HR’s Reputation Reset: Hebba Youssef on How to Own Your Narrative as a People Leader

Speaker A: Hey, I'm Carmen.

Speaker B: Ready to switch things up? Hey, I'm Kim Rower, your guest host of this extra special final episode of season seven. You may remember me as a guest from back in season three, but this time, I'm asking the questions as we wrap up what has already been an incredible season. As, uh, the co host of HR Confessions and a people leader myself, I am no stranger to candid conversations about the realities of hr. And I am thrilled to be here with a new World of Work community. Let's dive in. We put a lot of effort into building our professional reputations. You know what people say about you when you're not in the room. If you've spent time working in hr, you've probably found yourself pushing back against a reputation that you didn't shape or feeling misunderstood about the work you do and the limitations you're working within. I know I have, and it can be demoralizing. But in recent years, I've also found it inspiring, using my frustration to push me towards shaping a new perception of our beloved field. That's why I'm especially excited for today's episode. I'm sitting down with my old pal Hiba Youssef to talk about a topic with a little edge. HR's reputation. Hiba is the perfect person to weigh in. Not only is she the chief people Officer at Work Week, she's also the founder of I Hate It Here, a wildly popular newsletter, podcast and community dedicated to supporting and connecting people leaders. She has a reputation for getting a little spicy on LinkedIn and and laying out cold, hard truths in her newsletter. But she's also known for her generosity, honesty, and curiosity as an HR pro. So buckle in, because today we're talking about all things reputation management. Thank you for joining us. Uh, to close out the final episode of season seven of the New World of Work podcast. Um, I just want to call out before we get started that we both have crystals in our hands to help us stay focused and grounded while we podcast. Um, always like to bring in the witchy whenever we can. Um, we've already introduced you to the crowd, and probably most listeners already know something about you, but can you share something about your career that listeners might not already know?

Speaker A: Wait, that's so hard, because I'm honestly, like, so open about everything I know.

Speaker B: What are your secrets?

Speaker A: What are my secrets? I don't even know if I have any. Oh, my God. What can I tell you?

Speaker B: What was your first job ever?

Speaker A: Oh, ever. I folded shirts at Old Navy.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: I feel like I've Also shared this, though. Maybe, I don't know. I really wanted an ipod and my parents were like, we are not buying you an ipod. And I was like, I really want one. And they were like, okay, then go get a job. So I got a summer job. I was 16. I folded T shirts at the Old Navy at, ah, Lynn Haven Mall in Virginia Beach, Virginia. It's still there, still there. And I folded them and I worked. And I worked so hard making 6.25 an hour. And I finally saved enough to buy myself an ipod that I still have to this day that I took with me to college. And then I would have a birthday party for it every year.

Speaker B: For your ipod?

Speaker A: Uh. Uh-huh. Huh.

Speaker B: I love that. Let's talk about I Hate It Here, your incredible online platform. You have a newsletter, a podcast, a community, a amazing merch. It's a full on brand in addition to your other day job with Workweek, which we'll talk about later. Um, but I know that you've talked about this before. We don't have to rehash all the old. But when you launched I Hate It Here, I know there was some criticism of the name because people were like, why does HR hate it Here?

Speaker A: And they so do.

Speaker B: They so do. Um, but this conversation is all about HR's reputation. Um, so how do you hope that I Hate It Here will contribute to people's understanding of HR and maybe changing that reputation or impacting that reputation?

Speaker A: I think it'll help humanize us more as a function. I think a lot of employees in the past thought that HR was to blame for a lot of their issues. And my hope with I Hated Here is that HR people feel seen knowing that some of the situations that they are in are potentially outside their control. And I think, like, there was this. I think we were doing a disservice to ourselves as a function by pretending to be so buttoned up, so by the playbook, so in control of things, so on top of risk compliance, the rules, that we forgot that we are also employees of the company.

Speaker B: Yeah, right.

Speaker A: Like, every time an employee complains to me, um, I think to myself every single time, like, you know, yeah, I also experienced that.

Speaker B: I also have an employee experience working

Speaker A: at this company because I'm also an employee here, but, like, somehow we're not seen as, uh, such. And so I felt like at the height of the pandemic, when really I Hate it here started in 2022, we were still two years post Covid. The war on talent was so hard, layoffs had just started. And so it was a really interesting time where I really feel like out of every corporate function in HR has literally just been going through it the

Speaker B: last five years, just slammed. I remember someone referred to it once as the department of plus one. And I was like, that felt so accurate to me. It's like, we don't know what to do. Put it on HR's plate. Which on the one hand is like, HR has a reputation of being able to handle anything. But also, what does that tell you about how people understand what HR does and shouldn't do? And it's also not a department where you're really allowed to say, that's not my job, uh, in most companies. And so, yeah, you end up with this very muddled reputation of, like, what does HR do?

Speaker A: There was a Talk@transform four years ago, and I reference this talk so often. Honestly, um, I think the guy who gives the talk has a podcast now. His name's Thomas. Um, he talked about how HR is one of the most interdisciplinary roles at any company. Like, we have a set of skills that very few business leaders have. I think I don't. Maybe someone will call me silly for saying that. But, like, we touch a gambit of different skills from sales to marketing. Like, think about recruiting that blends sales and marketing. Your employer brand is a bit of marketing. Think about internal comms, think about product, think about employee journey, employee experience. Like, there's so many skills we have to have. We also have to understand the market, the economy, the finances of the business. Like, uh, there are a million hats we're wearing. Which can be really exciting if you're someone like me who I think has ADHD and like, likes to be pulled in different directions. But as a function, it can be exhausting to context shift so often in

Speaker B: this job, and especially, you know, when you look at the ratios of staffing and you look at the department that has the most, like, diverse representation of tasks to do and functions to oversee. And it's also usually the smallest, least budget.

Speaker A: My favorite was when AI really started to take off. People were like, great HR teams. Now you can do more with less. And I was like, I'm already doing more with nothing.

Speaker B: Uh, what is less than nothing?

Speaker A: What is less?

Speaker B: Oh, also, by the way, can you create and implement an AI policy for us?

Speaker A: I wrote in a newsletter once, I was like, how come HR is the one department everybody else can advocate for a tool? And when it comes to hr, you're always asked, why? And I'm like, why does sales need A CRM. Why does marketing need that other tool? Why can't I have my tools? I'm not asking for like endless budget. I'm just asking for like the bare minimum to do my job.

Speaker B: Well, part of that, I think, you know, with HR having a branding problem, people not knowing what HR is supposed to be doing or what HR is actually doing and what the delta between those things is, it's hard to. For finance, for this. Finance leaders that like. It's hard to approve things without the context. And so what are we doing as HR to make it an easier yes for people so that we can help other parts of the business understand what we do more.

Speaker A: It's, it's really interesting because I spent this entire first quarter of 2025, I was like, very inspired by the miseduc of Lauryn Hill where she talks about like love loss, relationships, her foray into motherhood. And I thought about all that. I'm like a big music person and I wrote a whole quarter of content where I deemed it the miseducation of hr because I felt like we have been misrepresented, we have been misunderstood. And there's a lot of us in HR that want to change that but don't know how. And I feel like that, uh, HR's reputation is such a fascinating thing. Cause like, when HR started, they were simply there for like, compliance to make sure, like, we are following laws that back in the Great Depression and the flsa, the Fair Labor Standard act was passed. HR came shortly after that and it was like, okay, make sure that we're abiding by the laws. So like, we are a rule following industry and function. Which is funny because I would consider both of us like kind of rule breakers.

Speaker B: Yeah, I would consider both of us like, I like to know what the rules are.

Speaker A: So I, I'm Laze Fairhair. Okay.

Speaker B: Yeah, I like to know what they are. So I know, like, where can I break them?

Speaker A: I know I don't. I don't like authority. I don't like rules. I'm like, rules are so people stay in power. We should like be breaking the rules to figure out how we break more. Okay, so we like started as that and then we like came into our very being as like, then we got more payroll. Then there was like that talent management wave where like all those schools of management and suddenly it was like, HR is compliance and payroll, and now you're talent management and now you're strategic thought and now you're talent trying to figure out talent strategy and oh, you also have to understand like financing and all these things. And it just like grew into this role that I just feel like can't be contained. You and I are two HR leaders with like similar but different profiles. That's the other thing. Like HR leaders across the board, some of us are stronger on one thing than the other. And I think that just even contributes to like our reputation being misunderstood. If someone hires an HR leader he thinks they think will be an excellent like talent based leader, but really like their skills are in development, not tap. Like then you could, it's tough. So I think that a lot contributes to our reputation and honestly being misunderstood as a function in industry.

Speaker B: This is a great segue into this next question I want to ask you, which relates to this infamous New York Times article from last year where your poor face got splashed around the Internet because it was the hero image for the so human under the words making you miserable.

Speaker A: Miserable. My face.

Speaker B: Yeah, great, great. I know you had everything to do with that. And you were like, please, please make this be who I am.

Speaker A: Why me?

Speaker B: Why you? You know, But I think it's interesting in relation to what you were just saying with this current perception, uh, that organizations have, that people within organizations have about hr, that HR is here to make us miserable. Um, but the role has evolved over the years, right? Even if HR's intention never was to make people miserable, the rule is very different and very multifaceted today. Um, how have you challenged that reputation? How has that reputation impacted your work?

Speaker A: I think something for me that really crystallized possibly maybe 5ish years ago. I don't know what really sparked this, but it did crystallize for me. I started thinking that, uh, when I approach a new situation as an HR leader, I started imagining that I was starting from the negative. Because what I kept thinking to myself was so many people have had terrible experiences with HR employees, leaders, myself included, maybe yourself included. Everyone has a bad HR story. And so when I was thinking about me in workplaces and how I showed up, I always showed up as like, yes, we're hr, we can do this. And I would get angry when the person across the table from me didn't see my value. And it happened enough times where I was like, I need to think about why this is happening. And then I realized it really crystallized for me. Like, people don't start with a good impression of hr. Even when I'm out in public in the wild and I meet people at like the nail salon, they'll be like, what do you do Are you in sales? Like, you're so talkative. And I'm always like, oh, I'm in hr. And they're, uh. Instantly the switch is like, oh, oh. And I'm like, wow, damn. Like, that's. That's the reputation we got. Yeah, you really hate us. Or like, you're really bad at your job, or you're only there to protect the company, or you're the police of corporate America. Like, I've heard it all. So I think what really crystallized for me when working with leaders is, like, understanding that they're bringing a perspective of working with HR that might be unlike what I bring to the table. And then my next step is, like, I always like to talk about who I am as an HR leader and what my commitment is. So it's like, I am your HR leader, where I can be transparent. I will be transparent. If I can't do something, I will tell you I can't do something. If something is wrong, I will tell you what's wrong. And I think when you start from the trust building, you really find that the person across the table from you, where it be the employee or the manager or the leader, they really. You start to build what it is, will be a good relationship. Because I do feel like everyone has their impression of what HR is. And then one more story that I think also really helped me understand, like, how different and unique and great HR leaders are. The last CFO I worked with was. Was like, you know, you do so many different things. Like, you could literally do so many different things as hr. You could coach, you could develop, you could build training, you could work on compliance, you could do this, you could do that. Like, he was like, you do 50 things. What I would love to see is just like a list of all the things you could possibly do. And you telling me, yes, here's where I really thrive. He called it like a Chinese menu. Like a Chinese restaurant menu. He said a met, like, look at all the options you have. Think about, like, your role as that. And I really started to think about that and internalize that. Cause I was like, not only am I dealing with the person across the table who might not instantly trust me, I'm also dealing with someone who might not actually know that I can do so much more than they've ever imagined HR can possibly do.

Speaker B: It's a great exercise for HR leaders. Um, I talk to a lot of folks who are overwhelmed with the amount of stuff that they're supposed to be doing and know that there's this Other, like, aura of things that they probably could also be doing, but they just don't have time. I, um, always tell people to make that list and then divide it into categories of here's what I am doing, here's what I could be doing if I had more resources, and here's, like, stuff I'm not even touching because I'm not the right person for it. I don't have the time for it, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Um, it's like, here's what I should be doing and I don't have time for, and here's what I could be doing, but, like, that's not even on the table.

Speaker A: There are, like, 15 HR projects on any given day that I would love to work on. Right. But we are a series a startup that was, like, growing. We added, we had, like, nine open roles. The beginning of the year, like, I was really focused on recruiting. And also what I did was I went and told our employees. I was like, hey, I'm focused on two things this year. First half of the year, we're focused on recruiting people, and we're also focused on small engagement initiatives. I'm in the data collecting phase of what I think could be our engagement programs for the second half of the year and into 2026. And I felt like once the employees understood, okay, here's what she's dealing with, here's what the team is focused on. It also level set their expectations so they don't feel disappointed if I can't show up and deliver these amazing, great things for them. They understand my focus is somewhere that's business and mission critical.

Speaker B: Absolutely. Do you have a favorite depiction of HR in pop culture that is either, like, you love it because it makes you laugh or you love it because it is so completely cringe.

Speaker A: I do love Carol too. I think she's just so funny. I love mythoquest. I've been watching it since the first season. I just love Rob McElhaney. And that entire cast is funny. They're just funny in really smart and interesting ways. Um, if I were to think of this is not a great example, but I think it's a good example. Um, when I watched Billions for the first time, they have Wendy. It's like a. She's a performance coach. And in my wildest dreams, I, like, actually think that's what HR should be like. Yes, there is rule and compliance, but I think if we can be the unlock between what takes the average employee from being a good performer to a great performer, then Our business value is 10x what it currently is. I, like, saw Wendy and I was like, I want to be Wendy. Wendy's a badass. I don't want to be sitting there being like, let's talk about these, like, childhood things that might be showing up at work and why you can remove these triggers so that you can perform better.

Speaker B: I don't know.

Speaker A: That's more me than I think anything else.

Speaker B: That's a really interesting highlight, uh, of someone who is performing HR in a way that is maybe not what the standard reputation is that people would believe HR can do. And showing off a new side of hr, which I love. I mean, I love when I've built a relationship with executives that is strong enough that I can be a little mean in a nice way, or I can call them out and say, like, look, I'm here because you trust me and I trust you to take this feedback well, but I'm not going to, like, pretty it up and make it a compliment sandwich and do all. I'm just going to tell you what you're doing wrong and how I can help you be better.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, well, that's actually. This is a great segue into our next section of our episode here, which is about reputation management within leadership. So I know there's various ways that HR has to shape their own reputation internally, right? Like there's with your, ah, employee clients and customers and your leadership clients or customers, however you want to think about it. Um, what does the dynamic look like right now for you in leadership? And you've spoken a little bit about your relationship with your CEO. Um, and you seems like you have a very good, candid, ah, relationship with each other. You don't always agree, but you can disagree with respect and be frustrated but still work together. How have you built that? Or, uh, what else is going. What, what else is going on with leadership at Work Week?

Speaker A: It's been a work in progress for Adam and I. I feel like we're really hitting our stride in the last, like, six months. Well, I mean, we've always been very values aligned. Actually, that's the most recent feedback he gave me in my performance review. He said, at the end of the day, like, you and I are so values aligned that we might have different ways of getting to something. But I know with the utmost, uh, trust that, that what you're doing is something I also want us to be doing. And so I feel really blessed in that regard. We're both also very conflict. Uh, we love conflict. So he and I will argue. We will argue Things back and forth. But I think it also depends on, like, the battles that you want to pick or choose. So, like, I will tell him, like, sure, I'll do it the way you want to do it. I don't agree with it, but sure, I'll do it. If it's a hill I'm absolutely going to die on, I'll be like, I will not leave this conversation until we get alignment in a way that I feel is good. I think, like, very early in my career, I got passionate and angry about a lot of things. And I was like, I'm so angry about that. I want to fix it. Uh, and it really, like, burnt me out to a certain extent. And I feel like now I'm at the point in my career where I'm like, there are going to be battles that I want to fight, and there are battles that are going to be not worthy of my time. I've learned very quickly to, like, look and do a quick calculation of how deep is this going to impact the organization and should I fight it or not fight it? If it's something I think is going to have a widespread impact on an organization, I will fight a little harder. If it's a small thing that he wants to try here or there that I might not agree with, but, I mean, I should try it still, and I will. And so I think how I've described our relationship is like, we're a Venn diagram. We have, like, a lot of things in common in the middle, and then we have these few things on the outside that we disagree with ultimately, like, he. It's his company. He can do whatever he desires. But he also understands that there needs to be a system of checks and balances. So he checks me, I check him. And we have operated like that very well, to the point where, like, we can disagree and move on, or we can, like, have fruitful discussion. Even times where he gives me feedback, I'll say, I accept your feedback, but also, I don't.

Speaker B: I disagree with this, but also, I don't.

Speaker A: I just told him last week. I was like, one, I accept your feedback. Two, I challenge your feedback. And he was like, okay. He was like, hit me. I was like, here's what I accept. Here's what I want. And so, like, we have that type of relationship. I think it took time, and I think it took a lot of trust building. Uh, he had to be sure that I was going to constantly be pushing the organization in the right direction. And he knows at the end of the day that, like, I care so deeply about our success that I'm not just creating work to create work. I'm creating work to better set us up for the future. And I think that relationship with leaders has also been like, my leaders at Workweek are great. They require, like, coaching and help, and they know that I'm always available to help them. And so I think, like, building it with them. They also trust where I'm coming from. They understand what type of person I am, and I'm very upfront about my values. From the second I meet a person, I'm like, I have three. It's like, gratitude, honesty, and curiosity. I'm always gonna be grateful for every opportunity you give me. I'm always gonna be honest with you within my boundaries, unless it's confidential company information I cannot disclose. And I'm always gonna be curious about a problem you have. I will ask you, probably. And so I think when you present yourself and say, like, these are the core values that are anchoring me and how I show up, it's really easy for people to decide, I trust you or I don't trust you. I opt in or I don't opt in.

Speaker B: I imagine, um, that I think we don't often take enough time when we're starting a new role or engaging with a new leader on a team to do that sort of introductory boundary setting or level setting or whatever you want to call it, of saying, here are my values. Here's what I don't compromise on. When you're bringing forward new ideas to your team and you're trying to build that strategic, uh, reputation and not be seen as the administrative paper pusher or whatever. Um, one angle to take, as you just mentioned, is to understand the person you're talking to, what they're going to respond to. Um, in times where that doesn't work, or maybe you've read the situation wrong, or maybe the person isn't responding in the way they thought they would. Yeah, it happens, right? You're like, this should have worked. Why did it not work? Um, how do you maintain your confidence and your trust in yourself when those plans backfire?

Speaker A: Delusion. I'm not joking. I did a panel in October in London with a hundred people leaders, and they were like, how do you have the confidence to go fight in conversations? I was like, I'm delusional, and I really have fallen in love with it. It's really just telling yourself that you can do anything. And I guess I've told myself that enough times where I'm just like, well, if it didn't work this way. I'll just try a different way. It'll work out great.

Speaker B: We're just girl bossing our way to the top, that's all.

Speaker A: Yeah. So when an idea doesn't land, I always go back and I ask myself, why? Mhm. I'm like, and I sit there and

Speaker B: I, that's curiosity value.

Speaker A: Again, I really ask, like, was it the person? Were they not in the right headspace? Was it me? Did I not deliver it? Was I not a good storyteller? A lot of the times I think I get so excited about ideas that sometimes I forget that we are, we're building a story and HR as, uh, storytellers, like if we as HR can become really good at storytelling, I think a lot of our discussions, our push and our pull would actually be a lot more natural and it would work in our favor. But being a good storyteller takes time. Like sometimes I get so excited, I'm like, do, do, do. Let's do this idea and here's why it's gonna be so great. And I forget that the person across from me needs to understand like the data, the time it's gonna take, the investment, why. And so I always go back and I'm like, I forgot the context or I forgot the data. Like I'm always revisiting the story I am telling.

Speaker B: I love that. Um, I'm running a workshop on, um, storytelling in hr, uh, with Pando Horizons next month. And this is, I just was talking to somebody about it this morning that like, often I think especially, especially we HR leaders who are persuaders, influencers, uh, visionary personality types and who also have adhd. We get a little ahead of ourselves and we get really excited about. We've already thought through like you know, 20 pages of idea and now we're at the conclusion and we pitch the conclusion and we come to the table and say, you trust me, I have a strong reputation with you. Here's what I think we should do. I've already solved the problem. Here's the solution. But they didn't read the book that you just spent. They didn't read the book that you wrote. They don't have all the context. They haven't been thinking about the employee engagement survey every single day for the last six months since you announced your plans. So they don't have all of that context and story to. Even if they trust you, even if you have a strong reputation, you haven't brought them along on the journey yet.

Speaker A: Yeah, and sometimes my CEO, I think, gave Me this feedback recently that sometimes I'm quick to say no to something and I was like, ooh, that's interesting feedback. So I've been like really internalizing it lately and I'm like, why? And I realize I'm quick to say no because when he pitches me the idea, I've already game planned it out in my head 10 steps forward. And I'm like, I already know this is not gonna work. But uh, what I found is like, I need to not say no to him so quickly. He basically wants to get the idea out, have me hear it, work with him on it, and eventually get to like a better solution. But I think like it's the same thing. Like I'm, I've seen it happen so often. Like we've worked in HR long enough where like history does repeat itself. I know what an employee is going to do just as they're going to do it. And I'm quick to jump to that. And I forget that not everybody has that same context we have. So I have to take them along with me. I have to be like, oh, in the past, here's what usually happens, here's how they're gonna react. And I need to make that clear too. Like on uh, top of all the other things we do on being a storyteller, we have to be teachers. We have to teach everybody everything. Like everyone seems to think like, oh, I know how to do hr. And I'm like, you know how to do hr? Really?

Speaker B: I'm going to go on vacation for a month and I'm going to turn everything off and good luck.

Speaker A: Yeah, you'll figure it out. See ya. But it's like I forget that we also have to be teachers in that path too. And that's just one more role that we, one more hat we wear.

Speaker B: That's right, that's right. And just because you know, again, bringing best backed reputation, just because you have a reputation as someone who has a history of performing well, who has given good ideas, when you're dealing with leadership especially, they want to be heard just like anybody else. And even if they trust your eventual answer, they don't want, they don't want to think that you are judging them before you've heard them out. And that's just like human nature, right? And I, I will straight up cut someone off and be like, I see where the rest of this sentence is going and let's not waste any time and let's just cut to the chase. And I know why this isn't going to work. But that's kind of rude.

Speaker A: Yeah. I've worked really hard on controlling my internal dialogue. I, uh, sometimes I think this was, like, another big learning for me in the last year or two. Like, sometimes you need people to fail. Sometimes people need to fail.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And it's okay. And it's okay to let it happen. If you create a safe enough environment where they can fail and learn from it, then you're the luckiest person alive. But, like, I spent so much time trying to fix every problem before it became a real problem, that instead I was like, you know what? I should let some things break, and we should talk about why they are breaking.

Speaker B: One of the things I've always admired about Hiba is her candor. Her honesty builds trust and opens the door for others to learn. HR leaders need that kind of honesty because collective growth is how we will create better workplaces for everyone. In our conversation, I found Hiba's relationship with her CEO to be an especially great example of this openness. There's a level of trust between them that allows for disagreement and even frustration. They don't avoid the hard stuff. They move through it. I also loved her perspective on persuasion. To get buy in on the programs and initiatives you believe in, you have to understand people, what motivates them, what they respond to. And as Hibba put it, sometimes a little delusional confidence doesn't hurt either. With that, let's keep the conversation going and dive into another tricky part of this job. Managing your relationships with employees. I want to switch gears a little bit and talk about reputation management with employees.

Speaker A: Oh, God.

Speaker B: And I know we're going to be honest. We're going to use your values of honesty. How does your reputation among staff differ? Like, your approach to your reputation among staff differ from your approach to reputation management with leadership?

Speaker A: I, uh, mean, again, with the. With employees. I know I'm starting from the negative, and I also know that there are going to be times where I'm going to disappoint them, like, very openly. I have said that to them. We, um, end every one of our company retreats with, like, a gratitude circle with, like, a few questions. And one of them that we asked last summer was, like, what's one of your biggest fears? And I said, like, disappointing all of you, because I know it's inevitable. I know I won't be able to make, like, all your hopes and dreams come true. And. And that's, like, very real. And I think sometimes, like, there are employees who have left who don't like me, and that's absolutely. I don't take it personally. There's a lot that they don't see behind closed doors. Basically, like, um, how I sleep at night is I tell myself, like, I tried my hardest to like, give them a great experience. If it didn't happen, then I take accountability for the role I played in it not happening. But most of the time what employees don't understand is a lot of it is not actually in my control. I'm not back there being like, well, we can't pay them this amount. I'm like, here's a band. We can pay them within this band. If it's going to be out of band, we probably shouldn't do that. And here's why. And so I think like, the hard part with your reputation with employees is everyone's been burned by a bad HR team. You're starting from the negative. So it's going to take time to build it up. And your job as HR is not to make everyone happy. It's really not. If I were to like, give. I know everyone says like, HR is for the business. My definition of HR is the team that balances the business wants and needs with the employee wants and needs. Mhm. We're trying to move.

Speaker B: This is a very tough tightrope.

Speaker A: We're trying to move this business along and make it successful. That means like, if we've just done a layoff, no, you're not going to get a 20k raise. Read the room.

Speaker B: Read the room should be like HR's

Speaker A: motto for read the room. But a lot of times employees will. They need someone to blame. They need someone to blame. And I'm okay with it when it's me and it's justified. My CEO also does an excellent job of taking accountability for his mistakes too. Because I told him, I was like, I'll be your bad cop. I'll do it. And he's like, but why do I. Why? You don't need to be that. There are decisions that are outside of your control that are very much my decisions. And I, as a leader of this company need to be the person accountable for them.

Speaker B: That's part of the reputation management. What you just said really struck me of People often will look to HR as a scapegoat. And I think part of that goes back to this reputation of like, well, if you don't really know what HR

Speaker A: does, then who else do you think?

Speaker B: M. Yeah. And really most of what you know about HR is from a bad HR experience at a previous company or the crappy Pop culture references you have to hr. So if something goes wrong, you don't exactly know where to place the blame. HR is an easy target.

Speaker A: Yeah, I would love to snap my fingers and get everyone more money. Do you not think that that's something I want? I'm benevolent like that, okay?

Speaker B: No, you're evil. You just want everyone to not have any money.

Speaker A: There's so many things I want. But like, people still, even when you explain to them why a decision isn't made. This is the part that I think is actually the hardest about hr. When you do your best to like explain why a decision is the way it is. Like, let's say you have the process set up correctly, the system set up correctly, everything's in place, you've all the legwork as hr and the decision still isn't what the employee wants. They're still gonna criticize you in the decision despite you doing all the work. Like imagine I built all the comp bands to make sure everyone was paid fairly and equitably, regardless of gender, age, sex, demographic, whatever, right? An employee wants a raise and they literally are within their band and don't deserve a raise. And you tell them, look at all this amazing work I did to ensure that you are being paid equitable. All they're hearing is, I'm not getting the money I want.

Speaker B: Right? They must have done something wrong.

Speaker A: And also, like to be very clear, it is very expensive to exist in this world. Today we are looking at CEO salaries the highest they've ever been. We're looking at shareholders making hand over fist money on stock buybacks, and we are looking at the average employee salary that has not kept up with inflation. I'm never going to fault an employee for being mad at me for not paying them more. I'm going to explain the system and talk to them about how we have business infrastructure in place to pay them equitably with market data that I refer to, and that I can't give them that 20k raise they so deeply desire, but might actually really need. And that's really hard too, because you and I both know how expensive it is to live in this world. I know that money could be a game changer in someone's life. I also know like, financial stress is the number one cause of stress, the number one cause of divorce. So yeah, when it comes to things like compensation and I have to be an employee's enemy because I have to protect the system I built to make sure everyone's being paid equitably, I'm okay. Being that enemy.

Speaker B: I think behind closed doors, we joke a lot in HR about, like, if we give everyone that 20k raise that they want, we're gonna go out of business and then everyone's gonna lose their jobs. And like, is that what you really want? Like, money is not infinite, right? Like, within the financial constraints that we're dealing with. Here's what we're doing to make sure everyone is paid equitably.

Speaker A: And many employees don'. Understand cash flow.

Speaker B: Yeah, Right.

Speaker A: I'm, um. Like, you do realize cash is not endless, right? Like, especially if you're in the venture backed startup area. Like, people run out of cash all the time. Less than 2% of companies see an exit. Like, right. Uh, you as an employee are more than your base salary. You are the taxes we pay. You are the insurance cost we pay. You are the system costs we pay. Like, I think employees forget that sometimes. And like, I've been guilty of it too, being like, why can't I have another 20k? I only make this amount. But it's like, there's also a lot baked into the cost of an employee. So I see both sides of it and I try to balance that rope as best I can and my balance always defaults to. Let me explain to you the system you have in place. Let me show you that you are paid equitably for your level and impact at this organization. I never want someone to be paid inequitably. And let me show you what I can and cannot control. Also, I love when employees blame you for mistakes that were made prior to you getting there before you even joined.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: I'm like, hey, man, I didn't decide that, but somehow I'm the bad guy. Like, make it make sense. I'm, uh, like, make it make sense.

Speaker B: You didn't know when you joined and fix it already. How could you not have done that?

Speaker A: We are inheriting hr. People are inheriting systems all day long. Very few of us get to build a system from scratch. And so when an employee comes to me and they're like, well, so and so is X, Y and Z and I want blah, blah. And I'm like, I wasn't here when so and so did that.

Speaker B: You know, you knew this when you took the job, that you would be blamed for everything.

Speaker A: So I take nothing personally. I take nothing personally anymore. Honestly. I've had employees scream at me, shout at me, call me stupid, cry like, I've had it all. And I am still just like, I'm, um, doing my best by you. I'm just showing up and trying to have a moral compass that points in the right direction.

Speaker B: It goes back to that, like, the goal should not be to make everyone happy. The goal should not be to have everyone like you. It's not going to happen.

Speaker A: We're trying to sustain a business. Like, I truly say, like, I have to make decisions sometimes that are against what the employee wants and needs to ensure that this business continues to operate. How many HR leaders had to do layoffs in the past two years? You think any one of them wanted to do that?

Speaker B: I had to lay myself off.

Speaker A: Nobody wants to do that. But if you're telling me I have to lay people off so that we continue to have a business like we have to have a business. That's why I don't show up to work every day for funsies. If it was funsies, I'd be on a beach with a book reading my Harry Potter fanfic.

Speaker B: Okay, before I get to my next question, I will say this is also a reminder that you are more than your job as an HR leader. This is the whole, the whole theme of your season of I hate it here is about being more than, you know, your job description. And I think that's another way to handle your own self perception when you're dealing with other people's perception of you is to remember that like, this person is mad at me because of this thing that happened at work that was out of my control and my reputation is suffering. But like, that's not the hundred percent picture of who I am, how I show up in the world, what my life is like. You have to know who you are outside of people's perception. So beyond the internal reputation, with all of this public Persona business you've got going on, um, how has that influenced your reputation internally at workweek, with people seeing what you say online? I imagine there are times where people are like, you said this on LinkedIn, but that's not what's happening internally. Um, I know you and I have talked about this a lot. I dealt with this when I was at Oyster, um, saying things publicly. And then internally people are like, well, your public opinion is this, but that's not what we do internally. How do you address that? And, um, how should our listeners address inconsistencies between their personal public Personas and their internal acts?

Speaker A: It's so hard. If you have a company that is okay with you posting and sharing your own opinions, then you are very lucky. I think a lot of people are not in that situation. We're a media company. So I created my brand with Workweek, so I have the luxury of being like, that's the creator. And even my CEO has told the employees, like, she writes for, like, an ideal HR team, like, what she wishes it could look like. Sometimes it'll be what we do, sometimes it won't be what we do. Cause it won't be right for us. So I think we keep sharing that too. And it's definitely tough. I think a lot of employees are like, ooh, you know? But we have a very high trust and transparency with our employees at Workweek that I've always said if they ever dislike anything I post that, they can come talk to me about it. I'm not really out there posting anything wild. I'm just advocating for their wants and needs. And honestly, I actually think it builds more trust with them because they're like, look what she's saying online. She must believe it to a certain extent. But we've had times where, like, I write a lot about pay transparency, but my CEO is like, not a big fan of it. He doesn't like that we have to put job, like, uh, pay ranges on jobs. To be very clear, we have banded and leveled all of our roles internally. There's no pay compression. It's equitable across the board. There's nothing we have to hide. But he. It's his personal preference. And every year I come back to it. I'm like, you ready to post those salaries? He's like, I'm not into it. I'm like, okay, this is the year I'm gonna be able to convince him that it's, uh. No matter how many things I send him to read, he's still saying nah. So, like, there is, and we're actually open about that. At our last company retreat, we did a session on hr and he truly said, like, yeah, you know, she's such a fan of pay transparency. It's actually, I'm, um, the reason why we don't do that. So he definitely makes that clear to the employees as well.

Speaker B: Up next for you, I have a sort of a hybrid conclusiony sort of question. So I'd love to know, how do you see the perception of HR evolving in the coming years, if at all? I'll admit, on my worst, saddest days, I'm like, nothing's ever going to change. What am I even doing? Um, but I like to believe that there is a revolution happening. Ah, at work. And that we are working for a better tomorrow. Um, so how do you see it? Changing. And what kinds of things are you doing to push for that? And how can other people do the same? How can other people join you in that work?

Speaker A: I think in the past, we've seen a lot of CFOs get the path to CEOs. I wrote an article about how I'm seeing more CPOs and CHROs head to the CEO seats because I think it's one thing to have business knowledge, but to have talent. Knowledge is truly priceless. To understand what is our strategy, how does that work with how our business makes money? How does that work with the current economy? What does that mean for when I'm getting talent? How do I, um, unlock the most innovative culture I possibly can? Is an actual game changer skill that a lot of CEOs I think should have and try to have, but are working on it because a lot of them just come up through their thing. But I am continuing to see that HR's perception will change. Like, I will stop saying the phrase, HR needs to earn its seat at the table. No, my seat is cemented. It's actually a throne, and it's at the top of the table. Like, that is how I believe HR's perception is changing. We are one of the most critically important roles at an organization because we see the people, we see the strategy, and we're able to move both in the right direction.

Speaker B: Okay, so the final question we always like to ask on this podcast, what is the best mistake you have ever made?

Speaker A: Um, I've made so many.

Speaker B: This is how you know you're talking to a person who values honesty.

Speaker A: I have made so many mistakes. Um, oh, my God. In the height of like, 2021, 2022, when off, it was like 2021, actually. When offers were just wild, when it was so hard to get software engineers, when I literally would talk to a software engineer every day and they're like, oh, total comp needs to be 500k or I'm not coming.

Speaker B: Bye.

Speaker A: I think a mistake I genuinely made a lot then was I broke a lot of salary bands to hire people because it was so. And it's something that I think about still to this day because I'm such an equity person. I'm like, no, we need to make sure we have equity. I made a lot of exceptions for rules in unprecedented times that I don't think I would make in not unprecedented times.

Speaker B: I like that. It's a good reminder that sometimes the rules are there for a reason. I think this is very wonderfully coming full circle to the Beginning of our conversation that so much of what I consider to be good HR or progressive HR is about understanding what the rules are and when the rules should be followed versus when the rules are maybe not the right rules for the situation. When can you break the rules? When can you bend the rules? And when do you actually need to stay within the guardrails you've set up?

Speaker A: Yeah. And, uh, my takeaway from that was the first thing I did when I got to work week was I was like, what's our compensation philosophy? Oh, I'm writing it. Here's our compensation philosophy. And I'm just like, here's how we determine what roles are. Here's where the bands are. And we have had bands since, I think my third month here. I leveled every single person at the company, made sure all the bands matched. It really changed something in me because I just felt like I just didn't know what to do at that time. And I was like, whatever, we have to hire these people, so might as well just get them. Get them the offer. Here's the other thing we could do, and it'll be fine. And we could do this. And it really stuck with me because I was like, that's not how you scale a business. That's not how you grow a business. That's not how you show up and be a good strategic leader. And I want to be a good strategic leader.

Speaker B: Well, thank you so much for being with us here on this podcast. Thank you for having us. People can find you. I hate it here on Apple and Spotify and wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker A: I was just going to say thank you for having me.

Speaker B: It was so fun to be here with you. I loved this conversation with Hibbeh, and I'm so glad I got to host this episode of the New World of Work. Here are my top three takeaways from our time together today. Number one, Emotional intelligence is essential for reputation management. Throughout our conversation, Hiba and I kept returning to the idea of reading the room. Whether it's tailoring your approach to different stakeholders or knowing when to push and when to pause, navigating reputation really comes down to understanding people and context. Number two, you can't and shouldn't try to make everyone happy. Hibber reminded us that HR's job is not about pleasing everyone. It's about strategically balancing the needs of the business with the needs of its people. And sometimes that means being the bad guy and letting go of the need to be liked in order to lead well. And finally, sometimes letting things break is the best strategy. Both Hiba and I shared stories about the power of selective negligence, the act of intentionally stepping back to let the cracks show with the appropriate communication. Letting some balls drop is a powerful way to demonstrate your impact and get buy in and sometimes to help you rethink your own approach too. And with that, season seven comes to a close. I hope you loved listening as much as we loved recording. And as you now know, reputation matters. If you really liked our show, tell a friend and leave us a review. And don't forget to follow the new world of work wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker A: M.