S2, Ep 1: HR isn't just a cleanup crew

In this episode of HR Peep Show, hosts AnnE Diemer, Claire Baker, and Krista Lane make the case that HR is most effective as a proactive partner rather than an emergency responder – and unpack how delays in looping HR in compound operational, emotional, retention, and compliance risks. They explore how leaders tend to hold off on bringing HR into the conversation until issues have already escalated – unresolved patterns, burnout, communication breakdowns, performance concerns, or payroll and compliance errors that harden into documented problems once employees take notice. They dig into why "little things are big things," why avoidance is still a decision, and how HR expertise surfaces early warning signs and builds sustainable processes that stop fires before they start. They also tackle why people hesitate to involve HR – naming low trust as a real barrier – and argue that trust gets built through consistent, proactive relationship-building, regular check-ins, clear communication, and stepping in to facilitate hard conversations before problems become irreversible.

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Transcript

Krista: Welcome to HR Peep Show, where we pull back the curtain of life in human resources in the United States.

AnnE: I'm AnnE Diemer.

Claire: I'm Claire Baker. 

Krista Lane: I'm Krista Lane, and we are your hosts. We may be new to podcasting, but not when it comes to people work. We are each fractional consultants at the intersection of people and operations with a collective several decades of experience, both in-house and consulting under our belts. 

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AnnE: Today we're peeking behind the HR curtain to learn about how to work with HR, not around us. A lot of folks see HR as the ones responsible for cleaning up the mess, but we're here with a hot take. HR can and should be proactive. We'd much rather get ahead of a problem than come in after it's already escalated. But honestly, a lot of times managers and leaders would rather avoid working with HR unless it's absolutely necessary. Allow us to make the case for talking to us earlier. When you pull back the HR curtain, you'll see we're most effective as strategic partners, not emergency responders, but most people only call us when it's already a five alarm fire. And the real damage happens in that gap between when you should loop an HR and when you finally do. And it's time we talk honestly about why bringing us in earlier protects everyone. It doesn't just protect the business. So let's start by painting a picture of what all we're talking about here. Can you both tell me about a situation that you've dealt with in the last few years where you were brought in too late? I'm most interested in hearing about what you think could have gone differently had you been brought in sooner. Krista, should I start with you?

Krista: I mean, most of the client engagements, I think that, that I've been brought into, and maybe AnnE, this is true for you too, are where like the, the client hasn't felt the pain until much later than  I probably might have seen the problem. But again, that's, you know, because I'm not internal to the company in that moment.

AnnE: Okay. So you say they're not necessarily feeling the pain that you would be feeling. Is there anyone who is feeling that pain and like, how do we raise up their voices? How do we hear what they're saying? Because maybe that's an indicator of when HR could come in sooner.

Krista: Yeah. What I, what I notice is that a lot of times it's um, like sometimes it's a situation where people haven't felt like it's important enough or a big enough deal or enough of a pattern. Or, or like, maybe they know it's a pattern, but they again, don't think it's a big enough deal or don't think it's worth bringing up to someone. Or maybe they've talked about it with their manager, but maybe their manager didn't really handle it very well, or was dismissive, or just had a lot of other stuff going on on their plate. Again, like they didn't think it was that important to, to deal with. I think part of the problem and, and something I, a conversation I have often with clients is like you know, we'll be sorting out the priorities of things that, you know, there. By this time, there's usually multiple things on fire, right? Um, it's not just that it's a five alarm fire on one issue. It's often that things have bled out into other areas. Um, and so we're talking about prioritizing and the things that are on the bottom of the list are often, I think, the lowest hanging fruit to start tackling because there's not as much emotional attachment to it. And it may be really easy to ignore because it's not urgently on fire, but that's how you get out of the cycle and how you break that reactive cycle, and say like, we are listening. We are paying attention. This is something we should address before it becomes a big deal.

AnnE: Yeah. I think when we're brought in a little late, there's a lot of emotions building up, and that can be a really hard thing to overcome. Claire, when you're brought in late, your work tends to be more HR operations-y. Do you have that emotional buildup that you're having to deal with when there's like ops problems or is it more kind of quote unquote technical debt that you're having to deal with?

Claire: yes. so I think. Uh, because I'm dealing with a lot of like ops, which generally shows up in payroll, because everything is tracked in payroll. Everything has a footprint in payroll and compliance, right? So, it's compliance makes the rules and payroll is the logs and you would be astonished how much shit goes wrong in payroll, every single pay cycle, but somebody is catching it and fixing it. And so when people are bringing me in too late, it's because the employee has complained. And that means that somebody has already done the illegal thing and they're, I mean, not illegal, right? Like it's, you know, not necessarily a crime, but. The out of compliance thing and now there is a log that it happened and you know, pay stubs and things are legal documents. And so now there is a legal document that like unambiguously says that this happened and we're having to unravel that. And so, you know, when people are, are pulling me in too late, it usually means that it was the employee who brought it up rather than somebody else who had insight like earlier on in the process. And so it becomes an employee relations issue when it just like had to be a, let's tweak this policy. Let's just change how we handle this. Let's not make that decision that turns out to be out of compliance and like actually think about it ahead of time. And, and, kind of, yeah, too late is once you've hit that submit button and the employee sees it, is, is usually when I'm brought in and we can, we can recover it. We just have to be a lot more careful and it people do not appreciate when you make mistakes with their pay.

 [00:05:00]

AnnE: I hear that. I also don't appreciate when people make mistakes with the pay. But that's a helpful kind of metric to have that, at least for your work, once you're hearing about it from an employee, that means you're a little late to bring in HR. Please still do, but you probably needed it a little bit sooner. And just recognizing how many points there are, where we could be doing double checking to prevent those issues down the line. And that's where the kind of proactive piece comes in.

Krista: yeah, I like to say, um, like little things are big things. and, and it's a phrase I, I will say often, like some of my clients might even recognize it cause I'll say it all the  time. But like, it really is true because a lot of the times that we're coming in, like we get called in sometimes as emergency responders, right?But by that point, like so much is not fixable. Like in, in Claire's case, I think it is more fixable, right? Like it's, it's easy enough to like pay somebody the right thing and adjust, you know, obviously it still sucks to have your pay not appropriately issued in the first place. But like, it's, it, you know, it, it doesn't have the same, hh, like emotional ties as like someone who feels repeatedly wronged and like injustice has been done to them over and over again, or they're burned out or whatever it is, like in that kind of emotional state, it is so hard to repair. Sometimes it's too late. Like, you know, they're like, well, it's nice that you're here now, but like, I'm already done. I'm over it. I'm, I'm quitting. Right? So it's a huge retention risk. It's a huge burnout risk cause sometimes like seeing things go unresolved for a long time, even if you are the person who didn't feel like it was important enough to bring up, can still wear you down and, and make it really hard to come back from.

AnnE: Yeah, I feel like the thing we see as consultants is people are bringing us in for one thing and then we have a couple conversations and we're actually like, you're actually, you don't know this, but you're bringing us in for a different thing. I think sometimes people think, oh, we've got a big per. 

Krista: All the time! I keep debating whether I should even write a scope of work before I join an engagement because it's like totally different every time.

AnnE: Totally. 

Krista: I'm like, that's probably my own fault, but.

AnnE: but I think to get like specific and give folks examples, because clearly people are not knowing when to bring HR in. When I'm saying here, you gotta bring in HR earlier, people are like, “when? What does that mean?”

 So I think to get more specific, we've been called in for like a performance issue on a team like this team is not performing well and very rarely are we like, okay, well let's fire that team. There's probably more to the performance issue than that, and it tends to be burnout, it tends to be internal communication issues. It tends to be all of these things down the line that are just coming from, you know, not doing some of the best practices for organizational development and, I don't know, just like general business function, I feel like. So a time to call us in, I would think would be. If you don't feel like you're using a lot of the common best practices or you don't have, oh, I don't know. I don't really know how to like say what I'm saying, but like if you're, if you feel like things are a little bit all over the place and a little bit chaotic, that's actually a good time to bring us in before you think someone's gonna quit or before there's an issue with someone's payroll, because that means things are going to happen and let's see if we can get ahead of it .I don't know. Does that make any sense?

[00:10:00]

Claire: Less so.

Krista: I think what, what Annie's trying to say is, and maybe this, maybe this, thinking about it backwards, but like it is a tricky thing to answer because on the one hand, like. A practice that focuses on prevention will, by definition, if we've done our jobs right, if we actually ever did get called in earlier, if we've done our jobs right, there won't be any problems for us to be solving, right? There'll be small changes that we might make over time that don't feel super consequential that don't feel like we're really dramatically changing the environment, but that ultimately help course correct and build sustainable processes and things like that, that prevent burnout, that prevent miscommunications, that get blown outta proportion  that, you know, actually have people with management training. Managing people, um, which is a common source of conflict. 

So yeah, it's, it's one of those things, it's like, it's kinda like stage management in that, like, like the, you know, there's obvious stuff. Like, I think, like, I think like payroll is the, is the, is the light's not going on, right? Or like the, you know, on the stage, right. But then like the stuff, like someone misses their cue or there's some 0ther kind of, you know, those things are really obvious, and make sense, that you need to fix. But like to really fix them, you gotta think about it a little bit earlier than that and like try and build it from the beginning, with those outcomes in mind.

Claire: I think it's also like one of those things where it's really easy to have the kind of hubris where you think, oh, I can do that. Like I've never done this before, but like I can totally make these decisions. I. And you don't really realize the skill that goes into it, I think, and it, it's a little bit like if I sit down at a piano, I can bang on the keys, but nobody wants to listen to that. And so it's just somebody who knows all of this skill, whatever goes into like playing a piano correctly, not the way that I do it. And, and that sense of rhythm and all of that practice and having done the reps that it, it's difficult to articulate, but when you bring in an expert that just is able to see those early warning signs like Krista's describing, and is able to say, Hey, actually I don't think you realize that there's a decision you're making here. And by not making that decision, that is also a decision. And so maybe we should talk

Krista: Yes. Avoidance is not a, is a decision in itself that has different consequences.

AnnE: Or when it comes to payroll, like trusting that the tool can just do it for you  and being like, oh, we don't need a human to do that. You do. Payroll tools are not perfect and there's a reason why we check them, and I don't know that folks know that. And it comes back to, I feel like a thing that we're always talking about in HR Peep show, which is that we do have a skillset here that we're using. We have worked really hard on this. We have done a lot of learning. We have seen a lot of things, um, trusting that that skillset is specific in the same way, I love your example of playing a piano, Claire, of like, there is theory behind it. There is structure. People work, has theory and structure. Using an expert can be really helpful. And not waiting to have that expert be an emergency responder can be really helpful.

Claire: Here, here. 

AnnE: So with that, I feel like we have an idea of at least why we think HR needs to be brought in sooner. You know, I'm hearing from Krista. People are quitting. There are performance issues. People are unhappy. I'm hearing from Claire that when there are these payroll issues, by the time an employee notices it, it's a little too late. You have to do a lot to kind of make up for that, build that trust back, and that's why we wanna be coming in earlier. That said, I also understand why some folks are hesitant to bring in HR earlier sometimes. I have friends who will ask me, “okay, should I go to HR about this? Should I, should I bring in HR?” And my response is usually, “well, do you trust HR?” People usually say no. 

So I wanna ask you all, what does it look like to trust HR? When should you be trusting HR with these issues? When do you need more of an expert in rather than just a founder who thinks they can be HR for the day.

Claire: There'sa lot of bad HR out there. Like I, I'm afraid to make a blanket rule 'cause not everybody's good and not everybody's good at everything too 

[00:15:00]

Krista: yeah. I like to say for this reason, 'cause I agree there's a lot of bad HR out there. That trust is earned.Aand so it's, you know, it, we can't assume or like demand it, That's, I think why it's so important to have great internal teams, or at least give them the support that they need to be that trusted resource. And that's why it's so important to be proactive about how, how you show good faith, how you show that you are trustworthy. And that can be really small things like over communicating new benefits or making sure that, you know, people have what they need to do their jobs well. Or checking in with people proactively, even if they're not making a complaint or anything, just like have a coffee chat every once in a while. Those are, you know, really small things that can add up to demonstrate, like you gotta show, you can't just tell, 

AnnE: Totally.

Claire: We, I mean, are we talking about employees or are we talking about leaders too? Because I think that that also makes a difference

Krista: Yeah, 

AnnE: I mean, I think both. I feel like the answers you all just gave was definitely more employees/IC focused. Do you have a different answer for how managers and leaders can build that trust? 

Krista: I probably have the same approach for managers just in terms of, especially like line managers. Um. For, you know, making, making proactive avail, you know, it's like, kind of like the HR business partner is a common role for this, like building a relationship with those managers, um, and proactively identifying opportunities to support them in ways that maybe they aren't even thinking about, um, right now. Or maybe not prioritizing. On, like when I'm with a client, it's a little bit different because I'm, I don't have a preexisting relationship with the company. I'm not an internal employee. So I try to build trust very quickly. But usually I'm coming in as we're talking about like when things are kind of on fire already .Right? So I, there's this, There's either a hopelessness that's happening if it's really bad and they're like, well, I have nothing left to lose. I'll tell you whatever you wanna know, but I don't think it's gonna help. Or there's a, a welcoming that happens because they're like, oh my gosh, somebody's here to save us. Like, hooray. That's often what happens with me. And so, but I would imagine that. Trust might be harder for me to earn if a company is truly bringing me in on a fractional basis earlier than obvious problems have come to light. which is interesting to think about. I hadn't really thought about it that way,

AnnE: But I prefer that to coming  in as the savior. I have, I have a lot of concerns about when we come in and people are like, oh, thank God you're here. I'm like, oh no. No, I don't want that response because 1)  I'm not here for forever. If we're talking about our roles, as you know, fractional HR, I'm not here for forever .I'm here for a fixed period of time. If we're going to think about something sustainable, I can't be a savior. So that almost makes me nervous when that happens. But I don't think we spoke to kind of what you were saying, Claire, about like how do leaders know that they can trust us? 

Claire: I think like when it goes badly is when somebody has already made the decision and I have to be the cleanup crew. Um. And, then I'm in the position of doing that thing that everybody hates about HR, where it's like, yeah, we screwed you. And like, now I'm protecting the company and you're getting the short end of the stick. but like if I can come in before we make that decision, then I can take the manager out of that situation or whoever made that decision right? Or didn't make the decision. And like they don't want the accountability of that. Like they probably did not know that what they were doing was a problem. And so if I can come in and prevent them from making that decision and find a better way to do whatever they need to do. And there often is a better way. They just didn't know about it because they haven't faced this before. Then I can earn the leaders’ trust because we just found a thing to, a way to make what they wanted happen, happen. And I can explain on the employee side, I understand why, you know, you don't, you might not like this or you know, it doesn't seem ideal or rational, but like this is why we made that decision and that is a much easier place to be in. And then I also have the, because I'm not having to cover for an Oopsie, I also have like the flexibility to be like, I see where you're coming from. I got you. Like, let me go make some calls. And so, yeah, I, I mean, I think if we're talking about the, the larger point of like, bring HR in sooner, uh, it, it works out better on both sides.

[00:20:00]

AnnE: Totally agree, and I think sometimes we can even be the “bad guy” for the leader, so to speak. Like Krista is talking about how some people see us coming in and being like, oh, you're the savior. I would. Uh, am I gonna stand by this statement? I don't know. I'm gonna say it and see how it feels. Sometimes I would rather come in as the bad guy because the leadership that's there, they're staying. They need to be sustainable. So if I'm the bad guy and can say, this is how it needs to be, blah, blah, blah, and they can look good, I want that because that's how this organization stays sustainable.

Krista: Yeah, I, I like to say that sometimes, especially in an organization that's having some problems with like general dysfunction that is kind of causing other problems. I like to say that my primary role is to like, help people have hard conversations that maybe they don't feel comfortable having themselves or just need a facilitator to help bridge those gaps. you know, maybe those are hard realities about finances. Maybe those are hard realities. About what is, like, what somebody's dealing with in their personal life. That's like making it really challenging to show up the way that they need to. And people are interpreting it the wrong way. But maybe they do have need to have a moment of vulnerable leadership. And you know, obviously you don't, not everybody's entitled to know your business, but sometimes that is really helpful. Maybe you don't, you know, maybe you don't share all the details, but trying to, to help facilitate those, those harder questions, uh, or conversations can be really powerful for people.

And sometimes in that process, I, it's true, I do look like a bad guy on occasion, especially 'cause I'm saying, I'm often saying some uncomfortable things out loud. But they need to be said and. I'm temporary, so I'm the best person to say them.  Which is, I like, I kind of, I I love that place to be in though, because it's also a really great baseline for them to rebuild from. Um, I say some hard things. Especially like when we're writing a report about our findings, that report is, I think, is so valuable for a team to like, kind of know where they stand and what's going on and be able to say, okay, like maybe it's not rock bottom, but like it's. Something, it's a baseline that you can say like, okay, here's a plan. Here's the state of things right now, and here's how we're gonna move forward from, you know, after that.

Claire: And if anybody is gonna tell me that like, I'm making a fool of myself and everyone hates me, I want Krista to be the one delivering that message.

AnnE: No question. No question. I think we've talked about this, but just to kind of like wrap up the conversation, What are the ways that make a manager HR relationship effective? What are some things that you put in as a best practice, whether you're an external consultant or you're internal HR. What do we wanna tell both sides about how it doesn't have to be sides, how we can all work together in this?

Krista: someone, someone I read, uh, pretty regularly, Kieran Snyder said “it's people all the way down”. Um, and they were talking about it in their job search, but I think that's a really cogent phrase for all of people work is that like. People are the glue in any organization and people work is just about making that glue as effective as possible. And like there is no downside to strong relationships and often cross team and cross-function relationships are the most challenging because it's so easy to be in a silo and do your own thing. but they are often like, those are the big change making. Relationships that make a, a huge difference in not only how your team, like the health of your team and the productivity of your team, but also the organization as a whole. yeah, it's just more agile, more responsive, more proactive. 

Claire: I also like, this might not answer the question, but I think a lot of people put it off because they don't wanna be told that they're wrong or that they made a mistake and you may feel different, but often when I'm pulled into these situations, I understand that people are doing the best they can in like some really. Confusing tough situations where the path isn't always clear. And when I'm coming into those situations, I'm just thinking, okay, this is where we're starting from. Like there no blame, nothing. It's just this is the hand that we were dealt and we're gonna play it and we're, we're gonna do the best we can. and I, I think that like if, if people are afraid that they're going to hear that bad news, then we're professionals. We've seen some shit like it probably isn't the worst we've ever seen. and probably the fact that you're nervous about it means that you're doing a pretty good job most of the time. and so just, just let us in and let us help 'cause that's what we're here for. And it really doesn't serve anybody. To judge you unless like you're like Harvey Weinstein or something. But like, is it Weinstein? Weinstein anyway, like

AnnE: Doesn't deserve to have his name pronounced correctly. It's fine.

Claire: yeah, and I mean like those people probably don't have a sense of shame anyway, but um. Yeah, I, I mean, I, I think that, you know, it's like, it's like going to your doctor where they just, they just need to see what you got. Like everybody's got a body, everybody's got a company, every company's got, its warts. Let's just like make yours as healthy as possible.

 [00:25:00]

AnnE: I completely agree. I think that like ongoing conversation, and I think it feels less scary when it is an ongoing conversation because. You can point things out early. You can be like, Hey, this bump on my skin's a little bit weird, or This person on my team isn't quite performing how I want. That feels better even with that little bit of discomfort than when you're saying, well, this person's about to quit, can we meet in five minutes to see what we can do to prevent that? I guarantee the first uncomfortable conversation is more comfortable than that second uncomfortable conversation.

Krista: Yeah, it's um. It's like they say like early and often about certain things, right? And if you're just, if you're having regular conversations, if you're having a growth mindset in general, like trying different things out. Like let's try this for a couple weeks, see how it goes, try it for a month, try whatever. If you're constantly iterating and changing, you know. Being comfortable with the uncomfortable, or at least uncomfortable with talking about the work around the work. Harder conversations will not, you won't encounter as many of the really hard conversations. It'll, it'll be what it'll be, but, uh, it doesn't mean you won't have uncomfortable things, but they'll be a lot less bad, 

AnnE: I think if managers and leaders are listening to this, if you haven't had a conversation with HR in the last month, I'm not saying a conversation like all caps. I'm just saying a conversation. Have you been humans together? If you haven't done that in the last month, today's a good day to do that. Have a conversation. Find a regular time to check in. See each other as humans. If you are a startup and you don't have any HR. Might be worth having a conversation with some fractional part-time HR. Is there anything you can get ahead on? Maybe there isn't and that's totally fine, but maybe there is, and you can get ahead of some of the hard conversations we've had to have in the last year and we can spare you some of those hard conversations.

Krista: Because some of those hard conversations aren't even like, it, it would've been fixable, right? Like I think a really common thing with startups is that the, the product might be a lot more mature by, by necessity and understand, understandably so, than other departments. And that inequality of maturity, like they should really, you know, maybe all functions should be maturing within some level of each other, right? But if one is like completely underdeveloped or non-existent and another is like already at product market fit and doing great, then that kind of mismatch will show up in some uncomfy unexpected, unpredictable way. Well predictable to us, but like at an unpredictable time perhaps, and often inconvenient. It's kind of like when, uh, when some like to extend Claire's metaphor about the doctor, like something might be like off with your body, right? And then at some point your body will just, it will make you fix it at some inconvenient time or you could stay on top of it and it won't be a big deal. and sometimes it's a lot more expensive the other way around in time and convenience and recovery.

AnnE: So, we looked behind the HR curtain, we revealed (hopefully!) the importance of having HR in the conversation from the beginning in an ongoing conversation. Sometimes that sounds like it's gonna be more work for you or sounds like it's going to be uncomfortable for you, but in the long run we can almost guarantee it's gonna be less. HR is really most effective as your strategic partner. We're most effective when we're brought in early. We can do cleanup crew for sure, but that's not gonna be the best outcome for you or for your team or for your business. So if you can, if you have the bandwidth to shift from a reactive mindset to a proactive mindset, I think that's really gonna benefit your employees and the organization overall. 

[00:30:00]

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Krista: That's it for today's episode of HR Peep Show with your hosts, Claire Baker, AnnE Diemer, and me Krista Lane. Thank you for listening and stay tuned for future episodes covering both hot takes and practical advice to build sustainable people-driven companies. To view transcripts and full credits or find out more about us, go to hrpeepshow.com.