HR BESTIES - HR Besties: Out of Touch Leadership

Episode Date: January 29, 2025

Today’s agenda:  The pantless employee Cringe corporate speak: call out Hot topic: out of touch leadership: what does it mean to us? What does it look like? Leaders just who don't have a clue about the lives of team members Kissing up and stomping down Leaders that are more focused on metrics and measurements rather than people... you might lose your best employees Privilege and "mo money, mo problems" Encouraging our leaders and executives to try understanding the lives of employees inside and outside the workplace Encouraging HR to give the real feedback to leaders whenever possible Questions/Comments  Your To-Do List: Grab merch, submit Questions & Comments, and make sure that you’re the first to know about our In-Person Meetings (events!) at https://www.hrbesties.com. Follow your Besties across the socials and check out our resumes here: https://www.hrbesties.com/about.  Subscribe to the HR Besties Newsletter - https://hr-besties.beehiiv.com/subscribe We look forward to seeing you in our next meeting - don’t worry, we’ll have a hard stop! Yours in Business + Bullsh*t,  Leigh, Jamie & Ashley Follow Bestie Leigh! https://www.tiktok.com/@hrmanifesto https://www.instagram.com/hrmanifesto https://www.hrmanifesto.com Follow Bestie Ashley! https://www.tiktok.com/@managermethod  https://www.instagram.com/managermethod https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleyherd/ https://managermethod.com Follow Bestie Jamie! https://www.millennialmisery.com/ Humorous Resources: Instagram • YouTube • Threads • Facebook • X Millennial Misery: Instagram • Threads • Facebook • X Horrendous HR: Instagram • Threads • Facebook Tune in to “HR Besties,” a business, work and management podcast hosted by Leigh Elena Henderson (HRManifesto), Ashley Herd (ManagerMethod) and Jamie Jackson (Humorous_Resources), where we navigate the labyrinth of corporate culture, from cringe corporate speak to toxic leadership. Whether you’re in Human Resources or not, corporate or small business, we offer sneak peeks into surviving work, hiring strategies, and making the employee experience better for all. Tune in for real talk on employee engagement, green flags in the workplace, and how to turn red flags into real change. Don't miss our chats about leadership, career coaching, and takes from work travel and watercooler gossip. Get new episodes every Wednesday, follow us on socials for the latest updates, and join us at our virtual happy hours to share your HR stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Manager catches employee pantsless on video. Oh my God. Uh oh. This is not my story, but this is someone very close to me. Lee, is this you? No, I wasn't pantless that day. Not that day. At work.

You were, but you were not caught on camera. No, I wasn't caught. That's it. I wasn't caught. That's it. I wasn't caught. Exactly. I'm more clever than that. So the manager got emotion detected notification around 2 a.m. and started reviewing footage because there was no sign of like a break-in or anything that had happened, but there was

motion detected. So honestly, he thought maybe it was some sort of animal or maybe there was something that like broke in. They had had a problem with mice before. Maybe that's what set it off. So as reviewing, he sees one of his female, who's a lead, pantsless, walking around at 2 a.m. Come to find out. When he starts having a conversation asking why she was at work at 2 a.m. Pantsless, she had been out drinking that night before at the bar. And she was pretty wasted and unfortunately made a terrible decision to get in her car. And on her way home, she hit a deer and totaled her car. In that moment,

she decided that work was close enough that she was going to go to work because her car was totaled. It was no longer drivable and she was going to hide out at work. But she had an accident and I'm not talking about with the deer, I'm talking about in her pants. So she went ahead and took her pants off also at the scene of the crime. And so that's why she was pantless at work walking around. Now, unfortunately, this position is a part of the government.

So when they ran her VIN and they found out where she was working and everything was able to put things together and it all lined up that, you know, she ditched her car, she was driving drunk. So needless to say, she did not have a job after that. And she had maybe a charge or something. I just want to say, I hope she lost her license in addition to other things. I have so many questions. I have so many questions.

So she shit her pants during the accident. Wait, it was that or was the other? Do we know? No, she had an accident. She shit herself when she had her. Well, that can mean two things. She lost her pants is all we know, technically, from the manager. She was walking around without her pants is all we know, technically, from the manager. She was walking around without

her pants, just underwear. Thank God. What if she's one of those that is a commando babe and she was just had her- What if it's Granny Panty Day? Oh my God. Putting myself in her shoes, which thankfully no. I don't know that I'd keep on anything if you're in that situation. But there is one way to find this out. What happened to her exactly is a FOIA request. Because if this is a government job, then we should be able to secure that footage and do the right thing with it, which we'll be putting on our social media.

We can blur her, pixelate her out to protect it, but there's, you know, there's a silver lining to every cloud. Can you imagine though? I mean, I can because HR deals with the craziest shit. I know you're like, yes, I can't imagine it. But she got in an accident. She took her pants off at the scene. Yes, the pants were at the scene within a few feet of the wrecked car and dead deer. Okay. Because the deer unfortunately succumbed to its injuries. And then she walked. She walked.

She walked. And it was very close. Oh, she walked to work. Yeah, she had to walk to work. We need the footage of her walking to work. Because I will say, have not been in any of this situation, but I can imagine the quote unquote walking that happens when she's like all jacked up like this. Well, it was probably, she was a drunken stupor and she just shit herself.

She might have shit leaking down. Oh, my. It's a mess. The whole thing's a mess. Anyway, I'll leave you all with that visual. It goes back to my original thing, which is God bless the manager that at least has the notifications. If you get like a motion sense or something during the night, it's like the equivalent of, I guess, like, you know, my husband gets, I have no notifications on my phone pretty much.

Like it's definitely on silent. Like I don't like things to pop up on my screen. Like I'll find it out. He, on the other hand, will sit there and he'll get like a million buzzes and I'll be like, God, who's blowing you up? And he'll be like, Oh, ESPN, little league world series. But it like, Oh my God, I can't even like, I can't fathom what psychopath allows your mental health to get invaded in these.

The manager, I mean, it's one of those hard things to every role. And it's something that I hope the manager was told prior to hiring. It's one of those things that's important. Like, if you're going to be on call for something like that. Mm-hmm. Then be on call, right? And as HR, who has worked with a second and third shift, that was always a big deal.

That was, mm-hmm. I mean, that was always like, hey, FYI, you may get a call at 3 in the morning. And I have. I mean, I've gotten calls at 2 AM, because there was a fistfight in the kitchen one time when I was working in hospitality. I'm like, what the fuck do you want me to do?

I'm not driving an hour up there to break up a fight and hopefully it's over by now. Honestly, I'm sorry. If you're a woman, I'll call her Raquel because that just seems, it just touched my mind. Raquel, damn. Raquel. I apologize to any Raquels out there. If it hit her mind to call, or to go to work, to go to work, you know, to go to work and walk to work in proximity. You can kind of imagine, what if she was really drunk and wanted to leave but couldn't drive home,

and she was like, I'm going to call HR to come pick me up. Like, I bet if you've been in HR and you've literally had employees that have called you to have you come pick them up, you're probably doing a good job, you know, on all other aspects because you're building a trust-filled relationship. Oh, man, I would love to talk to her. That was a terrible night. But I'm assuming, so work was closed, she walked to work, and then she probably just needed to clean up or whatever. Yeah.

It was like literally within like a few blocks. Like it wasn't that far. Oh, yeah. See, so that's not so bad, right? And so 2 a.m. in the dark, no one probably could tell or maybe even drove by that she didn't have pants on. Oh, man. Well.

Or maybe they thought that she was just working. That's true. Definitely possible. And if you are her and listening, feel free to reach out. We would love to talk to you more about one of the worst nights of your life. Hey, Spotify. This is Javi. My biggest passion is music, and it's not just

sounds and instruments. It's more than that to me. It's a world full of harmonies with chillers. From streaming to shopping, it's on Prime. With TD Direct Investing, new and existing clients could get 1% cash back. Great! That's 1% closer to being part of the 1%. Maybe, but definitely 100% closer to getting 1% cash back with TD Direct Investing.

Conditions apply. Offer ends January 31, 2025. Visit td.com slash DI Offer to learn more. as DI offer to learn more. [♪ music playing, sound effects of video playing, sound effects of video playing, sound effects of video playing, sound effects of video playing, sound effects of video playing, sound effects of video playing,

sound effects of video playing, sound effects of video playing, sound effects of video playing, sound effects of video playing, sound effects of video playing, sound effects of Ah! We had some water cooler talk, and now we are going to transition to some cringe corporate speak. That's what's up next. Ashley is on base for that, to use cringe sports analogies. Then we're going to segue into our hot topic of this meeting, which is all about out of touch leadership. Boy, have we all experienced that.

Am I right? No, yeah. But hopefully we have not been that. Let's hope. Let's hope. And then, as always, we will conclude with some questions and comments. So Ashley, take it away. What do you got?

I have corporate cringe speak that I do think can be used for a good reason. And this is call out. Not like call out, like I need to call out for my job, but call out like if you're... Because I have shit my pants. No, not call out, not call out because you're in jail or still walking down the road and can't quite make it. But call out like if you're presenting something and someone points something out and you're like, oh, that's a good call out. Have you all heard this? Yes. I'm guilty. you're presenting something and someone points something out and you're like, oh, that's a good call out. Have you all heard this? Yes.

I'm guilty. Yeah, same. Oh, I am. Appreciate the call out. That's why I'm saying that it's, oh, this isn't really cringe, because I've used it. We have a criminal here. Like an out of touch leader.

Because I say it, it is fine. And I. No, this is fine, because I say this. How do you use it, Jay? I hate that I do, but I've used it numerous times. Yeah, just like that. If someone says something in a meeting, it's a good point. Oh, that's a good call out.

That's a good call out. I'm glad you brought that to our attention. Why do I do that? It's awful. I hate it. It's gross. Well, why I was going to say it can be good is sometimes you're presenting something

and you have a couple different things. You may have someone in a meeting that's trying to bring you down. Well, why I was going to say it can be good is sometimes you're presenting something and you have a couple different things. You may have someone in a meeting that's trying to bring you down and this is probably a whole nother episode, but they say something to be contrarian about what you're presenting. And you in your mind don't want to say, hey, can you not be an asshole? And if you're going to be one, just do it privately after the fact and not in front of everyone. But cool, cool, cool. But you can say, you know, that's a great call out. And that makes you look very professional to the people that will be assessing your career. The other is if you're presenting something and someone brings up a point and in your mind you're thinking, oh shit, I really didn't think about that. That is, that's a good point.

And so again, you can use it in that as well. Like, oh, you know, it's a really good, it's a great call out because it also shows that you're a team player and you don't have to be like, oh my God, I'm so sorry. Like, I didn't think about that. Like, that throws my whole plan into think, doesn't matter. Oh, that's a great call out. Let's think about how we can incorporate that. You know, it can, you can use it for good. Lee?

No, I think that sounds really professional because I say shit like love it, that, that, right there, that. Slay, bitch. Oh, I know. Slay all day. You love it. Like that. I get all intense and Oh, I know. Slay all day. You. Love it. Like that.

I get all intense and weird. I don't think I really say call out. Y'all probably can't think of a time I have. I don't know. I'm sure you don't remember everything I've ever fucking said, but I can't even think of a time I've said call out. So I may say, oh, good point. Or like I said, I get all intense.

Love it. That. This. That. Write it down. Write it down. I actually think it's a really important thing for leaders. And again, we have people in HR that listen.

We have managers and people. When you're presenting someone and someone brings in a question or feedback or any of those things, often immediately you're on the defensive. Because so often, if you're putting yourself out there, you have a fear, maybe a very real fear, justified fear, of being judged by all of those in the room, whether they're your boss or anybody else. And so you can feel on the defensive. And to Lee's point, she's made a few times, which is like, you can be right or happy. And like, even if you're ultimately right.

Yeah, do you want to be right? Do you want to be happy? If you answer everything defensively and defending things, like it doesn't come off like you probably think it does in your mind. But Lee, when you were like, love it, would that be like, I heard that and you weren't saying that to us, but maybe one day we'll earn it. If I were in a meeting and you even intensely said that, I'd be so excited. So I think just as you listen to this, leaders, do things. One is if you really like something, show the enthusiasm. You're probably filling someone's very empty cup.

But also, even if people are pointing out things or their feedbacks like total bullshit, using cringe corporate speak sometimes can be for good because it just makes you come off like a leader. Love it. There you go. Love it that- If Lee said that to me in a meeting, I would totally match her energy and be like, yes, bestie. Literally. Exactly. And who doesn't in a meeting, I would totally match her energy and be like, yes, bestie.

Literally. Exactly. And who doesn't love a meeting like that? Because the meetings are boring. But that's my own problem. I just say whatever I'm thinking for the most part. Oh, gosh. Well, shall we?

Meeting hot topic. Out of touch leadership. What the hell is out of touch leadership who wants to take a stab at it? Just in case we have people there like, What the hell is out of touch leadership who wants to take a stab at it? Just in case we have people there like, what the hell is that? Every leader I've ever had. Don't just kidding.

I kid, I kid. A lot of my bosses, especially my toxic bosses. Are we naming names here? Oh, I'd love to. I wish I could. Hold on, yeah. Oddly specific episode. That'll be the paid content. The paid content. I wish I could. Hold on. Yeah. An oddly specific episode. That'll be the paid content.

The paid content. What can I share? What can't I share? But out of touch leadership to me, our leaders and boy, being an HR client support person, the majority of my career, I've run across a lot of them and tried to coach it out of them as much as I could, or at least bring them to a point of awareness. But out of touch leadership to me is a leader that just has no freaking clue what his or her people are experiencing on the daily.

And they don't have a clue because they don't walk the floor, because they don't meet with them because they're shit at leadership and managing down. They kiss up and stomp down for the majority of them, but they're just out of it. They are just so detached from the realities of a general workforce, the people. However you want to put it, everyone's got their own little thing they may be out of touch with, but they're just not connected. Because they're not connected, they don't have the trust with the people. That's what I've seen.

Yeah. I mean, I really have not had that many bad leaders. I've had at least three though that have been out of touch. You know, I think it can look different in different organizations and usually, you know, it could be signs of not only they're playing favorites too, like I'm thinking favoritism, they're more focused on like the metrics and the productivity than people. They're not flexible. I mean, I know I talk about flexibility, you need to be flexible. And it's usually those leaders that, at least in my career, that I've been coaching, right? Like how did you even become a fucking leader

because you have zero people skills. You may have heard how much I love Notion, a sponsor of today's episode. I've used it to turn my resource guide for my Manager 201 strategic leadership course into a digital notebook for the leaders taking it. It's beautiful and super easy to use. And I've just learned that I can use it not just to create things for others,

but for myself in my business. To have a whole system to keep track of projects and deadlines, Notion combines your notes, docs, and projects into one space that's simple and beautifully designed. And you can leverage the power of AI right inside Notion across all of your notes and docs, without jumping between your work and a separate AI-powered tool. Unlike other specialized tools or legacy suites that have you bouncing between six different apps,

other specialized tools or legacy suites that have you bouncing between six different apps, Notion is seamlessly integrated, infinitely flexible, and beautifully easy to use. The fully integrated Notion AI helps you work faster, write better, and think bigger, doing tasks that normally take you hours in just seconds. Try Notion for free when you go to Notion.com slash HR Besties. That's all lowercase letters. Notion.com slash HR Besties to try the powerful, easy to use Notion AI today. And when you use our link, you're supporting our show. That's Notion.com slash HR Besties.

A lot of it, I think, to both points is financial and life-wise, that there's a lot of privilege in terms of things you have access to and the problems that you see. I know I've heard from leaders, like, mo money, mo problems. And yes, that can be true in leadership. As you escalate in leadership, some of the things you're working on, especially as you think about the lives, hopefully you're thinking about the people that depend on you. But Mo Money Mo Problems doesn't really resonate with your employees who are literally struggling to have things happen. That a lot of decisions that you make on a whim and you make quickly, whether it's a

layoff decision, we're going to cut 5% of people. So okay, you're going to remove their income. We are going to return people to the office. You're all coming back to the office. And so the out of touch aspect, I do believe is that, is not having an understanding. And that's okay. Everybody doesn't have to have worked at Subway and Kmart and shopped at Goodwill as a kid to understand what that life is like.

But it's the understanding. You have to, even at the top level of an organization, understand the realities of the people that are doing the work. And if you're not going to, and you're going to pull into the parking lot in your cyber truck, and you're going to gripe about country club membership, and you're going to do a layoff conversation or an employee-wide Zoom call from your very, very expensive living room and talk about these things without an ounce of consideration of how that comes up to everybody else.

So I'll stop with my two questions that I wish all leaders would think of is, what am I doing to the plain favorites? Like, who am I throwing a birthday party for in the office, a huge birthday party for? And then everybody else gets like jack shit, or I'm going on vacation with this person. Then everybody else has to like fight to get two seconds for me. And so I think these are very real experiences that people will see, and so I wish leaders would consider, what am I doing that really impacts people's lives

or how I appear to them or our company or organization appears to them? And then the two, how does that impact our organization? Because as a leader, even if you care about financial results, you maybe take out-of-touch leaders, take actions that cost them money by driving your good people out the door or your people that are there. Do not give a shit about their jobs.

Yeah. Some of my most poignant moments of my career and conversation wise, most impactful, have been with an out of touch leader, of course, where I was considering myself the mirror for them, right? Because oftentimes our leaders, because they're in positions of power, they're not getting real feedback, candid feedback. Well, I would always put my job on the line for that feedback representing the workforce, okay? It takes courage and bravery to do that.

And I've just always felt that's a big part of HR. Everyone does their job different and that's fine. But for me, I always figured, well, gosh, I got to be the one being that voice for the people. I remember I started a job and I'm having the first day conversation with the client, the big GM, right, owns this really billion dollar sector. It was basically that level set conversation, what's going on here? How are things? What do you think, right?

And I will never forget, he looked at me and he said, well, I think that we have a problem of the give-a-shits. Our workforce does not give a shit. And just instantly I said back, well do we give a shit about them? And boy he was floored. I mean I'm talking first combo, he is blown away, right? The audacity I'm sure he's thinking, you know? And he looked at me, took him a while after like the longest pause and said, well, you know, I don't know. And I'm like, well, no one's going to give a shit if we don't give them something worth

giving a shit about. That's how I responded. Anyway, I don't think he liked me the rest of my experience there, time there. But, you know, it's things that a leader needs to hear and how worrisome. He couldn't answer that. And the privilege, great word, Ashley, that's what it is in a lot of cases when it's out of touch, right? To think that he was owed something without giving something back.

You get what you give, duh. This is also the guy where it's like fighting tooth and nail to get an increase on salary. Hey, the gas station down the street literally pays 16.75 an hour and we're stuck at 12. And you are coming to me bitching that we can't get people. I wouldn't work here. Would you work here for $12? What can you do with $12 a fucking hour here in this community? Right? I mean, just, oh, out of touch. They should be honored to have a job here with how great our reputation is.

It's that bullshit. They should feel lucky. What? Oh, out of touch leadership. Couple examples. Yeah. I can't tell you how many times I have fought with senior leadership, the CEO of themselves. Same thing. They're talking about their third vacation to overseas and their

vacation home and their lowest paid employee can barely put food on the table or pay their rent. It's like you need to stop, you take care of your employees. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I've had leaders bitching about, you know, having to pay 50,000, which is a rounding error. And a lot of these organizations, you know, to do some mandatory increases, right? While there are literally employees that are homeless sleeping in their cars in their parking lots. Oh my God. We talked about Ohio State

and there's a reason I'm gonna bring this up. Is that Ohio State at the end of last year, we talked, you know, I think our last maybe the happy hour episode of 2024, but so Ohio State with in the US, there were supposed to be mandatory increases to the minimum salary to pay exempt employees. Went through a whole court battle, in the US, there were supposed to be mandatory increases to the minimum salary to pay exempt employees.

Went through a whole court battle, got struck down, but Ohio State had actually implemented some of those, I guess, early. And so when it got struck down in court, which if they were caught off guard, they certainly didn't listen to this podcast, so there we go. Okay, so we were like, predicted this would happen. So our wizardry, when it got struck down, they had told employees that they would keep those increases for November and December, but effective in January. So this month they were no longer, so they'd go back to their old salary.

And in part of the reason, my guess is that they did this is because they assumed that people would forget about it. The employees will not forget about it. And so I have to assume the employees that those affected, if they're not looking for jobs, you know what? They will be because their family members, their spouse, whoever is going to be sweating them, be like, how could you do this? And they're counting on people like us

to stop talking about it. And I will not stop talking about it because when you look at things, especially, as we said, there are organizations that have very low margins and it's literally like every dollar, non- nonprofits, things like that, depends on grants. It's literally do or die. But when you have an organization that pays millions of dollars to football coaches and otherwise and takes this away from real people, it is such a classic case example of out-of-touch

leadership, of not understanding that you're going to pay more in rehiring, retraining, all of those things. And they've gotten a decent amount of publicity on it, but I just think those examples, I am glad that there's a light shown on when people do that. And I do think it's beneficial for leaders to see things like that and see examples when things go viral on social media. And if that's the reason, again, you should care about your people because they're human beings and you should care if you don't, okay, you should care about people because you're losing money

by not doing it. And then also, you're going to care about people because otherwise you'll go viral for bad reasons. So if that's what it takes, there you go. Yeah. Like, if you don't give a shit about people, well, you're selfish, right? So at least give a shit about yourself

because that is so indecent, the act of doing those things. Like what a hit to your professional brand, right? I mean, to look like such an asshole, like broadly. I mean, I say, please people, bring these things up, keep having these conversations and shining lights on these out of touch leaders across the socials as much as you can to help shift behavior. If you're out there and your job is coaching, you're an HR pro listening to this, have those

hard conversations. Roll that shit in sugar. It does have to be disrespectful, right? But I mean, at least be the mayor. Say, hey, can I be your mayor here? Can I be your devil's advocate? Hey, here's how. Wait, do you say mayor, like mayor or mirror?

Mayor. What? Mayor. Spell it. Spell it. M-I-R-R-O-R. Mayor. What did you hear, Jamie? Mayor.

Like mayor, like the governor, but mayor? Of the city, yeah. See, I heard mayor. Mayor. It's your Texas. It's your Texas. Well, sorry, I'm from Texas the city, yeah. See, I heard mayor. Mayor. It's your Texas. It's your Texas.

Well, sorry. I'm from Texas, and so it had a little thing to it. Be the mirror reflecting the shit that they are doing, right? Here's how you're perceived and how you're perceived matters because you can't get shit done without your people. So if you want to be a jerk and a jackass, go for it. But you ain't going to be successful without my efforts and the people's efforts. People don't make those connections all the time, believe it or not. They're fucking stupid. That's a really great call out. That's why I love the power of social media, right? Because then they

get on social media and they blast the? Because then they get on social media and they blast the company or they get on Glassdoor and they write a shitty review and, God, I fucking love it. I do. Because I'm telling you, when I go to look for a job, I'm going to read your shit. And I'm going to see, you know what I mean? And one thing, one of, actually I'll give her a call out because she's great. I worked for a leader, her name was Heather, and she actually, to her new people that she was about to go on board when she left our company, she gave names of people that she's managed as references, but not, she's already got the job, deals already signed, ink sweat. So I think that's incredible that she knew,

like she was incredible leader. And so she was like, here, call this person and this person. You can get to know about me in private. Like, that's incredible. More leaders should be able to feel confident enough to have their employees speak about them, or even past employees for that matter. That should be the goal. Yeah.

So don't be out of touch, be in touch, but not physically because that's illegal. Yeah, don't touch me. Leave room for no EEOC complaints. In touch in an out of touch way. I don't know. No sexual harassment. Any questions or comments? Ladies, what do you got?

Any questions or comments before we close out this meeting? I have one. It's a question. What's one out of touch leadership thing that you can think of that you would tell to a leader now that you wish you'd told them then? I think for me, there's no need to have a Fivalon fire for fucking nothing. Calm down. It's not that serious. We're not saving lives.

Oh, damn. Well, I'm pretty transparent. Gets me in trouble. Pretty direct. But there have been toxic bosses that I've had where I wouldn't be open with them. I'd be on board with everything. Just, yes, yes, yes. I wouldn't give them any feedback.

That's when you know I don't trust you. You know what I mean? If I can't be candid or honest. And pretty much anything under the sun. I should have and would have told them if I felt safe. Here's all the ways that you've been fucking up. You know what I mean? So there's a there's a laundry list, Ashley.

There really is of things I've withheld, you know. But there's also a laundry list of all the crazy shit I've told leaders and bosses. So they probably cancel out to be honest with you. If you are hearing this feedback, we say frequently, like as a manager, or leader, senior leader, you're like, oh, it's so annoying when people come to me with their problems. It's worse if they don't. It is worse if they don't. So I guess that would be, I echo that, but if people are giving that to you, just know there are benefits to that. And the more you deal with things now, the less they'll come to you over time. So it's a great investment in your time, energy, and like willingness to think

about things differently. Love that question. Comment, Jamie. I just have a quick comment and I'm going to say this to anyone who is newly in HR or thinking to get into HR specifically, that your role, you're an employee advocate. And no one told me that when I was starting, and I wish they would have, but you are truly the voice for the employees. And do with that what you will, But that's an incredibly important job.

And, you know, handle that with the utmost care. Because if they trust you and they like you, you can go leaps and bounds in your career being that employee advocate and not the hated HR person. Yeah, I think you could have ripple effects on people's lives too, because they won't encounter that. They often won't encounter that. But if they do, it really impacts their whole career. That's an excellent point, Jamie. It really is. Not a comment, but just a quick question for you all.

Have you ever had a moment where you realized you were out of touch as a leader? Oh my God, I literally thought about this as we were recording. And I was going to say this, and I forgot to. It's when I was general counsel and head of HR of a company, we worked in a building, and there was a regular parking lot. And we had a certain number of passes to the executive parking lot. And I got one of those for my car.

And so I got to park in the executive parking lot, which was closer to the building, all the things. It wasn't like notice, it wasn't like markedly different. Like it's not like if I go to a Falcons game and I'm like up close versus like walking for blocks. Like it was like one floor. But I thought about that and was like, God, I should have given that to somebody. Like especially in HR and legal. Like I didn't fucking need it and I could, I should have like given it to people that were far more deserving and worked harder even than I. I wish I'd given it to somebody else.

And there's nothing prohibiting me from doing that. And I just feel like that would have been more in line with leadership. Again, it's a small thing compared to a lot of other things. But parking that, it's kind of cringey to me. I've talked about this place before, but the C-suite, we all sat upstairs like above and like, we would always get special treatment and it bugged the fuck out of me like free food and even swag from companies and shit. I even took some too.

Oh God. I mean, it was fucking Tupperware, to be honest. Like it wasn't like it was like, you know, like a new car or anything. It was Tupperware, but still like an umbrella. The generic wannabe Yeti from nobody's gonna come. Yeah, it was like their stupid company look that no one's ever heard of now. But it is like the visual of it and leaders not sitting with their teams and being close to their teams has very real ramifications as we've talked about. Lee, what about you?

Yeah, yeah. No, well, all of those, all of those examples you've given, you know, but reflecting, I'm like, man, with all the bullshit though, there's got to be a fucking perk to this job. You know? Like, please God, like, come on. Someone cussed me out over being short a dime on their paycheck. Like, please let me just park a little closer here. You know what I mean? Like I was in before the sun came up and leaving in the dark, like, give me a fucking break.

You know what I mean? Please let there be some perk. But the first thing that came to mind was as a leader, you most likely, at least in 99.9% of cases, have a leader yourself that you're managing, right? That you're reporting to and managing up to. I think about the times where I was out of touch with my team because I was very concerned about this relationship and doing my job to where maybe I became inaccessible to my team. Maybe I had to take something that I probably should have delegated but didn't because here

I am trying to survive, right? Or whatever. And I think about all those lost moments of like team development or lost moments of the giving of my time when my team really needed it because last minute, like a bitch, like canceling or shifting a meeting. I hate doing that. But something would come up and then I'd be so apologetic. But sometimes I'd have this self-awareness that, oh shit, I'm not being a good manager. And other times I was probably out of touch by it to self-absorb surviving in something or delivering or being an actual contributor, right? Like still having to do the work or whatever.

Yeah, it's hard, but I do think being in touch is about having some of that self-awareness and then communicating with other people. Hey, I'm not perfect and this happened and whatever. I mean, that's what we try to do is we are not, none of us are perfect on any day, not now, not in our careers. And so I think that self-reflection, bringing that, we try to do that through our individual

and collective social media, through the podcast, just thinking about these things and really thinking about what is some of the, what signals am I sending? And I have, as we're talking about this, some ideas for podcast episodes, like on fair treatment at work, delegation, how to create opportunities, name dropping at work. And so, you know, thinking about that way. And so this is this, at this end of this episode really has me thinking. And so a lot of what we'll do, we're not coming from a place that we are perfect, but we will

talk about what we've done and help others to think about that. And we like hearing from others too. So please do send those to us at HRBesties.com because we'd love to incorporate your feedback as well. Absolutely. Great call out, Ashley. Love it. Now I'm going to call out in this episode. Jamie is like, Jamie called out, Jamie's yelling out from down the hall. Hard stop, hard stop Jackson. She's back for 2025. Hard stop. Hard stop Jackson.

Right. Well, wishing you all some in touch leaders.