How to Avoid Being on the Bad Employer List with Jon Hyman

Episode Transcript
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Producer (00:00):
The tech leaders toolbox podcast is brought to

(00:02):
you by Paul Simkins and thebully LEAD program, focusing on
helping tech leaders like you,and the frustration of low
performing teams, and losingexcellent employees, so they can
increase productivity by 50%. Gohome on time, and sleep better
at nights.

Paul Simkins (00:22):
Hello, and welcome to the tech leaders toolbox. I'm
Paul Simkins. And we're herebecause how you lead today
determines how your teamsucceeds tomorrow. This is
Episode 52, the tech leaderstoolbox podcast, and today we've
got a guest on who spends histime not only helping employers

(00:43):
stay legal, but also helpseducate them on how to never get
there to begin with. And he doeshe keeps a blog and he's got
some interesting things to sharewith us today. So are you ready?
Let's go.

(01:04):
With tongue planted firmly incheek, our guest refers to
himself as the master ofworkplace SHODAN froideur. He's
a partner in the law andemployment group of Meyers Roman
freedberg and Lewis inCleveland, Ohio, and is also the
lead of their Coronavirus TaskForce he applies is more than
two decades of experience tohelp employers proactively solve

(01:27):
their workplace problems. He'san author of the award winning
Ohio employers law blog at Ohioemployer law blog calm, and he's
an in demand resource forjournalists. He's been in the
Wall Street Journal msnbc.com,Cleveland, calm. Crain's
Cleveland business, Fox,Business News, NPR and

(01:48):
Huffington Post live. Well As ifthat wasn't enough, when he's
not working to save employers,he also works as an unpaid
manager and roadie for his kidsaspiring rock and roll careers.
Please help me welcome attorneyjohn Hyman. JOHN, welcome to the
show.

Unknown (02:06):
Hey, Paul. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate
it.

Now, we're kind of a testament to the power of
LinkedIn, because that's wherewe met. Right? We first
encountered each other onLinkedIn.

Unknown (02:15):
Yeah, we did.

Yeah. And we have a mutual friend, Suzanne Lucas,
who you and you and her kind oftrampled the same dirt in that
area.

Unknown (02:26):
We do one of my all time favorite people. great
person. Okay.

Well, john, I always I always like to ask this
question because I love to hearstories, people's stories, their
backgrounds, their journeys, howthey got where they are, just
tell us so much. So let's hearyour journey. How'd you get
here?

Unknown (02:45):
How did I get here?
Wow. So I've been practicingemployment law for them from the
management side for 24 yearsnow. And, you know, you
mentioned my tagline onLinkedIn, the master of
workplace chat in Freud. Andit's funny, I always it's, I
came up with that a couple ofyears ago, and I've always
thought of, I've alwaysunderstood shatin Freud to mean

(03:07):
traditional definition is liketaking misery or taking pleasure
in the misery of others, whichis kind of what I do for a
living, right. So I, on a day today basis, talk to employers
counsel them through theirproblems with employees, and the
issues that they're having.

(03:28):
Which could be anything from sothe harassment issue, so and
so's dog is barking in thebackground so and so's? I have I
have one in the crate and thepuppies in the crate and one is
on the couch and the mailmancomes to the door but with their
Amazon comes with the door.
Yeah, they're gonna go out anddo so. So I've always thought of
myself as kind of that's what Ido. And then I listened to a

(03:51):
great podcast put on by Voxmedia call today explained right
back when a right after DonaldTrump was diagnosed with COVID.
And they got into the concept ofshad and Freud on the podcast
and they went through a bunch ofdifferent kind of philosophers,
interpretations of the term andI was a philosophy major in

(04:14):
college. And so that kind ofpiqued that kind of piqued my
interest. And I honed in on thedefinitions of Shannon for it a
given by two differentphilosophers. I think it more
accurately describes me morethan taking pleasure in the
misery of others does sound atown's kind of kind of gallows
humor, kind of bleak, I think.

(04:36):
And so. Michel de montagne, ah,he referred to shad and Freud as
he likened it to humanvulnerability, that you're not
necessarily celebrating someoneelse's calamity. But you're
celebrating the fact that bycomparison to the misfortune
that someone else is suffering,you're not you're safe, you're

(04:56):
well you're doing okay. And thenfamous French philosopher Rene
Descartes, who he likened,shouted Freud to an act of
justice, that when something badhappens to someone that you kind
of feel it's it's an earnedmisfortune, that you're not

(05:18):
taking joy unnecessarily intheir misfortune, but joy in
someone kind of getting whatthey deserve. That you're
celebrating, whether you call itkarma, or cosmic justice, or
whatever, you're celebratingthe, the kind of cosmic fairness
of the situation. And so I kindof take those two and put them
together. And that's kind ofwhere I fall on the spectrum of

(05:39):
now how I think of myself as themaster of workplace shadow in
Florida, that I'm notnecessarily celebrating the
misfortune of the employees thatI'm giving companies counsel on,
but it's usually something thatsomeone has done to deserve the
misfortune that's been fallingthem, they've harass someone,

(05:59):
they're a bad performer, they'rechronically late. Whatever it
is, employers don't fire, goodemployees, employers fire, bad
employees, and they come to meto find out how to do it legally
incorrect, correctly, within theconfines of what's not going to
get them sued. Usually, if theyhave, they have the misfortune
of not coming to me first, thenthey may be calling me to bail

(06:24):
them out of a lawsuit. Buteither way, you know, when I
refer to myself as the master ofworkplace shout in Florida, it's
I think of myself in that kindof cosmic justice warrior.
motif, probably more closelyaligned to what Descartes had to
say.

Now, so now, you mentioned there that you said,
Well, you know, employers don'tfire good employees, they fire
bad employees. But certainly,you've probably encountered some
employers who have tried to fireemployees that, you know, even
even if in their mind, they'renot they're actually pretty good
employees. But for whateverreason, they they want to get

(07:02):
rid of them. Yeah, I

Unknown (07:04):
mean, I think it comes down to how you define I mean,
good could have a bunch ofdifferent definitions. It could
be a great performer, but alousy attitude. It could be a
mediocre performer, but someonewho's just so likable and
affable and gets along witheverybody that it makes it, you
know, they're, they're a goodyou know, they're just good to
have around in the workplace. Soit's, it's a different

(07:25):
definition of it depends howyou're defining good, I've seen
lots of situations where, andthis is where employers can get
themselves in trouble where ahigh performer might have an
affinity for making crasscomments to the women that they
work with, or might have apenchant for treating African
American coworkers worse, theytreat their than the worse they

(07:46):
treat their white coworkers. Andyou might say, well, they're
their top salesman, so we'regonna give them a pass, or we're
going to give them extrachances, because they make so
much damn money that we don'twant to, you know, that we don't
want to get rid of them. Andthat's where that's where
employers can get themselves introuble by allowing bad behavior

(08:07):
to fester in the name of goodperformance.

Exactly. Yeah. And I see that a lot where Oh, well,
but they're our top producer. Soyou've given them carte blanche,
then?

Unknown (08:17):
Yeah. Which is unfortunately, what happens
sometimes. And that's where,yeah, and now you now I'm in the
difficult situation of having toexplain to a judge or jury why,
you know, you've been allowingso and so to harass, you know,
their female subordinates foryears. And it's well, because
they're a $10 million dollarsalesperson, which is great. But

(08:37):
that doesn't justify them in,you know, treating their co
workers badly. No.

Yeah. And a lot of times, it doesn't take into
account the fact that, that,yeah, so they're producing more
than everybody else. But at thesame time, because of their
attitude, because of the impact,they're having a morale in the
workplace, and everything elseis affecting everyone else's
productivity.

Unknown (08:59):
So what? Yeah, that's, that's 100%. Correct. I mean,
there is a, I mean, there is abalance that goes on here,
right. So yeah, when someone iscrushing morale like that, you
have to wonder what impact it'shaving on the productivity of
all the people that they'reharassing, discriminated against
or otherwise treating, you know,poorly on a day to day basis.
Okay.

So now, reading a lot of your posts on LinkedIn,
and a lot of your blog post.
Somebody just on the surfacewould think, well, you're really
an employee side lawyer, but youactually refer to yourself as a
management side lawyer. Soreconcile that a little bit?
Sure.

Unknown (09:37):
I think there is a lot that employers can learn from
employers who do thingsincorrectly. And so when I write
which I do on a daily basis onmy blog, the Ohio employer law
blog, and then on LinkedIn andTwitter and other places online,
I am trying to draw teachablemoments for Employers from

(10:00):
employers should do thingsbadly. That's why four years
ago, I started running my worstemployer series of posts where
over the course of the year, Igather, really, employers who
acted really, really poorlytowards their employees. And
then at the end of the, at theend of each year, I run a poll
or a survey, where people get achance to vote on who they think
is the the quote, unquote, wash,worst employer of the year. And

(10:24):
you're right. I mean, peoplecould say, you know, hi, man,
that's, that's, you know, you'rereally advocating for employees
here. And I guess in someregard, I am, but in the hat I
wear when I'm counseling myclients, which is one of an
outside, outside in HouseCounsel, right, for companies
that don't have an in housecounsel that focuses on

(10:46):
employment law, or might have anin house generalist. They come
to me for their kind of day today HR and employment law
advice, and I'm not doing my jobcorrectly, if I'm not telling
them how to stay out of trouble.
And one of the best ways to dothat, at least in my writings,
is by giving employers teachablemoments from employers that did

(11:07):
things badly. So it's easy toyou could look at it as you're
advocating from the employeeside. But in reality, what I'm
doing is advocating foremployers to treat their
employees in a way that is fair,that is just that is legal, and
that's going to keep them out ofit, it's going to keep metal
lawsuits. Yeah, I

was gonna say really, I mean by, by both
advocating for how you treatemployees, well, you are being a
management side lawyer, becausethe consultant and counselor
because Because again, like yousaid, keeping him out of
trouble, but not just keepinghim out of trouble. But, you
know, again, studies have shownagain, and again, how we treat

(11:50):
our employees affects theorganization, it affects
productivity, it affects ourcustomer service, and customer
satisfaction. So by working withthem on that level, you're
really helping the organizationas a whole, the employer as a
whole be more successful. And,and again, keeping themselves

(12:11):
out of trouble too.

Unknown (12:13):
Yeah, I mean, you're, you're 100% correct. You can be
an advocate for employerstreating their employees
correctly, without being up, youknow, a quote unquote, sellout
for the other side of wherever,however, you want to frame it.
And I've been and I've hadpeople call me that as well,
well, you're, you know, yourshow for employees, you're not,
you know, you're not a, youknow, you should be digging your

(12:33):
heels in and find them, andfighting, you know, and fighting
for employers to treat peoplebadly. I've had people tell me
that it's the business's rightto do that. And that's such a
such a short sighted view of howto manage of how to manage
employees, you should in myview, the employment

(12:55):
relationship above all else isone that's built on trust 100%
and when that trust breaks down,the relationship is broken, and
you're not going to have a trustrelationship, if you don't treat
your employees fairly justlyreasonably, across the board in
all cases.

So yeah, I think again, this is an area where you
and I kind of trample on thesame dirt and that you know, I'm
the same way and that you know,on the surface the way I talk
about the way I talk about beingvalues based and all that and a
lot of it revolves around again,what you're saying to employees
how you're treating employeeshow you're encouraging them and

(13:35):
it seems like again, I'mshilling employees, but you
know, they're not the ones whopay me to do it. You know, just
like you know, the employer isthe one who pays you not the
employee. And again, what isgood for the employee is good
for the employer.

Unknown (13:53):
That's right I mean, I'm not I'm shilling for good
business practices, I'm shillingfor getting a good return on
your investment from youremployees, employees that are
treated well work harder, theydo better for you. They produce
more shilling for not having arevolving door of employees
because employees don't stay atdon't stay with bad employers.

(14:16):
They might come in but sixmonths later, they're going to
be gone looking for a betteropportunity at a place that
treats them better. Betteremployees treat your customers
better, they treat the publicbetter. It creates a better
public image for your business,all of which generates revenue.
So I'm not I'm not shilling forthe employees I'm shilling for
advocating for good businesspractices, which includes

(14:37):
treating your employees well,which has such a huge return on
investment for the business.

Yeah, probably 95 to 98% of the time. The people
facing your customers are youremployees and not necessarily
you especially if you're moretowards the executive levels
within an organization that thepeople who are in the trenches
facing your customers are Everysingle day or your clients every

(15:01):
single day are your employees.

Unknown (15:03):
Yeah, that's 100%.
That's 100%. Correct. And we'veseen that amplified even more
over the past nine months with apandemic, with, you know,
businesses that have not treatedtheir employees well, like from
a health and state from a healthand safety standpoint, the bad
PR that's generated, and thenhow that translates into public
perception of that, you know, ofthat particular business, I

(15:23):
think. I mean, there'sbusinesses, I won't, I won't
frequent anymore because of howthey have treated their
employees over the pandemic. AndI think the what I hope is one
of the long term impacts when wecome out of COVID. On the other
side is that those as many, manybusinesses are struggling, the

(15:44):
businesses that survive are theones that treated their
employees Well, during this day,allowed folks to work to work
from home when they when theywere able to do so they
advocated for masks and socialdistancing. And all the same
hand washing and all the thingswe need to do to keep ourselves
healthy and safe. I'm hopingthey're the businesses that come

(16:05):
out of this thriving, and theones that have not done things.
Well, the ones that are payingattendance bonuses, to entice
people to come in when they'resick, the ones that aren't
enforcing mask mandates in theworkplace, the ones where senior
leaders are having COVIDsymptoms, but coming into work
anyway are encouraging employeesto do. So. I'm hoping those are

(16:26):
the ones that it because I thinkwe all realize that not every
business is going to survivethis pandemic, and lots are
going to unfortunately, closetheir doors. I'm hoping the ones
that don't survive, are the onesthat are not treating their
folks. Well, the ones that dosurvive are the ones that are
that are advocating for theiremployees health and safety both
in what they say it what theyyou know, and what they do.

Yeah, you know, one of the things I often see
during these kinds of things, Isaw this back when we had the
big economic hit a few yearsago. Actually, it goes way back
now. I keep thinking about justa few years ago, but that

Unknown (17:03):
was actually like, I was like a decade ago.

Yeah, exactly. And what I saw back then, and what
I'm seeing now, with some peoplewith the pandemic is, there are
some leaders that their naturaltendency is in the midst of a
crisis is to basically contractthat, that even if they were
employing evil, or utilizingmore empowering skills with

(17:29):
their workforce, they tend toretreat back into a very
autocratic style of leadershipin the midst of a crisis, you
know, so they take away all thatempowerment that they were given
before, all the ways in whichtheir employees were producing
for them. And they cut back onthat and, and even though
they'll do layoffs, and andagain, everything to kind of

(17:53):
retract down thinking they haveto contract during a crisis. And
I noticed the ones that reallydo well, during these kinds of
situations. In fact, one of theones that been a guest on the
show a couple of times ispangolin, laser systems. What
they did was they expanded inthe midst of the crisis. And

(18:17):
it's gone exceedingly well forthem. They double down on
investing in their employeesduring the crisis, finding ways
for them to continue to beproductive.

Unknown (18:28):
Yeah, the I think that I was having this conversation
with someone this morning, Ithink the pandemic has amplified
both the best, best and worst inpeople and businesses. And I
think, and I think what it'sreally done, I think has
amplified kind of who we are aspeople or or what a business's

(18:48):
core values are, for better orfor worse. And, and I think it's
given, like in my personal life,it's it's given me insight into
kind of the the essence of whopeople are. It's brought out
some qualities and people that Ididn't think they had, and it's
caused me to, you know,reconsider relationships based

(19:12):
on how people have behaved. AndI think it's the same with
businesses. I think it's broughtout, you know, for businesses
that have said, you know, weare, you know, we're not
allowing any work from home,everybody needs to come in 40
hours a week, no questionsasked. But that's, I mean,
that's an issue of trust, you dothat because you don't trust
that your people can performwhen you're not micromanaging

(19:34):
them, you know, with eyeballs onthem. 24 seven or or, you know,
eight 840, whatever. And soit's, it's, it's really, I
think, amplified theshortcomings of a lot of
businesses. And, you know, isthat really if you're an
employee, do you want to workfor a boss, for example, that's

(19:56):
not going to trust me. They'repaying you a lot of money. Do
your job, you presume they'redoing so because they trust you
to do it competently? Well,diligently work hard. All those
things? And do you want to workfor? Do you want to work for a
boss or manager who in theiractions by saying, we can't have
you work at home, we're going torequire you to come into the

(20:17):
workplace, even though we're inthe midst of this pandemic, and
it might not be safe to do soall the time, we're going to
require you to come in, whatthat tells me is, they don't
trust you to do your job unlessthey're watching you. Right. And
so it really I think, amplifiesthe shortcomings of a lot of
businesses in that regard, forexample.

Okay, so now, you mentioned earlier, you mentioned
the current, I guess you saidsurvey, but contest as well,
that you hold for the worstemployer of the year. And this
is Yeah, fourth year 2020 wasthe fourth year you've done
that? Right? It is

Unknown (20:51):
yes.

So. So again, now by the time we as we recorded
this, you just closed out thesurvey. And I'm assuming either
you're tallying the results, oryou've tallied the results and
all that

Unknown (21:06):
the results are tallied. And as we are
recording, they will beannounced tomorrow.

Okay. Okay, so that's it is that they're
already available out on by thetime people hear this, it's
already out there on correct onyour blog. So not to be not to
give a split, we won't be aspoiler alert at this point in
time. I know I had my, for lackof a better word favorites out

(21:32):
of the list. What is the onethat stood out the most to you
out of that list?

Unknown (21:39):
Well, there were two and there without that it's the
Well, there's three that reallystood out in the two this year.
Historically, I've done just oneaward, the last three years I've
done it this year, because COVIDhas been so I mean, it's been
the story of 2020. And as I wascompiling the list this year, I
found that there were it was, itseemed to be unfair to put the

(21:59):
bad COVID employers in the samecategory. It's just the bad
employers overall, especiallysplit the voting this year to
two separate categories. And inthe, in the worst employer non
COVID. category. I'm just aregular old lousy employer. The
winner, the winner was arunaway. It was the the the

(22:22):
company that brought someoneover from India and then lock
them in the storage room at thebusiness. He was coming over a
stencil before a job yeah, andthey locked him in the storage
room at the business with just ahard floor to sleep on. And like
a bucket to go to the bathroomin. I called them that the best
part of the survey is always thenaming each nominee so this was

(22:46):
the this was the horrific humantraffickers what I call this
particular one. And so they werethe they were the runaway
winner. And I thought they wouldbe in the it's actually the
second year in a row that we'vehad a human trafficker win the
award and other human traffickerwon last year, and that person
is actually now spending 10years in federal prison as a
result of their actions. And thepeople beat this couple in

(23:08):
California, this year's winner,they're under indictment right
now. And their story has yet toplay out at least from a
criminal standpoint. On theCOVID side, I thought for sure,
for sure that Tyson Foods wasgoing to win the COVID Award for
their they. In one of their porkprocessing plants in Iowa, they

(23:33):
had a bunch of managers thatwere running a betting pool for
which of their employees weregoing to fall sick with COVID.
And while this is going on, like1000 of the employees out of the
3000 that work there, werefalling ill with COVID they had
five employee deaths, all fromwhat the sheriff of this
particular town who came intothe plant described as some of
the worst working conditionshe's ever seen in his life. And

(23:55):
so just a safety, a safetynightmare, from top to bottom.
And so just the callousness ofmanagers betting on which of
their employees were going tofall sick with COVID as a more
than 1000 of them were and someof them were dying. I thought
that was going to be a runawaywinner. They weren't the winner
this year was actually thecompany that fired a work from

(24:19):
home mom after her one year oldand four year old interrupted a
zoom call she was on

See that? That was the one and the ones I voted for
was on the COVID side was Ivoted for that the employer fire
the mom because he complainedabout you know about the kids
making noise in the backgroundbut he wouldn't adjust the
schedule would make anyaccommodation you

Unknown (24:40):
just like well what did you expect to do you know, right
she gave up right she gave shesaid like you know these these
are my kids nap times. Can youplease You know, can you please
make scheduled conference callsif we have to have conference
calls during the time that mykids are napping? And she said
that he I caught wind of it herpost. She put up an Instagram
post after She was fired thatwent viral. You know, and she

(25:02):
said, in the post, which Ithought was really compelling,
you know, people told me toforget about it just to go on,
you know, go find another joband not make a big deal out of
this. And she's like, and I'mfighting for, you know, I'm
fighting for every working momout there that has you know,
that has kids from home, itfeels like they have to choose
between, you know, their kids ortheir jobs. You know, I'm doing
this for everybody. And Ithought that was a really

(25:23):
compelling story. But the countagain, the callousness of the
conduct, the, you know,scheduling meetings, when she
purposely said she wasn'tavailable, because that's when
her kids were awakened, neededattention, like during mealtimes
or snack times. You know, shesaid, not a single client ever
complained about, you know,about a kid interrupting during

(25:43):
the call. I mean, I, and I canI've been home now since March,
march 13. was my last day in theoffice. I've been working from
home since then, I got you know,I heard we heard your dogs
before. I said, I have two dogs.
My kids are home and my kids arehome on winter break. Right now
I have a 12 year old and a 14year old their home on break. I
mean, interruptions happened,right? I mean, it's just I think
people, I think people moreoften than not understand that

(26:05):
these are different times,interruptions do happen. And I
think to punish a mom workingfrom home because her one year
old is crying in the background,or her four year old wants a
snack or a glass of milk. And itreally reveals some really
dangerous inherent sex basedbiases that that particular
manager holds. And, and so whilethey while the outcome surprised

(26:28):
me, I thought for sure thatTyson Foods was going to win in
the COVID category, definitely aworthy winner, the company that
that sack that that sack the mombecause her her infant and
toddler were interrupting zoomcalls.

And did you hear that story? It almost smacks of
a setup, you know that? Shegoes, Well, you know, this is
the time my kids are awakened.
They're going to need attentionduring these times. And he
insists, well, that's when we'vegot to meet and you better
figure out a way to shut him up.

Unknown (26:58):
It's it certainly does.
It certainly does. You know, andshe said, you know, she alleges
that, you know, men working fromhome didn't get the same, you
know, got much more deference,but their schedules. And that it
she definitely felt like it wasbeing done purposely set her up.
And it's hard to argue when yousay I'm not available from two
to three. And every time yourboss schedules a conference

(27:18):
call, it's between two andthree. It certainly seems like
to make your life more difficultfor you, or at the very least
hit the power play. Yeah,exactly. Yeah. Don't

forget who's in charge, you know, right. Yeah.
Empty. And actually, I wassurprised at that. Because I
mean, you find in most cases,that kind of thing happening
because there's several there'sbeen several very public
circumstances where that'shappened in the last several
months that have made the newsand gone viral on the internet.

(27:47):
And in most cases, is veryendearing. People love that.
It's just so cute. Like, therewas the one there is the guy
being interviewed on the air.
And this kid came in thebackground camera background
starts playing around in thebackground, and everybody loved
it. Right nobody said What's thematter? Can't you control your
kid they all thought it wasgreat and cute and and but this
boss isn't. I was actuallysurprised though. The winner on

(28:12):
the non COVID side becauseagain, that story again. It is
very horrific. What they've donein almost Yo, you like see this
on TV dramas, that kind of stuffhappening and you know, can't be
real, but Yeah, it is. But theone I thought would it wouldn't
there would have been the momthat got fired while she was

(28:33):
dealing with your son'sleukemia.

Unknown (28:37):
Yeah, that's a really good answer across the

country. And met her in the hotel lobby where her
son was being treated to fireher.

Unknown (28:48):
Yeah, that would they came in second in the non COVID
category, but a pretty distantsecond. But yeah, that's also
just uh, what what kills you onthat story is where the mom says
after she was fired, she went upto her son's her 10 year old was

(29:09):
upstairs being getting, youknow, chemo for his leukemia,
getting treatments and she goesup to the room. And her son says
to her mom, I'm really sorry, mycancer got you fired. Like how
does that not just rip yourfreakin heart out?

And now you got to wonder with some of these like,
like the Tyson Foods example.
How the upper, you know,executive level within Tyson is
reacting to that because becausereading the story, I didn't see
anything where there was reallyany kind of reaction from the
management, you know, from theexecutive levels.

Unknown (29:46):
Yeah, so the upside the update on that story is news
came out last late last weekthat seven of the managers who
were involved were fired byTyson. So After the Yeah, Oh,
good. Good, but also about eightmonths too late. So yeah. I

(30:07):
mean, it's it's a failing andyou know, and I can understand,
you know, maybe maybe seniormanagement senior leadership
within the table we didn't know.
But you should have known thiswas going on. If you understand
what's going on in your plant,you should have known what was
going on, you still created anatmosphere where where
management felt that that wasokay to happen. You were by at

(30:27):
least if you read the lawsuit,that you were still encouraging
a workplace with very few safetycontrols, with employees, you
know, getting sick and dying,with an attendance policy that
was put in place a perfectattendance bonus that was put in

(30:48):
place by senior leadership thatwas supposed to encourage people
to come to work, even if theywere sick, where senior
leadership was, if you believethe allegations of lawsuit, were
afraid to go down on the plantfloor for fear of catching
COVID. Because how bad theworking conditions were. So they
allowed all this to happen. Andso yeah, it's great. They fired
they finally fired thesemanagers, eight months later,

(31:10):
after the allegations wentviral. Right. But it's, it's at
that point, it's, to me, that's,I don't think they get any
awards for that at this point. Ithink it's a little too little a
little too late

now. And you still have to look at what kind of
culture you provide you createdthat allowed that, to even have
the possibility of existing.
Exactly. I know, in a lot ofthese kinds of organizations. I
mean, one of the jobs I workedon years ago was with a company
that provides ground services atairports all around the world.
And one of the things we foundthrough that was a lot of

(31:45):
location managers had their ownlittle kingdoms there. That, you
know, basically at at an airportsite, the, the site manager was
king, he could do whatever hewanted. And as long as you know,
the numbers were up, nobodybothered him. Right. And it's
that kind of culture, you know,hey, as long as you're still

(32:08):
producing you, whatever.
Exactly. I'm to keep tabs onyou.

Unknown (32:13):
Yes, keep pumping up, keep pumping out that poor
people need their bacon. Yep.

A bacon makes everything better.

Unknown (32:19):
That you know, that's all right. So what's so again,

as you've observed, what's on your list of
the top pandemic challenges thatemployers have just failed to
meet?

Unknown (32:34):
I think work from home is is one of them. I think
that's been a big failure acrossthe board. I think it's a it's a
huge, I think missed opportunityfor a lot of employers to
embrace the flexibility thatthat technology affords us
nowadays. And I think that's, Ithink that's that's a huge Miss.

(32:57):
And I think we've alreadyalready talked about that. So no
need to retread that. I thinkanother one is, and I think this
is a national mess, not justemployers, but is the the paid
leave that we provide to ouremployees, we are so far behind
the rest of the world in what weoffer employees, both from a

(33:18):
paid leave and a paid sick leavein a paid family leave
standpoint. I mean, there'scountries like Iran that offer
their employees more paid leaveon a national level than we do.
And we offer with one exception,we offer our employees
nationally like zero, not likepaid sick leave. And when when
Iran is doing something betterthan we are. From a progressive

(33:40):
standpoint, we are we arewritten it's a huge swing and
miss on our part. And so yeah,and there was, you know, federal
legislation that went intoeffect April, one that I have
heard rumor, although I have notyet seen the bill. And by the
time this time this airs likeit's one or the answer for sure,

(34:00):
but that will be extended into2021 because it expires on its
face. December 31 of this year.
The paid paid family and sickleave for Coronavirus related
absences, the families firstcoronavirus response Act, which
offers 80 hours of paid sickleave. And then an additional 10
weeks of paid family leave forchildcare related absences. But

(34:22):
on the sick leave side. Like ifyou get sick and then your
family members get sick andyou're I mean 80 hours is likely
not enough to give a buffer or acushion to employees that might
be dealing with COVIDparticularly as people maybe who
are really sick might need youknow might be sick for more than
two weeks. And it's just so Ithink it's a huge I think it's a

(34:43):
huge swing and miss andemployers particularly as you
know businesses contract duringthe pandemic. A lot of employers
just don't have the financialability to provide sickly
benefits to their employeesright now. Anyway, but on the
federal level, which is beingfunded by payroll tax credit, I
think it was a massive mess. Aif it's not extended, which we

(35:06):
now think it's going to be, butbe just on the amount of the
leave in general, I think it'sand I think it points to, and
President Elect Biden hasalready said that, like paid,
you know, paid leave foremployees is going to be a
priority of his, in his in hisadministration, it's something
that we as a nation, I think,really, really need to do,
because you're forcing people,again, to choose between, like

(35:30):
their health or their jobs. Andit's, it's, it's not a, it's not
a fair choice to ask someone tochoose between, you know, coming
into work when you're sick,versus, you know, staying at
home and maybe losing a job.
It's just not, it's just not afair trade for workers. Yeah,

I've been a big proponent of for the last few
years of not even tracking thatanymore, you know, just
basically an unlimited leavepolicy. You know, and the
argument you have my, my father,when, when he was around, my
father was CEO of several creditunions, and he and I would get
into this, get into theargument, he's gone like, well,

(36:11):
people will take advantage ofthat. I said, Well, except for
in the places where they've doneit, they don't, the bigger
problem they have is gettingthem to actually take time off.
Yeah, and

Unknown (36:23):
a lot of companies are moving to like unlimited PTO
policies where you just kind oftake it when you can. And I
think you're, you're right, Ithink the problem with those
policies is that people don'ttake it, they're like, well, I
don't I, I never have that we'reso busy, I never had the
opportunity to take my PTO. SoI'm just going to work 52 weeks
out of the year, where at leastif you have if you have four

(36:45):
weeks of vacation, and then youlose it at the end of the year,
if you don't use it, at leastyou're looking at a finite pot
of time. And I think you're moreinclined and particularly
companies that like I'm also nota fan of companies that pay out
employees for unused vacationtime that, you know, we're going
to give you four weeks ofvacation, but if you don't use
it, we'll pay you out at the endof the year, we want to be
encouraging our workers to taketime off, right, it's good for

(37:07):
it's good for their mind is goodfor their bodies that rejuvenate
them, they come back rested,they work harder. I think
there's lots of good reasons whywe want our workers taking time
and like some Europe, someEuropean countries, for example,
go so far as to if you leavevacation time on the table at
the end of the year, you pay taxon it. So yeah, so they really

(37:29):
want to encourage their peopleto take their time off. So it's
it's something thatorganizations should be
encouraging folks to do. So I'mnot a huge fan of the unlimited
PTO, I think an open ended leaveof absence policy for employees,
medical issues, etc. Whether ifthey've exhausted their FMLA and

(37:50):
need additional time off, or ifyou're a small business and are
covered by the FMLA i think is agreat policy to have. It's still
I think the issue is stillthere, because most of these
situations that the leaves areunpaid. So that so I think you
still have the issue, the issueof how if you do need an
extended one month, two month,three months, six month leave of

(38:11):
absence, because it's a medicalissue. I think the issue is
still there. How do you how doyou get paid for it and maybe,
you know, maybe short term orlong term disability insurance
kick kick in and provide, youknow, some cushion? So that's an
A lot of employers offer that.
But from a paid leavestandpoint, we are. We're just
there's really no excuse why wefind ourselves so far behind the
rest of the world. Yeah,

well, you know, what some of those organizations
have done with the unlimitedleave, is again, because the
problem they were having withpeople not taking it is what
they did was Institute minimums.
So it wasn't there wasn't amaximum of Oh, you can only take
three weeks a year, it was youmust take at least two weeks a
year.

Unknown (38:50):
Yeah, which is a great compromise,

you know, and, and that way again, so if there has
to be any kind of accounting,and it takes a lot less
accounting to do that, than itdoes to sit here and track sick
leave here and to track how muchvacation time you've used over
here and how much you have leftand how much is unused and what
we're carrying over andeverything else and just say,
look somewhere in here, youbetter take you the equivalent

(39:15):
of two weeks off, right as yougo along. And and again, because
they like you said they've gotto have a little bit of recharge
time, even if it's just yo Hey,go and have a life outside of
us. That's okay. Right. So nowbased on your experience, how do
you think personal ororganizational core values drive

(39:36):
decision making in theorganizations that you counsel?

Unknown (39:41):
I think I think they do. I think they do hugely drive
decision making I think we areI, I try to the extent I can and
we all have bills to pay and soyou know I so I can always
dictate where the work comesfrom. But I do but I do try to
work with businesses whose corevalues align with my Because
they're gonna be more apt tofollow my advice. So when I, you

(40:05):
know, when I, when I talk abouttreating people, well treat
people the way you would want tobe treated treat people the way
you'd want your spouse to betreated in the workplace or your
children or whomever I try tofind, to the extent I can work
with businesses, whose corevalues in that regard align with
mine, because I think they'regoing to be more receptive to my
advice, I've definitely afterdoing this for 24 years, I've

(40:28):
definitely developed aphilosophy on how I think
businesses should treat theirworkers. And if you, if your
organization's core values arenot aligned with my personal
philosophy, and how you're goingto treat people, you're going to
push back against the advice I'mgoing to give you because my,
because the advice I'm going togive you is going to be molded
around that concept of the goalof essentially the golden rule.

(40:51):
And so and, and, you know, whypay me for advice, you're not
going to follow, right. So Ithink I'm better off working
with businesses whose corevalues match up with, you know,
match up with my own. But thatsaid, I've also had some success
over the years. If you're notgoing to look at it from a

(41:12):
inverting this path, but ifyou're not going to look at it
from a this is the right way totreat people standpoint, maybe
maybe a business might bemotivated by if you're not don't
think that's the right way totreat people you might be
motivated by this is what'sgoing to keep us out of court,
or if we get sued is going toput us in a good position with a
judge or jury. And so you canlook at it from a bottom line

(41:34):
standpoint as well, and said,I've had some success,
converting employers that aremore dollars and cents oriented
to look at it from thatperspective as well. So

yeah, sometimes you have to hit the head and the
heart. And exactly. And I knowlike, again, you're one of the
things I do, I do a lot of discprofile stuff. And I if I'm
talking to a tight D, a D type,because again, they're very task
oriented, hard charging, again,if I can give them bullet points
that prove that give them datathat proves that this is the

(42:04):
best approach, you know, in thatkeyword, if for the results you
want, this is what you need todo. That's how I'm going to
appeal to them. Where is more ofan eye type like me, I'm going
to go, look, you're going tolike yourself better, you're
going to enjoy your peoplebetter, they're going to enjoy
you better, everybody's going tolike you. Yeah. And that Okay,

(42:24):
that's a good reason for me,

Unknown (42:25):
you know, right, exactly the right thing

to do. Okay,

Unknown (42:27):
exactly. All right. So

john, what's one tip or one thing a leader can do
or apply today to add value totheir team?

Unknown (42:36):
Yeah, I, as I said a minute ago, I think it all comes
down to the golden rule, ormaybe treat others as you'd want
to be treated. Or maybe you takeit one step further, what I and
some others called the Platinumrule, treat others as they want
to be treated, I think is thebest way to manage your workers.

(42:58):
I think it's the best way toinstill loyalty, get good return
on your investment, which iswhat your I mean, which is the
end of the day. I mean, I hateto look at people employees as
an investment, but that's reallywhat they are. They're, they're
an investment in your business,and you're paying good money for
that investment. So why wouldn'tyou want to get? Why wouldn't
you want to get a good return onit? treat them as you would want

(43:20):
to be treated. If you were intheir shoes, treat them as they
want to be treated on a day today basis. I think if businesses
followed business leadersfollowed those kind of core
concepts that we're supposed tobe learning, like in
kindergarten, right? I think 95%of employment issues would

(43:40):
either never become issues orkind of solve themselves before
they ever got escalated to me.
And so maybe, maybe I don't wantbusinesses to do that. Because
maybe that puts me out of a job.
I don't know. Yeah, I mean,like, for me, like the best
clients are the ones that getsued, because that's where the
money is, but the best, but it'salways better for a business not
to be in that situation. And so,to me, I would much rather a

(44:02):
business leader, pick up thephone, shoot off an email, spend
a half an hour to an hourtalking to someone to solve a
problem before it becomes aproblem, then to not do that,
make a legally, a legally riskydecision to end up in
litigation, which again, isgreat for my bottom line

(44:23):
litigation. You know, you'relooking at, you know, six
figures in legal fees, which isgreat for me, but it's terrible
for business. Nobody, nobodyever wins when you litigate.
It's time consuming. It takesyour people away from what they
need to do to move your businessforward. Nobody, it's hard to
move a business far when peopleare sitting in conference rooms
being deposed, or going throughpersonnel files or reams of

(44:45):
documents or emails to you know,produce stuff to the other side,
it just it it just puts yourbusiness in either neutral or
reverse and you want you want itto be you know, in Drive moving
forward, it's hard to do that.
And then you have the legalbills on top of that and then
settlements or judgments or toprove yourself, right? You might
spend a quarter million dollarsin legal fees to prove that.
Yeah, you were right in firingthat employee, but what have you
accomplished at that point? Andso I'd much rather businesses

(45:07):
spend some time with me on thefront end than on the back end.
But I understand. I understandthat it's better for me if they
do it on the back end, but it'sjust the worst part. It's just
the worst possible solution forbusinesses. Yeah.

So basically follow that golden rule is
exactly, yeah. There you go.
JOHN, thank you very much.

Unknown (45:27):
Thank you, Paul. This was great. I really appreciate
it.

Producer (45:30):
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(45:52):
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And we're back and again in this last part of the
show. As I always like to do Ilove to share my love for
outdoor cooking, I do all kindsI have a grill I have a nice
charcoal grill. I have a smokerand I do a lot of stuff on that.
Being My background is a boysboth as a scout and as a scout

(46:19):
here I do a lot of camping andcook over open fire with my
Dutch ovens and fact, gettingready to to do some cooking with
my Dutch ovens here real soon inthe next couple of days and do a
lot of that stuff. And so I loveit so much. I've actually
created a Facebook group calledsmoke indash. And on the smoking
dash Facebook group, me and allof my friends are also lovers of

(46:42):
outdoor cooking. And we sharerecipes, we share pictures of
our cookers, we brag on ourcookers and brag on what we're
making for the next holiday andso forth in the next weekend.
And you're welcome to come andjoin us out there I think you'll
really enjoy it whether you'rebrand new to outdoor cooking,
just curious about it, orwhether you're an experienced
cooker. There's something foryou out there and I invite you

(47:06):
to come and join us on thesmoking dash Facebook group. And
so I always like to share arecipe during this portion of
the show. And all the recipesalso make available out there on
that Facebook group smokingdash. Now john, you said you had
a recipe for us you wanted toshare today?

Unknown (47:24):
Yeah, so I think lots of people have picked up
pandemic hobbies over the courseof the last last year or so,
while we've all been stuck athome, one of mine is smoking. I
early on in the pandemic Ipicked up a pellet smoker from a
company called guerrilla grillswhich is in Western Michigan

(47:46):
highly if you want to get intosmoking kicker. Yeah and are
looking for and are looking fora pellet grill. I cannot say
more good things about guerillaas a as a company, they stand
behind the product greatcustomer service to solid
product anyway. So so that's oneof the pandemic hobbies I picked
up was learning how to smokemeats on my on my on my pellet

(48:09):
smoker and I thought I would I'doffer something a little
different than the traditionalkind of pork but ribs, brisket
take on smoking, it's a smokedsausage and peppers. So I it is
about a pound and a half of youcan use any kind of sausage you
want I use just a sweet Italiansausage on the top rack of the

(48:34):
smoker. smoker smokers set it to50 not a pound and a half of
sweet Italian sausage on the toprack underneath the sausage to
the fat from the sausage as itcooks down drips in an aluminum
pan with sliced red onion andthen slice bell peppers, two to

(48:57):
three bell peppers I use I'mgoing to try to mix the colors
up to give the dish a little bitof color underneath the sausage
and so you cook all that on thesmoker for about 45 minutes. Let
the let the sausages cook thefat drip down render in the
peppers and onions salt andpepper on the peppers and onions

(49:18):
before they before they go onthe grill. 45 minutes the
sausage should be done. Leavethe peppers and onions on the
smoker. Take the sausages offslice them down. Then take the
sliced sausage. Toss it in withthe peppers and onions along
with a 28 ounce can of reallyreally high quality like diced

(49:43):
tomatoes. some parmesan andmozzarella cheese, red peppers,
oregano and pasta cooked anykind of pasta you want. I
usually use Penny This so itwould be a cooked penny. Then

(50:04):
tossed in with the sausage, thepeppers, the onions, the diced
tomatoes, the cheese, let itwarm up for 15 or 20 minutes on
the smoker in the pan all tossedup together. And then bring it
inside with a nice low forcrunchy bread and it is in a
salad and

it is fantastic.
Wow, that sounds terrific. Sayssmoked smoked sausage and
peppers and onions. Yeah. on thegrill. Wow. On the smoker. Wow.
That is terrific. The I'd almostbe inclined to throw a few
cloves of garlic in there withall that too and let that smoke
in there.

Unknown (50:37):
That also Yes, you can certainly do that as well.

Yeah, that's one of my favorite things to make is
a smoked garlic. I'll get likethe elephant garlic, the big
bulbs and put it in the smokerfor an hour. And and again, you
just it softens it up. You justsqueeze it out there and

Unknown (50:53):
spread it on bread or Yeah, exactly. Yep.

All right, great.
Thank you so much. And again,that recipe will be available on
the smoking ash Facebook group.
And you can find it out there.
Or again, if you're not a bigFacebook person, just send me an
email at Paul at boldlylead.com. And we'll be glad to
send that along to you. So ourguest today was the master of
workplace shot in Florida.

(51:19):
Attorney john Hyman and john. Sotell us what are you working on
right now that you're reallyexcited about?

Unknown (51:28):
The hot issue right now that's facing employers that I'm
getting tons of calls on is theCOVID vaccine. Everybody wants
to know, can we force employeesto get vaccinated? What are you
recommending? How do we handleemployees that have reasons why
they might not want to getvaccinated. That's been the
hottest you I've been dealingwith over the past few weeks.
And that's what most of myclients are, at least is on

(51:52):
front of mine right now. Becauseas we all understand the vaccine
is what is hopefully going tobring us out of this out of this
mess of a tunnel that we've beenliving in for the past. You
know, think of it like amountain tunnel on a highway
with like 25 cars filed, youknow, inside of the tunnel like
smoking and burning as they allcrash, it feels like where we

(52:14):
been and there's a little littleray of light that shining
through that's gonna let us getthrough to the other side. And
so and that's the vaccine. Andand so everybody wants to know
what we can do with our folks.
And so that's been taking up alot of my time recently,
advising employers on what theycan do from a vaccine from a
vaccination policy standpointwith their folks.

Oh, great. So somebody wants to get a hold of
john, what's the best way to dothat?

Unknown (52:37):
The best way to do it, is you can frankly, just Google
john Hyman employment lawyerbecause I don't hide online. I'm
very kind of out there. But youcould go to my law firms
website. The firm is Myers Romanfreedberg and Louis and
Cleveland, Ohio Myers Roman mewhy ers r o ma n.com. And you
could find me there. You canfind me at my blog, the Ohio

(52:58):
employer law blog, Ohio employerlaw block comm which since
March, I've also rebranded asthe Coronavirus law blog. So if
you go to Coronavirus law.bl og, since it seems like that's
all that really matters anymore.
Anyway, that'll take you to thesame place. You can find me on
Twitter at john Hyman that's noh JONHY ma n you can find me on

(53:20):
LinkedIn, which is where Pauland I connected at Jonathan
Hyman because john Hyman when Isigned up for LinkedIn was taken
by some doctor in New Jersey orsomething. And so I had to go
with Jonathan, which no onecalls me but my mom when she's
mad at me. So but again, I don'thide if you literally just
Google john Hyman employmentlawyer. You'll go, Google will

(53:40):
give you 15 different ways tofind me. Great. Thank

you, john. Now, before we go, did you want to do
a quick little thing as your asyour job as an unpaid manager of
your kids rock and roll careerand do a little plug there?
Sure.

Unknown (53:58):
You can go to nor Murray music.com that's N o r h.
Murray. Ma Ri e music.com.
That's her website. She's 14.
But you'll find some demos.
There are some videos and thenthe links to all of her socials.
Her band she also fronts a rockband fake ID official band calm
and you can find that's theirwebsite. And you can find the

(54:22):
info for the band there as well.
So it's a she did a charitystream last night for a local
there's a local online musicfestival that a local musician
started up back in March thatevery month does a 48 hour
online music festival with adifferent local musician plays
in our set, and each month theyraise money for charity last

(54:44):
night was the December was theDecember festival the lat this
weekend. And so she played lastnight raising money for the
hunger network which is afantastic local charity here in
Northeast Ohio that raises moneyfor families in need which is As
as the pandemic has illustrated,I mean, hunger is a huge issue.

(55:04):
Food insecurity as more and morefamilies and people are without
the basic food, they need to getthem through the day. And they
raised I think, overall, I thinkthey raised close to $10,000
over the weekend for the hungernetwork. And so it's it's Yeah,
so. So it's, it's, it made mefeel good that she was able to
take her talents to do somethinggood. For those in need,

(55:26):
particularly, as we're recordingthis. We're four days out from
Christmas. So the holidayseason, it made me feel good as
a parent that I'm doingsomething right. So great.
Terrific. Thank

you, john. Thanks for being on the show today.

Unknown (55:37):
Yeah, thank you, Paul.
I really appreciate it. Allright, folks.

Well, that's about all we have time for today.
Again, we'll be back again withyou next week. Until then go out
and be the leader. You weremeant to be.

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