HR BESTIES - HR Besties: Unequal Treatment at Work

Episode Date: February 12, 2025

Today’s agenda:  Laying down the law in HR, respectfully Cringe corporate speak: hard stop Hot topic: unequal treatment at work: hourly wage vs. salary, department vs. department, field work vs. corporate and everything in between Unequal treatment in the workplace is an issue for everybody Basic benefits and respect should be equal for all employees Benefits and perks hold different values for each team member Culture is shaped by everyone's behavior in the workplace Small gestures made by leaders can send huge signals throughout an organisation Listening to employee needs is crucial 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

Have you ever known that you were going to fire somebody in like the first 30 seconds you've met them? Actually, I haven't onboarding before. I'm like, this isn't going to work out. It's not going to work out. Right? Exactly. Your gut is never wrong on these, I think, probably.

No, it's not. Right? on these, I think, probably. No, it's not, right? So I was starting a new job, and it was a job where it just popped up. It's the holidays. It's an emergency, because the person before me up and quit, because it was too much. It was an integration of a multibillion dollar business, right, and they needed an HR integration

leader on the ground, ASAP. So over a weekend, I relocate and move cities, right? And yeah, so left the job on Friday, heard about the new job on the Monday, left the job on Friday, took the weekend to grab my shit and leave, right? And I started on Monday. Well, I had to leave all my shit there, but I had to pack a bag, right? And then go back over my holidays and actually relocate at a later time. But anyways, so it's the first day and a guy walks into my office and he's standing over my desk. He's not sitting down and he doesn't introduce himself. He just starts saying, when do we get our raises? We were promised more money. When do we get paid?

When do those raises go in? Mind you, it's been five months into the integration and the acquisition date was maybe six, seven months ago and they were told all sorts of things, right? I have no idea, because it's my first day. All I know is that everything's blood red from a nature integration standpoint. And I don't know the status of shit. I don't know whether they've been paid,

but he just wants more money. I don't know anything, right? All I know is this guy is literally spitting at me over my desk, you know? And I was like, whoa, sit down. Sit down and talk to me like decent. Like do not ever talk to me like this again. Like you have to nip it in the ass.

And I scared the shit out of him in that moment, which was good. And he sat down and I'm like, walk me through what happened, right? And he does and he's all over the place and it's all me, me, me. And I can tell he's unstable. That's always nice. Right. You know, you get all sorts of stuff when you acquire, you never know. Right. Even when you don't, you get surprised. It's a new job and some people here are crazy. And so it was an enlightening conversation, but it was one where I had to apologize for past sins. It's like, hey, I don't know what you were told.

It's my first day. I'm catching up. I'm going to figure it out. And I apologize that what you've experienced from an employee experience perspective to this point has been less than favorable for you, right? We're going to figure this out. But again, don't you dare ever come in here like that again. That guy didn't last too long. I know he had a sour spot for me because that was one of

my corporate stalkers that I had. So I had to have arm security for a while because of that guy. Fun, fun stuff there. But just the realities of HR, you know? But as much as I could, I didn't feel physically threatened in that moment, other moments with him, but not that moment. Just one of those where, hey, it just hits you. That's just the reality of HR in a lot of organizations. It can be a little rough and tumble depending on your position and what you're focused on. But that was one day, I mean the first five seconds, damn, this guy ain't healthy for here. You know, this coming in hot, I'm not going to accept this shit. So advice for HR leaders, definitely nip that shit in the ass as much as you can, you know,

and protect yourself as much as you can as well. Don't let people talk to you. I would bet money that they had already talked to that guy about this raise and that it wasn't happening. Of course, a million times. The analysis had never even been done. Still had to go through all the jobs and do the matching with the new parent and all.

Everything still up in the air. Nothing had happened, of course. But you're walking in like, let me, what's my setup, my computer, glancing up, and there's this. And he's spitting over me. I do think. We teach people how to treat us. So it's like, whoa, you sit down now.

Don't you dare ever talk to me like that again. You know, whoa, damn, you know? You gotta, ooh, you know? Respectfully, of course. I think I learned that in Berenstein Bears, I feel like. I feel like I'm visualizing one of those books that kind of gives the lesson of if someone's coming in hot for you, you gotta puff your chest a little bit, like maybe like Queenie MacBair or whatever that was. You know, it was

like real kind of, you know what I mean? So what if all my videos are just Berenstain bears just like corporate? Like I'm just making all this up. I love Arthur Rob Anderson's videos on things where he goes through them sleepover one you see at the end, mama and papa bear are beat the F down. It's like 11 a.m. the kids finally go home, they pop a little honey, you know, the kind of somewhat forgotten little child like in the little like octagon play thing and they're sleeping on the chairs like they are so beat down. If you not just work in HR, if you work, go get the sleepover, Berenstain Bears, look at that flip to that last page and you will see yourself in either or both of mama and papa that bear in that moment, beat down, personified.

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Terms and conditions apply. Invest with RBC today. But anyway, shall we get into the agenda for this meeting? All right. Well, we got Cringe Corporate Speak, and that's brought to us by Jamie. And then we are going to pivot into the hot topic of this meeting today, and that is all about unequal treatment at work. So hourly versus salaried, field versus corporate, department versus department, level versus level, you name it, right?

I'm sure you have felt it or seen it. And then we will pivot, of course, to some questions and comments to close out the meeting. So Jamie, what do you got? I cannot believe we have never had this as Chris Corporates Week. And I want to say we've said it just about every single episode. It is hard stop. Not Jamie with a stop sign, literally. Literal stop sign, yeah. We always have joked, literally, since our very first episode about me being very busy

and I had a hard stop, so we were going to keep this meeting on track. Yeah, we have to. And we've never used it as Korean corporates. So nothing like season five, busting out hard stop. Yes. We all say that. We're all guilty. Yes.

What would we say instead? Oh, God. I have a meeting. We have all guilty. Yes. What would we say instead? Oh, God. I have a meeting. We have to end on time? Yeah. Something like that. Yeah. We have to end on time.

I can't. I don't want to see any of you ever again after this, or at least not till our next week's scheduled meeting. Yeah, our next call. Let me ask you this. Where'd you get that stop sign? So, Jamie, literally just those listening can't see this, but Jamie just held up a literal stop sign.

Well, I don't mean to make you confess a crime on air, but... No, no. I borrowed it from work. I don't know why it was at work. I have no idea why it was at work. I found it behind the printer and I said, I'm taking that home with me because I'm going to bust it out on HR Best Use. I'm not kidding.

It's brilliant. So if you're listening, no worries. I will bring it back. Have you ever seen it used? No, never. I have no idea why it was there. You need to use it. Don't just take it into a meeting and just hold it.

I will. Don't worry. How much would you laugh? I probably, someone's, but here's the problem. Here's the problem. But you're going to hold it up. And then I'm thinking of like a law school, like torts exam. Like someone's, you're going to hold it up. Oh, you're going to trip. It's going to come and slice someone in the head.

Now you've got to deal with the workers' tom shit. And then the original question of who stole it in the first place. What's their liability? I say I can't. I keep my lawyer brain off, but that just triggered it. It has slow too on the other side. It's two sided, slow and slow. Oh, so it is one of those dual sided ones. Like when you're doing like a traffic. Yeah. This is not a stolen stop sign, FYI, because it has a handle.

It's like the one they use at the drop off line at my kid's school. Yeah, no, it is. And if you're doing like road construction. I have no idea why it was in our office because we are not in construction. We're in healthcare. But I thought, you know what? I need to borrow that. If it said men at work on one side, you could just put it in most board rooms and leave it be. There we are. And it'd be totally appropriate. Oh, damn. Well, kind of a great segue with that joke there to today's hot topic, all about unequal treatment at work.

So we do have a number of folks reach out saying, hey, I was treated like this. It sucks. Is that fair? Should I be? Right? But all the questions, you know, and this arises a lot when it pertains to maybe vacations or time off or break times or whatever between different employee types like salaried versus hourly. You throw contractors in the mix. You name it. We talk about remote employees versus employees that have jobs that tether them full-time to the office,

departments being treated differently, you name it, tons of examples. I'm sure you ladies have some examples of unequal treatment at work. Too many. That's what's so fucked up about it, the amount. Ashley, a couple episodes back, she was talking about how executives got to park in a closer lot. I mean, I was somewhere where I fought like hell. And I finally did get a change, but the hourly team members had a more expensive medical plan than the salary team members. Same plan, same medical plans,

but the cost was covered differently. So we covered, I think 80% of the salary and 75%. Keep in mind, the hourly team members made less money. Like it was the dumbest fucking shit. Should be the opposite, but okay. Yeah, exactly. And they were like, well, it's a recruiting tool. Well, not for the hourly team members who are also licensed and skilled motherfuckers. But even PTO plans, I've seen that numerous places and just in like consulting work where, you know, the higher level gets more PTO or like quote unquote unlimited bucket. Don't get me started on

unlimited. That is an episode in and of itself. But I mean, I've seen some really messed up shit and, and just between like those levels. The paid time off. I mean, a lot of it really is somewhat is more actual tangible between paid time off benefits. I mean, those things that cost time and money or give time and money. And I do think you frequently see this in hourly populations. Also, you may have like field versus corporate. So you may have restaurant retail, the corporate, some people may call it support center, things like that, headquarters, corporate headquarters. But frequently, there's a vast differences in the signals that that sends. And I think organizations don't stop and think about enough. And sometimes they'll say, well, you know, turnover so high in

these areas. And so we can't give this time off. Like, okay, well, why is turnover so high? What would keep people there? How can that be a creep out? Maybe if you gave people more time off and had a crew over time, like if you're given a bucket of four weeks and someone can start and take four weeks paid time off and then quit, sure, fair enough. But often paid time off is accrued as you go on. And so if you see turnover as a problem, penalizing people due to that, is that really the answer and really stopping to think about that? Sometimes it is intangible, meaning it's not a formal policy or benefits,

but it's just this feeling and this, this aspect of respect of like, again, like field versus corporate. If you have field, like our corporate people coming out, what does that mean? Because often what that means is everyone has to scurry around like field mice in the field, whatever that location is, because the big boss is coming. And everything that means is that like it's an opportunity to get chewed out. So you got to work more hours, but don't put those in your time card because we don't want that. We don't want our labor to go over. But you got to have things looking good because the VP is coming in, our director is coming in. And so it's incredibly important for those in leadership in an HR to the extent you can reflect on and think about it is those different tiers of classes, the tangible and intangible, are

really important. The first thing that's important is to really stop and reflect on that. And then to think about how does that play out in the workplace and how does that affect the retention and engagement that you probably have as top priorities in the people team, but overall as an organization. Some of the really gross inequalities that I've seen throughout my career have been related to facilities. And so, when you have the front of house rights or, or the corporates, or the upstairs execs, or whatever

it is, when they have like special bathrooms. I remember this one, executive bathroom, and all the toilets were black. How gross. Like you can't even see what was happening in your toilet. Like you know what I mean? Like I want to make sure there's not a snake in there or something. It's like Gordon Gekko's personal design. It was weird.

Like, so weird. I didn't use that one. But you have things like that when they have separate lunch rooms, separate break rooms. I've supported a business where one of the locations, there were no water fountains for the majority of the workforce. They didn't even bother putting them in, which of course was against code. People were drinking hot tap water from the bathrooms. This is in Arizona too, by the way, where everything is just

hot for the majority of the year. No water fountains there. Whereas the restricted area must badge in for Salaried and above, right? The nugget ice machines and like you name it, right? The fancy coffee machines, all of that, right? So that's where I've really seen the visual, like the tangible, like wow, like holy, it really reflects in the facilities. And of course I'd give feedback. It's like, wow, like, holy. It really reflects in the facilities. And of course, I'd give feedback. It's like, well, we inherited this building. Well, this is how the building came. Oh, the building you chose to lease? Like, wait, what? What do you mean? That you remodeled, too, to fit what we needed, so please explain. Okay. Oh man. Things like that mean a lot to employees because it's affecting their day-to-day comfort in

their employee experience. The smallest things like, always have an ice machine, trust me. Always have a microwave. Go buy one if you don't. It's 50 bucks, it's fine. Things like that, to where people can just live a little more comfortably at work, means something. So when they see the optics of just the lavish to the nothing, oh my gosh, those are huge. Lyle Hagan And I've even seen it where it's like third shift. Well, first shift gets this and third shift doesn't.

So like when I worked in those places, for instance, let's say we're doing like an employee appreciation week, I would literally go in at midnight and deliver pizza or donuts or whatever because they are forgotten about, you know, leadership's on first ship. Leadership isn't on third shift. They rarely see leadership except for maybe an email or something posted by the time clock. And so I think that's important too for us as HR leaders, but us as HR in general, to teach and be like, hey, there's a divide, because I know I've seen it 21 years. And specifically, I see it mostly in our employee engagement surveys where the field feels like they're against corporate or third feels like they're against first.

This creates a huge divide. So you want to have that equality between everyone on your team. And look, most people are going to understand that there are going to be different perks for different jobs. You know, like, let's say when the executives get together, they always order lunch. That's going to happen. But if you're ordering lunch for a select group of people, you know, just directors or whatever, like that's when it becomes an issue and it becomes unfair. I agree completely with that because sometimes we've all, you know, certainly gotten this feedback of like, what are you like only like supporting the employees, people have to run

businesses and you got to incentivize people to want to move up and totally agree. But I do think exactly what Jamie said, there's, there's different ways of doing that. And some of it is thinking about and asking team members, like, do you think that there's like different, like different people are treated differently in the way of like different classes are treated differently? Or what are we not seeing? And so sometimes you'll see that. I remember when I heard that about sales, because I started doing a weekly newsletter

when I was literally general counsel, I can't remember if I'd taken on HR yet, like general counsel, I think, and started doing this newsletter of like calling out and some of what I did was sales performance and added in things of like other team members as well. And sometimes I don't know about those. Like I can pull the sales reports, but like I was living abroad in Australia, certainly had no idea, you know, day to day,

what everyone does, I'm not gonna pretend it. And so on a recognition side is like, how do you find that out? And so I would ask different people and I wouldn't just ask the leaders. I would also ask employees, especially ones that want is like, what's something somebody somebody did to give people those shout outs? Because that's one thing you see in a lot of organizations is sales getting kudos, but others not in that kudos, you know, can mean something if you can give something with it,

it's even better. But even sometimes people are just like, God, I'd love a thank you. But I remember when it was like I worked at a company and like I got there and all of these people like the senior leaders were like leaving the door to get on these buses. And I was like, Oh, this is fun. What's this? And like, and people are kind of like squirrely and they're like, Oh, it's like the hell whatever, you know, hell whatever level, whatever and above meeting and I wasn't I was like a level below that. And so I wasn't invited. So I didn't know about it. And I'm like, okay. And like, you kind of feel like, of course, I'm going to feel like left out. But also, it is realistic that like, you're going to have meetings that are leadership meetings.

But there's a way to thread that to be like, yeah, have when people come back for that talking to their teens, like, so often things like leadership meetings or leadership development programs, it's all given to those at the very top of the organizational ladder. And it's like, shh, not a word is said to anybody else. And sometimes I'm like, I totally get it, but what's happening? And so then giving the tools for then those leaders to come back to their teams. What can we share with our teams? What should we be sharing? And so that's when I think just really being mindful that there's totally ways to create incentives for people to want to move up. But for the basics, very little things should

be divided by level. Yeah. If you're listening to this, you're a leader, you're like, shit, I don't know how to bridge this. What I would say is that it is impossible to treat everybody equally, okay? Nor do I think we should because different people appreciate different things, okay? What we should do is baseline respect and dignity. Any basic benefits, PTO, vacation, shutdowns, all of that shit should be equal. People deserve that. But when it comes to perks, what real equity is, is listening to those employee groups and taking action based on what means the most to them. Instead of assuming everyone just wants this one salary focus

perk and spreading it out, and then this type of employee doesn't even use it, this one could care less. Because that's really a quality, like just treating everyone the same. I think really we want to focus on equity in that sense of really understanding our people, being connected, listening, and taking action. Is it more effort? Yes. Is it strategic? Yes. But it's more meaningful. People will feel a greater sense of belonging. People will fit, right? People will stay. People will retain. You know, so the goal isn't necessarily a quality of everything.

It's a quality of the human decency and civility and respect and all the time off and things like that, right? Like the kind of the basic things. Access to tuition reimbursement. right? Like the kind of the basic things. Access to tuition reimbursement, access to affordable healthcare, shit like that, right? That should be a like and similar, please, right? But for some of the other things, go a little deeper, right? And what actually means something to your different employee groups or departments or whatever. Or a localized approach, whatever, regional approach, whatever, right? Just go a little deeper, maybe add some things that mean something to that population. Then when another population finds out about it, have an honest conversation. Well, we polled the people in that location, and that's what means something for them.

That's why they get pizza on Fridays, and that's why you get tacos on Monday. So it's kind of an elevated approach to just love on people with what means something to them. I would drop my mic, but I don't want to break my own equipment. I was silent clapping. Anything else on unequal treatment at work? I mean, I have a hard stop. So there you go.

What do we people ever say like soft, soft, soft, soft, soft stop? It's hard to say that. We just say we don't have a hard stop. You have a hard stop. Do you have? I don't have a hard meeting after this. Yeah, I can keep going. I't have a meeting after this. I can keep going. I'd have a meeting after this. I definitely have said that before because we're running

or starting to run over. I don't have anything after this. Oh, I don't either. Okay. Yeah, exactly. Oh, well, we'll keep to that hard stop then. Any questions or comments? What do we got to close this meeting out? I have one thing that I wanted to say and Leah goes back to your story in the beginning where you were saying you had to essentially put that man into his place probably isn't the greatest word, but I cannot tell you how many times people come in hot to HR. And they come guns blaring. And the amount of times I've had to say, okay, stop, you cannot talk to me like that. And I would love to help you or I can answer your question or I can assist you. But until you not calm down, because I hate when my husband tells

me to calm down, don't fucking say. But when you want to take a breather and come back and we'll try again. But the amount of times I've had to tell people that in my career is astonishing. And I think it goes back to what HR is viewed as. And that hurts my heart a little bit because automatically there's something wrong with your paycheck, HR did it. There's something wrong with your time card, HR did it. So keep that in mind if you're not in HR. When you start to approach us, we've probably dealt with a mountain of shit that morning.

And anyone you should be approaching with question because I'm sure probably wasn't on purpose. So that's why I like, I always joke that I like to play dumb. Like I probably know what happened, but I'm going to play dumb and ask you like, oh, hey, I noticed this. Do you know what that's about? Because it's going to go over a lot better than me being a fucking bitch. Yeah.

And FYI, 90% of the time it was your leader's fault. I'm just saying. Yep. I'm going to be the one that fixes it for you, so fucking be nice to me. Geez. If you wouldn't talk to a stranger like that, don't be talking to a coworker like that. That's for damn sure. Exactly. You wouldn't talk to your leader like that.

And nobody would want to be talked to like that, like especially if, again, people can fix things. You may not be able to fix it exactly in that moment, you will do your best. Sometimes HR life is dealing with like seven third party vendors and you're just as frustrated. So I will say this. I mean, HR has no desire to create more work for itself. Everybody's already got full plates. So HR is not trying to make mistakes.

Sometimes they happen. Figure that out. But when people say HR's job is just to protect the company, I'll say this, or the organization, if it's a nonprofit or government things, but nobody in HR is protecting the organization or the company if you treat people badly. And if you emboldened leaders that treat people badly, if you create policies that treat people badly, and you do those things. So HR as a whole, of course, like any profession, there are people that should not be in that

role. It can feel extremely personal because money's involved, careers are involved, benefits, human lives can be involved. But HR's job is not a shield to protect this whole company of gremlin leaders. HR's job is often trying to be this conduit and they're often fighting these, they shouldn't feel like fights, but they are and doing a lot of things. And so protecting an organization does not mean sweeping things under the rug and creating more issues for itself.

It means showing how to treat people well, because you should, because they're humans, but otherwise because organizations run better when people are treated well. Was that your comment? That was a good one. Profound. That was my comment. Kind of unrelated. Well, it's unrelated to the meeting topic, but like you see it and it is, it's like a million, you know, to me it's like a million paper cuts, but each of those, and I see that as comments all the time, but I get it. There's a lot of reasons behind that. People may have had an experience. Also people often don't know what HR's job is, but unlike being like, tell me what your job is,

they're just going to come on your video when you're trying to show about making work better and be like, you suck. Like, okay, let me tell you, let me tell you why HR is not your friend. I'm trying to get that message out. And you can only see one too many people who are trying to profiteer on LinkedIn by holding themselves posing in a picture of a chalkboard, a chalkboard with that written on it, like all profoundly.

And then like, I've had people send that to me. Have you ever heard this before? Yes, I've heard this before. Yes, it's not my first fucking rodeo. Let me tell you, it's not. How is that protecting the company to be like treating people terribly? Nobody wants to create more work for themselves. Go ahead and think about it that way. Well, I'm going to hold a sign with all of this text written here, real tiny font, get your readers and let me explain it. It's not as compelling as easy for people honestly that

are tend to be like trying to profiteer off of employee misery. Mm-hmm. Oh, gosh. Well, not a comment for me, but just a quick question. Have you all, now that we've gone through this meeting, have you all been treated unfairly, inequitably at work? Did something pop into your brain during this meeting? I remember that time that happened to me.

I'm just curious if anything came to mind for you yourself as an employee where it sucked. Yeah, for sure. Is that when you were playing janitor at Coles? Sears. Sears? Sears. No, actually, I'm thinking about a time where I was given additional work and not promoted. I was promised a promotion.

Not this cycle, this, we'll change your title. What do you want your title to be? But it was like one of those quiet promotion type things where I didn't actually get a raise, but I'm taking on the work. And then, yeah, so I'm thinking of that and how shitty that felt. And after you just processed all these promotions for everybody else in the workplace, and then announced them and congratulated them, and it was a thing. I did. And I'd seen it a lot, like when I was a lawyer in law firms, like I was on the lawyer

side. And so lawyers in law firms tend to be a different, you know, treated far differently than virtually all of the support staff. And they're like, honestly, law firms tend to be treated far differently than virtually all of the support staff. And they're like, honestly, law firms can be some of the worst offenders in this of like just taking people for granted or that lawyer is like, you know, king of whatever. But when I flipped on that and had worked at a large consulting firm and was on like the non-consultant side. So it was like being on the flip of that. It's like a law firm environment, lawyer versus not. And it

just felt like from onboarding to kind of everything, I very much felt like I was in a different class. And so for me, it was an eye-opening experience. When I was a lawyer in law firms, I was friends with everyone, friends and always treated people the same. In part, I've worked at the lowest rung of the whatever organizational ladder. For me, it's never a question of just palling around of those who can benefit you somewhere or whatever. I hate that approach, but I very much felt like a second class citizen in that. And so to me, it was really eye opening and in a reminder of just how that feels sometimes

justifiably, sometimes probably it's just a feeling, but definitely felt this very personally. But you, Lee. Yeah. Well, I was just kind of thinking about all the times where other people were afforded flexibility and I wasn't. And it's like, well, why am I not worthy of getting that same treatment, especially in the same group, team, department? Like why can't I work remotely on Fridays and everybody else can? Things like that, right? Why can't I flex my schedule?

Why can't this? Why can't I flex my schedule? Why can't this? Why can't, you know? So those were situations, this one I'm thinking about was, you know, where I had a really toxic boss and it's just like everyone, she played favorites and everyone got treated differently and it just really sucked like that. You knew when you were on her shit list because everything was a no and I was just, it was just wild, you wild. People were treated worse than me. There's that at least, but boy, people were treated just so differently and on the same team too.

It was so gross. And then just quickly, I was thinking about the times where I was singled out for being female, right? Like, you need to take notes in a meeting and I was thinking of people turning to me. Oh my God, yes. Or gosh, we need more coffee. Go get coffee, yes. Or, gosh, we need more coffee. Go get coffee, yep. Or we need this.

Never would I do that. Never would I do that. So just FYI, I just be like, well, I think we should have a note-taker who has legible writing. So it's not me. Yeah, I have the worst handwriting. I mean, whatever. You know what I'm saying? Lee actually has great handwriting, like the most beautiful handwriting you've seen, but

like, yes. But you know what I mean? It's like, I didn't want to be pigeonholed like that. I think we really do teach people how to treat us. And that's sad. At times people should just know to be decent or treat people equally or with respect or whatever. But gosh, right? Those unconscious and conscious biases, they are a bitch. So yeah, that's what was kind of flooding to

my mind were all those little micro inequalities there. This treatment is weird, right? But there's a lot of them. Even as a leader, and no matter what people are asking you think for yourself Like well, I'll do it because I don't want to speak up. I don't want to do this I don't want to you know, I don't want to rock the boat for enough. You are sending messages to others including those that may Everyone including those of what you'll tolerate but also including those who are looking up to you and so I remember very much walking into a meeting, a large leadership meeting, and it was literally like 20 men and my boss,

who was a female, and she was the one taking notes in it. And I remember that stuck out to me. And I had a conversation afterwards. And I was had a conversation and brought that up. She hadn't thought about that. And so, but for me, like it stuck out, it was such a, like I can feel it years, years, years later now. And she was like, but for me, like it stuck out, it was such a, like I can, I can feel it years, years, years later now. And she was like, Oh my God, I literally never thought about that before.

And I think she brought it up. And I think it was the same type of conversation being like, Oh, you have such great handwriting. And, and those will be like, Oh, is this such a big, big deal complaining about who's taking notes. But if you talk to people and about the whole point, I think of this episode, so we'll tie it with a bow, is the way people feel treated, even in what you may consider to be a very small moment for them can be extremely personal and send huge signals and ultimately, again, impact how they come to work,

how they care to work, how long they wanna stay with you, what they say about your organization. And so being mindful is so important for yourself and for others. Hmm. Culture, the definition of culture to me is just a set of accepted behaviors in a group of people. So with everything you do, everything, you know, behavior, whatever you say, you are

impacting culture at all times. So you're going to have a positive impact or a negative one. And culture is not HR's job. And it's not just the leader's job. Culture is everyone's job within the company. Everyone's accountable to it. Hmm. Hard stop, ladies.