The Assumption That HR Needs to Solve

Chad Thompson & Rebecca Taylor | May 29 === [00:00:00] Welcome to HR Voices, a podcast where people leaders share their side of the story. We talk about the challenges they're facing, how they're addressing them, and what changes they hope to see as the workplace evolves. This podcast is sponsored by All Voices, the all-in-one employee relations platform. Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to HR Voices. I'm your host, Rebecca Taylor, and I'm here with Chad Thompson, the chief people officer at LanzaTech. Chad, thank you so much for being here on a Friday Speaker: It's nice to be here, and thanks for the invitation Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm excited to chat with you 'cause I think that the scenario that we have ready for today is one that Speaker 3: think is going to be very relevant for a lot of folks. Speaker 2: Talked to a lot of folks of my own friends in HR. I've seen sort of a lot of talk about this on LinkedIn, so I think this scenario is gonna be one for us to sort of chat through. So are you ready for me to read it out and dive in? Speaker: I am. Let's go Speaker 2: Okay. So we're calling this scenario the broken confidentiality promise. a team meeting, a manager shares that an employee is on a performance improvement [00:01:00] plan, intending it as context for project reassignments. The employee learns of the disclosure and files a form of-- a formal complaint, arguing the PIP is confidential HR information, and its disclosure to the team humiliated her and constitutes harassment. The manager argues he disclosed only what was necessary for operational continuity. must navigate a complaint against a manager for disclosing an HR process that HR itself designed and managed. It must also assess whether the PIP's visibility has now made it impossible to conduct a fair evaluation of the employee's performance. So before we dive into some of the specifics of who's involved and all the other mechanics of this, from a high level, what stands out to you as the most risky or the most unclear about this scenario as it's laid out right now? Speaker: But I do think that, you know, the most important issue is trust and, you know, what, what is the nature of that disclosure that was made? And, and I do think that one of the realities of working in corporate America is that very few [00:02:00] things are secret. And so we, you know, we say it's confidential, but I need to read one or two people into it. Uh, and those one or two people are not always advised and prefaced with the right, you know, amount of context. And so this could have been a legitimate business reason. For example, A, I have Rebecca on a project, and last year she really missed on a particular item or, you know, her financial analysis was off, and it cost the company twenty million dollars. Now, is that something that a supervisor should just keep quiet about when, you know, this could be a life or death scenario or a major customer issue? And so there could be a legitimate reason why someone would have said, "Hey, we need to, you know, double-check her work," or, "We need to provide some assistance." So context always matters in scenarios like this. But on the employee's side, there is an assumption of, you know, I have a fair shot [00:03:00] to turn this around, and a good PIP would ask the employee what support, what help do they need, and ensuring that that is given, be it a mentor, be it, you know, uh, some education, be it some training. So there's a lot going on there that, that would have to get to the intent, would have to get to the context of what was actually disclosed, what was prefaced around that disclosure. And, and, and again, you know, there is a legitimate issue that could be perceived on, on either side. Most PIPs are reluctantly given in life, and because people feel like it's a finality. But historically and contextually, most employees do well after a PIP because it's a wake-up call. There's intervention in m- more instances than not that turn their performance around, which is what you exactly want. It's kind of hard, though, to be walking around a company or, you know, working in a [00:04:00] company where everyone knows that you have, you know, something o-o-on against you, and I can see, you know, the, the context of both sides. Speaker 2: Yeah. love the way that you said that most PIPs are given reluctantly, just, you know, 'cause no one wants to PIP someone, and no one wants to be on a PIP. But when it's used as the tool that it's intended, to your point, it is, it is helpful for development. It can help people to kind of realize, "Okay, here's my wake-up call. Here are the specific things that I need to do." And you can kind of ask yourself, "Do I wanna do this? Do I, do I wanna put myself through this? Is this the company that I really wanna be at? Is this the job that I really want?" It kinda does maybe force some important questions that are important for the employee, for the manager, for the team and everything like that. And I Speaker: Yeah, and, and, and to your point, it forces that reflection because if it's a legitimate issue... I remember in my career having, uh, not getting a PIP, but actually having a, a lower [00:05:00] performance rating than I thought was fair, and it, it really was devastating. And I had a choice to decide what was I gonna do. Was I gonna fight it, or was I gonna embrace this unfair rating, but recognizing that there were some contributing factors that I was accountable for. So you do the reflection, you focus on what you can control, and then, you know, you pivot, and, you know, that can be done successfully. Obviously, I'm successful, I'm doing well. But we all have these moments of reflection and these moments that we have to rise above. And so in this scenario, you could see where this employee would feel like, well, my future career is impacted because, you know, in some companies, having a demerit or a negative rating is really hard to overcome. You're like, you know, you, you go up for promotions, and someone says, "Well, your last two ratings were average, and do we wanna promote that person?" That is an organizational reality that employees [00:06:00] have to deal with as well. And so, you know, a manager could say, "Well, we're just trying to look out for the company or trying to ensure that we weren't giving her something that was too challenging." But at the same time, I think if you're empathetic, you could see how hard it would be to, you know, walk around or to work in a context where, you know, something that is negative and is impactful is widely known across the organization Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's true, especially when you mentioned in, you know, the first-- in the first part of your answer to the question, you mentioned confidentiality and things really are confidential and what aren't. And I do think that's sometimes a hard part about how employees relate to HR or where they might lose trust in HR. And I do think that we as H- some as HR professionals have the opportunity to kind of maybe communicate some of this a little bit better. But confidentiality can't always be guaranteed, and it's not [00:07:00] always part of the process, right? you know, maybe there's an oppor- maybe there's different ways that you can state things, but usually information that an employee might think is confidential is usually they consider it confidential because it maybe doesn't paint them in the best light, or it hurts their ego, or there's fear associated with it, right? And I do think that it's important that things are disclosed only as necessary and needed. But when I look at this scenario, see this as necessary and needed to an extent because the manager's looking at project reassignment. So that can mean a lot of different things. This is-- We don't have any more information than what is right here, right? So we can speculate. But the reassignment could either have been-- it could be taken as the manager basically assuming the person's not gonna make the PIP, so they're reassigning them off projects. Or it could be that they're shuffling projects around so that the person maybe has a lighter project load per the PIP to help them build up some of those skills, right? But either way, I could understand how that person who's affected might have felt [00:08:00] unsafe, but also why the team needed that context so that they understand why different projects are now on their plate now. think? Speaker: A-a-as well as how, how well was the PIP drafted because if the PIP didn't infer that work was gonna be reassigned or responsibilities altered or changed, it could look very rightfully so from the employee's perspective that, you know, that's-- you, you, you know, it's a dishonoring thing. Like, I thought I had a legitimate chance to show you I could deliver this project or this customer or this outcome. And so if you say, "Nope, I want you to work on something lower," well, if that wasn't agreed to, then I can see where the employee is saying, "Look, you've already made up your mind." However, if it was drafted that, hey, there's an area or two where you don't have the, the skill or the ability at this time, and we're going to partner you up or assign you [00:09:00] some training, and you need to be able to demonstrate that you can put together a proper cost estimate. So we're doing a scenario, we get to make assumptions. This was a big project. This was a cost estimate, and the contract was written that if the company was outside of that, it was, you know, they, they were not, they were not gonna be fully indemnified or paid. And so you could see we're in a scenario where I'm making that assumption. Someone would say, "For me to be successful, I need to be able to do this. If you reassign me from this, I won't have a chance to succeed, and therefore you have, you know, essentially determined my outcome." And so there's lots of things, but, you know, you get back to confidentiality. So we have a performance management system, most companies do. And the minute your rating's in there, there is no confidentiality. S- you know, there's degrees of knowledge about who our top performers are, who our bottom performers are. And that, that is information that everyone [00:10:00] is aware of. And in most companies, bottom performers in a significant category, it is expected for them to be PIPed. So you could also argue that employees should be a little bit more, you know, kinda knowledgeable about the fact that if you're on a PIP, it's, it's gonna be known, and there's gonna be advice that's coming from legal. And again, many instances, HR is that easy organization to blame. The manager blames, the employee blames, the... You know, it-- we take a lot of beating if you're in HR because that's essentially-- there's a lot of perception issues about what we do, and that's something that we need to change as well Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's so true that we're just, y- we're sort of the scapegoats for a lot of, you know, a lot of things. had someone comment on a post that I wrote the other day that compared us to linemen in football. Speaker: Mm-hmm. Speaker 2: offen- offensive linemen, I think it was. So, you know, we protect [00:11:00] the quarterback. We, you know, stop things from happening. if the quarterback gets hurt, we're the first ones that are blamed. So we're the most noticed when things don't go well, barely noticed when things are going well, kind of by design. it does make it, it does make situations like these kind of complicated because, know, I think the part of this, the way this scenario is written that I, I resent a little bit, is that the PIP process is considered an HR process that HR itself designed, instead of one that's done in partnership with the manager, with, you know, the people who manage not just the employee itself, but also their work. Like, I think that it's blaming PIPs on just HR in this scenario is, I think, a little cheap, and I think a little easy. Speaker: Well, it, and it, and it's also symptomatic of the maturity of an, of an organization. In a, in a mature organization, people-- It's understood that we support leaders in [00:12:00] executing their job. I don't own pips. I don't hire. I don't fire because I don't come to a, a leader and say, "I just phoned 20 new people, and you can have them." Like, there's a business process that determines the need for talent. Equally, there is a process that determines, you know, I don't need the talent. So I'm a facilitator of the business outcomes, and I think part of the issue that we've been struggling with, and we will continue to struggle with, is that HR is that convenient place where when I get into a tizzy or a difficult environment, I can talk about HR. Let me talk to HR. I could talk to you right now, but I don't, so I'm gonna use the HR to avoid it. And so HR, in its essence, is set up in a way that takes those blows and, and, and blocks and tackles. But we also have this, this other role that we play. So we have to balance employee [00:13:00] advocate as well as business partner, and if we're i- if we're indexed too heavily in either direction, we lose our value. If we're so business partner that we're not advocating for the employees, then we lose all of our knowledge, we lose all of our, our know-how of what's going on because we've lost the trust. Uh, but at the same time, if we're advocating too strongly for employees ag-against the business outcomes, then we've also lost our effectiveness. So it's a very thin line that HR needs to, uh, you know, kind of walk and balance. But it is the role that we have inherently accepted, and good professionals figure out a way to, to keep those two tensions and, and keep balance. It's a very hard role, and it's a very hard, uh, function to, to operate within. Speaker 2: Yeah, it's true. And it's kind of why I think sometimes, you know, are-- they feel like they're born to be in HR, or this is their, this is their [00:14:00] craft, this is their calling, 'cause sometimes a lot of it can be thankless. But then it can also be incredibly rewarding when you really do find that groove and, you know, you're able to be that effective partner to the business and that employee advocate and kind of find that balance. I find is so funny is you can find that balance in one organization, and then if you go to a different organization, you have to start completely from scratch. And I think that's the same in, you know, probably every business. Marketing could probably say the same thing. Sales can say the same thing. You move to a different company, you have to learn from scratch. But I find it so funny within HR because it's people. There's just so much more to learn about how people show up to different companies and how they show up to their job every day. And, you know, in this scenario, there's a few people affected, right? Or a few people involved. There's the manager who disclosed the PIP, there's the employee who was PIP'd there's HR who's kind of, you know, dealing with all of this, and then there's also all the other employees who are now aware, sort of the, I guess they're on the, the most outside of the circles. So if [00:15:00] this was something that was a scenario that was happening that came across your desk, who do you start to talk to first? Like, who do you have conversations with first to kind of figure out what's going on, what's true, what's not true, and what Speaker: yeah, two Speaker 2: you looking for? Speaker: The first thing I would do is talk to the manager, 'cause th-it's clear there was a disclosure of this PIP, and, you know, the who, what, why, where, and when, and, you know, those basic questions. Why was it disclosed? What was the context? What instructions did you give? Uh, y-you start there 'cause you wanna understand. And if he's made a, a, a mistake-- 'cause you need to assess the business need for the knowledge. And so sometimes you have to determine, to your point earlier, was there a business need for this to be disclosed? And did you balance the PIP as it was drafted with what you disclosed and why? And, and I would test it. Because if the manager is wrong, it could be a scenario [00:16:00] where the situation could be recovered by him admitting that, "Look, I thought there was a legitimate issue, but in the context of your issues that you've raised, I actually realize how I could have compromised you and, and maybe set you up not for success." And so sometimes that is the right intervention. It's like, "Look, I messed up here, and I apologize, and, you know, we can-- let's see how we can con-con-contain this issue." Uh, you then wanna go to the employee. You wanna try to, again, see if these stories match. And then fre-- figure out if you can how it was heard. Because if it's, "Oh, so-so and so got a PIP," you know, there are other ramifications. Is this a good leader to work for? And so you can go back and say, "Look, people, you, you have some impact here. Like, you have a legitimate reason, but now there's a perception that this, uh, on your team, you, you don't keep things that should be confidential, confidential. And it will [00:17:00] impact you. No one will wanna come and work for you. They don't think they're supported." So you wanna do that. And you wanna probably ask a few people in the room what they heard, what was said. Because you're-- if it's raised in a hotline context, you need to be able to at least demonstrate that you took it seriously in our protect the company role and ensure that we get to some assessment and adjudication of what happened here and, and what's the way forward. Speaker 3: Yeah Speaker: If the employee is thinking that I don't wanna be here anymore, there may be a way to settle and find, find a common ground where there's a release and the employee decides, "I wanna move on and start somewhere else." Or if this-- if the apology is given in a way, it might, it might really say, "Oh, y-you're human. You're-- you can make mistakes too, and I understand the context, and I, I, I feel good that, you know, what I have to do can still be accomplished." So there are a lot-- there's a lot to consider here as, as you [00:18:00] evaluate the situation. And you obviously wanna get your general counsel involved because sometimes, you know, this could be going to, you know, this could be going the legal route, and you need to put in your defensive mechanisms as well. Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. that's the kind of the thing that always comes up in these conversations is when do you turn to legal? When do you involve them? And me, I'm with you. I'm kind of, if I have access to a general counsel or some sort of, especially internal legal partner, I let them know of anything that is even remotely close to some type of possible brewing scenario, because it's better to loop them in early. It's better to get guidance when you can. Um, especially when the way that this scenario is written, the employee says that, that she was humiliated and that she believes that that constitutes harassment. So whenever the word harassment's used, even when it's not used correctly, you wanna just flag it, right? Because you never know what that employee's gonna do with [00:19:00] that. And I try not to be, you know, one of those people who's paranoid about everybody going to sue everybody all the time. But it is the reality of some of our job in HR. We have to kind of assume any possible worst case scenario and just prepare for it and plan for it. And, you know, I think the... I think that's also a big reason why the PIP situation's a little bit frustrating, 'cause PIPs are sometimes done to justify firing someone. Sometimes they're done to develop, sometimes they're done to justify firing. And, you know, it's the question that I have that we won't get answers to 'cause this is not a real scenario. But the question that I have is sort of what is the PIP culture within this organization? Because, you know, she says she humil- she says she's humiliated. It's a blow to anybody's ego to get feedback that you're not doing great, right? That stinks no matter what. But I always wonder, you know, what is the culture of PIPs in the company for someone to react like this? And are they saying it's harassment because they're trying to protect [00:20:00] themselves, or are they truly bothered? You know? Speaker: And, and to your point, that is, that is, that is the essence of it. And so again, you s- you'll see a myriad of, of situations across companies. Some people legitimately believe in it. They're ruthless about it. On the edge, you know, new in role are, "We're gonna do it." Others are like, " I don't wanna do it," or s- or whatever. "I wanna protect myself legally." And that depe- that depends on the strength of kind of your legal, you know, employee relations or legal or partner. I, I look at PIPs as The most genuine attempt to redeem the investment that you made. And so I think when you can step back and say, "I went out, I paid an exorbitant amount of money in my search," typically averaging thirty, forty thousand dollars when you look at time and costs and value, am I willing to just discard this at the [00:21:00] first sign of a challenge? You wouldn't do it with marriage, you wouldn't do it with your kids, you wouldn't do it with most of the things that you're involved with. So if you look at it from, I want to redeem this because I saw potential, what is a reasonable effort that I will make to give this person a fair shot? That's the nirvana ideal scenario. But you get down to different scenarios. And I like that scenario because that really gets my leaders human around if this was you, what would you want? Or how will you do this? And how will you ensure that you give this person the maximum chance to, to succeed? Because in a culture where many companies have where we honestly don't tell people the truth, and so this is sometimes the first truth that someone ever gets because, hey, I'm just gonna put them as valuable 'cause I don't wanna deal with the [00:22:00] repercussion of really redeeming them. But if I'm on-- if you're on my team, I want you to have the potential to grow and go to somewhere else in the organization. I owe it to you to be honest, direct, and supportive. And I think if you look at PIPs in that context, there's a lot of positive when you look at the statistical data of the success rate as well as the you know, the ability to turn it around. But you're right. There-- We will not know, but these are the things that HR practitioners get into. And, you know, Speaker 2: Yeah Speaker: increasingly, I saw recently this guy boasting about laying off his HR team. It's, you know, it's this perception that sometimes what we do is not valuable until there is an issue. And so it's one of the hardest jobs in my mind. I'm biased because when things work well, the leaders did it. When things don't work well, it's HR's fault. So if you're in this profession, toughen up, thicken [00:23:00] up because it's, it's-- that's how it is, and you gotta be comfortable with the value you provide and the support you bring to the business Speaker 2: I love that. I, I feel like that's the soundbite. You know, be ready, toughen up, be ready to deal with that because, I mean, it is, it is true. It is the, the reality of it. Sometimes it's perception, but, you know, this is sort of the fight that we're up against. And, you know, I think the part that I've one sort of question to tie up the scenario before we officially wrap up, 'cause believe it or not, we're actually running out of time. but when I look at the, the le- the ending question of this scenario is, does the PIP's visibility make it impossible to conduct a fair evaluation of the employee's performance? And I actually think that my, my, my initial take on this is I actually think that the visibility of the PIP makes it even more possible to conduct a fair, a fair evaluation because there's more transparency, there's less, like, trying to operate in the dark. I think what makes it complicated is the harassment claim [00:24:00] because that's gonna be... Again, that can be something that can be possibly weaponized in different ways. But if we're looking at truly evaluating someone's performance, it's almost like, well, now that we don't have to pretend that it's not happening, maybe we can evaluate it, you know, more fairly. But I'm curious what you think about that. Speaker: So I, I love sports analogies to, to explain HR and, and life. And so we're gonna use a football analogy. You just got benched, you're the quarterback. Everyone's aware of it, right? And so the next man's up. You lost your shot. Now, you might have been the starter and-- but you're just going through a bad patch. And so in sports, you have to deal with your shame publicly. Like, the whole city knows, everyone knows. But then you gotta look inside and decide, like, "What fight do I have to win my position back?" So PIP, PIPs are not about the company only, it's about the employee, and if you've decided that you don't have a fair shot, then you might be, you [00:25:00] know, kinda wimping out from the opportunity to rise above adversity. But at the same time, you know, you might also-- your team might say, "Man, I feel badly 'cause we didn't block for him the way we should have," or, "We didn't tackle or hold the line for him and, and I feel a little bit bad." It's like when coaches get fired, sometimes the players say, "Man, I, I'm, I love this guy and I feel like we let him down." And so there could be that dimension to the team dynamic that says, "Look, we know X or Y struggled in this area. What am I gonna do to help them? And, and, and if I care, I'm not-- uh, this is not information I'm gonna be gleefully just g-just giving out and, and perpetuating, but there's a team and we need to help someone on the team, and I'm good at something, and they're struggling. Will I help them?" So I'm with you, this could, this could definitely turn around. Sometimes you just gotta wait until the, the quarterback messes up and you get back in. Sometimes they [00:26:00] see good stuff in practice and say, " Hey, I wanna go back to him. I think he's learned his lesson and, you know, we wanna, we wanna ride with him." And I think that's the way that you should look at it. Like, some failures are slightly public, can't hide away, but you have to look internally as the, as the person with the, uh, issue. But you also have that expectation as the team and the leader of, "What can I do?" And if the leader fluffed and messed up, and he can own it and say, "I didn't ha-- This wasn't the intent, and here's what I'm gonna do to make sure you have a fair shot," it's redeemable. If the person doesn't want to redeem it and f-- this is the way out, and that's the risk as well. Some people run to various scenarios 'cause they never sat with the first PIP that they had and really dealt with it. You know what's gonna happen to them. They're always gonna be blaming someone else versus looking in the mirror. So there's a way to, to look at this in a positive way for both [00:27:00] sides. Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I feel like we would work very well together 'cause I think we have a similar philosophy on some of this. So that's always, it's always, you know, it's always just re- refreshing to kind of talk through. Pips don't have to be a bad thing. You know, p- like learning out loud is what I call it. That doesn't Speaker: Yeah Speaker 2: be a bad thing either. Like, I tried this, I failed at it, I'm gonna sit this next thing out because maybe the failure was enough that that's warranted, but now I understand what it is that I have to do better. That's life. We're not Speaker: Yep Speaker 2: gonna be on an upward trajectory all the time, right? Speaker: Yeah Speaker 2: gonna be great, great, great, and then we're gonna fall. And then we're... It's not about that. It's about how you come back from it. That's the whole... That's just what everything is in life, so why would work be any different, right? Speaker: Exactly. Are you built tough and can you handle adversity and failure? And can you be honest with yourself? Like anyone, mo- most people, that's the issue. Like, I'm not good at this. I can tell folks, "I'm not good at this, and I need help because I'm not the leader that can do everything." And no, I-- these [00:28:00] stuff I struggle with, but if you want ideas, if you want vision, if you want leadership, strategic thinking, that's where you hire me. And I think we gotta be honest. Those-- every job has the requirement to do some grungy stuff, but it's life, and I think we build, we build tough, as Ford says, and you, you work through it. And you'll have runners, and you have people that will sit in the shame and, and dig their, their way out and figure like, "Yes, I-- I've learnt from this and now I know I'm better. Now I know I'm really good 'cause I overcame adversity." But who you work for and the confidence you have in their desire for your well-being cannot be understated as well. And that's where leadership really comes in, your brand, your reputation, and your care because everyone's watching and everyone's making an assessment of, "Is this the place for me? Look at what it did to A or B, and I don't like it." So that's the risk the company has as well Speaker 2: Yep. So true. So well, well said. 'Cause it was, [00:29:00] it's-- I, I, I was just about to ask you about your take on sort of the leadership side, 'cause, like, you're right. You know, leaders have to earn someone's willingness to work through the shame, right? it has to kind of go... It, it's, it's all a team sport. Everything is a team situation and team scenario. We're all gonna have our ups and downs, also have to see how we're gonna grow together or how we're gonna fail together. And, you know, it's everybody has to, everybody has to participate, but you have to trust the vision of where you're headed. But I have one Speaker: It's totally true. Speaker 2: before we wrap. Speaker: Certainly Speaker 2: So there are a lot of assumptions out there about HR, and we talked a little bit about some of them, but I have one-- my final question is, what's one assumption about HR that you think needs to be challenged? Speaker: Yeah, I-- T-to me, the number one thing I've struggled with all my life is that HR isn't really a strategic function. And so, uh, I think we are largely are at fault as HR practitioners for that in terms of how we show [00:30:00] up, the level of the business knowledge that we demonstrate, and how we can position our solutions, our communication in the context of the business. And so what I've found in my career is that a lot of what we do, if we're not careful, we follow, we're all doing the same things. And our function is that critical function that has to stop and ask itself why we're doing things, what's the value, and how does this help the business be better? And so sometimes, you know, leaders come in and HR is, we're just talking about our processes, and you need to do this, you need to do that. It's time to do performance. It's time to... Like, to me, that is not HR. That is, that's a process. Like HR is value. Like now when we're facing it with crisis, and that's where you see the HR function gaining in credibility is, what are we gonna do with this remote work? Do we, you know what, [00:31:00] these tough decisions that we have to make, how do we strategically make them? AI, what does this mean, right? We're gonna fire all these people, and we're gonna brag about it. But what if we're wrong? You know, how is our company perceived? Will this be the right place to work in terms of how we treat people? There's so much more value that we can add, particularly to what businesses do than just being the policeman. So I hate HR as the police officer who is just Speaker 3: you Speaker: keeping the laws and following the rules and writing tickets. That's not our role. We're really, you know, we're really the career whisperer, the coach, the advisor. We're that strategic partner to the business, and we need to demonstrate that stronger and stronger, particularly with the challenges that companies are facing right now Speaker 2: I love that. So well said. Thank you, Chad. And thank you Speaker: Thank you Speaker 2: being here and sharing your expertise, your wisdom, and talking through this scenario [00:32:00] with me. I could keep on going for a while, but I know we all have days that we have to get back to. So thank you for Speaker: I, I appreciate the opportunity. Obvious-- always nervous to come and speak on topics you don't know what you're gonna talk about, but this was painless and, uh, I'm-- I really enjoyed it. So, Speaker 2: Thank you Speaker: you well, wishing your program well, and hope that what we shared today inspires others and helps others as they work through some of these unique scenarios we face in HR. Thanks. Speaker 2: Thank you so much, and thank everybody for listening, and I hope you have a good rest of your day. Bye. Speaker: Bye