HR Confidential: What HR really wants you to know

Ready for some workplace secrets?
 
In this episode, we dig into what HR REALL wants you to know: from office romances and dealing with disruptive colleagues to addressing the pitfalls in DEI and the hiring process.
 
My guest is Katherine McCord, a globetrotting People Operations entrepreneur and international speaker.
 
Whether it is revolutionizing HR Tech, innovating DEI, Recruiting, and HR for clients, or being the Founder of The Neuroverse, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to building inclusion and elevating neurodiversity, Katherine always brings everything back to her three missions: integrity, inclusion, and innovation.
 
With her unique blend of humour and insight, Katherine brings a light-hearted perspective to these serious matters, making our discussion both enlightening and enjoyable.
 
Connect with her on Linkedin 

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Big shout out to my podcast magician, Marc at iRonickMedia for making this real.

Thanks for listening!

Transcript

Katherine McCord: 0:00

And I have people that have given me the whole spiel. Well, what about if it works? Okay, first of all, did you believe that Cinderella was a true story? Like most of them, be honest. And anytime it's an affair and all that it just brings a lot of drama. Just don't do that to your work reputation. I have seen people shattered. I've seen careers shattered, because that's what they decided to do. And not just at that place like they had silver getting adjusted, because that follows and evaluates sexual harassment if it's manager and employee.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 0:35

Welcome back friends to the podcast and said at work. I'm your host, Catherine Stagg, Macy, and I'm intrigued by conversations that go on spoken in the workplace and want to get back to your story of my career a few years ago. And it's got to do with HR because that's kind of a theme for today's episode. And my first introduction to HR the first time I had really had to ask anything of them was I think it was about 9093 94. When I filed a sexual harassment complaint against my boss, it taken a lot of courage to get to that point, people around me, including my father had counseled me against doing it. And anyway, I went in and do it, I felt it was the right thing to do. And that experience with HR left me feeling completely unheard, and unseen and unsupported, I was told that there was nothing they could do without proof. The HR person showed very little concern for my continued safety in the role given that the person in the complaint was actually my boss. So I admit this experience has cast a really dark shadow over what I thought the value of HR was like the one time I needed them, they weren't there. And so I probably said some unkind things about HR. But over the years, I had the opportunity to work closely with different HR professionals in various capacities. And this really allowed me to appreciate the delicate balance that they've got to maintain between employee welfare and the legal obligations that they have and the country that they're in, as well as the expectations being set by them by leadership, and HR is often not our senior leadership table. So they are receiving orders from the leadership team as well without much of understanding of what HR can can do. So I've always been intrigued now by the internal workings of HR and these responsibilities. So I set up to find an expert with the HR experience to pull back the curtains of what life is like in HR, what are they really thinking of us and me as employees and things that we get up to it. So joining me today is Catherine McCourt is a remarkable individual who's navigated her journey from childhood entrepreneurship, which included firing her mother, which is just adorable to becoming a globe trotting people's operations entrepreneur and an international speaker. She has multiple physical and neuro diversities from MCS and seizures to bipolar and OCD and claims very solidly, that she's successful. With her diagnosis not not in spite of them. Her focus is really around integrity and inclusion and innovation. You'll hear more of that. In our conversation. She has left a mark on revolutionizing HR tech, driving diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives recruiting and nurturing neurodiversity through her own non for profit organization company reverse. So in our conversation, Katherine, I go into a range of topics from office romances to how to deal with disruptive colleagues, to addressing the pitfalls that she sees in di initiatives, and how we muck up the hiring process, as the hiring managers also was challenging notion of how we seem to expect HR to be mind reader's. With her unique blend of humor and insight. She's gonna bring a really light hearted perspective to the serious matters, making our discussion really enjoyable and enlightening. Even though the topics are hard, I had a good laugh throughout, even even in some of the tougher areas, and I expect you will too. So share your podcast experience in me send me an email, tell me how this podcast is making a difference in your life. If there's any topics that you'd like me to delve into, that we haven't already covered, or other topics you want me to do more? I would love to hear that. And into the moment, let's go listen to my conversation with Katherine. Katherine record, welcome to unset at work, I'm excited to get in this conversation about what you really want us to know as an HR director,

Katherine McCord: 4:17

you I'm excited to tell everybody what I really want them to know because it really helped me in the future.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 4:24

I can see you making people listen to this in advance of you working with is gonna be my new requirement to onboarding as a client is you must

Katherine McCord: 4:34

get going with all and I think I have some friends who are also consultants who will do a similar type of fantastic.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 4:42

I love that. So tell us a bit about you and what lights you up about this work in HR that

Katherine McCord: 4:47

you do. So I am a People Operations consultant, which is the human side of HR so very much focused on innovating, hiring, I'm very innovative in everything that I do we get Very creative. I don't believe in out of box solutions. So we talked about firing, I do employee relations, I do leadership, consulting, training, all of that kind of fun stuff. I also speak and teach at an international level on topics of inclusion with a specialty and neuro diversity inclusion. And I love this work, because there's always something new, there's always something crazy and funny, and I never am bored is a fun place. What

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 5:29

are your key values?

Katherine McCord: 5:31

Yeah, I know, for my prep call, you are full of stories, you seem to take a very humorous angle on things. Everything's funny, like, that's just how I get through life is that to me, literally, everything is fine.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 5:42

I think the listeners are going to see that as we unpack all this. My plan for this call just for the listeners to know is to see if we can mind the things that Gassendi represents the whole of HR globally wants us to know, HR directors are really thinking about and the first one is that you're not mind reader's, which is a great surprise.

Katherine McCord: 6:02

Yeah, like people seem to think that we're like psychic humans, and that we objectively know all of these things. And we don't ever really, nobody's a mind reader, and we need to be keeping that at the forefront of our brains. So I'll give you a great example of this. So I was working with a client of mine on an employee relations issue. And there was a bullying scenario, the person who was the alleged victim of set bullying came to me and goes, well, you know, what it's like to be bullied and no, is it a rope? So tell me what you're experiencing? Talk to me about this? Well, you know, what, what they say when they're mean to you, like, no, I need to have the specifics, please, if you walk me through the step by step, so that can take us and then the reason I told him the reason I was asking that, why it was important that they would understand and got through that. And that took some time, right. And because I had to coax it out, it's often assumed I would just know what bullying meant. It's different for every single human. So you have to document. So then we get to the other side of it. And I go through everything with the alleged perpetrator. But the best part is I go to my client, and they go, Well, you know, thinking that I know what's in your head about this completely random thing. And by the way, we've only been working together for like two weeks, I didn't this was not like a well established client of mine. Like, a really deep relationship, and there was just all of this assumption that I would just magically know what was inside of everybody's brain. And the same thing, when it comes to hiring is like, Oh, well, you've done what we want, we'll know I don't know what you want, what you want is going to be different from these other humans. It's so there's always this assumption that like, Oh, you just are magically going to know, and it's the same thing with inclusion. People will think, Oh, gee, league, you should just know what I'm going to consider to be sexist, or when I'm going to be racist, or I'm going to consider to be homophobic. But the truth is that our responses to things are based on our own experience. And so this other person didn't have those experiences. So we have to share with them and tell them these things and say, Hey, that doesn't work for me. Here's what's going on. Because nobody, not just HR people. Nobody is a mind reader. The land of assumptions. Now they make a fool out of us. Yes, yeah. We're always assuming things about other people. And usually our assumption is that they've had the same experiences as us. So they know all the same stuff.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 8:37

And that because you HR, you've seen loads of examples of bullying or something, and then there's some standard form of bullying.

Katherine McCord: 8:45

That is not a thing. Everybody does it in a new way. There's always a new weird sexual harassment thing. There's always some new weird fraud issue that we're having to deal with. There's always something crazy and silly and just like, like, it's not selling in a good way. But like, why is that what you came up with? It's always something new and challenging. And so every single circumstance is different. Every single one, it strikes me, there's this paradox set up between HR policies and procedures, like we have an anti bullying procedure, perhaps when the procedure meets human humanity. A lot of things that go on, and I think too, that a lot of people don't realize that hrs, job it, there's this misunderstanding that hrs job is to protect the company. Well, there's a certain aspect of that, but that's not exactly it. It's our job to enforce the policies and procedures and the law. And that's what a lot of people forget, is that there's a legal aspect to a lot of what we do, even though something may also be a policy and procedure. A lot of times what we're doing is enforcing the law. And so, there are limitations sometimes that we can know, like This is complete nonsense. We can know that in our brains. But if it's not provable, then we have to act accordingly. And that can be really, really crazy frustrating. But yeah, it's this interesting tightrope that we will have to follow the legalities and the policies and procedures, but we also have to take care of the humans. And sometimes those things are conflicting. What's your view on the slime that HR isn't there for you as the employee, but as therefore does the employer take that on, because there are plenty out there that I firmly believe do not lobby work. And there's been kind of this whole, if you have an HR degree than your students the work absolutely. So number one, if a person cannot be objective, then they do not belong in HR, period. And now there can be just one circumstance where you can't be objective, okay, and then so you just remove yourself from that one circumstance. But if in general, you are not an objective person, you are highly opinionated. And you like to only go with your opinion, and you're unable to look at the other side of things effectively. You do not belong in HR. And I think that issue, but there are so many people who don't belong in HR is where we've got this. So there's that. And then also the misunderstanding that HR has any sort of power, we don't, we don't, now, I'm a consultant. So I have a kind of different circumstance. But when you are in a corporate setting, there is no power to HR, we cannot make the bosses do something we cannot make. All we can do is make recommendations, they do it or they don't. And sense it, a lot of people don't know that. It's very, there is no power at all, if there's rarely actually influence because a lot of HR people forget to create that input those relationships with the other people. The truth is that HR, people are often in the work because they do care. And they do want to make sure that things are going well for the humans. So what I always tell people is please don't, first of all, don't want to set what the few really awful ones out there, because they are out there. Number two, is, please understand that a lot of times what you're seeing as inactivity, or not caring, is that we are bound by policy procedure or by what leadership has dictated we must do. And that's just it. And there's why we've been inside Detroit, all I want to do is help you and I want to 100% agree with you and fire this person because they suck and all of this, and I can't because leadership, but let me and we also can't tell you that that is the burden of our job. And so please, often we are out there just going I agree with you. There's just only so much that we can do, which is also by the way by campaign in every organization that I talked to you for HR to not be under leadership whatsoever, but to be its own entity, so that at the very least they're not scared of losing jobs, that kind of thing. And then that they have a lot more say so within the HR at the leadership table is your suggestion. Yeah, that makes a lot more sense. To give it the cleanness of the power. Yeah, your story reminds you of my very first job, I was sexually assaulted by a boss and I took it to HR after much reflection, and he listened. He was a young man time and said, and this you can bring proof or someone else other people have similar experiences. So the more than one of you there's nothing I can do. And it's fitting tremendously to trade portrayed and acknowledged in the net experience and listening to you now, there's nothing else he could have done no as my word against. And you also can't acknowledge the quote, victim status, because then you're admitting that something happened, or legality issues that kind of makes you have to walk again, that very fine line. But no, I'm sorry, first of all, and I was once let go. I don't talk about this very often, I was once let go from an organization after filing a sexual harassment complaint. And just for the I was actually prepared for that to happen because it happened to be the boss's steps. So I was not shocked because of what happened. And the HR person that I dealt with, was grossly unprofessional and even went around talking about it to other employees. And it's horrible. And this is where, by the way, my solution for that our Employee Resource Groups. That's what we call them here in the state. It's a group of employees that come together who have had similar experiences that can work through themselves, also, at work, do things themselves, to then provide that person with any benefits that you have. And by the way, companies, you better have these types of things, benefits and mental health resources, advocacy groups, these kinds of things, where they this person can still go get help because this is going to be hard for him and what he can do Don't do what I hope he did if he didn't, I'm sorry, is make sure that you are in a safe position. So in other words, if if this is your boss, you are no longer on that team, you need to be on the team. And nothing changed. They can't do that was the 90s. If do you have to go way out here. But that's not an excuse. I don't give people excuse for like, this was just how it was. Yeah, excuse, but it's okay. But it was how it was, but I don't give the excuse. But making sure that person is safe. And all that is so very vital as well, folks, one of the other kind of takeaways I want you to take away from this is that you have rights. And your main right, that work is to be safe. So if something has made you feel unsafe, even if it can't be proven, they still need to make sure that you are safe. So there can be things changed to ensure your safety and well being at work, even if they gone to winch to acknowledge the thing that you're saying. Because you can still say I feel unsafe, and they have to address that. Interesting. That's yeah, that's

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 16:00

a powerful lesson here. I think yeah. Wow. Let's talk about diverse diversity. Inclusion is a theme that matters to you. And it's not just a buzzword for you. What do you want to know? What do you want leaders to know about this topic? In the theme?

Katherine McCord: 16:16

What are you thinking about the stuff that they didn't want you to know? Number one, like, for gosh sakes, like this is the part that just is appalling to me, is the it really just blows my mind. So let's put this out there. Inclusion cannot be exclusive. So you can't say we are inclusive, but we are inclusive. However. That's not it. If somebody comes to you, and they say, this is not inclusive for me, or I need this, then your job is just responding curiosity and say, Okay, tell me more about that. And to figure it out period, in the story. And if one of your policies or procedures is on inclusive, that you need to change it, period. So inclusion cannot be exclusive. Another one is, please stop putting. This is a plea from the mic here. Please stop putting people in charge of your inclusion efforts, who only care about one group of marginalized people. Now, you could still find that find use for that person on your D and I cheap, there can still definitely be parked, but the person who heads up inclusion needs to be somebody who sees the whole thing. And there is also a weird misconception that there's no benchmarking for our goal setting or KPIs or whatever you want to call it for D and I, that's completely false. If your inclusion program is working, here are the things that you can expect to see, you can expect to see improved employee satisfaction, improved retention, quicker times to hire on the front end, higher productivity, productivity shouldn't be going up if you're doing your job properly. And then you should be also seeing a lot more psychological safety. And that's less easy to mark, but you'll start to see the signs of it. And I always tell people, the signs that these are the things that you'll be seeing. And so if you're not seeing those things, your occlusion program is failing. How do you attribute the right uptick in those numbers to the inclusion program and not something else? Like good financial year and great bonuses or something? Well, first of all, some of those things, can the bonuses document, maybe play into the inclusion thing? Because maybe you weren't properly paying people? So to answer your question, so number one is that very rarely have it has anything else in the organization shifted enough that it would have caused such a dramatic change, right. And this, there's going to be different facets, because your leadership needs to needs to be properly trained, it needs to adjust. And your compensation plan might need to adjust your hiring team, I can pretty much guarantee you needs to make some pretty major adjustments. And there will be some new policies and procedures. So there will be a bunch of things that come together. But when you see that uptake, you're good. Now we've got it. And you should it should not adjust the number of people in marginalized groups being promoted and not just hired, let's talk about that. Name Server, we're doing that. But it's very rare that there's also something very dramatic that happens at the same time, like a new product, or a whole new sales campaign. In fact, one thing I tell companies is don't launch those things. Give your inclusion, don't launch them simultaneously, so that you can be sure and see. But even so, there are things that uptick in sales and all that wouldn't explain because people coming into your organization, they don't know about that. They don't care, that kind of thing. So there are still going to be those KPIs that are not affected by any of those other things.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 19:54

So it's really easy to make sense. You mentioned hiring processes there. I'm sure you have some things you Want us to know about the hiring process? We make that hard for you,

Katherine McCord: 20:05

the hiring process is so jacked up. Number one, when you are building out a hiring process for the role, please listen to the person who actually knows what they're doing, the person that you hired because that is their expertise, AKA your recruiting team, or perhaps your chief people, or whoever that is, you need to be listening to them. They are the experts, not you. It's okay that you're not an expert, that is not your job. It is their job. And if you hired appropriately, they should be good at it. So listen to them, please, when you don't, it slows down hiring, it causes candidates, one of the biggest mistakes that I see are hiring managers, and hiring teams that go way too slow. And recruiting is saying you need to keep it up need to get it moving, we need to, and they always have really busy Well, first of all, nobody's ever been that busy in the history of life. And I have proven every hiring manager who's ever given me that load of nonsense wrong, all of them to a person. So it's not a thing. But when you slow it down, what happens is the first push of candidates is the best one. Okay? Why the first round of just like what they were doing access when they're doing active sourcing this is less true with passive, but when they're doing active sourcing, the first round is the best. That's the best one. So you've just cost yourself quality a candidate, then you've delayed everything that the recruiting team has done, when you don't listen to them, and you cost them a candidate. So now they have to go back through and double and triple and quadruple their work, because you were too lazy to listen to them and to do what you needed to do. Which is usually like sending a very simple email. By the way, I don't understand why it's so complicated. So the other thing is it causes problems with candidate relationships. Recruiting has told them according to what you all agreed to expect feedback by XYZ. When that doesn't happen. Even if the recruiter is doing their job and staying on top of it and, and communicate with them. And promises still been broken. You've now lost your candidate trust, it's not good. So you need to listen to your recruiting team, take their leadership, and this, okay. I know hiring managers and our egos and work, people are the CTO, I shouldn't have to listen to this recruiter. Yes, you should. Because this is where they're an expert, they would listen to you if it was a techie, as you need to listen to them for the hiring issue, follow the leadership of your recruiting team, it will make everything run far more smoothly. And then also remember that candidates matter, folks, this isn't the days back in the 50s, where you're just lucky to get a job. Okay? They have the power right now. So if you aren't grasping that, talk to some folks out there, self included, who live, eat, live and breathe this every day, we will tell you, they have the power right now you need to be getting your stuff together and treating them accordingly. This is a mutual respect, process. Mutual, everybody needs to be professional, everybody needs to be mindful and inclusive and courteous. Everybody needs to be putting their best foot forward, not just the candidates. That's like the short version of the spiel. Because let me tell you that can be like colorism of conversation because that's what it just kills me, I had this client and I told them, I said, here's the steps that we have to follow to make we're doing a mass hire event to make this work. These are the steps that you have to follow. And you have to do same day offers or you will lose these people. They're in a complicated market, and it's manual labor jobs has to be on the spot. They didn't believe. And they did the whole process except for that. And I also told them that a Quick Start pace, they couldn't push them out. I said, I know it's gonna be hard to train that many people at once. But I have faith in you, you can do it. First thing they did is they didn't get all the offers out. And they lost a little over 50% of the candidates they wanted because of that, because they'd already gotten other jobs the next day, the next day, they got other jobs. Number two, is that then they pushed off the start dates. They lost another 26% Because they pushed out start dates. They ended up with less than 75 people that they wanted, because they didn't listen. And it's

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 24:19

gone in that time when they were part of the last year the whole investment the hiring managers have. Yeah. What's your take on hiring managers wondering like six interviews? Oh, god,

Katherine McCord: 24:32

get over yourself? No, never do it. The only time that you should ever go over three to four interviews is for sea level humans, that again, everybody else for less. If it's not, like director or something like our specialty, then it goes down to three or less if they're below if they're not management. Two, and by the way, the recruiting interview counts. So keep that in mind. And also, people don't realize this Any assessments that you have people do that counsel stuff, and interview staff, and out there specialty like cybersecurity professionals, okay, the I will have that, again, the three steps that's perfectly appropriate for them. What is unique about the sea level that has you because they offend the entire company. And if you're going to hand over basically a whole section of your company to somebody, you need to know them, okay? This is you're going to be trusting them to write, you're basically going to hand it off and say, go at that point. And that's a completely different relationship than someone who is just who has a piece of the puzzle of being a Grand Wizard, so to speak.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 25:37

From experience, I get that, yeah, the when it gets up to six, and sometimes more, in my experiences, it feels like it's this decision of my committee, you're not suggesting you just had another voice, you might have another different opinion to the horn versus what's How do you manage, say, six or eight receivable.

Katherine McCord: 25:55

So for six or eight, you don't need to ever repeat anything, ever. And this is in any interview process. So make sure that people are asking different things, and accomplishing different things with each step of the interview process, every single stage needs to accomplish something different. So however, that needs to look so ahead of time you say, these are the things we need to accomplish? How are we going to do them, some things can be accomplished together in the same interview, so on and so forth. So make sure that everything is a different aspect of the process. Now, when you're interviewing for people, and lower jobs, people always go, oh, well, the director wants to talk to them, Why is the director talking to someone who's working for the manager, that's, that makes no sense. That should never happen. Ever, in a million years, though, it needs to be the person that that is going to be over them, introduce them, and HR, slash recruiting. That's it. That's it. You don't need to have directors, you don't need to have VPS. If you trust the people under you, you can trust them to make the thing. You can control, trust and control. Those are the two issues. And so upper level, upper level, I cannot say that upper level, there we go. Meaning directors and above. Trust the people below you, you need to relinquish that control. Now, if you're still training them, like your director, who's training a brand new manager, okay. So participate. Explain to the candidate what's going on that kind of thing. Let them know that you're training this person. But other than that, no, they just trust trust the humans. And you know what, we are going to do reference checks and all that which I have mixed feelings on reference checks. But when you have somebody who you're saying is yes, this person is qualified, you don't need to put them through the wringer. Let's just have a conversation, you know, real quick, or somebody's got it? Well, I can I always laugh, because people think I've have some vigorous interview, for instance, based on the candidates. And I said, Oh, it's amazing how this person is matched up. Oh, it's amazing. That is literally the first phone call I had I spent 15 minutes with them. I knew exactly what they were the right fit for, you know how I know how to interview that. We are not teaching hiring teams, including recruiting, sadly, how to properly interview. And that's the thing we need to stop acting like, again, back to the minors. Why would somebody just know how to interview? Why would they just know that train people how to interview properly, I had a team one time that I built, and they were all brand new to recruiting, I had somebody who just kind of working at Sonic, I had several security guards. I had a retail manager, former military or retired military, however you want to say that, et cetera. And I trained them all. They all to person went on to have a successful recruiting career and be at the top of their field. And one of the things that everybody kept praising them on is how they interviewed. And I said, the skill you have to train people. It's not about periods. It's not about a degree. How do you interview people? That's what makes every recruiter and hiring. That's what I've, that's what I've seen is the people lack confidence. And so it's like, well, let

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 29:04

me just get Yeah. So and so I can maybe I'll get you to speak to so and so. And then I can dilutes the risk that I feel the exposure I feel giving you a yes or no to hiring.

Katherine McCord: 29:16

You hit the nail. If I make no decision, everyone's gonna think I'm a failure. Well, first of all, we've all made bad hiring decisions Calm down, it's if it's a repeated problem, okay, we need to train you. But that's it. Give people the autonomy, give people the training so that they have the competence. So they know that they've asked the right questions, they've hit on the right points, and then just let it let it go. Keep it simple. We really overcomplicate the hiring process. We really do. I feel like my resume suck. I'm just gonna put that out. Resume stock, they need to be fired. Just get rid of them.

Unknown: 29:50

I think we should do a whole episode on just how to hire. I would be interested in doing that. Yeah, it's a whole other talent. Yeah, I think a lot of my cons would be more relieved if they knew that skill as well, that feels like it brings a lot of anxiety for people about, I have to hire someone and I can my last two weren't great.

Katherine McCord: 30:07

I don't really know what went wrong, and how do I not do the same? Again, make friends or just feel like magic and mystery? You I think part of it too, is understanding what you actually made. So a lot of people they think only the meat potatoes, they get these ideas in their head of you must have this exact thing. Well, why I had a company where I built that team I just talked about, they said, You need experienced recruiters, I said no, no. I said, we need the people with the right skill set to make great recruiters. And then give me a couple of weeks. They'll be fantastic. So there's that, then there's also understanding the mission of each role. That's how I like to focus on what's the mission, or what are we trying to accomplish? And that's where we put our focus. Let's take

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 30:54

a sharp turn left and took about six in the workplace in the office romances.

Katherine McCord: 31:00

Oh, we all know right? We all know when it's happening. First of all, you are fooling you are fooling. No one we all see it we all know is going on an HR the entire time is just glaring at you just waiting for the day that this comes to their office. I had a past client whom I had to fire who fall fetch to hire his girlfriend's, as his assistant, continue said office romance and admire her upon breaking up with her own man which ones without as well as you would think isn't. I also knew another circumstance where the two co workers were having an illicit affair and one of them was married. And then the next day, you know, we have a very angry spouse up at the workplace causing a scene, then we had to deal with the two of them. There were safety issues involved at this point based on certain things that happened when the spouse came out. And it just blew up. And I have people that have given me the whole spiel well. But again, if it works, okay, first of all, did you believe that Cinderella was a true story, like most of the time, be honest, in anytime it's an affair and all that it just brings a lot of drama. Just don't do that to your work reputation. I have seen people shattered, I've seen careers shattered, because that's what they decided to do. And not just at that place like they had trouble getting a job. Because that follows. And in by the way, it's sexual harassment. If it's manager and employer, something to her leadership and employee important to keep in mind. There's also legalities. If you find somebody at the office that you find is interesting that you would like to pursue, you need to have an honest conversation with them. And y'all need to hash out boundaries, maybe one of you should if it's really that serious, one of you should consider finding a new job first, and dating to preserve the integrity of your careers. If not, if you let's say you're in different departments, so there may not be a lot of overlap that I've seen that work. In fact, my husband and I have worked for the same companies that everybody knew what was going on, even when we were still just dating. If you're in different departments, just let HR know. Just let them know, just that we're entering into a conceptual relationship. This is what's happening. We are in different departments, we don't see how there will be any overlap. Are there any concerns on your end, so that then they can come to you and say, Okay, well just so happens, we're about to merge your departments that's going to create an issue, let's see your situation. And it also keeps everything on the up and up so that there's no misconstrued situation of harassment, because I've also seen that somebody delivered flowers to somebody else, a coworker of the recipient of the flowers saw the card saw who was from assume sexual harassment and recorded it on behalf of that person. Because the person who received it was shy and like not wanting to talk, so the person misunderstood the shyness as, oh, you're upset, this person's harassing you. It all worked out, but it was a big hoopla that did not need to happen. So try not to and never do if you're in leadership, and the person is one of you needs to leave a position. That is not okay. It is automatically sexual harassment and not just from a legal standpoint, it is an implied threat. I will see some definite misuse of power, and then just talk to HR be upfront. Let people know if you're in an appropriate situation to do it, same department. But if you're in the departments, departments that can work but just divisions even now, yes. Yeah. It's interesting that the amount of drama as you said, introduces and at the point I was really struck with is it it's your career on the line. If you are one of the people in the romance, it's good Read, it's not just a bit of fun, you're playing games with your own group, you don't know how this is gonna work out? Oh, yeah, I've seen Oh God, and then I've seen the, it's not harassment until we break up. Now you mentioned that maybe you want to go out again, now I'm going to file sexual harassment against you. I've seen that happen. And by the way, technically, they are correct. That is, as long as they've already told you, it's unwanted. Like there's specifics that go behind that. So be mindful, just you really need to try. And also, as somebody who has worked with their significant other successfully, might I add, every person who's worked with us would tell you that it was wildly successful. Most things we were always in almost always in different departments or different types of positions. One of the main things is to keep your personal life events 100% It's not nothing personal is discussed. Nothing personal. None of that, just keep it away. And then another aspect is that you never publicly side with or against the other human. Either way, it's just gonna create, drop, just stay out of anything that goes on with that other person. This is work they can handle get

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 36:19

misconstrued will be misconstrued, even if that was never your intention or anything like that. People will project onto you. Try not to Yeah, well, we all human creatures, I think it's easier said than done by someone, a lot of what I see.

Katherine McCord: 36:35

I tell people like there's always things like talk to HR wanting to get a different job first, if it's really that serious, because I know people I've met. And that's cool. But they handled it properly. They went through the right steps. So it was a successful relationship.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 36:48

I mean, that's encouraging there as a way of, if you really think this is the zeal, person for life.

Katherine McCord: 36:56

It's worth the conversation with HR, it's worth a career shift.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 37:03

So we've talked about Office romances, and some of the babies are what make makes me think of the jokes. The jokes in the office, what is HR, really thinking as you sit on the sidelines and watch the jerk in the team that gets injured, tolerated? What's your thinking, fire

Katherine McCord: 37:22

on this. Margin marching up the door, like every HR person is sitting there like in their mind packing this person's box. Letter and physically escorting this person out the door, and locking it behind them. Because they're nightmares. I mean, can destroy companies I've shared with you previously, I had a client who lost their entire organization to a jerk because they got sued into oblivion. It was awful. It was just terrible. I have seen somebody who was not previously a jerk become one. And those can be hard. Because there was so much trust established, there was so much benefit. But what you have to look at is kind of the What have you done for me lately, right? Like that old lady song. But it's really true. You have to stop and go, Okay, this pattern is destructive. It cannot be tolerated. Out you go. And that's just it. And it can be painful. It can be very sad. In some cases, other times everybody's really happy about it. I've actually, like had people put on party music and start dancing. After I walked out a job. That is not a joke, isn't. It wasn't a workplace. They literally put on dance music, and everybody was dancing to get the energy out. It wasn't celebration, it was like, Yes, we are safe. We are good. Like it was positive, nice thing. They weren't being ugly to that other person. It was just, we need to embrace energy. That's

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 38:47

cleanse. Yeah, that's a good idea.

Katherine McCord: 38:50

And so that's what we're thinking is just fired. And why are we tolerating this event, we don't need to, there are tons of people out there that can do their job that have tons of talent, we don't need them. So I always tell people, if you need to follow certain procedures, or whatever that you have laid out, great, do it. But get with HR and get them out the door. Just boom, there you go. And if they do something egregious, gone, just Yeah. We heard somebody say something told him to go home, but they're desperately did the paperwork on the backend. There are times that you don't need to put your team through all of that drama, just fixed the problem. And by the way, if you want to send a message to everybody else of what you do, and do not have a very public firing works really well. Yeah, and that was undervalued. Right, it's, well, I

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 39:43

have these conversations with people going to think I'm going to need to find so and so. And anyway, it's a protracted coaching conversation for three months about why are we still talking about this person? Yeah, there's a few things that we want to pass through that I've seen that no one's ever fired too late, too soon, rather than I've never heard someone going, Oh, we shouldn't have, we shouldn't give them an another month before we fired them like never ever. So it really is a timing, it's probably too late already, you've missed that boat missed the boat. And the second is under estimating the message it gives to people. Because everyone like what you said, everyone's seeing the signs, like, why are we tolerating that person, it's

Katherine McCord: 40:19

completely contrary to the values that we supposedly have in this organization. Whenever they are a good friend of mine, always, her name's Andy Cook, and she's brilliant human, she always says, you can don't 100% of the things you don't condemn who to say that, again, you can don't 100% of the things you don't condemn. And that is true. So when you allow somebody's bad behavior, even if you behind the scenes, give them a little, you should say that's not nice trying to talk, you just showed everybody that you're laughing, that that is a behavior can be tolerated. It's very important to very publicly condemn bad behavior. So even let's say it's not something that you might want to fire somebody over. For instance, I walked into a situation at one point where an employee had accidentally said something that was perceived as racist. And I completely understand how it was perceived that way. And later, the person did feel very bad. But in the moment I stopped, and I said, I don't think that's being viewed as an inclusive statement. Let's go have a conversation. But I let everybody know that this was being addressed. And then when they came out, and we hash this out, and everybody understood that the one person had apologized and understood their mistake, they also came out and told everybody, we worked it out. We're good, you know, like, it was a very public thing. I also have walked in on circumstances. I said earlier, I walked in at one point and fired somebody on the spot. And I did, I walked in to something grotesque, being said, by one employee to another, I just I held up my hands. And everybody got real quiet. I said, Did everybody hear that? And they said, Yes. And I said, Get your stuff and get out. I later had several people come up to me and say, Thank you. Thank you. And what I found out that day was that this person had been saying things like that for a while. But people were trying to get along. They were trying to, like maybe he was having a bad day, maybe whatever. And so also understand that once you're the boss and you see it, or you're made aware of it, this has already been going on. This is not this is established the first time. So it's just important, and letting your team know that you will stand up for them. It's not people as well, they have a family, oh, I don't want to do who for them. No, they made their choice. Forget that. They made that choice that they did, what about

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 42:51

200 other families and your to be safe? It was yes,

Katherine McCord: 42:55

your responsibility is to everyone, not the individual, your responsibility and leadership is to take care of this team and of the company, not that individual. Now, taking care of individuals can be part of that. But the second that they make the choice of actions shouldn't be part of that. But once that person makes the choice, to become an adversary, and to become harmful to other people in the workspace, they must go, they are no longer safe. They must go who just so remember, like that's the number one thing that I would say that HR people want you to know. Because we all think it we all talk about it when we go to our conventions, we all post about it on LinkedIn, is that you can don't 100% of the things that you don't condemn. So when you're thinking about inclusion, when you're thinking about leadership and how they behave, when you're thinking about individuals in your organization, your expectations. Keep that in mind.

Catherine Stagg-Macey: 43:55

I think it's a great place to throw this conversation to a conclusion. Yeah, I think it's such a rallying cry there for really stepping into your leadership on it. But yeah, and owning it, and having the courage to, to show what you really stand for and the values of you and the organization to protect the majority in the organization. Catherine, it's been a delight. Thank you for your time and doing work. Absolutely, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. Whenever I chat with cancer, and it is a guarantee, I find myself laughing No matter what the topic is. If you found this episode enjoyable, you're in for a treat. I had another fascinating conversation here. Coming on Horizon about workplace grievances. It's the process that I find is one of the most daunting processes especially just considering heart, the gravity of them. And as an outsider, we really get to see how these processes operate. It feels like a big black box to kick off the process and sorts of things happen behind closed doors and different people get involved with different times and no one gets told match up As an owner and HR as the as the common denominator here, they get to see the whole process. So I think it's useful to understand more about what goes on in this process just that it either curiosity or, God forbid there is a time that you need to make a complaint or you're on the receiving end, and they would also help with that. So stay tuned for that upcoming episode set to be released in a few weeks. And be sure to hit that subscribe button so you don't miss it. And until next time, this is your woman signing off