Jaded HR: Your Relief From the Common Human Resources Podcasts
Jaded HR is a Human Resources podcast about the trials and tribulations of life in a human resources department….or just a way for Human Resources Professionals to finally say OUT LOUD all the things they think throughout their working day.
Jaded HR: Your Relief From the Common Human Resources Podcasts
Return-to-Office Mandates Are Back — And Employees Are Pushing Back Hard ⭐
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Just when everyone got comfortable working from home…
companies have decided it’s time to bring everyone back.
Because clearly, that’s what employees wanted.
In this episode, we break down the return of return-to-office mandates and the completely predictable reaction from employees: resistance, frustration, and a whole lot of updated LinkedIn profiles.
We get into:
- Why companies are suddenly doubling down on in-office work
- How employees are responding (hint: not enthusiastically)
- The impact on retention, morale, and recruiting
- And whether forcing people back is actually about productivity… or something else entirely
If your company has recently announced a “we’re all coming back together” plan, this episode might explain why that Slack channel got real quiet afterward.
Or why half your team is suddenly “exploring new opportunities.”
New Year Catch-Up And Family Chaos
AnnouncerWelcome to our little save zone. Welcome to Jaden HR.
WarrenThere. I would like to be able to see that. So. Okay. Welcome to Jaden HR, the podcast by two HR professionals who want to help you get through a workday by saying everything you're thinking, but say it out loud. I'm Warren. I'm CeC. Alrighty, back again for 2026. Happy New Year.
Cee CeeHappy New Year. We survived.
WarrenWe survived. I didn't, you know, personally and professionally, 2025 wasn't awful, but I know so many people are posting online how awful 2025 was for them, and you know, I feel for them, but it was just an okay year, nothing spectacular one way or the other. But yeah, we survive.
Cee CeeSame. What is it? It's just like the same chaos, just packaged differently every year.
WarrenNew and improved.
Cee CeeNew and improved chaos.
WarrenYeah, exactly. So yeah, I talked real quick. You know, I had my daughter in town for a week, and my son's still here from college break. He heads back on Saturday. So it was nice. My daughter and her husband, I should say, were here. We had a full busy house, and it was a good time catching up and seeing her for the first time. I hadn't seen her since August of last year. My wife would be up in February, but we're hoping to get to see her at least two times this upcoming year. And how about Bean? How was Bean's holidays? Was she into it?
Cee CeeWas she She was so into it? Thank you for asking. I was forgotten, like we were talking before we started recording, and I forgot to mention Bean. Okay, so we saw Santa and she's a fan. Oh she's a fan of Santa. She didn't like cry or scream, she was totally in it. She actually saw him and said Santa. So that was fun. And she's a spoiled little brat because she got so much stuff from like all the family members and everything. So there are gifts that we haven't even put together yet. So we have like a kitchen set that we still have to put together for her. But fun stuff, and it's getting more fun now that she's getting a little older. Because like the lights and the Santa, she still doesn't understand what Santa does, but yeah, she's into it. I love it.
WarrenOh, that these next few years are gonna be so fun with the holidays and things like that with the kids, and then they turn like eight or nine. When they stop believing, whatever age that is for you all, that's when things turn around a little bit.
Cee CeeOr yeah, I don't want to think about that. Well, you got to do it. Yeah, she's got a long way, but yeah, she's doing great. She got a slide for Christmas. It's one of those like play school or little types, like indoor slides. Yeah. And she can't quite climb it yet, so we just have to kind of pick her up. It was a great gift for her, but it's a total workout for us. Because everything is like down slide, down slide, downslide. So we're always picking her up and putting her on the slide, picking her up and putting her on the slide, picking her up. So yeah, my squats are or my yeah, I'm getting really good squat workouts.
WarrenOh, hey. One of the things I like about Christmas is I like building things and making things and stuff. And the past few years it's been disappointing because the kids don't get things that you have to put together or anything, but my son got a new stereo for his car. But now they make installing stereo so easy, it was like an hour, not even an hour of time. I was like, oh, this is gonna be a fun afternoon project, and I was done in an hour. I was like, oh, okay, I'm done. It's just so easy now. I'm like, oh, everything's just plug this in, plug this in, plug in, you're done. I was like, as I had my soldering kit out, I had my wire crimpers and strippers, I was ready to go. And I'm like, oh, they make this easy for people.
Cee CeeYeah.
WarrenBut it's still fun, and my son enjoys it.
Cee CeeI have to laugh because there was one project I wanted to do over break, and it was just to clean out and organize the closet in my office because it was just a mess. It had boxes in there that we never opened since we moved in, and I'm like, this is stupid, and that was five years ago. So I'm like, we're just gonna organize it. So I'm like a day before break, I'm like, I'm gonna get a head start, and I started to just like clean some stuff out, and our cat, who's like a 14-pound main coon, decided to jump on one of the shelves, and for some reason that was the breaking point, and the entire shelf just like fell off the wall. Everything. So that turned into, well, since the shelf fell on the wall, I kind of want to redo the closet anyway, which then turned into, well, I want to
Home Projects, Organization, And Productivity Fails
Cee Ceeput these shelves in, but I'm gonna put the older version of these shelves in that have been in my office for years. I'm gonna go buy newer shelves, which turned into, oh, everything is like back ordered. So you can see my office is a catastrophe. Okay. All because I wanted to organize my closet, which goes to show you don't be productive.
WarrenDon't be productive.
Cee CeeOverrated.
WarrenYeah.
Cee CeeBut we're almost there. The actually the shelves got delivered, the bookcases got delivered today. So I'm gonna go put those together this weekend, probably. So it'll be over soon.
WarrenAwesome. Awesome. My my wife is an organizational freak. She says if she changes career, she's gonna become a certified professional organizer for people. And I'm like, I'm gonna go over there, like a hoarder's house. It's gonna be like, you know, dead cats under boxes of magazines or something like that. And she says, I'll have my limits where I draw the line. I'm like, yeah.
Cee CeeOh my gosh, I love it.
WarrenSo well, before we get too long, we want to thank our Patreon supporters, Hallie, the original jaded HR rock star, Bill and Mike. Thank you for supporting us. And we believe it or not, we're just a couple episodes away, or like three months away. We'll be hitting our next anniversary, six, eight-year anniversary. So wow, crazy with jaded HR. That'll be we've got some plans for some changes, doing some new things.
Patreon Thanks And Show Plans
WarrenI know we we said we did three, I think, office episodes, but we'll we want to pick that back up and got some other ideas too. But with year end comes a lot of places in reviews, or maybe you're starting your annual reviews system yet.
Cee CeeSo Yay! It's my favorite time of year.
WarrenGo straight out of the joy of the holidays into the joy of in reviews.
Cee CeeYeah. What? So one of my projects right now is actually looking
Performance Reviews: Honest Questions With Bite
Cee Ceeat our performance management and our annual performance review and you know, just kind of thinking of what questions to ask and stuff like that. So I came up with some really great questions with a jaded HR twist. Okay. So I think that let's go here. Okay, so the number one question I think is gonna be what did you accomplish this year against your will? I think that's a really important question.
WarrenEverything. Everything.
Cee CeeAnother question that's on that I'm thinking about is what accomplishment made you immediately need a walk, a scream, or coffee?
WarrenA walk, a scream, or coffee. You know, Patrick and I, when we worked together, when things would get rough, we'd take a walk. We were both beta testers in the dark ages for Pokemon Go. Yeah. We would go for a walk and play Pokemon Go as for walking. And the other members, we had like, I don't know, six, eight people on our team and they'd make fun of us. And then, like, my last day working there together, we went on a walk just to play some Pokemon Go chit-chat and stuff. And my assistant, Desiree, she took a picture of us from the like the we're on the third or fourth floor, walking, uh having us walk away, their last walk together. Things like that. But yeah, taking a walk is great, y'all. If you if you can.
Cee CeeHonestly, I was to work on a campus of like a corporate campus back when that was a cool thing. And they had walking trails, and we had walking meetings when the weather was nice. Like if you had a touch base or like a one-on-one or something, just go on the walking trail and talk it while walking. It was fantastic.
WarrenOh, yeah.
Cee CeeOkay, so let's see. Another one that I love is what where did it go? Where did it go? Oh. What did you accomplish while simultaneously questioning your career choices?
AnnouncerA lot.
Cee CeeUh was there anything that you fixed quietly so that no one would notice it was broken?
WarrenEverything I broke. Everything I did wrong, I fixed quietly. Let's let's either completely ignore it or fix it under radar or let this go away as quickly as possible.
Cee CeeI'm laughing because I've been there a couple times. Like, oh shit. Let me fix this.
WarrenYeah, nobody will know if I hurry.
Cee CeeNo, no, no, it's fine. As long as no one noticed, you're fine. Let's see. What was one thing you accomplished that proves that you're underpaid?
WarrenI I would say the opposite. What have you done that shows how overpaid you are? One question I always tease, I would love to put on a review is what value do you actually bring to the company?
Cee CeeWhat do you actually do here?
WarrenLike from all office space, tell me what you do here. Well, I don't do much of anything. I stroll in around nine.
Cee CeeI stroll in around nine. I have five bosses.
WarrenYeah.
Cee CeeAnd then my final favorite, what project did you complete purely out of spite?
WarrenOut of spite. I don't know. Something that I knew was doomed to fail. You're making me do this, so yeah. Well, I did the same. I checked GPT'd a few. In what ways could you have been more approachable during your approved PTO? Let's see here. Uh how effective do you feel you are at faking enthusiasm? Let's see, I might listen to come up with that many good ones here. But yeah, I would like to know is also, I would like to put a question. I don't know how to word it right now on the fly, but how self-aware are you? Because one of the things HR does is the employee completes their review, it comes to HR, we read every single one of them, and we're looking for red flag type things. We're not we don't care what you say, as long as you're not saying, you know, something, you know, I'm being discriminated against or harassed, etc. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we're we're looking for the big red flags in that, and we don't we don't ever find anything, not gone wood, but and then it goes to the manager, the manager completes the review and it comes back to HR. We read them all again before the between the manager sending it back to the employee to make sure you know I told you the story. I I I had a review once, the manager said this person would be the best damn employee ever if she didn't go out on maternity leave every other year. And and I took it out, I confronted him about it, and he says, Well, she's great, that's what I was saying. I'm like, Yeah, that's what you were saying, but that's not what you said. The things that people will put in a review are incredible. If real-world HR advice, if you're not reading the or having someone read those reviews, I know some of you might be with companies much larger than I you've got to find out some way to screen and filter and make sure that you're not having a documentation trail of something you don't want documented.
Cee CeeYeah, yeah. I know. Honestly, everything is documented, that's findable.
WarrenYeah, yep, exactly.
Cee CeeInteresting. Oh god, now you have me thinking about things. God damn.
WarrenI'm gonna make you actually do some real work now.
Cee CeeNo, no, no. I mean, these are all good points.
WarrenYeah, but uh we just wrapped up our annual reviews, and I think everything overall went really, really well for the most part. There was nothing ever goes perfectly as intended, but we had a couple speed bumps, but things went well overall.
Cee CeeI gotta be honest, this is the first time I'm working, like my company works on a fiscal calendar, so we are technically in Q4 until March. So our performance reviews don't start until February. It was wonderful for the first time in the last five years of doing performance management where I'm not thinking about performance launch during Thanksgiving and Christmas. It was fun.
WarrenI think that's a smart idea, especially for larger companies. That uh because you have so many other things going on at that year, and just getting people to complete the reviews during Thanksgiving. There's so much PTO being used, and getting people to actually complete them is yeah, it's rough.
Cee CeeIt's pulling teeth.
WarrenYeah.
Cee CeeSo I'm gonna put those questions in and see what feedback I get from.
WarrenWe don't want you unemployed.
Cee CeeNo, okay, so for a very unjaded moment, I actually do love performance review season because I just think it's so important. And I got a little pissy because I was all I didn't get pissy, but I I didn't even let it I rolled my eyes. That was the extent of my emotions. But it was on LinkedIn and someone had this long LinkedIn thing about like, I'm not writing you an essay, I'm not proving my performance to you, and I'm like, oh god damn it, just fucking 'cause like I'm just like people think it's something super nefarious, or they think it's totally time consuming and pointless, but people don't understand all the stuff that we're using it for on the back end that actually could help you in your career, in your raises, in your bonuses, in your progression. Like, just do it. And you don't have to write a novel. Also, don't write a novel. No manager wants to sit there and read a novel, but just be honest and be proud and brag about yourself and also be self-aware enough. I think it's a great exercise, and just shut up and do it.
WarrenWell, going two things, going non-jaded for just a moment. I talked about we read all the reviews. One of the things that my assistant and I did when we were reading, there were like at least 10 people this past year that said, I would like to learn more about X, or I'd like to get training on that. We wrote that down and we went to the manager as we're leasing to the manager, hey, John Doe wants to know wants additional training in this. What can we do? How can we help them grow? Is that something that's feasible? And we were instigating those
Why Self-Evals Matter More Than You Think
Warrenconversations for the employee because the manager may or may not, you know, put as much heat into it. But you know, we do have a training and development budget that we can yeah, oh, if they want to learn this skill, is that something we can support? We'd love to support it. We can't do it right now, but yes, we'd love to see what we can do. Those are some of the good things HR does when you do your review. This year on our reviews also was the first time ever we gave employees just two weeks to complete their self-evaluation. And if they didn't complete it within two weeks, it automatically forwarded without them. And we didn't have any complaints about that, but we had, I would say, 20-ish people who didn't do their reviews, and I before we launched the reviews, I could have named 80% of them that weren't going to do it. And I think that rather than chasing people down to do something that can really really just benefit them, and I personally going way jaded again, if you don't complete your own review, then you're not getting an evaluation, you're not getting an increase, you're not getting a bonus, you just get left out. You don't want to participate in the process, so you made a choice. I know we can't do that, but I would love to do something.
Cee CeeI don't know. It's also just a time to reflect on the things that like made you proud. I don't know, just do it. Just do it.
WarrenIt's not that hard. And like I said, we don't need a novel. Uh uh I don't want a novel.
Cee CeeYeah. Don't send me a novel. Bullet points with like what is it? Like objective examples. Yeah. That's all I need. Just let me skim with a really great picture that you've painted me with bullet points.
WarrenYes, exactly. Reviews are the time to pat yourself on the back and say, hey, look at me, look what I've done. But there's a limit. You don't want to be overselling yourself that I'm the greatest thing since sliced bread, but you've got to have some self-awareness. Hey, I did X, Y, and Z, and you know, I accomplished these things.
Cee CeeI'm really lucky that I've never had anybody say they were like a five out of five, and I had to walk them back from that and give them the reality. Luckily, I've always had people who are pretty self-aware. I've actually had the opposite where people were like, I suck. And I'm like, no, you really don't. Let's talk about this.
WarrenYeah. I and that's a good thing. If you have that, it's all communication tool. When uh boy, this is gonna be such an unjust. Other those questions, our reviews are 100% narrative-based. There's no scales, there's no rate yourself on a scale of one to ten stars, etc.
Cee CeeOurs is too narrative-based.
WarrenI love it because you say one thing and I give that nine stars, but you say it and you give it six stars. We're saying the same thing. It's so you're starting at a conflict before you even before you even start. But if it's in words, you can see where everything is and there's no conflicts involved. And it you it's a conversation starter. I tell both the employees and the managers. This is a conversation starter for your review discussion. It's a good thing. And I just think people want to shit on HR so much about hey, HR is only out to screw you, and HR is not your friend, and all that other terrible stuff. No, just do it.
Cee CeeSo quote, HR Besties, we are not your friend, but we are not your enemy.
WarrenWell, the other topic we were talking about before we started were making herself unhirable.
Cee CeeOh yeah.
WarrenAnd we you had the story from the Coldplay concert lady. I forget her name already over. Cabot.
Cee CeeYes. Yes. So she recently did an article and she kind of broke her silence and talked about what happened from her perspective. And she was very forward about how this was a very bad decision. I made a very bad mistake, but she did want to clarify things, and basically she explained that her and her husband were separated prior, him and his wife were separated prior, so they were both separated and they were both going through breaking their marriages. But the one thing that I thought was she was very accountable of just being like, I screwed up so badly, but the public reaction. She was doxxed. She was getting 50 to 60 phone calls a day from people just cursing her out, basically. She was getting death threats. So, like, it was just like a lot of stuff that she went through. And now she has been labeled as unhirable through I guess a search firm that she was working with trying to like because she stepped away from the role, so she was trying to find another job, and they basically said, like, no one wants to touch you with a 10-foot pole. So, like, there's just a lot there. I can say that I I completely clearly see both sides of it. I think that social media has made it extremely hard on people who have like a very bad 15 minutes of infamy. And I think at the same time, you just can't shit where you eat. Like you cannot, especially when you're like a senior leader, especially with your boss. Like you cannot. And I I I would say that for anyone, I would say unfortunately, the stigma tends to stay with the women a little longer. Because it's funny how we don't hear from the other guy. Because I guarantee you he's doing just fine working his job. But so yeah, like it's not fair. Unfortunately, that's just how like it is. We kind of shame women more about this stuff. But I do feel like a little bad about the whole situation because she got turned into a punchline and now she has thrown her whole career away over something that was just a bad decision that she she quoted to be a bad decision.
WarrenWell, marriage stuff aside, being a senior leader and dating inside the company, like I said, sitting where you eat, don't get your sex where you get your checks, type thing. It does show a bad judgment, especially if you're an HR person. But I do believe people deserve second chances. She's not one of these, you know, the the racist Karen and the bird watcher in New York. Yeah,
Narrative Reviews Over Ratings
Warrenshe nothing horrible. Hopefully, she can land something new where she's not as visible. Okay, you can be our HR person, but you're behind the scenes, or maybe she'll have to take a step back instead of being the director, being the manager under someone, so she's even less visible in the world and regrow her. Because I when you said the name, I recognized it, but I would have never come up with the name on my own. And it's what only been six months with that.
Cee CeeWell, unfortunately, I did a couple sessions with interns on your personal brand and how to make a good impression. And one of the things, especially with Gen Z, it's like, be careful what you do online. Because anything that is online is forever going to be online. And I go as far as telling people, like, if you have company swag with a logo on it, don't wear it out. I've seen and witnessed a few situations where people got into it in the parking lot of a canes, and one of which was an employee of a company who had the logo on it, and then all of a sudden you have someone videotaping them, and all of a sudden it turns into so-and-so at such and such company, and then it turns into a meme, and it turned into we're gonna show up and pick it at your company, like it escalates so freaking quickly, and it's you can't, I hate to say it, but it's almost like you just have to assume that you're being watched a hundred percent of the time.
WarrenAnd you don't know what's gonna escalate, it could be something so small and innocuous, but it catches fire with the right people at the right time, and you're like, what the hell? I had an experience at the water park. One of our employees, the local newspaper, unfortunately, made a report about we had three drownings at the beach within like a week of each other. And this employee and put a comment in the newspaper, you know, stupid Taurons deserved it, or something like that.
Cee CeeOh no.
WarrenAnd yeah, that's what they put in. But make it worse, the newspaper uses your Facebook profile as to your login to make comments on it. And so everybody clicked on it, and there she is in her profile wearing the with the water parks shirt, and it says on there, employee of, and that got we got started getting mail, and I'm like, what the so we looked at it and like, oh my. We told her you immediately have to either change a profile picture, not us, and you don't list us as your employer. And she wanted to fight us. I said, This isn't optional, you're it's you're either gonna change that or you're gonna be fired. And I said, I don't care, one way or the other. She ended up changing, but she still got fired later for it. She was not the smartest individual on earth, and uh, she still ended up getting fired after she reluctantly took off the Facebook that she was our employee and her picture. You do not post any other pictures with you wearing and I can post whatever picture I want. Yes, you can, but it has consequences. Yeah. But yeah, she was she was a work of art. But and and you know what? It's been seven years since I left her. I wonder if she's made herself unhirable or you know, she's just gonna be the Burger King drive-thru girl for the rest of her life because that's the only thing she can be qualified for.
Cee CeeI honestly like not to go down this path, but we're going down this path. I often think of there are so many women right now who are like running when they turn 18, 19 to like OnlyFans.
Becoming Unhirable: Online Reputation Risks
Cee CeeAnd I think that's the biggest. I mean, honestly, like it's speaking of things that'll stay with you forever and being unhireable, like, that's just insane that people are doing that, and there's such a footprint on and I don't have any don't get me wrong, like I don't have any problem with it. It's your choice, like you do what you want, but at the same time, there's such a uh when you're 18, 19, 20, like you don't understand the consequences of some of your actions and how it's gonna impact you years down the road. Like your frontal lobe isn't even like fully fully developed.
WarrenSo it's like you know, showing off their frontal lobes.
Cee CeeBut I just think I'm like, oh my god, like you're gonna be in your 30s, and like that line of work doesn't last forever. And what's gonna happen then? You're gonna make a lot of money now, maybe, but it's just so stupid. I just feel bad for people who are leaving such a negative footprint on the internet that's gonna bite them in the ass later.
WarrenNow, the last Olympic cycle, I remember there was some female athlete that was using her OnlyFans to fund her training. She said training is expensive and she was proud of it. I don't know what she does on OnlyFans. People do anything and everything. Someone will eat a cake for you on OnlyFans for you know, but I do tell you, and I don't know I'm what my my Facebook feed, I get this like once a month or so. I quit my job and I'm doing OnlyFans, and now I'm paying, I was making a thousand dollars a month, now I'm making ten thousand dollars a month, and it's just all this. I'm like, what are you trying to get me to go on OnlyFans? I see that every so often. I'm like, what is it? What is this type thing? I live in a luxurious Manhattan apartment. Well, good for you. And those people are gonna make themselves unhirable, you know, at some point.
Cee CeeIt's just a simple Google search, it really is. And it's not even like using aliases helps you because it's just so easy to track down who somebody is. I am team Kristen Cabot. I hope that you land on your feet and find something. I appreciate her accountability and her openness. So hopefully that'll go a long way. Yeah, like go, Kristen. I hope you find something.
WarrenYeah. Just getting on that that list of just being not list, but there's no list as so many people trying to say there's there's no list on for HR of unhirable people, but you create a social media presence whether it's uh even if it's something innocuous that you don't think is going, hey, am I gonna become unhirable because of this if I ever leave my job? You know, warren, you've said some pretty stupid things, yeah, on on your podcast. Yeah, I have. But it's comedy.
Cee CeeYou know, it and I mean I I'm not CC in real life. I have a full name, and it's just one of those precautions that I chose to take just because I can speak a little more freer, and things can't get tied exactly back. Not that I would say anything problematic, but at the same time, like you'd look at like I mean, just like you can become guilty of it by association with me if I say something. Oh gosh, yeah, that's gonna be my downfall.
WarrenAnd I use my full real name.
Cee CeeWhich is funny because I thought your last name was a joke.
WarrenOh yes.
Cee CeeI thought that it was a clever stage name.
WarrenStage name. I'm not that clever, my parents aren't that clever. Yeah, it's it's it's a blessing and a curse all all at once. So yeah. Well, it's glad to be back. It's been a it's been a month since we recorded again, and uh, yeah, good to be back. We got a great year coming up, we've got some changes coming up, so stay tuned. Also, please leave us a rating review wherever you listen to us. Spread the word to your friends. Love to get more listeners. We have some, like I said, some great ideas for the new the new upcoming season and see what we can make happen. With all that said, I will go ahead and do the closing saying, boy, what a I know how we end. Let's see. As always, I'm Warren.
Cee CeeI'm CeC.
WarrenAnd we're here helping you survive HR one what the fuck moment at a time.
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