, RemotelyOne is oneof the largest communities of
(01:54):
remote work professionals.
With over 3, 500 Slack members,RemotelyOne.
com And over 5, 000 emailsubscribers and those numbers
are going up by the day.
That is amazing.
It's free to join.
So go check it out at remotelyone.
com.
And with that out of the way,Kaleem, please, if you would
give us a teaser to abouttoday's guest.
Kaleem (02:14):
Whoo, Rick, you know how I get man with these guests, you
know what I'm
Rick (02:18):
You know what the word is, right?
You know what today's word is.
You love so much.
The word is doozy.
Kaleem (02:25):
we love
Rick (02:25):
got a doozy.
Kaleem (02:26):
We love a good doozy our guests today Rick They're
intimidating because of how manygreat things they've done But
you know what?
We're gonna we're gonna I'mgonna calm myself down I'm gonna
try to bring my stuff up totheir level.
So the first thing Rick Is ourguest today.
They are originally from andcurrently reside in the bay.
Rick (02:48):
Oh, San Francisco.
Go.
Kaleem (02:50):
Come out and play.
Yes.
The bay, the bay.
Let's see.
Um, oh, their, their HR careerkicked off in 99 as the director
of human resources for the wholebunch of software companies in
the bay area.
Rick (03:08):
Oh, that was a good time for software companies.
Kaleem (03:10):
course, of course.
Well connected.
Well connected.
Our guest is for sure, for sure.
Oh, Rick, I just love this.
This is probably the highlightof my week.
Okay, our guest, our guest, theygot their career.
They kicked off their career ata happy hot dog.
(03:32):
Sandy's happy hot dogs back inthe day.
Rick (03:36):
There is no shame in a good hot dog, I'll be honest.
It's one of my favorite culinaryitems.
Kaleem (03:41):
some reason the hot dog mascot
Rick (03:43):
Makes you want to do that hot dog strut.
Do that hot dog
Kaleem (03:47):
guess how many hot dogs have you eaten?
Guess.
Just tell us the truth.
How
Shelly (03:51):
goodness.
I I don't know.
Like back in the day, I probablyate a lot of hot dogs.
I would say today.
You know, it's a different day,we're mindful of our nutrition,
you know, like, not so many hotdogs today, but the Costco hot
dog is a good competitor thesedays,
Kaleem (04:10):
Oh, wow.
Wow.
So, you know, Rick and I areboth from Maine.
Have you ever tried a redsnapper?
As we would say snapper.
Have you tried one?
Shelly (04:21):
I would say, I would probably, if I read the sign,
call it a Red Snapper, likethat's probably what I would
call it, but no, I have nottried a Red Snapper hot dog.
Rick (04:30):
That's okay.
Kaleem (04:31):
there's no Oz, there's no
Rick (04:34):
you got the dialect down and we respect that.
Thank you.
Kaleem (04:36):
That's awesome.
Awesome.
Rick, something else about ourguests, right?
They had a great early career,but then they just kept going
higher and higher.
Our guests, they worked atlinked in and remote work, giant
Alassian guests.
Did I say that right?
Is it Alassian?
Yeah.
Shelly (04:55):
Yes.
You said it Alassian correctly.
I went back in the day that is,I almost feel like that's back
in the day.
It's not as back in the day asthe happy hotdog, but it was a
minute ago.
And I actually, the funniestthing was back then I thought
the name of the company wasJira.
I was wrong.
It was Alassian and then therewas a lot of amazing products
underneath that.
Rick (05:16):
Oh, that's wonderful.
And Kaleem said it right.
That's crazy.
He's notorious for misspeaking.
Kaleem (05:22):
I used to call it Alagian, you know, and I was
like, I don't even know whyAlagian.
I don't know why.
Rick, Rick, our guest.
It's currently the founder andCEO of Morales HR, which
connects talent toopportunities.
(05:42):
Rick,
Rick (05:43):
Okay.
Kaleem (05:44):
please give a warm welcome.
To Shelly Morales!
Rick (05:52):
Oh yeah.
Welcome to the show, Shelly.
Kaleem (05:58):
Yeah! Let's go, baby! Shelly Morales! Woo! Settle
down,
Rick (06:03):
Okay.
All right.
Take it down a
Kaleem (06:06):
Down Shh! Shh! Woo!
Rick (06:09):
to be professional here.
Kaleem (06:10):
Shelly, Shelly.
They're excited to hear fromyou, Shelly.
They're excited to hear fromyou.
Shelly (06:15):
Lord have mercy.
That's all I have to say.
Lord have mercy.
I am pretty excited that it'sFriday, but I will tell you that
most times, by the time we getto Friday, which actually is
today as well, I go, Oh, it'sFriday.
Oh, shoot.
It's Friday.
Like I still have so many morethings to do.
I think the one fun thing forme, honestly, is that not only
(06:36):
am I the founder and CEO ofMorales HR, but I'm also a city,
uh, sitting.
Um, and so I kind of live inboth worlds and I get a big
exposure to what are we doingaround remote work.
And in fact, this company, whichis called Snapdocs is phenomenal
mortgage tech company is a fullyremote work environment.
So I have the best of bothworlds.
(06:57):
I'm have this opportunity toconnect people to opportunities
and I also get to see every daywhat it's like to be in the
inside a company.
Rick (07:06):
Well, you're very busy and we thank you so much for taking
the time to spend with us.
We appreciate it.
Shelly (07:12):
I'm so grateful to be here with all of you.
And the crowd, it's such anamazing
Rick (07:17):
I, well, you know, they are hard to deal with.
So you got to kind of smack themaround a little and
Kaleem (07:21):
tell them, we tell them, no,
Rick (07:23):
You know, you got to set them straight.
Yeah, we got to set themstraight, but you know, we did
that and you know, they're calmnow, but you know, if they get
out of line, you just
Kaleem (07:31):
We'll tell him to settle.
We'll sell, settle down, settle
Rick (07:33):
Yeah.
Shelly (07:34):
I will.
Rick (07:35):
So Shelly, I I'm fascinated by your story.
You've worked with so manywonderful people.
How do you go from hot dogs torunning an HR company?
I know it's been a long time,but kind of walk me through,
your experience and, how youstarted out and, and how you got
to where you are now.
Shelly (07:53):
So I will answer the question and then I will tell
you about how, uh, the way thatI've done it is through pure
grit and determination.
So, the early story is that Iwas, um, I grew up here in the
Bay Area.
Literally about an hour fromwhere I live today.
I live in San Jose, Californianow.
I have four kids, two dogs, acat, a lizard, a husband.
(08:15):
It's like Wally World going onover here, you guys.
I mean, I'm talking about neverending fun, drama, something
happening.
But back in, like, when I firstgraduated from high school, my
mom owned these stores calledSandy's Happy Hot Dogs, and that
was the plan.
I was going to be a hot dog shopowner.
So I didn't go to college.
All my friends went, I did not.
(08:35):
And then my mom sold thosestores and I was like, wait,
what?
Like, no, what am I going to do?
And so I got super lucky.
I fell into lucky.
I fell into a receptionist job.
And I was like, this is a great,but what else can I do?
Cause this is boring.
And so I just like.
Kept saying, what else, whatelse, what else?
(08:57):
I happen to be able to take onsome HR related things in that
company where I was areceptionist.
And this is back in the day whenwe had to track every resume
with by hand that came in.
That was the beginning of my HRcareer.
That evolved over the years tobecoming a business partner, to
leaders, to driving, differentprograms and initiatives, which
(09:18):
then just gave me more of aninsight to.
Gosh, this function of HR.
Really has the ability to impactpeople's lives.
And so I was blessed with anopportunity to work at some
amazing companies.
You've mentioned a couple ofthem.
I also worked at Cadence DesignSystems.
I worked at Juniper Networks.
I got my first head of HR gig ina publicly traded company Called
(09:41):
Quantenna, which was in the WiFi semiconductor space.
And from there, I did a few preIPO startups and about, gosh,
almost two years ago now,decided in house was not giving
me the opportunity to affect asmany people's lives in a
positive way.
I decided to start thisfractional gig, which is what I
(10:04):
do today, is fractional CHROwork, but at a different level
now.
That work plus connecting peopleto opportunities across all
professions and all industriesand all levels of professionals.
And so that's how I got started.
And along that journey, there'sbeen this in house was the way
(10:25):
it was.
And now not in house is the wayit is in many cases.
And there's a big push to,should we go back to in house?
And the reason for that isreally about the connection
that's lost sometimes.
And so you have to find thesereally unique ways to think
about remote work that keep youremployees engaged.
(10:48):
And so that's what we talk aboutall the time.
Kaleem (10:52):
know, looking at some of those companies that you worked
at, I can't, you know, as we'reon the remote work podcast, you
were talking about remote work,you know, when you have somebody
that works at a company likeAlassian, That is worldwide
known for being a remote firstcompany.
Everybody.
(11:12):
I believe Annie Dean is nowthere.
She's talking about how, youknow, she's, I think they had
her roles ahead of remote work,like, like they're all in on
this idea of being fullydistributed.
So can you talk about what itwas like working at that company
at that time?
And this was what, six yearsbefore the pandemic, roughly,
(11:35):
what was the timeline just sothat our listeners and viewers
understand remote work has beenaround long before 2020.
So can you talk about thatexperience?
Shelly (11:44):
absolutely.
It really has been around for along time.
And you could see the evolution.
You could see it headed thisway.
Atlassian is phenomenal.
I mean, Mike and Scott, whofounded Atlassian so many years
ago, have done such an amazingjob of thinking ahead about what
remote would be and could be.
And so working there wasfabulous.
(12:05):
And not only was it remote, butwe're talking Australia to the,
to California.
Yeah.
Kaleem (12:12):
So Alassian, so audience, just so you know,
Alassian is an Australian basedcompany.
Shelly (12:18):
Yeah.
With a large presence in the U.
S.
obviously, and even more so,like you mentioned, I was there
a long time ago.
But I know so many people whoare there today who have been
there for years or come and gonefrom Atlassian.
And the story is always thesame.
It's a phenomenal company towork for with great values that
really does think about remoteand how to enable talent.
(12:40):
A really quick, funny story.
When I joined Atlassian.
Want the first thing that theyhave you do.
And I don't know if this is the,I imagine it's the case today is
to create your own confluencepage.
And I can remember going, Oh mygosh, like really?
Like what is this confluencething?
And I have to tell everybodyabout myself.
Oh, like it just kind of made melike, I didn't even like
(13:01):
Facebook.
This is a long time ago.
And so I did my confluence pageand I remember that day
thinking.
Oh my gosh, this, there's somuch potential to this.
And when I left, I thought, ohmy, how am I ever going to live
without confluence, which is a,it is such a tool for connecting
across all boundaries, right?
When I went to cadence,something came across my desk
(13:23):
and I was like, that'sconfluence.
I can tell like the link, Icould tell the link.
And I was very excited.
I use all those Atlassianproducts today in Morales HR.
And I fundamentally believe theyare helping us be a remote work.
We're also an entirely remotecommunity as
Rick (13:40):
huh.
Cool.
While you were working with,with Atlassian what are some of
the challenges that you werepresented with and helped
resolve that, that so manycompanies might be dealing with
today?
Shelly (13:51):
Oh, gosh.
I think, Rick, I think I wouldexpand that to the time that I,
from the time that I worked atAtlassian, even to today and the
clients that we work with andthe challenges that they face
and the things that we face withSnapdocs.
Working remotely is So we allknow that the pandemic has, was
terrible in so many ways.
It really negatively affectedpeople's lives.
(14:13):
And if you are like me and theglass is half full, what you do
is you think about the positivethings that come out of.
of events or things that happen.
And in my mind, what thepandemic did for all of us is
how to think about workdifferently.
Had us be more, you know, whatis the word I'm looking for?
(14:35):
More tolerant of, you know, itused to be, I'm sure you can all
remember this, right?
Like life, right?
If you were, if you were an inhouse employee and you had
somebody on the polycom, whichwas the way it was,
Kaleem (14:48):
the polycom.
What's the
Rick (14:49):
the video conference,
Shelly (14:51):
Holy calm.
Like the big thing that sat,come on man.
Like the big phone thing that novideo.
And you, you know, if you're onthe other end of that, you want
to like poke your eyeballs outbecause you're just like, you
can't hear anything.
And if your dog barked or yourkid cried, people thought you
weren't paying attention.
I mean, so terrible.
(15:12):
Roll forward.
Everyone's at home.
The kids are crying.
They're on their people.
They're, you know, the laps.
And of course those aredistractions, but they are
distractions that made you beable to be more invested in
getting your work done.
And so we've
Kaleem (15:26):
empathy.
Shelly (15:27):
of that.
Yeah.
Kaleem (15:27):
Right?
Yeah.
people are basically like, wow,you're a human being CEO.
I've never seen.
Now I'm seeing the C, even ifI'm on a company wide call, the
CEO is on a company wide zoomcall.
So the whole company scene, Thehouse of the CEO, the visual.
So I love what you said.
It just, it allowed it to bemore human.
I'm sorry.
(15:48):
I just, when you were justsaying that, it just really,
really stuck with me.
Was there something that youfeel like Alassian like solved
that people are like still, youtalked about confluence
documentation.
Are there some things that youfeel like most people are still
having challenges with today?
Shelly (16:08):
I think that, Collaboration is the biggest
thing that Atlassian solved forearly on.
And it is the biggest thing thatwe still have challenges with is
how do we collaborate?
What, there's so much technologyout there.
Right?
Like people will say, Oh, youshould use SharePoint.
Well, SharePoint is a documentrepository.
SharePoint is not acollaboration vehicle, but
(16:32):
Microsoft has lots ofcollaboration things now.
So everyone is like findingtheir way.
And I do think too, it's,there's.
The biggest thing that we haveto think about in remote work is
how do we effectivelycollaborate as a company.
And sometimes it's aboutcollaboration inside your
company and sometimes aboutcollaboration outside and
(16:53):
bringing it in.
So tools like Slack have beenphenomenal in this remote work
environment because you almostcan't get your work.
you need a couple of differentlike mediums.
Kaleem (17:06):
Mmm,
Shelly (17:06):
to be able to get a hold of somebody quickly.
I cannot walk next door to theother office.
I have to say, Hey, do you havea second on slack versus.
You know, just like real timethings.
So I think it's aboutcollaboration.
I think it's about, quickresponse time and you get those
from tools like slack and you,and actually the funniest thing
is back in the day, Atlassianhad a tool called hip chat, I
(17:30):
think.
Yes.
Do you remember hip chat?
Yeah.
Which is, and I can rememberlike Slack was this competitor
to Hip Chat and I thinkAtlassian long after I was gone,
I think they divested in hipchat.
But it was this like, that'swhere my first like real
exposure to how to be able totie things together, right?
(17:51):
So you can tie, these are thedocuments we're working on that
are actually embedded insideConfluence that we're actually
using for the conversation thatis.
Both could be both internallyand externally.
And so I think those are thethings I'm seeing.
Kaleem (18:04):
Async.
That's what it was.
Shelly (18:06):
Yeah.
Async without, at first whenpeople started saying async, I
was like, what the hell are theytalking about?
Um, so, yeah.
Kaleem (18:12):
Me too.
Me too.
Rick (18:13):
Took me a while as well.
Kaleem (18:14):
was Tammy B.
Allen who from workplaces waslike, why does everyone keep
saying async?
I don't know what that is.
And there's like, oh, they'retalking about asynchronous.
I was like, oh, asynchronous.
That makes sense.
Shelly (18:25):
You know, the other thing that I'll tell both of you
are just, are listeners as well,that I see as there's a little
bit of a generational push andpull, meaning folks who are used
to being in the office five daysa week really like that folks
who are younger generation.
Those folks who have spent fivedays a week, Monday through
(18:46):
Friday, 8 to 5 are typicallyolder than the, you know, that's
they enjoy that connection.
Folks that are younger.
Oftentimes, and I have, I can'tremember if I said in the
beginning or not because I sayit so often, four kids, two
dogs, a cat, a lizard, ahusband, like I have been
married for 30 years.
So I've seen like this flow andmy children, my older children
(19:07):
are older.
They're out of college already.
So I've watched them actually gointo the workplace and they have
a different desire, a differentneed of what, how they
collaborate.
They are used to remoteworkplaces.
It is what they know older folkswere forced into, I should say
more seasoned professionals whowere kind of forced into work
(19:29):
from home.
Some of them
Kaleem (19:30):
CHRO.
Shelly (19:33):
cheap anyway.
So, I think that there's a, uh,when I think about the
generational divide, when itcomes to that, I think the magic
is in the middle.
Remote work is never going awayin my opinion for a lot of jobs.
Some jobs, there is no remotework, but there's still this
desire to cross functionallycollaborate.
(19:53):
And so it's about how do we pullall these things together and
how do we appeal to all workers?
That's what's important at thecompany level and the things
that I'm seeing the most pushand pull on remote work now.
We'll be right back after thesewords.
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And now, back to the show.
Rick (22:12):
So now.
you've created your own company,Morales HR, excuse me for
mispronouncing that.
What was the spark that kind ofled you to where you are now
with creating Morales HR?
Was there a moment like, ah,aha, this is what I need to
pursue.
Shelly (22:28):
Yeah, there were a few factors that led into that.
One was the, when you are an inhouse head of HR for one
company, you can only affectpeople's lives positively at
that one company.
And my aspirations are muchlarger than that.
And so that's one factor.
The other factor was that, Ilove being in charge of my own
(22:52):
destiny and being able toinfluence how things are going.
Developed how people are treatedlike if I'm leaving the
business, I have influence overthat.
So those were the two biggestfactors.
And I, it started out small andit's just gotten very large
where, you know, anyone whojoins the Morales HR community,
(23:14):
which is literally just acommunity of professionals.
There's no fee.
It's just like, be part of thecommunity so that we can
potentially help you or yourspouse or your, you know, Family
in the future.
And now it's about like, what isthat experience of getting
employment?
So the nature of employment ischanging.
This leads into the remote work,like how people get jobs, how
(23:34):
people want to work.
All of that is changing.
We've moved so much to like,What is this gig economy thing?
What is this fractional workthing?
And so you see a lot of peopleare moving towards that.
Some do it because they wantflexibility.
Some do it because they want toengage with companies before
they commit.
(23:55):
Some do it because they're like,I am a more seasoned
professional.
I don't really want to work 75hours a week anymore.
I would choose to work 30 hoursa week, I can do that
fractionally.
So we're seeing a big movementthere.
And some people are saying, Ionly want remote work.
Therefore, I will only go tocompanies that will be, allow me
(24:15):
to be flexible and remote.
And maybe that means 10 or 20hours a week instead of 40.
So I'm seeing a lot of them.
So what drove me is, ability toimpact people's lives and more
flexibility.
Rick (24:26):
Wow, that is so concise and wonderful to hear.
I love it that way.
It's great.
Kaleem (24:32):
She wants to save the world Rick.
She wants to save the world isbasically what she said.
I want it's for the children.
She said it's for the children.
Yeah,
Shelly (24:39):
It's for my children.
No, I'm just kidding.
No, it is.
I think it is for, it does makea difference.
I wish I could save the world,but I can at least have a big
impact on them.
Rick (24:49):
You certainly can.
Well, you mentioned thecommunity.
Can you explain a little bitmore about How the community
works and are you interviewingpeople and then connecting them
with companies or is this justkind of like a, an open forum
for people?
Shelly (25:02):
Uh, it's a little bit of both.
So we've launched, the, I didn'tactually launch Morales HR as a,
as a, as a, External companyuntil August of last year, and
we tried a few different models.
We tried kind of like managedservices where we would hire
people underneath and then weplace them out.
And to me, I was like, this isalso not scalable.
It's not big enough.
It doesn't have enough impact.
(25:23):
And so where we leaned is let'screate a community where people
can.
Everybody has the opportunity tospeak to somebody live.
They join, they talk to ourintake person, our recruiting
coordinator.
As long as they're not ajackass, they can go forward
because I choose to only workwith kind people.
It's the biggest, like, be akind human is my number one
(25:43):
value.
So, as long as they, when theyjoin the community, and
sometimes they're looking andsometimes they're not.
Sometimes they're just like, letme just be in that.
But we know about them, whatthey want, what they need.
And then when we find the roles,we push them out to our
community.
We don't post on LinkedIn.
I don't put things in thewebsites and nothing can be
scraped.
It's all about that true valueof that community and
(26:06):
connection.
So people join there's, we justcreated a Slack channels.
We have about a thousandprofessionals.
I'm totally going to come bepart of your community too.
I like the 3000 number better.
So, we have about a thousandprofessionals inside the
community, all roles, alllevels, all professions.
So from CHOs, CFOs, heads ofproduct engineering down to
(26:27):
customer support, benefitsoperations, people like the
gamut, they come, they join andthen they just get to see those
opportunities as they come.
There's about four, five to.
Five or so.
Come eat in and go out eachweek.
Rick (26:41):
Hm.
That's great.
That, that's really wonderful.
Let's hit the rewind button realquick, if you would.
You mentioned something a momentago that is, is very, to me,
it's sacrosanct.
I Feel like it's so important,especially these days.
You mentioned, the importance ofbeing a kind human being.
And I really would like to know,like, you know, what does that
(27:02):
mean to you?
And as a value why is it soimportant?
Kaleem (27:06):
Straight to the heart.
Straight to the heart, Shelly.
Straight to the heart as we'dsay.
Shelly (27:10):
That's very New York ish of you.
Uh, so, you know, for me, I havein my career, I have had the
opportunity to work with amazinghumans.
I have also had the misfortuneof working with.
It's very unkind humans and themore, yeah, yeah, jackasses,
(27:32):
assholes pick your, pick your
Kaleem (27:34):
Some bitches.
Shelly (27:35):
Yeah, exactly.
And I just choose not to bearound those people.
I get no energy, I get no joyand I have no time in life for
anyone who is not a kind human.
I have worked for CEOs who havesaid, I care about diversity,
but only hire from Stanford andMIT.
(27:56):
I'm like, dude, like, do youreally?
Like, come on, man.
You know, I do think that it's,um, you know, treat people as
you want to be treated is sotrue.
I want people to treat me withkindness and grace and give me
the benefit of the doubt becausemy intentions are always pure.
Do I sometimes do things thatdon't come off?
Yes.
Just tell me.
(28:17):
And that's the kind of humansthat I choose to be with.
I will tell you that sometimes.
Sometimes you guys like there'stwo things that happen with
Morales HR So we have a verylike it is very my team is like,
okay, we get it.
We get it We know like if youare not kind I do not want you
in this network I will not referpeople who are can't have a
(28:39):
decent conversation with theintake person.
And senior people, sometimesthey're like, I'm too good to
talk to this junior person.
I'm like, you're not good enoughfor us then.
And by the way, not only are younot, you should be nice to
everyone, right?
Like that at the core, butsecondly, you actually are not
very intelligent either becausethe person that's the, well,
(29:03):
that, and honestly, you guyslike, The person who does the
intake, her name is CamilleMorales.
If you can't figure out that youshould, you know, not be unkind
or be a jerk to Camille Morales.
Like that's not like, come onanyway.
Kaleem (29:19):
Same last name.
Get it.
Shelly (29:21):
last thing, get it, let's get it.
But, but more importantly, it isabout how you treat somebody.
It's like, I think everybodyshould be a server at one point
in their life.
Okay.
You can't be a waitress server.
Like how do you watch your bustables?
I, by the way, have done allthose things, you know, and so I
ran a happy hot dog.
(29:42):
All right.
We talked about that, you know,so I just think it's about being
a kind of human.
So when you ask me, it is at thecore.
It's just, I just know, and mygut is usually right.
And now I've seen that my team'sgut is usually right.
And I also say, but make sureyou're having like show them
grace to like sometimes peoplejust have a bad day.
(30:05):
You never know.
So this is one of like mybiggest learnings as an HR
business partner in my career.
And this is what I take forwardall the time is you actually
don't know what's happening insomebody's life.
Kaleem (30:16):
Yeah.
You gotta dig a little.
You gotta dig a
Shelly (30:18):
You've got to dig.
And this actually is so like,think about this from a remote
work perspective.
We went from, you could leaveyour house at any time.
7 o'clock in the morning.
You could de like completelyseparate yourself from what was
happening at home too.
And then you came home at sevenor eight and maybe the kids were
(30:39):
crying all day, but you didn'tknow.
Or maybe the dog was likethrowing up, but you didn't know
until you actually got home.
Now it is so It is integration.
It is all mixed in.
And so that grace and yeah.
And so I always say, even thoughwe see people on zoom, you
actually, cause zoom actuallycuts out a lot of the background
noise now.
So you might have like the kidcrying in the other room.
(31:02):
They don't hear it, but you hearit.
So that's the thing I alwaystalk to people about, even
though it is, um, there's abetter face of it now.
It's something to watch.
Kaleem (31:11):
So earlier you were talking about why you kind of
created it and you wanted tohave more control and I guess
this is kind of more of acomment and I'll follow up with
a question.
I totally feel for a lot of HRprofessionals right now,
because, you know, we're kind ofcaught in the middle, right?
We're working with the executiveteam.
(31:31):
But then we're also working withthe employees and with a lot of
these return to office policies,and you even mentioned kind of
like, Oh, you care aboutdiversity, but you only want to
hire from there.
Gosh, it's really, I feel forall of us trying to implement
these return to office policieswhen in fact, many of us
probably don't even agree withthem, you know?
(31:52):
So I just kind of wanted tostate that's a challenge, but,
um, on the fractional.
Like this idea of fractional,you have a great set of clients
that are listed on your LinkedInthat you're working with.
Can you just kind of talk to ouraudience a little bit about what
fractional is?
And then where do you seefractional heading?
(32:13):
Because we're also in the samekind of space.
So I'd love for you to talkabout why fractional, you know,
Shelly (32:19):
Yeah.
There is, um, a lot, I thinkthat is great to articulate what
fractional means to me, becauseit doesn't mean the same thing
for everybody.
To me, fractional is a non inhouse, non full time role.
So that could be 10 hours, 20hours, 30 hours a week for a
(32:40):
company.
To me, it does not mean a, it isnot reserved for executives.
Some people will say fractionalis just for executives.
So to me, fractional is justthat non in house non full time
engagement.
Kaleem (32:55):
And when you say non in house, are you saying they are
not hiring the person, they'recontracting the person.
Is that
Shelly (33:00):
correct.
Correct.
They're not an employee of thatis where this, like, you would
see this kind of like blurrinessof part time.
Isn't it just part time?
It is not.
There are part time employees.
Of course they work less than 40hours a week and they are paid
by the company as an employee.
Fractional is that non in houseengagement
Kaleem (33:23):
Okay.
Shelly (33:23):
paid for by the company or sometimes a third party, like
sometimes there's a third partyperson that is, that is bringing
the fractional leaders in.
I will tell you that I thinkit's 15 years ago.
And by the way, why on earthwould you tell everybody that I
started my career in 1999?
Like, are you trying to make melook old?
Like, come on, man.
Kaleem (33:41):
Hey, we're pretty close to the same age.
Shelly (33:44):
Jiminy Christmas.
Okay.
Anyway.
Yeah.
15 years ago, I was at JuniperNetworks.
I ran employee relations, HRoperations globally.
I had maybe 15 people on myteam, big team.
We had, of course we had, it wasJuniper was 10, 000 people back
then.
Right.
And so we were having thisoffsite for HR leaders.
(34:05):
So, and there was probablyactually, I think it was all
leaders, about a hundred people,and this woman who ran a big
piece of learning anddevelopment for us, her name is
Courtney Harrison.
She, said three things will betrue in the future.
You'll be able to smell fromyour phone.
We will exchange goods viadigital currency
Kaleem (34:24):
that's a check.
Shelly (34:25):
and the gig economy will be real.
And I said, I say to her now,she's so very dear friend of
mine.
I'm like, well, two out ofthree, my friend is not
Kaleem (34:34):
Hey, smelling from the phone is going to be amazing.
I can't wait.
Shelly (34:37):
So we are seeing, I am seeing fractional in more than
just HR.
I think it is popular at theexecutive level in HR because
the role itself has gotten sobroad that people are like, I
actually, I can't be a therapistand an operational genius.
(34:59):
and a talent acquisition person.
Like I can't, I don't have it.
I don't have that skill set.
So I'll go be a fractionalleader in what I love and what
I'm really good at.
And what if we had two?
What if we had somebody who wasan operational genius and we had
somebody who's like talentpartner, who's a thought partner
to the CEO, those types ofthings.
(35:19):
So I'm seeing a lot of that.
I see, in the more senior rolesas people get older, they don't
want to work 60, 70 hours aweek.
So there's a fractional.
They're the flexibility.
They're not done, but they'renot willing to do that for a
host of reasons.
I also am seeing it in peoplewant to try engagements before
and they feel like thefractional is a good way to test
(35:40):
the waters and then also sadly,some people are doing fractional
out of pure necessity and thatis because they couldn't get a
job.
I mean, they haven't been ableto get, they got, let it go and
they haven't been able to landtheir next role.
So they say, I'll just try afractional.
So there's some of that, andthen the folks who have been
really burned in layoffs, arelike, I could have two
(36:03):
fractional roles, make the sameor more and not be so nervous
about losing one.
Kaleem (36:09):
That's, that's a really good point.
You know, um, filling the gapof, Maternity leaves or, you
know, like when some, whensomeone goes on a maternity
leave, sometimes companies arelike, well, we have too much
work.
We still need to have this done,but we don't want to hire
somebody, you know, full time.
(36:29):
I was like, wow, I didn't eventhink of that.
Shelly (36:31):
Yeah, that one I'm seeing as interim.
So I, it is like, but they doblend.
And so.
Snapdocs is a phenomenal exampleof that.
I was contracted to be afractional interim coverage.
So the person who was therebefore me, it's kind of a blend
of what we just talked about.
The person who was there beforeme, she was a full time
(36:54):
employee.
She was going on maternityleave.
They said, we need somebody, howabout 30 hours a week?
So I was a fractional interim,I've seen companies that are
like, we're going to hire a fulltime person to do this person's
full job while they're out onmaternity leave or short term
disabilities are very, verypopular because they are, it
(37:17):
happened for us in particularbecause it happens, oh my gosh,
so and so just got, you know,cut their leg, they can't come
to work, whatever the exampleis, and they need somebody right
now with the skill set thatmatches this.
And we have that, thoseresources already vetted because
they joined the community and wealready know about them.
Yeah.
We have everything honestly fromthose engagements where they
(37:40):
want the interim, they want to,they actually are going to do
full contract to full time thatthey're hired in less than a
week because it's they'retrying, they're actually doing
on the job interviewing by fulltime, by doing an interim or a
fractional person first.
Oh,
Rick (37:54):
That's really cool.
So uh, Shelly, do us a favor.
If you would, share with us acomical or inspiring moment you
might have had while workingremotely.
Shelly (38:06):
I don't know.
Kaleem looks too excited aboutthis.
I'm not sure I can.
Okay.
So
Kaleem (38:10):
it's my favorite part of the show.
Shelly (38:12):
know, right?
Okay.
So, um, I told y'all that I havefour kids, two dogs, a cat, a
lizard, a husband, live in SanJose, been married 30 years.
And I will tell you.
I know, right?
My husband, I have to say reallyfast, like people always say,
why is he last?
I go, Oh, he's made a big jokeout of it.
Like he says, I saved the bestfor last, but you know, when you
(38:33):
have been married 30 years, thatkind of does go back to that,
you know, whatever.
So, um, the funniest thing waslike, when we stood there, I was
probably not the funniest.
There's so many, but if I thinkabout, we had a fourth grader.
So my kids are 14.
So think about the pandemic.
We started, we had a fourthgrader, we had six of us in my
(38:56):
house nonstop.
Let me just tell you, it wascray over here.
And we would be literallyfighting for internet space.
Kaleem (39:05):
All right.
Okay.
Shelly (39:06):
And I would be fighting for these kids to stay out of my
office.
Okay, so here they come you guysand it's like they're trying to
talk to me I'm on a boardmeeting in my flip flops and
Kaleem (39:18):
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
What's the board meeting for?
How many people on the call?
Give me
Shelly (39:22):
Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, board meeting, they're VCs,
they're bankers, they're for oneof my companies that I worked
for, I'm in my flip flops and ofcourse a cute shirt like I have
on today, but I have shorts onand flip flops and they're like
these kids, like they just keepcoming in, they're bugging me
(39:43):
and I'm like, Oh, like I, I'mtrying to do that, like the hand
up mom thing and they are notbugging me.
They're not biting.
They're not understanding.
And I'm like talking like I'mtalking to you right now.
And I finally like there's abreak and I can just put the
thing on the, I can close thecamera and I can just quickly
like tell them to get out.
Kaleem (40:02):
A quick curse out.
Basically a quick curse out.
You can curse them out.
Shelly (40:06):
Yeah.
And like everyone else has done,I'm sure at least once I didn't
actually click the button andtherefore I'm on running to the
door telling my Children.
I'm yelling at my Children andthe dogs are barking and I come
back and I'm like, Oh my God,I'm so embarrassed.
Like, I cannot even tell youthat.
(40:27):
And you know, it goes back towhat we talked about earlier,
like
Kaleem (40:30):
Right?
That is great.
Shelly (40:36):
I'm like, don't you guys see me?
Like I am on a very importantcall.
Oh, dude.
I
Rick (40:46):
I mean, it sounds to me like it was it was a human
moment while being a parent.
Shelly (40:51):
It was a human moment while being a parent.
The challenge that that one atthat time, you guys is that was
early days.
That was like, you know, thefirst board meeting two months
into COVID.
It's like, oh my God, I'm soembarrassed.
Anyway, they're like, it's allright.
They really, we didn't havepeople who didn't give enough
grace yet, like at that one, butthey're like, yeah, yeah, we get
it.
It's fine.
(41:11):
So, I mean, those stories,they're plentiful.
Rick (41:15):
it's funny.
Yeah, those are, you mentionedit earlier.
Speaking of the early days, whenyou threw out Polycom, it threw
me for a loop because I was aPolycom video conference
technician at the University ofMaine.
And I only know the, I only knowthe video conference aspect of
it.
I never did anything with theteleconference part, but we did
(41:36):
have those giant, they were likehexagonal speakers that just
laid flat on the table.
They were so unnoticeable and Iwas like, man, I totally forgot
about that.
So that's why it threw me for aloop.
Shelly (41:47):
I do want y'all to know, let me just say one other thing
really fast.
So I do want you to know that Iwent from working at Atlassian,
which was super cutting edge,super remote, like all these
things, the two cadence designsystems, which is a 30 year old
semiconductor company, it was alittle bit of an adjustment, but
they have come like they'rephenomenal.
And you know, they have corneredthe market on so many things and
(42:10):
Tina HR there is a phenomenalmentor and friend of mine.
And so I feel very grateful tobe part of that, but that was a
little bit of a shift.
Kaleem (42:17):
awesome.
Rick (42:17):
would imagine.
So, yeah.
So where can our listeners andviewers find you?
Shelly (42:22):
It's a super hard, um, URL, moraleishr.
com and, um, there, I wasjoking, obviously.
So yeah, moraleishr.
com can learn about what we'redoing and how we're doing it,
how we're thinking about thattalent, bridging that talent gap
differently.
You can join the communitythere.
There's a link just to straightto join our community.
(42:42):
Um, It's free, a hundred percentfree.
And then from there you get thelink to join slack and do all
those things.
And then like, you know, you canfind me on LinkedIn.
I love to connect with folks.
I do a lot in the Bay area.
I do a lot in, events anddifferent types of bringing
folks together.
And I would love to be connectedto anyone who wants to be part
(43:03):
of our community.
Oh,
Kaleem (43:05):
Thank you so much Shelly.
I appreciate it.
You've been an awesome guestCan't wait for this episode to
release.
You've been so happy to talk toyou.
Can't wait to see you again
Rick (43:15):
We, certainly appreciate you tolerating us for the last
hour.
But I just wanted to say thankyou for your kindness.
It shows you are changing theworld, whether you realize it or
not.
So thank you for yourcontribution.
Shelly (43:27):
you two are amazing.
Have a beautiful day.
Kaleem (43:29):
All right, you too.
Rick (43:30):
See you next time.
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