« June 2020 | Main | August 2020 »

July 2020

Choosing Members of your Leadership Team as an Executive To Drive Culture (Best Boss Ever Podcast)..

Congrats my friend - you made it. You're an executive, and whether than means you're a C-level, SVP, VP, whatever - you're now expected to be strategic.

There's a lot of areas to think about strategy when you're a leader. Here's one you don't think about a lot - how you build your leadership team of direct reports (all who manage others) related to the type of manager of people they are.

In a past episode of Best Boss Ever, I reached out to my good friend and BOSS Leadership facilitator Dawn Burke and we identified and talked about "6 Manager of People Brands" including the Doer & Individual Contributor, The Friend/Pushover, The Control Freak/Authoritarian, Trend Spotter/Reader of the Best Seller, Performance Based Driver, and The Career Agent.

Which begs a question - if you're an executive building out your team of direct reports - all who manage others - which one of these "6 Manager of People Brands" do you want on your team?  That's why I had Dawn back on to discuss, with a podcast on this topic below!

Whether you're a new executive or someone with 20 years in the seat, there's something in this podcast for you - check out the rundown below and think proactively about what you need more of on your leadership team. Spoiler alert - you probably need a mix related to the types of leaders you have on your leadership team.

The choices you make in this area direct impacts the culture you're building!  Enjoy the pod and be sure to subscribe!

-------------------------------------------

Welcome to Best Boss Ever, the podcast dedicated to helping you develop managers who build great teams. In this episode, Kris Dunn talks about the power of Choosing Members of Your Leadership Team To Drive Culture with Dawn Burke, master facilitator at the BOSS Leadership Training Series.

Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast on Apple PodcastsSpotify or Google Play. Rate and Review if you like what you hear!

On to the show (email subscribers, click here if you don't see the podcast player)...

 

Show Highlights:

4:40 - KD provides a quick rundown of the concept of manager brand and the 6 manager brands we covered in the episode 2 of Best Boss Ever

11:55 - Dawn and KD take the types of early career people managers – Doer & Individual Contributor, The Friend/Pushover, The Control Freak/Authoritarian - and rank which ones they would prioritize as a part of their team as an executive.

25:00 - Dawn and KD discuss the types of more established managers – Trend Spotter/Reader of the Best Seller, Performance Based Driver, and The Career Agent - including dialog on whether habits can change once they’ve been established in experienced managers.  Dawn and KD rank which types of senior managers they would prioritize as a part of their team as an executive.

31:35 - KD and Dawn discuss their ideal manager portfolios across a team of 5 managers of people managing 60 people. What's the right mix of the different types of people managers for a department of that size?

---------------

Dawn Burke on LinkedIn

Dawn Burke HR

---------------

Boss Leadership Training Series

Kinetix

The HR Capitalist

Fistful of Talent

Kris Dunn on LinkedIn

KD's Book - The 9 Faces of HR


Career Expectations: Comparison Is The Thief of Joy (And Doesn't Matter if You're Good)

Last week I put up a post talking about the fact there's nothing wrong with young talent doing a call center role for a good company early in their career, but I talked a bit in that post that good to great talent wouldn't be in that role for 3+ years - they'd promote within the call center or elsewhere in the company. 

Good talent goes up. The cream rises to the top.

There's just one problem with that. The world we live in - from the escalating college admissions process, capital campaigns at colleges, media, social media, etc - has robbed us of perspective.  Young grads are automatically nervous related to their slotting in the job market.

That's why I wanted to have a guided conversation on one of my podcasts - The HR Famous Podcast - on how career expectations for new grads have escalated to the point where it's not healthy, and from a talent perspective the current narratives aren't true.

Take a listen to the podcast below as I talk with Tim Sackett and Jessica Lee about these expectations and our view of them. We also have Cameron Sackett, Tim's son, on as a new grad to talk about how he's feeling attempting a job search in a COVID world. While the timing sucks, I'm a HUGE believer that Cam will be successful regardless of the level of job he lands in the coming weeks/months.  Look him up on LinkedIn if you need a young Marketing pro who can do great things.

Great talent ALWAYS goes up if it performs like it should. I'm pissed at a world that causes kids like Cam to be stressed about their careers, but the stress would likely have been there for a lot of kids even if COVID wasn't a factor. It's a mind#### that the world has forced on them.

Comparison is the thief of joy. Great talent goes up.

-----------

In episode 24 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett, Kris Dunn and Jessica Lee are back to discuss the escalation of career expectations for college students (as well as the musical Hamilton and Glassdoor/Indeed changes). 

Listen (click this link if you don’t see the player) and be sure to subscribe, rate, and review (Apple Podcasts) and follow (Spotify)!

SHOW HIGHLIGHTS

29:00 - KD discusses his worries about post-grad jobs in a COVID and post-COVID world. He thinks we’re setting difficult expectations for high performing college students who are entering the job force. JLee worries that colleges are just using student’s successes and expectations to get the best crop of incoming students. 

32:45 - Tim talks about his blog post he wrote about Cam’s college admissions experience and how the college admission system is screwed up. KD is a big fan of the comments on the blog post and still subscribes to them 4 years later. 

35:30 - KD asks Cam about how he remembers his college admissions experience and the frustrations he felt during this time. 

37:30 - KD asks JLee about her experience going through college as a child of immigrant parents. She discusses the high expectations that her parents had for her, and how she’s going to change and adapt those expectations for her children. 

40:00 - JLee discusses her rebellious streak as a young adult and how she did well enough to get by and still rise to the top of her field. 

41:30 - HR Famous thinks the cream always rises to the top!

44:00 - KD posted a blog post on the HR Capitalist this week about a woman who reached out to him who had worked at the same call center for four years. He thinks that regardless of where anyone starts, the best will always rise and reach where they want to be. 

47:00 - Cam talks about what he thinks about taking a call center job and his hesitations. He says that he would be more willing to take a customer service entry level position if he’s joining a company that has great upward mobility and career mentoring. 

48:45 - The HR Famous crew gives their last words of advice to Cam on the job search. 


HR TROLLS: Thinking Unemployment on Steroids Means You Have a Compensation Problem...

Short post today, but an important one. I belong to multiple online groups covering HR on a variety of platforms - you know the type - people can post questions on problems they're having in their HR shops and get help, advice and recommendations from their peers.

On one of the big forums on Facebook, a HR Director posted about problems she was having recruiting for the Distribution Center she supported, and reported that she believed that part of the issue was Trollthat many candidates who would normally be under consideration were recipients of the $600 weekly employment benefit that's part of the COVID stimulus program. The theory, which many of you know, goes like this - once a potential candidate adds up the state and federal unemployment and is earning the equivalent of 40-55K annualized (depends on your state benefit level), it's hard to get them to come back to a $15-20 an hour job.

That's more than a theory, that's likely reality in many cases.

So our friendly HR Director asks for guidance, and I'd say 20% of the responses went something like this:

"You should look in the mirror and pay a living wage."

There were different versions of that, but they all shared a common belief. The problem wasn't the incentive, it was the company.

What planet did I wake up on as I navigate the 5th month of the COVID experience? Mind you, this wasn't a random message board, it was a members only HR forum. You know, HR people. 

It's a tone deaf, light form of shaming that we've become all too used to in the cancel culture we live in.  How dare you not pay your employees enough to incent them to come back from a historically rich form of government benefit designed to keep the economy going in a pandemic?

Man, those shaming style commenters in a HR forum. Talk about not understanding the business as a limiting factor to HR success.

I'm still a fan of what the US government did. They moved fast, and while it wasn't perfect, the stimulus did what it was supposed to do.

But artificially propped up comp can't last forever, and while I write this it's unclear what type of Federal unemployment benefit will emerge in August after the $600 benefit expires at the end of July. It's likely to be significantly less. There's likely to be pain as a result of the benefit being reduced, and I don't take that lightly.

HR trolls suck. The world has enough trolls - our profession doesn't need our own version.

 


Are You Willing to Hire "Athletes" Rather Than Specialists at Your Company?

First up, the term "athlete" in this post is meant to describe hiring those who are generally smart, intellectually curious, quick on their feet, learn quickly, are great communicators and have DNA for drive/initiative - rather than hiring someone with domain experience in a job as your first concern.

With that description in mind, do you and/or your company favor athletes over specialists? Sometimes? Never? In what circumstances? Hfm

I'm drawn to the question since I read this passage from Diary of a Very Bad Year: Interviews with an Anonymous Hedge Fund Manager by Anonymous Hedge Fund Manager:

“HFM: I didn’t go to business school. I did not major in economics. I learned the old-fashioned way, by apprenticing to a very talented investor, so I wound up getting into the hedge fund business before I think many people knew what a hedge fund was. I’ve been doing it for over ten years. I’m sure today I would never get hired.
 
n + 1: Really?
 
HFM: Yeah, it would be impossible because I had no background, or I had a very exiguous background in finance. The guy who hired me always talked about hiring good intellectual athletes, people who were sort of mentally agile in an all-around way, and that the specifics of finance you could learn, which I think is true. But at the time, I mean, no hedge fund was really flooded with applicants, and that allowed him to let his mind range a little bit and consider different kinds of candidates. Today we have a recruiting group, and what do they do? They throw résumés at you, and it’s, like, one business school guy, one finance major after another, kids who, from the time they were twelve years old, were watching Jim Cramer and dreaming of working in a hedge fund. And I think in reality that probably they’re less likely to make good investors than people with sort of more interesting backgrounds.
 
n + 1: Why?
 
HFM: Because I think that in the end the way that you make a ton of money is calling paradigm shifts, and people who are real finance types, maybe they can work really well within the paradigm of a particular kind of market or a particular set of rules of the game—and you can make money doing that—but the people who make huge money, the George Soroses and Julian Robertsons of the world, they’re the people who can step back and see when the paradigm is going to shift, and I think that comes from having a broader experience, a little bit of a different approach to how you think about things.

When you think about hedge funds, the book quote above displays a common trend. In the early days of any industry or specialty, it's easier to hire the best athlete available, mainly because domain experience doesn't really exist or is generally unavailable. The industry is too young.

But as the industry matures, risk taking on new hires goes down - because candidates with domain experience are widely available.

We could all probably stand to hire more athletes who are capable of not only doing the job in question, but become an agile talent asset for the company. But just saying that you're open to hiring an athlete doesn't mean you'll have success.

For best results in hiring "athletes", you'll need to define what makes someone an athlete. You won't generally find that on a resume, you'll need an assessment package.  For me, a candidate would qualify as an athlete if they have a high cognitive capability, low rules orientation (because I want to throw them at anything I want, they can't be hung up on that), high details (drives execution) and great writing and verbal skills.

They'd also have to be familiar with the term, "fake it 'til you make it", which I think is the mindset of any "athlete" worth her salt as defined by this post.

What did I miss?


Authentic Leadership - Can You Define It? (Best Boss Ever Podcast with Lisa Higgins)

Authentic leadership. It matters now more than ever, because while being perfect as a manager of people is unrealistic, being authentic is full of forgiveness.

Being authentic as a manager or a leader means no one is ever guessing where you come from on any issue. They know you, and for the issues where they aren't sure where you stand, they're confident they don't have to guess - you'll tell them or otherwise engage.

Some the descriptors I like to describe authentic leadership are Truth-teller and Force of Nature. Add Empathy and Listener and you've got today's authentic leader.

I was lucky to be joined on my podcast - Best Boss Ever - by one of the most authentic leaders I have ever encountered - Lisa Higgins from APQC.

Take a listen via the player below, and if you only have a few minutes, I've listed my favorite segments from the show below as well (email subscribers, click here if you don't see the podcast player)...

If you only have 10 minutes - take a listen at these timestamps:

10:00 - Kris talks about being locked into a conference room with Lisa and her team for full days at a time, and gives Lisa some adjectives and phrases that come to mind and she reacts to them, talking about whether she grew into these traits or if they’ve always been a part of who she is:

  • Truth-Teller
  • Coming in Hot/Force of Nature
  • Listener
  • Authentic/Believable
  • Getting Out of the Way for Direct Reports

31:10 - And now for the close – Lisa describes her best boss ever. It's Jack Grayson, founder of APQC. Among countless positive attributes - many of which Lisa describes, it's notable that he was comfortable hiring someone who was very much different than him - and provided room and support for Lisa to grow. He ended up with a great employee and a future leader of his organization. So cool and so true.

Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast on Apple PodcastsSpotify or Google Play. Rate and Review if you like what you hear!


Your Company's Probably Going to Ask You to Delete TikTok From Your Phone (The HR Famous Podcast)

Ah, company phones.  Here's the deal - they really don't exist much anymore. 

Why are we talking about company phones? Last week was a doozy as Amazon directed its employees to remove TikTok from company devices, only to take the request back later in Tik tokthe same day. Wells Fargo came in behind Amazon and gave the same directive - and held to its guns.

TikTok is a concern because of data security concerns combined with the fact that it's a Chinese company. China has a long history of being rogue with all types of IP. You can expect that more companies will follow suit and direct their employees to remove TikTok from company devices.

But can we be real a second? Companies long ago transferred the financial responsibility for devices to employees. While a small percentage of employees have company provided devices, at the end of the "Blackberry" age companies began the march to the "bring your own device" world, where employees had access to company email and other apps on the device that they chose. My Gen X and old Millennial friends will remember in the 2010 timeframe when IT departments started allowing personal iPhones to be able to get corporate email.

And like that, the need to provide devices to employees was gone. The pitch went something like this: Your choice, we can give you a clunky ass company-owned Blackberry, or you can use your iPhone to pick up email. Some companies provided a stipend, but most did not.

Poof! Expense related to telephony gone!

Unintended consequence of that revolution - companies don't own the devices that are being used by employees in 90% of the workforce in America.

That means mandating TikTok being off phones goes something like this:

1--Companies mandate no Tiktok on device being used for company work (but that the employee owns), employees say yes (sounds unlikely)

2--Companies mandate no TikTok, and provide phones to a higher percentage of employees (unlikely due to cost)

3--Companies say if you won't remove TikTok from phone, you can't use company apps like Outlook (unlikely due to the hit on immediate response and productivity)

4--Companies look at the do-do bag of options above, do nothing about TikTok (ding, ding! Most likely outcome!)

We talked about this issue on the latest episode of HR Famous.  Take a quick listen below, see the time stamps on this issue shared below and while you're there, subscribe to our pod!

--------------

In episode 23 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett, Kris Dunn and Jessica Lee are back to discuss Jlee’s recent vacation, Tim’s new favorite shorts, different proposed plans for return to work bonuses, and privacy concerns about TikTok and other apps on company owned devices. 

Listen below (click this link if you don’t see the player) and be sure to subscribe, rate, and review (Apple Podcasts) and follow (Spotify)!

SHOW HIGHLIGHTS:

1:20 - Jlee is back from vacay! Jlee went on a working vacation to the beach and returned with a nice tan. 

3:45 - Do you turn on an out of office reply on your email when you go on vacation? The HR Famous crew has rarely if never turned on their out of office reply. 

6:00 - Tim comes through with the much needed fashion advice. He says to check out Fair Harbor shorts! (Also, we’re open to a sponsorship!)

21:45 - Next topic of the episode: TikTok and employer’s rights! Last Friday, Amazon emailed employees to delete TikTok from their phones. Later in the day, they issued a statement that the email was a mistake and their employees didn’t need to delete TikTok. Wells Fargo also directed their employees to delete TikTok from company owned devices. 

24:00 - Tim brings up the bitcoin hack on Twitter and privacy/security concerns on there as well. Although TikTok is a Chinese owned company, there is still risk coming from American owned companies like Twitter. 

25:50 - KD discusses the differences in security issues on different kinds of devices or softwares. Tim brings up how many tech companies have allowed their employees to work on whatever operating system they’re most comfortable with and how there may be IT concerns surrounding that. 

28:00 - KD asks Jlee if she thinks that people will delete TikTok from their personal mobile devices even though most people have other privacy sensitive information on their devices. Jlee thinks it’s not going to happen and says the only way employers could have complete control over the employee’s devices would have to be somewhat similar to government agencies that work with national security concerns. 

30:00 - Tim discusses concerns over TikTok being a Chinese company and therefore, somewhat state-controlled. He thinks a solution may be getting a US owned TikTok alternative to replace the platform. Jlee is very sad about the potential outlawing of TikTok. 

32:00 - Tim thinks that people should be allowed to have multiple logins on a phone like you can have on a laptop or a computer. KD thinks that companies should just pay for their employees to have their own company device to solve any security concerns. 

33:30 - The HR Famous podcast promotes wearing a mask! Mask up!

 


HR Leaders Are Increasingly Turning to Generalist Over Specialists (Best Hire Ever Podcast)

Change. We've had our share of it in the business world in 2020, right?

It has hit everyone hard without question, but HR leaders and pros have been hit as hard as anyone. Like you, I have a lot of friends who have faced furloughs, layoffs, etc - both inside and outside of HR.

When HR staffs contract in a recession, something interesting happens. Generalists start to be valued to a higher degree than specialists. Add in the need to flex skills not prioritized in a pre-COVID world, and the need for strong HR generalists becomes the smart play - especially if you're doing it with less headcount.

That's why I had a conversation with Kathy Rapp of hrQ on the changing landscape of hiring HR Leaders and Pros in a Post-COVID World. Kathy's a great voice in the world of HR and she talks to more HR leaders than most of us do. Check out the podcast below, and I've even given you meaningful time stamps to make great use of your time. While you're at it, do me a favor and subscribe!

Viva, HR Generalists!!! You just got more valuable. Whether you're still employed or you've been impacted by this madness as an HR pro, take a listen to this podcast for some great ideas for how to maximize your career prospects.

--KD

--------------------------

In Episode 7 of BEST HIRE EVERKris Dunn chats with Kathy Rapp of hrQ on the changing landscape of hiring HR Leaders and Pros in a Post-COVID World. Kathy and Kris talk about the current state of the HR job market, what skills are in demand, where HR might have fallen short inside companies and what it all means for the HR job market moving forward.

Please subscribe, rate and review (Apple) and follow (Spotify) to get the latest BEST HIRE EVER episode delivered to you! (Click this link you don't see the podcast player below)

SHOW HIGHLIGHTS:

12:40 - Kathy and KD discuss the many misses HR functions experienced related to employee and internal communications during the COVID lockdown period.

14:30 - Kathy shares other areas where the bar has been raised for HR in a post-COVID worlds beyond comms - including Risk Management and DEI.

15:05 - Kathy and KD give their definition of "HR Generalist" and other titles (hint, it's a lifestyle rather than a career level). Kathy talks about the HRBP title, "people" designations, etc.

18:25 - Kathy and KD dig into what’s going on in the marketplace related to HR generalist vs specialist. The market is placing a premium on Generalist skills, and CHROs are rebuilding teams around the Generalist skill set. Kathy and KD talk about how long this vibe will last.

21:00 - Kathy talks about the need for HR pros to lead the conversation about "what's next".  KR takes a pot shot at talking about "having a seat at the table" or "being strategic".  Discussion follows related to what is needed vs flavor of the month rules the conversation.

22:50 - Kathy and KD talks about how HR candidates seeking employment need to modify their approach to land a job in this market.  Building networks, create a personal board of advisors and staying mentally/physically strong.


Good Call Center Jobs Teach You a Lot - But We Might Wonder Why You Didn't Get Promoted...

I love what jobs early in our careers teach and say about us.  There's literally 8 million stories in the naked city, and this is just one of those stories.

But in its own little way, it matters - a lot. Workaholics

This story is about what happens when a new graduate takes a customer service job at a big company. You know the person, the company and the type of job I'm talking about.

Person - New college grad or a person with a high school diploma who has had a couple of jobs where they strung a bit of success together.  If you're a new college grad, you probably have a business, marketing or liberal arts degree - you're not a STEM major, which is 100% ok.

Company - A big company with a professionally run customer service function - think more than 100 FTEs, and at times 1,000+

Type of Job - Sit your *ss in that chair and take the abuse make our customers happy through 80 inbound calls a day.

While a lot of these jobs are getting replaced by technology, they still exist, and in the opinion of this humble observer, they are great training grounds for a career in the business world. 

95% of graduates aren't STEM or technology majors, and they don't come from the Ivy League. The call center job is a natural starting point for a career, if you can land this job in a big company along the lines of what I described above.

You know what's sad? We've created an artificial expectation of careers via a cocktail of social media, college propaganda and related bulls**t that these types of jobs aren't good starting points for a college grad. Talk to new grads, and their expectation is that they should come out of the gate earning 60K. It's a lie for most of the world. Fewer kids are ready to work these days.

But (and there is a but) there's a Darwinian thing that happens in a professionally run, modern call center for a reputable company.

Promote or become staler than the 5-day old bread you left open and out on the porch. Career pathing happens, and the reps who do the work and are good at what they do get promoted - both up the ranks in the call center, and out into other areas of the company. That's how it should be.

But it begs another question.  What does someone in the same modern call center role/job with a big company for 3 years (no inline promotion, no career ladder move or anything else) mean?  It means they're well-placed and lost in the generally open bid for promotions, transfers to other departments, etc.

While the current crop of college grads doesn't want to pay dues in the call center, there's another reality. The world is quick to coddle the same grad who's spent 1 year in the same professional call center job and tell them things like this:

It's not your fault. The system was rigged. There's a bunch of favoritism associated with promotions in that arena.

Nope. You got beat, you didn't get it done. The professional grade call center that's internal at blue chip, well run companies knows what it's doing. You weren't good enough. You being in the same role in that company with a LOT of opportunity within the call center (not even looking at promotions to other areas) means you weren't in the top quartile, and you may be closer to the 50th percentile.

If you have a kid with a degree who's struggling to find his path, encourage him/her to find a great company with a good call center/customer service function, apply and win a job, then go compete like crazy.

Promotions for youngsters in well run call centers matter. They're literacy tests for the ability to grind, perform and compete in a career.

All other things being equal, I'd take a person who put on the headset and went to compete over one who hasn't.  


Interesting CHRO/VP of HR Move: Eileen Moore Johnson is the new EVP and CHRO at Scientific Games

We've got a new recurring feature/segment on The HR Famous Podcast - The CHRO/VP of HR/HR Leader "Move of the Week".

Will we do it every week?  Not sure. But it's interesting to keep an eye on who's making moves in the world of HR and note the ones that are really interesting. Johnson

First one we covered this week was Eileen Moore Johnson becoming the new EVP and CHRO at Scientific Games.

What made this move so interesting is that Johnson is moving from an operational role at Caesars to her new, pure play HR role at Scientific Games. To get a sense for who Eileen was before moving into this pure HR role, here's a snippet from her LinkedIn profile:

Regional President at Caesars: Responsible for operational oversight and P&L responsibility for four large casino resorts and attractions on the Las Vegas Strip (including The Flamingo, Harrah’s, The LINQ, The Linq Promenade and The Cromwell). Oversaw region representing 8,400 hotel rooms, 28 restaurants, 7,000 employees, $1,4B in net revenues, and $435M in EBITDA. Served as member of company’s Capital Committee overseeing strategic deployment of annual capital plan of $550M. Functioned as member of Caesars Corporate Equity Council, 401k Committee, Cyber Security Council, and executive sponsor of VIA, Latino employee business resource group. Founder of Caesars Lean In Circles for executive women development. 

That's an impressive background. Click through to the profile and you'll see a history of being interested and involved in all things Talent related, which is one of the reasons I'm sure that the move to HR makes sense and felt natural. In addition, she paid operational dues before landing in Vegas in the industry, leading less-well known properties in Indiana and Illinois, including Horseshoe SI, Harrah’s Joliet, and Harrah’s Metropolis. Still a big business with $600M in annual revenues and oversaw 3,400 employees, but without the glamour.

Love HR leaders who have put in the dues. Congrats on the move Eileen, and welcome to the world of HR and Talent, but let's face it - you've been doing it a while.

Sometimes the best HR people are the ones who don't have it as part of their title.


Talking HR Reporting with Shana Lebowitz Gaynor of Business Insider (The HR Famous Podcast)

In episode 22 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Tim Sackett and Kris Dunn are joined by Shana Lebowitz Gaynor to discuss her work at Business Insider and specifically her articles about SHRM’s handling of BLM statements and top HR innovators. The crew also talks about Tim’s Utah adventures, the CHRO move of the week, and KD’s many ideas for HR-related articles at Business Insider. 

Listen below (click this link if you don’t see the player below) and be sure to subscribe, rate, and review (Apple Podcasts) and follow (Spotify)!

SHOW HIGHLIGHTS:

1:00 - No Jlee this week! We hope she’s having fun on her beach vacation!

2:00 - Tim just got back from another (socially distanced) Southern Utah vacation. Tim and KD talk about how to get into Zion National Park and how Tim works the system to get into Zion the easiest way. KD thinks Tim is getting spoiled with views. 

4:50 - Check out Tim’s instagram for all of his cool Utah excursions and his most recent jet ski and cliff jumping adventure. 

7:20 - New segment alert: CHRO move of the week! Eileen Moore Johnson is the new EVP and CHRO at Scientific Games. Johnson moves from an operational role at Caesars to this new role. KD and Tim break down what they like about the move.

12:00 - Time to welcome our guest for the episode! Shana Lebowitz Gaynor is the correspondent and HR insider writer at Business Insider

14:00 - Where are most HR people getting their news from? Shana thinks most HR people are getting their news like many other industries, on social media platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn. 

16:00 - Tim asks Shana about her experience at Business Insider and what she sees people are connecting most with their content. She says that people respond the most to articles about what to do if you hate your job. 

17:50 - Shana says that her time at BI has taught her to get to the point and be succinct in her articles. KD praises BI for this formatting. 

20:00 - Tim asks Shana about her article about SHRM and their response surrounding BLM and the response she got to the article. She says she learned about the passion of SHRM members 

22:00 - Tim discusses his and KD’s criticism of SHRM and how the toughest critics are often the ones that want to see an organization succeed the most. Shana talks about how she sees the criticism of SHRM as a microcosm of what’s going on in the business world. 

24:20 - KD asks Shana what surprised her about SHRM and the HR community that she learned in the writing of her article. She responds by saying that she doesn’t see the demands from racial injustice and other injustices going away. 

27:00 - KD has a lot of requests for HR reporting! He brings up an idea to create a list of HR companies that are doing the best work to take meaningful action to get results. 

28:30 - Tim brings up Shana’s article “HR innovators who are transforming company culture”. Shana talks about FedEx’s program to hire young tech talent and a tech startup’s effort to make a non-homogenous workforce. 

34:00 - KD asks Shana about any grassroots efforts she’s seen that she is excited about. Shana talks about PWC’s training program for new employees and their commitment to better mental health programs for employees. 

36:30 - Tim asks Shana about how she foresees company culture changing in our new WFH environment. Shana takes an optimistic view and sees a better and more flexible company culture and increased humanism in the business world. 

42:00 - Check out Shana on LinkedIn, Twitter, or read her articles on Business Insider! Thank you to Shana for joining us this week and for all of her great work about the HR industry! Check out their paid membership for all of their content.

---------------------

Kris Dunn on LinkedIn

Jessica Lee on LinkedIn

Tim Sackett on Linkedin

HRU Tech

The Tim Sackett Project

The HR Capitalist

Fistful of Talent

Kinetix

Boss Leadership Training Series