In episode 16 of The HR Famous Podcast, I track down Head of HR for Mikron Ed Baldwin for a continuation discussion about return to work plans. we discuss Mikron’s early decision to start working remotely, what changes they have made in their manufacturing plants, and what tactics allowed them to be on top of the pandemic.

Listen below and be sure to subscribe, rate, and review (iTunes) and follow (Spotify)! (email subscribers, click through if you don't see the podcast player below)

Show Highlights:

2:00 - KD starts off the episode by asking Ed about his position and what Mikron does and their unique position that helped them to be better prepared for the Coronavirus pandemic. 

5:15 - KD and Ed establish the timeline of the WFH and circumstances that Mikron faced. 

6:00 - Ed outlines the plan and decision Mikron made for remote working, why they made that decision, and how they implemented that plan. 

9:30 - KD asks Ed what he attributes Mikron s early call to have employees work from home to. Ed says that WFH wasn’t as dispurtive as they had thought and frequent leadership team meetings helped their quick and effective response as well as their decision to make remote work a permanent fixture where they could.

11:50 -Ed and KD discuss work/employee density as a driving force in COVID response for a manufacturing company. 

13:00 - Ed explains a few things that Mikron has done to keep their workers still working on site safe, like modifying work schedules, increased hygiene and cleaning services, and open doors where possible among other changes. 

17:30 - KD asks Ed on how his midwestern upbringing in Iowa has prepared him for his work at Micron and his decision making during this pandemic. Don’t forget where you come from! 

19:45 - Check out Ed Baldwin’s profile on LinkedIn and his writing on Fistful of Talent!

Ed Baldwin on LinkedIn

Mikron

The HR Capitalist

Fistful of Talent

Boss Leadership Training Series

Kris Dunn on LinkedIn

Kris Dunn on Twitter

Kris Dunn on Instagram

KD's Book - The 9 Faces of HR

In episode 15 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Jessica Lee and Kris Dunn come together to discuss Tim’s extravagant Southern Utah adventure, return to work plans, Twitter’s WFH forever proclamation, and Microsoft Teams. The team discusses the different return to work plans and ideas, new office norms, and a potential boom in the workplace real estate market.

Listen below (email subscribers click through if you don’t see the player) or click here for a direct link. Be sure to and be sure to subscribe, rate, and review via iTunes, Spotify and Google Play.

Show Highlights:

1:00 - No Tim on this episode! Are we sad or happy? Stay tuned to find out ;)

2:00 - Is JLee still a kid? Sound off in the comments

3:30 - Tim Sackett is a jerk!!!! His Instagram is making the HR Famous crew jealous with his Southern Utah golfing, jeep trips, and luxurious escapades. Safe travels Timmy!

4:30 - Today’s topic: return to work! Some companies have their plans ready to go but all companies are going to have to get ready for “the new normal”. What is that going to look like? Are you ready?

7:00 - RTW = return to work

7:30 - Jlee sounds off on the differences of work returns there can be and the potential anxiety employees could bring with them. Will there be a major fear from workers?

8:45 - KD is taking the approach of surveying his employees on how they want to return to work. Who wants to stay home? Who wants to return to the office? Who is unsure and has concerns? 

9:40 - One size fits all? Not for RTW plans.

11:15 - KD fills us in on how Kinetix is facing RTW: Branded face masks: check! How do you feel about the decorative/branded face masks?

13:15 - Sexy brand check! Jack Dorsey has announced that all Twitter employees can work remote forever. What really is forever? Jlee thinks it’s a cool idea but may be too early to make this call. Only a diamond is forever ;)

16:00 - Will there be an increased need for real estate for workspace? Due to physical distancing needs, there may need more space needed to ensure employee safety. 

18:00 - Have you ever had an employee sit on the floor in your office during a meeting? Jlee hasn’t but she thinks that cramped small office meetings are on the way out and virtual meetings are here to stay.

20:30 - KD and Jlee are turning this into a Microsoft ad! Microsoft Teams chat is the new norm for Jlee but may be NSFW because of their raunchy gifs.

22:30 - KD thinks that Eric Schmitt’s perception of a workspace real estate boom is a little tone deaf. With more WFH employees and financial troubles, there may not be a real estate boom especially in spaces made for small to mid-sized businesses. 

24:00 - Should we be celebrating companies and CEOs who pledge not to lay off employees? The crew thinks it’s unrealistic to raise the expectation that companies should not lay off some workers in this pandemic, especially in service industries. 

26:10 - “Up your sunscreen game” - KD to Tim Sackett. 

In episode 14 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Jessica Lee, Tim Sackett, and Kris Dunn are joined by Tim’s son Cameron and HR professional Chris Hoyt to talk about holidays during quarantine, finding a job straight out of college during a recession, and recruitersrecruitingrecruiters.com. The team discusses the struggles of finding a job in a recession for a college grad, changes to candidate experience, and better ways to hire during a pandemic.

Listen below (email subscribers click through if you don’t see the player) or click here for a direct link. Be sure to and be sure to subscribe, rate, and review via iTunes, Spotify and Google Play.

Show Highlights:

1:30 – Mother’s Day is coming! Jessica wants some peace and quiet for her special day and Tim’s wife wants diamonds. Sounds like some good gifts to me! 

3:30 – Where do you get your Mom’s Mother Day flowers? KD shouts out 1-800- Flowers and tells a story about a disastrous bouquet of Wal-Mart flowers. Moral of the story: don’t buy flowers from Wal-Mart. 

6:00 – Happy (belated) Birthday KD! What we’ve learned is that KD prefers store bought cakes to homemade cakes.

7:00 – Welcome Tim’s son to the podcast! Cameron is a recent grad from the University of Michigan and joins the conversation to discuss finding a job during a pandemic and fills us in on what his job search has been like for the past few months.

10:00 – Has candidate experience decreased since the recession started? Cameron hasn’t seen anything shady from employers but has seen a lot of uncertainty and jobs being cancelled or postponed. 

12:20 – Have you been ghosted from a lot of jobs? Cameron has only heard back from a real person for 3 out of 70 jobs he applied to. Not many rejections too! Is that because of the uncertain nature of the times?

14:50 – Would Cameron go work for Fox News if they offered him a job? 

16:00 – Are career services still active during the pandemic? Cameron uses Tim as his personal career coach but has seen lots of friends get early job offers from college recruiting and career fairs. 

18:10 – Hot gossip alert! Cameron spills the tea on how Tim is as a personal career coach. 

20:00 – Quarantine time is a good time to learn new skills! Cameron has been working on podcasting. Look out for the Disney Channel rewatchables coming to your favorite podcasting service near you! KD and Cam discuss their favorite episodes of The Ringer’s Rewatchables podcast. 

23:00 – Tim gives us a branding lesson. Buy your kids URLs and reserve their email addresses and social media handles early! 

25:15 – Time for the second guest! Tim welcomes long time friend Chris Hoyt to the podcast.

26:00 – Chris discusses his work Career Crossroads and what they do for talent acquisition and recruiting. Tim loves it!

28:20 – Story time! Tim tells us how his wife, Kim, met Chris in Park City, Utah and really liked him. 

29:30 – Recruitersrecruitingrecruiters.com! Say that five times in a row! Chris talks about his newest project inspired by the cooperation between CVS and the hospitality industry during the coronavirus pandemic. 

32:20 – Looking for a recruiting job? There’s about 150 jobs available on the platform with over 250 employers. 

35:00 – #firstworldproblems. Are you experiencing Zoom fatigue? 

35:30 – How can you guarantee candidate experience with such high unemployment? Chris discusses how it’s uncertain whether the same levels of candidate experience can be kept up and Tim talks about mistakes he made in the last recession. 

In episode 13 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Jessica Lee, Tim Sackett, and Kris Dunn try to defeat boredom and come together to talk about quarantine listening habits, Airbnb’s hiring practices, unpaid internships, and Netflix doc American Factory. The team discusses their feelings and thoughts on Airbnb’s postponed hiring, unpaid internships and other working experiences, and the documentary American Factory.

Listen below and be sure to subscribe, rate, and review (iTunes) and follow (Spotify)!

Show Highlights:

2:30 - The team starts out sharing with us their favorite quarantine comfort music playlists full of music. Turns out the group has some different tastes: Tim likes basic Spotify playlists, Jlee likes Nick Jonas, and KD likes grunge. This also features a brief discussion of Post Malone’s tattoos. 

8:00 - Onto the rundown for the episode. Airbnb has postponed post-grad hires to 2021 and the crew talks about investment they have made for their own PR. Tim weighs in on the workforce needs for Airbnb and other tech companies and how they will continue going forward. 

11:45 - KD sees through Airbnb’s “publicity stunt” and calls them out for being unfair for postponing post-grad hires until August 2021. Tim discusses some potential writing on the wall that may have led to this decision. Maybe they’re being forward thinking? KD seems skeptical. 

15:00 - Bro trip! KD talks about the last Airbnb he stayed in with Tim in Orlando. The pictures sure weren’t telling the whole truth….

16:20 - Marriott plug from Jlee! #notsponsored

17:00 - Topic change: internships! Lots of internships have been cancelled for summer 2020 leaving soon to be grads and recent grads in a bind. Also, Hipster Sackett is the best Tim Sackett

20:30 - Tim discusses the evolution of unpaid internships. He believes young adults need to use unpaid internships to build relationships, have experiences, and find mentors to advocate for them. Do you believe in unpaid internships? Should all interns be paid?

23:15 - Who can afford unpaid internships (especially in this economy)? Jlee discusses the need to look at capabilities and skills rather than experiences for new grads in order to level the playing field. 

25:30 - KD discusses the addiction to doing internships with huge brands. He advocates for looking locally to gain experiences instead of going for the big guys. 

26:45 - “Interns have zero value” - Tim Sackett. What is the real point of internships? Recruiting. (Just saying an intern is writing this right now so no value???)

28:00 - Should companies be allowed to advertise unpaid internships? KD says no but thinks that unpaid experiences should be allowed in order to benefit the person looking for a resume booster. 

29:45 - Jlee predicts Tim’s Glassdoor ratings will be plummeting. 

30:30 - American Factory time! KD challenged Jlee and Tim to watch the 2020 Academy Award winning documentary about a Chinese company who took over a GM plant in Toledo, Ohio. The team discusses their likes and dislikes. 

35:05 - Jlee weighs in on the depiction of Chinese culture in the documentary. Although she came in skeptical, she was pleasantly surprised by the reception of the workers in the movie. 

36:10 - Motor City native Tim discusses fat-fingered Americans and the camaraderie and commitment of the Chinese company. 

40:00 - The crew ends on their favorite scene. Tim likes the chairman’s frankness about unions and Jlee agrees. She especially likes the interpretation from Chinese to English. KD likes the cut between the Chinese company energy to the Toledo break room. 

43:30 - Watch American Factory!

In episode 12 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Jessica Lee, Tim Sackett and Kris Dunn come together to talk quarantine watching habits, unemployment insurance coverage and the Payroll Protection Plan. The team brings up the challenges and nuances individuals might be facing when working through their unemployment insurance and PPP. 

Show Highlights:

3:30 - The team starts the convo by talking movies and Netflix series. Tim calls out KD on not watching Parasite - Turns out KD was thinking about a whole other movie with Kevin James. 

6:00 - Talking about Hulu and Netflix specials - KD even wrote about the Netflix American Factory docu-series. 

9:20 - Tim brings up the elephant in the room, Unemployment and the broken system of unemployment insurance. What are other countries doing that the US isn't? He also brings up PPP - the US Payroll Protection Program.

12:15 - Jlee and Tim talk about the differences between states on the unemployment savings account weekly payouts. 

15:25 - Is unemployment a forced savings plan? KD talks about loving it on the broad level brochure, compares the plan to social security and it's struggles + the start of the new recession era.

21:00 - Tim talks worker bias. If you're going to work, and someone else is unemployed and getting benefits - are we jealous? Paying into a system for something we aren't receiving can be discouraging. 

23:15 - Jlee says Tim is sounding like Andrew Yang with the concept of universal income. Regardless, this era will be challenging future changes in the UBI realm. 

28:45 - How people should handle receiving the PPP through the CARE Act - are some of your employees making more on unemployment? 

31:00 - KD brings up that using the PPP doesn't always make the most sense. With restaurants and service base industries how does bringing back workers work when there's no business? 

33:05 - Tim talks about the tax, health insurance and other complications with folks choosing unemployment vs. being rehired

35:15 - The team talks about how fast everything has been moving, even for federal government - but with speed comes some issues and misses.

39:30 - Closing it out by touching back on the more lighthearted Netflix watches. 

Resources:

Jessica Lee on LinkedIn

Tim Sackett on Linkedin

Kris Dunn on LinkedIn

HRU Tech

The Tim Sackett Project

The HR Capitalist

Fistful of Talent

Kinetix

Boss Leadership Training Series

It’s episode 11 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Jessica Lee, Tim Sackett and Kristian Dunn kill some more time by recording a new episode on the pod (of course trying to flatten the curve in their respective isolation pods) focused on what virtual HR looks like today – including what kind of HR services you can get for $99/month. Plus there’s some stripper name talk too.

Email subscribers click through if you don’t see the player below or click here for a direct link or hit iTunes, Spotify and Google Play - please rate and review!

Show Highlights:

1:42 – Jessica calls Tim sexy, or at least she calls his voice that, while he proceeds to completely pass on the compliment and instead complain about back to back conference calls followed by hating on Kris’ deck, which he sure seems to be jealous of. Not the first time he’s talked about Kris’ deck. Sounds like it’s gonna be a really good episode.

3:13 – The crew takes a cue from John Krasinski of The Office fame and channels some of his Some Good News goodness – at which point KD shares that his house looks more like Lord of the Flies with nearly grown children fighting over Corn Nuts. Just kidding. The real good news is that his boys are home and bonding. Sacks meanwhile shares that his team is finding the purple squirrels. They exist. They can be found.

6:06 – JLee humbly admits that she has finally – nearly 20 years into her career – mastered VLOOKUPs in Excel and shares that she and hubby have come to an agreement to FINALLY allow for some food delivery to start happening in their household.

7:46 – On to the real topic. Wait for it. JLee gets an ad on her FB feed and it’s for… drumroll…  get your very own HR manager for $99/month via an L.A. based startup, Bambee.

10:26 – Tim reveals the truth about Bambee. These aren’t HR managers who are on the other end of the phone line providing consultation to Bambee’s clients. (And no, they aren’t strippers either.) These are life insurance sales people disguised as HR relationship / account managers.

12:40 – KD breaks down the model. They start with offering a baseline of HR services targeting SMBs that maybe just to start have an HR coordinator who can also do payroll. At 100+ employees, bigger needs obviously develop and that’s when you can’t leverage Bambee anymore. But Sacks thinks there’s no way there’s any value to be gained from a service that’s $99/month regardless of your company size.

15:15 – JLee gets more curious about who exactly these HR managers are that Bambee is hiring and finds a single job posting for the job. It turns out you have to manage 200 clients at a time in addition to the upsell work they do on the life insurance and training services the company also offers. But look, they have a really good Glassdoor rating as JLee finds. People are happy to work there.

19:29 – The crew exposes the fallacy of Bambee, especially in this era of the Rona – virtual, remote HR services yet they require their HR managers to work on-site.

23:00 – KD prophesizes that virtual is the future and the world will be moving to being employed outside of your metro area. Which gets the group talking about what the true value of HR is, and what it then means to deliver HR in a remote environment.

27:50 – A new business idea emerges. It turns out the crew actually not-so-secretly loves the Bambee model but just with higher end remote resources. They struggle with what to call it though. There’s got to be an available stripper name out there though. JLee quickly moves away from sharing too much about their next business venture and seeks out some advice from the guys.

31:22 – Kristian Dunn the life coach offers JLee some advice on how to influence and lead in these times when we’re virtual and remote. He also proceeds to pronounce “Marriott” the right way. It rhymes with “chariot” folks. And Sacks comes back around to Bambee again and the value of the service and wants in on the biz.

37:00 – The guys land on a stripper name that they’ll call their next biz. Wait for it. Welcome to the stage… (you have to listen to hear it).

39:00 – KD wisely shares that he knows enough to not ask what’s for dinner. Especially if it’s chips and dip again.

In Episode 10 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Jessica Lee, Tim Sackett and Kris Dunn get together to discuss how COVID-19 has changed their daily life, the Cuomo brothers and work-life balance. Tim wants to talk about PTO: accrual vs. unlimited. What’s better? There are different answers with many variables…

The gang continues to talk about how PTO will be molded by the COVID-19 crisis with Kris wondering if unlimited PTO might attract the “average” performers. The team closes by talking about the differences in how different types of employees want their PTO and Tim brings up the demise of the Unlimited PTO plan.

Listen below and be sure to subscribe, rate and review (iTunes) and follow (Spotify)!

Show Highlights:

1:56 – Tim brings up the question “How your life was pre-coronavirus vs. now – what’s the percentage?” He says he has had a 50-60% change where Jlee has had nearly a 90% change, drinking more and bonding with family.

4:05 – KD talks about how he isn’t doing anything. He’s going on a run sometimes and avoiding people as much as possible. He’s also being a little more introspective. Tim calls KD out on his new deck-lifestyle with the cat.

7:00 – KD hits the cancel culture with a “BACK OFF” and brings up the Cuomo Brothers (recently featured in a POLITICO article , since Chris Cuomo has the coronavirus but is still doing shows from the basement. Where’s our work-life balance? Is he a bad example? JLee says haters are going to hate, and maybe he should use that sick leave – but he’s doing a service to the people by showing them what COVID-19 looks like. POLITICO is just hating.

12:10 – There’s rarely a moment where someone reaches the top without outworking someone. KD calls out the bullsh*t – for everyone, you have to put in the work and people who don’t work as hard, can’t expect the same results. You have to grind it out. Shout out to Chris Cuomo.

14:47 – Tim brings up unlimited PTO vs Accruals – you’re not going to be using 4 months of PTO, but what would win if you had to choose? Would more people choose the unlimited plan?

18:26 – KD says the answer is different pre and post COVID-19. Tim brings up that HR pros have different opinions than the majority of workers.

22:15 – KD likes a system where you use it or lose it for your vacation time – but sick leave can be rolled over for extended sick leave, extended maternity leave, etc. It’s important for major medical! Jlee kind of agrees but when she was younger, she banked those days for an unused PTO pay out.

25:03 – Tim says PTO will be shaped by COVID, because people may stop coming to work sick. Hybrid PTO packages might be in our future…

28:00 – KD challenges Jlee – what plans would workers select, if they could? Jlee says, there’s no way it’s a one size fits all.

31:20 – KD asks Tim, “What plan will the top performer select?” Tim says unlimited, but Jlee and KD say no – KD says the real answer doesn’t matter because the best managers treat their high performers different.

34:48 – Jlee and KD talk about accruals being preferred over unlimited because sometimes, you don’t want anyone to call you and you want the official day off.

38:50 – The team closes it out with their final comments and how unlimited PTO just might go away post-coronavirus.

Resources:

Jessica Lee on LinkedIn

Tim Sackett on Linkedin

Kris Dunn on LinkedIn

HRU Tech

The Tim Sackett Project

The HR Capitalist

Fistful of Talent

Kinetix

Boss Leadership Training Series

In Episode 4 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Jessica Lee, Tim Sackett and Kris Dunn get together to dip into uncomfortable territory by talking about microaggressions - what are they, how they manifest themselves and what HR leaders can do to make awareness of microaggressions part of their broader D&I stack.

Listen below and be sure to subscribe, rate and review (iTunes) and follow (Spotify)!!! Listen on iTunes, Spotify and Google Play.

Microaggressions can be defined as brief and commonplace daily verbal or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative prejudicial slights and insults toward any group, particularly culturally marginalized groups.

There's less laughter in this one - but more real talk. Tough topic, but if you're an HR leader or HR pro, 100% worth your time to raise your awareness and lead your organization accordingly.

Show Highlights:

3:10 - KD intros the topic of microaggression, tells the gang why it's on his mind and gets sidetracked automatically because JLee and Tim don't donate at least annually to Wikipedia. 

6:20 - KD finally gets the definition of microaggression out using Wikipedia as his primary source. Turns out the concept has been around since 1970.

7:40 - JLee and Tim react to the concept of microaggression as individuals and HR pros. JLee talks about being from Cali, but people persisting in asking where she's from. Tim talks about the fact that people seek connection by asking others where they are from in metro/urban environments and may be unaware of the connection to microaggression, as well as the fact they might be offending someone.

11:25 - KD leads the gang through the game, "Is it a microaggression? JLee gives great thoughts about low awareness of those providing the microaggression and why the subject of a microaggression should think about giving feedback to the provider. 

Covered in this game:

--Where are you really from?

--Asking where are you from to white people with accents.

--Gender references (Sir, Ma'am) and being wrong.

--You don't speak Spanish?

--No, you're white!

--Hey Guys!

22:00 - The gang talks about the impact of microaggressions in the workplace, and how HR leaders should start the conversation in their companies, etc.  Linkage to bias training and starting to raise awareness as well as training to lay down a form of behavioral muscle memory across employees is discussed. Framing awareness training as civility rather than the foreboding term microaggression is also discussed.

25:20 - Tim talks about the need to train and coach people to accept feedback (someone telling them they're using a microaggression) in a graceful way rather than feeling attacked or defensive. 

28:00 - KD talks about introducing the topic of microaggressions at your next training session/meeting by conducting a simple quiz like the one performed on the podcast to get people talking.  Get ready! Tim talks about the fact that many people would say that doesn't actually happen, and a better path might be to have people who have experienced microaggressions talk about their experiences.

29:40 - KD points out that the quiz they did didn't include the nuclear bomb of all microaggressions - "You're so articulate". 

30:45 - "OK, Boomer!" Tim drops the fact that when it comes to bias, ageism is an under discussed topic, including microaggressions towards older workers. KD talks about JLee referencing the fact that he looks older while she looks the same. 

31:57 - KD talks about the fact that he routinely calls JLee a Tiger Mom and asks her if she's considered that a microaggression in the past.  JLee provides positive feedback, but notes that others that hear it might consider it a microaggression even if she doesn't.

Resources:

Jessica Lee on LinkedIn

Tim Sackett on Linkedin

Kris Dunn on LinkedIn

HRU Tech

The Tim Sackett Project

The HR Capitalist

Fistful of Talent

Kinetix

Boss Leadership Training Series

NOTE FROM KD: Back with episode 2 of “The HR Famous Podcast”. Take a listen and we’ll be back on a weekly basis. See player below (email subscribers click through if you don’t see it), and please hit iTunes, Spotify and Google Play to subscribe so you get notified whenever there’s a new show on your phone. Click here for Episode 1, where we talk about the title of the show and share a bunch of stories about being less than famous.

In Episode 2 of The HR Famous Podcast, long-time HR leaders (and friends) Jessica Lee, Tim Sackett and Kris Dunn get together to discuss Workplace McLovin – relationships, dating and hookups that occur inside your company between employees. The HR Famous team tells stories and talks about the role of HR and whether there is a need for deep policies to protect your company when people fall in love, as well as when Outlook Exchange and a digital copier are involved. Email subscribers click through if you don’t see the player below or click here for a direct link or hit iTunes, Spotify and Google Play.

Show Highlights:

3:00 – The gang discuses KD’s choice of hotels, whether you can say “white” these days and if white is a primary color.

4:00 – JLee lays down the science behind how long you can say “Happy New Year” and Tim and KD turn it into an manager access issue and a discussion of the Chinese New Year.

5:50 – KD kicks off the topic of C-level McLovin and dating in the workplace with a review of the McDonalds CEO and the Alphabet/Google Legal Counsel going down for relationships at work.

8:40 – Tim and JLee discuss whether companies and the HR leaders need to be the relationship police, including risk management, positional power and more.

13:20 – The gang gathers around the campfire and listens to the gripping story of young KD’s first exposure to C-Level McLovin(s) and KD advocates for relationship policies being like a DUI Checkpoint. Tim and JLee weigh in with policy impact, including level considerations, reporting relationships, asking for waivers and potentially asking people to leave the company or change jobs as a result of falling in love.

31:00 – Tim tells his story from Applebees, which is epic and should not be missed, including perceived benefits that don’t have a Summary Plan Description or an Explanation of Benefits.

34:00 – KD breaks down another McLovin C-Level story that felt like the Matrix, and tells the gang why all McLovin sightings seem to happen around elevators.

Subscribe today at iTunes, Spotify and Google Play.