HR Secrets Revealed: Imperfect Humans at Work: Leah Part 1

Speaker A: Hi, I'm Michelle Aronson and welcome to True Stories at Work, where we discuss the best things about working in human resources. The people, the stories, and the things that happen at work that we didn't even know about. Workplace confessions. I'm a recovering HR executive, certified coach, and business school professor who knows that the best stories happen at work. From heartbreaking to heartwarming, from hilarious to outrageous. On today's episode of True Stories at Work, you get to meet Leah, who wanted to be a boss when she grew up and ended up an employment attorney. Leah had so much insight and so many great stories that this will be a double episode. Part one shares stories about how humans are still imperfect humans, even at work.

Speaker B: And so I sort of had this mindset that being in the workplace, whether it's my own workplace or working with employers and dealing with their workplaces, that their workplaces, that people should, ah, uh, we should strive to make sure that people are perfect. They arrive on time, they get their job duties done on time. If they're dealing with something rough like a divorce or a sick kid, that they just put on a good show and get it done and then they can go home and do that. But I've learned that's not the case. We are all human and being human, we suffer from things like depression, we may arrive late to work and how

Speaker A: she helped her client handle this situation.

Speaker B: I'm thinking of an example where a client called, they had a situation where a cleaning person encountered two of their executives having intercourse on a conference room table after hours.

Speaker A: And how simple questions like this often aren't simple at all and really just a, ah, lawsuit waiting to happen.

Speaker B: Hey, we, we had an employee resign and give their two weeks notice. Can we just accept their notice and terminate their employment today?

Speaker A: Part two will dig into sex, tech and politics. Conversations that are considered impolite at, uh, dinner tables, yet show up all the time in hr. So let's get started so you can meet Leah. So, um, would love for you to just tell me a little bit about your background, what you're doing right now, and then we'll dig into uh, to some stories.

Speaker C: Sure.

Speaker B: Well, thank you for having me. So I'm a management side employment attorney. We help employers navigate the workplace, whether it's harassment, discrimination issues, uh, wage and hour questions, workplace violence, drugs in the workplace, pretty much anything that's happening at life that's happening in the workplace. And so we get to navigate life at work.

Speaker A: That's what makes work so interesting because we want to believe that it should be separate that you're going to be one way at home and one way at work. But it doesn't always show up that way.

Speaker B: Or something that you do outside of your work time, right. In your own personal time, uh, could make its way into the workplace. Whether it's something that I personally have done or something a client has an employee that does and yeah. That they're not really siloed.

Speaker A: I would love to know because I'm sure that when you were six or seven, you did not aspire to be an employment side attorney. So tell me a little bit about your early career aspirations.

Speaker B: Uh, well, I wanted to be the boss. That is what my parents will tell you, that I truly wanted to be the boss. So uh, early on I said, well, who's the, the top boss? How do I become the boss? And my dad was like, well you could be the president. So so early on I wanted to be the president until I started playing basketball. Uh, and that was at age 7. And I became obsessed with basketball. My bedroom was a basketball bedroom. I had a lamp that was a basketball with a light bulb coming out of it. So ah, then I was like, well, how do I be the boss of the basketball players? So then I became a point guard. And later on when I didn't pursue basketball, uh, in college I decided to be a coach. And so I coached youth basketball. And so early on I definitely wanted to be a basketball coach. Oh, and my basketball, my youth basketball team that I coached, the team name was the Bosses.

Speaker A: Oh my God. That was full circle. That was really very, uh, well connected. I need, I need to know one great youth basketball coaching story because I, I saw the Mighty Ducks, I've seen the Bad News Bears. Like how young? And what's your favorite story?

Speaker B: Oh, okay. I mean it's so much fun. So I, so I did coach middle school for a little bit, but I coached, my favorite was coaching six to nine year old girls. And half of them, their parents just wanted an hour of someone to babysit their kids. And so uh, some of the kids were just doing cartwheels and like playing with glitter during practice. And then there were other kids that were probably the little mes who were out there running drills and they wanted to improve their shot. Uh, uh, well, our team, so our team was a mi, A mixed bag so to speak of, of talent. And I remember in our first season I think we had a very much a losing season. So I realized I was not a great boss of the bosses, especially with six to nine year Old kids. But it was probably our third game and uh, uh, there were three kids who just, they were terrible. Just truly terrible. Adorable, but terrible. Could not make a shot. And I remember it was halftime and the score was something like 12 to 0 and we still had not scored. And one of those kids caught the ball on, on an inbound play and turned around and just shot it and it went in and it was silence in the gym because it was the other team's hoop. Okay. But then, uh, but we all decided, well, you know what, she scored. Woo. And so we just went crazy for her. And so I, I think that was probably the moment when I realized, you know, it, it really isn't about winning, uh, because she was really excited. And then I saw that that joy carried over into practices and other games where she, she wanted the ball more, she wanted to score more. Uh, and so I think it ended up being a benefit to score for the other team there.

Speaker A: I love it. What a great story. Oh my God. That would be on the news today, right? They always show those sort of winning stories. So how did you end up, uh, deciding to be an employment attorney? Because there are lots of different types of law to do. So what resonated with you about employment law?

Speaker B: So I, my original, my undergrad was in environmental science and in Spanish and I thought I'm going to travel the world and sell fair trade coffee beans. Well, there's not really a job that exists. Or at least at the time I couldn't find something like that. So I ended up going to law school and not really knowing exactly what I wanted to do, thinking, well, maybe I'll become an environmental lawyer. And did a couple internships. Didn't really find that it fit my personality very well. It's very regulatory based and I like interacting with people. So I eventually clerked, did a summer clerkship with my current law firm and the, the co chairs of our employment law team at the time were two former college athletes. And they had sort of a mentality of hiring athletes because if you're in the athletic world, right, you know, discipline, endurance, you know how to set goals, you know that practice makes perfect all of those, those skill sets and that training and that sweat and grit that come out in sports translates really well into the practice of law when you have to be pulling all nighters or working 70, 80 hour work weeks. And so it ended up by way of me being a basketball player is how they decided to hire me. So, and it worked out well.

Speaker A: So you've been practicing law for A number of years. You're very experienced. So tell me what surprised you between sort of the theory of studying employment law and the reality of doing employment law?

Speaker B: Oh, that's a good question. That. And I don't want to give away the true secrets of being a lawyer, but the truth is that, uh, a lot of what we do is not focused on the law in any sense. It's more business counseling or navigating a particular culture in the workplace, working with a difficult employment situation that may have. May m. It may touch on the law, but the answer and the conversation is really more focused on, okay, well, how do we help this person be successful? I think it's. It's funny. I was talking to a friend about this recently. Did you ever come, and I don't want to throw you under the bus, Michelle, but did there ever come a time where. When you were growing up and you realized, wait, my parents are not perfect?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Really?

Speaker A: Early on, surprisingly. I mean, uh, when my mother, I asked her to help me draw a gerbil, and her gerbil was so horrible, I cried. I just couldn't believe how awful it was. And we're both still traumatized by it because she realized how much she disappointed me. And I realized she couldn't draw. And how could that be possible?

Speaker B: Yeah, well, it's a. That's so funny. And that's a cute example. Most parents, I don't think, probably led on to the fact that they're also not perfect, that they probably also make mistakes in the workplace, just like you make mistakes in school or just. Or, uh, they may show up late to work, just like you may show up late to the dinner table. But I think that's part of parenting. And so growing up, I always had this. I think, this rigid mindset that at some point when you become an adult, you will be perfect. Because I. I didn't see my parents ever going late to work or getting in trouble or they never. They would never reveal that stuff. It wasn't only later that they told me that they are human, too. And so I sort of had this mindset that being in the workplace, whether it's my own workplace or working with employers and dealing with their workplaces, that. That we should strive to make sure that people are perfect. They arrive on time, they get their job duties done on time. If they're dealing with something rough like a divorce or a sick kid, that they just put on a good show and get it done, and then they can go home and do that. But I've Learned that's not the case. We are all human. And being human, we. We suffer from things like depression. We may arrive late to work, we may oversleep, we may, um, get into a fight or express our political opinions at work. And so I've learned, I've learned to be less judgmental, I think, by nature of what we do.

Speaker A: And if you work together, in spite of all your differences, in spite of everybody's flaws, you can do incredible things. You know, when you stop judging and you start thinking, oh, I need to partner with them because they are so different than me, that we can do really cool things.

Speaker B: Oh, yeah. I'm thinking of an example where a client called, they had a situation where a cleaning person encountered two of their executives having intercourse on a conference room table after hours. And the client's mindset was, well, uh, I mean, this is technically wrong, right? Like, this is wrong. These two, I guess, two employees having an affair, doing it at work. Right. This would, theoretically, in our society, it's not against the law. So again, m going back to this idea, Michelle, that what I do is not always deal with violations of law. So there's no, there's no law that prevents that, but it's not necessarily, you know, great. And so the question was, you know, do we really have to terminate them because they did something that's not, I guess, to what society would say is morally acceptable? And we talked through it a lot, and the idea that of course they're violating policies, it's poor judgment. There's a lot of things wrapped up in here. Overall, they were two incredibly good employees, had devoted, you know, 20 something years each to the organization, and they just so happened to fall in love at work. And that was their only opportunity. And they are now together. But I will say. And the client ended up deciding not to let them go, you know, because I think that would have had more of a detrimental effect to those individuals, families and children and the whole workplace culture and all that versus just, hey, we've got a bump here, we got to get over it. How can we navigate it? And so I think, yeah, uh, if we had taken that really hard line judgment approach and say, well, what's morally acceptable in society to the average person? And you know, oh, well, well, these people aren't reaching that standard, then we can't have them here. But overall, it, it ended up working out.

Speaker A: Is love a crime? Not in that case, I would say no. But I will say I had a similar situation with two people on the clock having sex in a Closet. And it was a crime and we fired them because we don't pay people for that. You know, we don't pay you to do that. And one of them thought I was upset because they were having an affair. And they came to apologize to me and I said, I'm not interested in that at all. I'm just saying we're paying you to do X and you're busy doing Y. And that's my real big beef with that. So the after hours thing I think is, makes it interesting and. Yeah, but time theft, yeah, time theft is pretty easy. I do want to segue into mouse jiggling as work from home fraud. I was snooping on your LinkedIn and just thought that was kind of brilliant. So is that a trend and things that you're seeing in the workplace?

Speaker B: Oh yeah. I mean with individuals working from home. So the issue that a lot of clients fear is are my employees going to be productive working from home or are they going to abuse the system? And I'm paying them to work 40 hours a week and they're just getting paid to walk the dog and bake cookies and watch Netflix. Well, a client of mine sent me an article that indicated that in a study of, I think a million individuals, 8% of them had admitted to using some sort of mouse jiggler device or key tapping device. And so these, these are devices that you, you put your mouse, you can buy them on Amazon for like 14 bucks, right? And you put your mouse on it and it moves the mouse, it spins the mouse and then uh, or a key tapper. So if you walk away from your screen, it will just tap random keys. So that way if your company has a software system that monitors idle time, it won't trigger in the idle time system because it will show that you're theoretically working. So a lot of clients have installed this type of software. And then of course, humans being humans, have found loopholes to it. Well, I'll just buy a, ah, electronic device that, that looks like it's working for me. So 8% of your population is pretty big in talking with clients. The general takeaway is we recommend that if somebody is getting their work done and is efficient in getting their work done, especially if they're an exempt employee who's not, you know, clocking for overtime or anything like that, then don't be such a stickler about whether they're sitting in front of the computer and sitting in their chair. Right. Manage performance. And if their performance is failing, then look into, okay, why is it failing? Are they actually working and that's when you can kind of use the software system to address it. So yeah, this is definitely a big thing with work from home. Have you, have you experienced it?

Speaker A: I have not experienced that as an actual thing that I worked on. But I do know when I was working at a startup the CEO said I wish all my employees were as productive as you. And I thought that freaked me out because my whole philosophy for humans is do not manage people through technology, manage them through conversations, through performance expectations. So I know things have changed in the pandemic, just shifted everything. But I do think foundational human decency and having conversations is a great place to start and then use your, your technology to see if they have a mouse jiggler.

Speaker B: Yeah, uh, yeah, yeah, the technology is more of the I, this is the evidentiary support for why your performance may be failing. But uh, there are so many people that I mean people work at different speeds. I mean we could be doing the exact same job, working at different speeds or doing the exact same job. And you may take a hundred two minute stretching breaks throughout the day. And I just am the type of person that needs two or three, you know, 20 minute big breaks throughout the day. And so yeah, I would have a, ah, more idle time than you for instance. But it doesn't necessarily mean you're more productive. So I always tell clients you gotta be careful about letting technology dictate your decision. Just like you were saying versus you saying hey, we've got a problem here and then actually figuring out well how do I address that problem? And is idle time a problem with that? Are they abusing the system?

Speaker A: Fascinating. What other kinds of strange trends are you seeing from a legal perspective?

Speaker B: ChatGPT is an interesting one. I think if you, and I was shocked by this, if you were to ask, let's say Gen Z and below whether they use ChatGPT, I think it would be more than 90% of them do in some sense. And I don't just mean to write a school paper, but even in the workplace, whether it's to clean up an email, to upload their, they, they take their notes and then they have Chat GPT reorganize their notes or develop a policy for them. And I think there are definitely some benefits to that. I think the concern with CHAT GPT is it is, it is a computer. And so it, if you're looking for something analytical, especially where you have to analyze something, I mean you there, there still has to be some human aspect to review it and make sure the work product is adequate or to review it and make sure that what someone is doing is maybe not engaged in copyright infringement. We've seen that come up where employees are getting in trouble at work for using CHAT bt and it comes out that the company is aware because they get a cease and desist letter from another entity saying that their employee or the company is misusing their proprietary information or their trademarks or copyrights. And that's because ChatGPT was just searching the Internet Internet and producing a result. So it's not just employee use of, of AI and ChatGPT, but I have seen there are situations where employers are getting themselves into legal trouble using, uh, software systems that include AI. And I'm thinking of an EEOC case recently where the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which is the federal agency that is kind of your first line of defense to investigate charges of discrimination and harassment in workplaces. And the EEOC brought a lawsuit against a company called, which has virtual, uh, uh, online tutors all over the world. And the software screening system that they were using was somehow programmed to screen out workers who were 55 and over for women and you know, 60 and over for men. And so they ran into an age discrimination claim. Right. So you've got these disparate impact claims. You're using a software system and, and companies can't just say, oh well, that we, we're, that's not on us, that's, that's on this software. No, I mean you're, that you're the entity using it, you're therefore liable for the outcome. And so if the outcome is that it has a discriminatory bias in some way, you could be on the hook legally for that. So we have seen a lot of employers be very careful about how they're using AI and what software and starting to ask questions more. Oh, we've got this new payroll program or our, um, you know, our consultant is offering us this AI generated management training. Well, let's review it. Let's make sure that there's nothing in here that's inappropriate, that's going to run afoul of the laws in some way.

Speaker A: Yeah, people think this solution is so magic, but it is all trained. And how is it trained and what are the proprietary algorithms behind some of these things? Because when I started in my career, they were just beginning to do sort of flight risk stuff and retention scores and you could actually pull the reports and see what the algorithms were. Some of them were zip code and. Okay, well, zip code also could be discriminatory depending on the income levels of, uh, the zip code and things like that. And so when they hit it, and this is one particular software company, I said, where'd those reports go? Where I can? And they say, oh, that's proprietary now.

Speaker B: And I was like, well, I need

Speaker A: to know what's going into the beast that's deciding what is going to happen in my data. I mean, it's fascinating.

Speaker B: So very interesting. Absolutely. Yeah. That's the new frontier. It's here to stay, I think. So we have to be careful of how we use it.

Speaker A: I agree. Okay, so I want to talk a little bit about your work. Tell me your favorite HR story. Do you have any favorites that come to mind?

Speaker B: Oh, we've got some good ones. Uh, I will say I had one that was a good learning experience for me as a younger lawyer. And I got an email from a client who just said, you know, hey, we, we had an employee resign and give their two weeks notice. Can we just accept their notice and terminate their employment today? Simple question. If I were to just have, uh, responded in email, then that, that seems like a pretty fair question, right? I could say, yeah, absolutely. There's nothing you don't have, you know, the employees at will, you don't have to keep them employed throughout their two weeks notice. That's no problem. However, the question was just like too innocuous that it forced me to pick up the phone and just call the client. And I, uh, usually when it comes to terminations, it's one thing that our team really likes to talk through terminations with clients because I think the issue is you can't really provide an answer unless you truly understand the question. So I pick up, picked up the phone, called the client was like, tell me about this termination. Why the person resign? And the client said, well, yeah, we've had a lot of things going on here. We've had two bank robberies and this is a bank that I'm talking about here. And a couple weeks ago, someone came in and held one of the tellers at gunpoint. And this individual was not held at gunpoint, but they were standing nearby and it scared them. So they didn't come to work for a few days. And I told them that they needed to come to work or they'd be terminated because I, we can't just close down operations. So then, uh, they came back to work last week and unfortunately the bank was robbed again. I'm not kidding you, Michelle. This happened, okay? Two bank robberies in like a three week span. And this time, you know, Bullets went off and there were three, three robbers and three employees were held at gunpoint in different ways. And this employees basically said she's afraid for her life and, and can't come back to work. And I'm like, huh, uh, this is not the. You did not ask me the right question. So we've got a lot of uh, we have bigger issues going on here from culture to safety to you know, workplace violence to workers comp. And so it, it was mind blowing to me that you know, the client was so focused on just this narrow issue. But the true, the true problem was more of a culture problem. And so it's, it's one of those things where I, I think you can never make up the stuff that happens at work in some way. But how in the world do you have two bank robberies in a three week period? Like where's the security on that?

Speaker A: Yeah. What did you advise or what did the client do?

Speaker B: Well, we immediately got uh, some counseling involved with the employees, put them on, on leave, paid leave, not unpaid leave. Even though paid leave in this instance wasn't required, this was in a, in a large way very FMLA protected. I mean the employer would be deemed to be on notice that being held at gunpoint and watching your co workers being held at gunpoint would probably create some sort of mental health concern. Anxiety, depression, ptsd, you name it. I, I don't even feel comfortable hearing the story right. I can't imagine being there. So making sure that they were being supportive to these individuals and um, that they were giving them the leave that they were required to, also reporting it to workers comp. It was also a good learning experience. You know, I always think of workers cop when I was a young lawyer as oh, slip and fall in the workplace or you pick something up and you hurt your back. But you can, people can file workers comp for mental health, uh, issues as well, especially if they've encountered a serious situation in the workplace like that. So there were a lot of learning experiences for me from this one sort of fact, pattern and scenario. And we ended up working with them for months to try to make sure the culture was right, the safety was right. You have negligence concerns as an employer if you don't have a safe premises, especially as a bank. So there was a lot that went into that.

Speaker A: Yeah, just a quick email, let me know.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Ah, can I do this? Is this okay?

Speaker A: That's the beauty though. I mean really, people want to shoot an email and then get a response. But if it's ever Performance based or termination based? Picking up the phone saves you a lot of time in this case, maybe in court. But, you know, it really is 10 minutes well spent just to have a chat versus exchanging a bunch of emails that aren't, aren't really based in reality.

Speaker B: So I love that. Do you feel like you see that a lot? People too afraid to pick up the phone and actually have a conversation versus just sending an email with. Especially a rude email? Well, you. You pissed me off, so let me just type out all my angry thoughts at you and send it.

Speaker A: You know, the funny thing is people want it in writing because they feel that that protects them. And the truth is, I'd rather have a discussion and then type up a summary of the discussion and send it to you afterwards that we Both agree on versus having this. What ends up being 30 pages of ediscoverable stuff that is a misinterpretation or misrepresentation of the facts.

Speaker B: But, um, that's just my misinterpretation, I think, or miscommunication in some sense is, I think, the nail on the head. It is so interesting in a lawsuit sometimes, like, I'm thinking of a sexual harassment lawsuit where you've got two individuals who have totally different communication styles. And it could be something as different as, you know, generational. So let's say the boomer generation, right? My colleagues in the boomer generation, they don't use a lot of exclamation points or emojis. I'm in the millennial generation there, uh, it is a norm to use an exclamation point. There's a difference between, okay, exclamation point and okay, period. And so oftentimes in lawsuits where someone is saying that they were mistreated by somebody or they were sexually harassed by somebody, we'll see text messages or emails, and I may go through them and think, yeah, these are pretty rude. Like, you know, he only ever responded with periods and he just wrote, great job, period, you know, whatever. And one of my colleagues who's a, A, uh, boomer, for instance, might look at and say, there is. I don't see nothing wrong with it. Right? So you have that generational differ difference. And it's just simple miscommunication over email because of the way people speak or talk. And whereas if they had picked up the phone and had that, hey, great job, you really killed it on this brief today there, wouldn't it be less of a miscommunication there?

Speaker A: So, yeah, if I had a dime for every time somebody asked Me. Can you believe the tone in this email? I would say I can't tell tone in email, but you need to pick up the phone if you find that you're finding tone in the email, confirm your assumption.

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker A: So, okay, now you were talking about going through ediscovery and reading all this stuff. Okay, so what is the most interesting thing that you discovered in ediscovery?

Speaker B: It always deals with sex. People have sex. Okay, Michelle. And it is. People are sexual in a lot of ways. Uh, gosh, we have come across wild things.

Speaker A: Tune in to the next episode where Leah and I talk about sex, tech, and politics. Up next is a workplace confession read by an AI voice. And while many of us take the stairs for health reasons, some people jump into the stairwell for other hearts raising opportunities.

Speaker B: We've all done something bad at work. But here's your chance to confess. From small wrongs like borrowing office supplies to simplify your back to school shopping or snacking on a coworker's lunch, to the major workplace sins. Um, the sex, drugs, and rock and roll type. Here is today's conscious clearing confession.

Speaker C: Okay, back in the day, um, I had a little. I don't know what it was. It wasn't an affair. It wasn't a. It was a. There was a thing between me and a boy, um, and we were in the stairwell at work, and I was the aggressor to get him to, I don't know, like, make out or something. I don't. I mean, this was a really long time ago, but, um, and he was like, there's cameras.

Speaker B: There's.

Speaker C: There's. I'm like, there's no cameras here. I don't even know where we were. There might have been cameras, I don't know. But, um, I got him to kiss me in the stairwell. In the workplace where we were, stairwells are hotbeds of activity. Be suspicious since people act like they're going in for exercise, but they may be going in there to have their little rendezvous. Yeah, they're like, see you in the stairwell. I can't even tell you how many stairs there are. What could be more sterile and less romantic than a stairwell? And probably dirty, too. It was awful. But we couldn't be seen out in public anywhere, so, you know, that was the next best choice. And it would have been too smart to leave work to do that. You know, that would make too much sense.

Speaker A: Now clear your conscience by submitting your workplace confession@cultureandstrategylab.com podcast. Tune in next week to learn the surprising things that Leah discovers during ediscovery, problematic trends in HR tech, and approaches to handle the political divide when people bring their whole selves to work. Thanks for listening to the show. If you work in HR and have a story to share, please Visit my website, cultureandstrategylab.com Podcast stories are what we remember and how we connect, so please share yours with me.

Speaker C: Thanks.

Speaker A: At Culture and Strategy Lab, we get to the heart of your business to help you breathe life into your values. And we help you create an hr, uh, strategy that aligns your culture to your business. Haiku for Leah. Leah's wise counsel helps navigate work and life. The best kind of boss.