HR BESTIES - When HR Doesn't report under the CEO

Episode Date: September 18, 2024

Today’s agenda:  Workplaces can be sh*tty Cringe corporate speak: Smell test Hot topic: Reporting structures When HR reports to the CFO Effective communication Titles are meaningful to an organization 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.  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 and Friday, 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

So this story is from Reddit. We were doing an investigation regarding sexual harassment via text on work phones. And when IT sent us all the text from the whole company during the specific timeframe, raw data with no names, just numbers and text for us to sort through and work through, we thought we had found it. However, the ones that we had found when cross-referenced were actually consensual texts between the CEO and controller who were having an affair, both married. We also had to counsel that same CEO for watching poop porn on his work computer.

No, no. This activity was flagged by our IT security group. Poop porn. Can you imagine how thrilled I was to sit down and tell a grown man to use his own computer for those activities? I didn't even know there was such thing as poop port. Nevermind. There is. Two girls, one cup. Oh, yes. Yes? Yeah. Oh, right. Nobody'd be Googling. I think I blocked that out intentionally. But I appreciate the care, the level of the HR care here that people don't always see, but that she's not shaming, but just use your personal device, assuming it meets all other legal things. Use your personal device. Don't

use your company. Even the CEO and people think leaders never get talking tos, but yeah, that. Yeah, no, we do all the time. Like one of the HR kind of sayings, I think, is that newspaper headline test, right? Like, don't do anything, CEO, that you don't want to see as a headline in tomorrow's news. So we do. We try and keep everybody out of trouble, even ourselves. But damn.

Yes. But surprising. Actually, not surprising at all anymore for me. We need to write like a real HR job description, like a real HR job description because people, once you've been in HR for like, what do you guys think, three, six months, you start to realize like all of the stuff you have to deal with. But it's those people that choose HR, people that have that as their major or going into it that they have absolutely no idea what that's about to be like.

It almost reminds me of like when you become a first time parent or something, like there's things that the generation before you hasn't shared with, you know what I'm saying? Like things don't get passed down. You know, like the nitty gritty, like the gross stuff, you know, like you just don't talk about a lot of these things. And that's reminiscent to me, like that's the comparator for me of going into HR. Yeah. And any job really, right? Like so many jobs have their weirdness and their kinks or whatever.

You know, but not poop kinks for HR. Oh, boy. See, did you ever think that you would have to watch, view, like copious amounts of X-rated material? Like I did not realize that would be a thing You know and it has no no I did not either I also didn't realize how much I would deal with shit like poop so like much. Why is there so like So much poop so much shit. I'm up to my elbows and shit and what's sad is I so badly

I'm like kind of like biting my tongue because I have so many shit stories. Like, I mean, I'm sure anyone who's in HR is shaking their heads like, oh my god, I've got a shit story. I've got a shit story. You know, we're going to get we're going to receive shit stories now from this water cooler. But there's so much shit going on. It's a shitty place, a workplace.

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You see, sorry, no pun intended, water cooler there. Let's transition into our meeting, shall we ladies? Like let's do the thing. Gosh, I know we got places to be and shit to see. Thank you so much, Jamie, for that water cooler talk there. First up on our official meeting agenda, as always, is Cringe Corporate Speak and Ashley. Ashley is on the docket for that. Try to give you a legal term there. And so she's going to take that and then we will transition into our meeting hot topic of the day, which is when HR doesn't report directly

to the CEO, AKA what an org chart means, kind of, right? There's a lot of symbolism that you can pull from the org chart there. And so we'll give you our fresh takes on that. And you can certainly have some discussion topics and side meetings in your workplace, see if they align. And then as always, we'll move into questions and comments. Shall we kick it off, ladies? Ashley, take it away.

Well, I didn't know Jamie's story was going to be so appropriate for the cringe corporate speak, but it is smell test. That was unplanned. Well, by y'all. There you go. There you go. That's right. I actually first heard this term in law school, which a professor said this and I, in the

way they said it, and I've heard it since in corporate is, oh, that doesn't pass the smell test meaning like that doesn't sit right or that just seems seems odd, which suss, which are other ways of saying it. But ladies, have you heard this at work? Absolutely. And what's funny is, is that I've never heard smell test. I've only heard sniff test. So I wonder if it's like regional or, you know, industry or whatever. Like, you know, but I've only ever heard sniff test. Hold on. Did y'all know it actually means something though? So I just Googled it. Smell test stands for source motivation, evidence, logic, and left out.

Wait, no, it does not. No, it does not. No, who has told you this? This is Google. The Google. The Google. No, that's an acronym. I wanted to know the smell test meaning. So it, but when you think of it in that sense, it makes sense, right?

Because you're, does it give it the spell test, the source, the motivation, the evidence, the logic and the left out. See, I think someone was just doing too much. Oh, you think that it was smell test and someone's like, look, here's what I'm going to do. Yes, yes. I'm going to make up this fancy acronym. Some guy exactly. So he can put his name on it so that when Jamie Jackson Googles it in 2024 for her podcast, you see what

I'm saying? Like I know that's what happened there. Because I know the sniff test is a real test, like a real diagnostic test. And so that's what I, yes, it's a real test. Yeah, a sniff test. So it's like you're testing if something's legit. Like to me, I just thought that was just carried over. Like, okay, I'm sniffing to see if something's legitimate. The term for it, for sniff test, according to the Google, I don't even know if I'll pronounce this right, is diaphragm fluoroscopy, which is a diagnostic imaging procedure. But I think, truly, the way that people use this as a work is like, that smells bad. Like that's weird.

Something stinks here. Like let's do the sniff test on it, right? We'll put that on our social media is a poll. So go to at HR Besties Pod on the Instagram and vote about whether it's regional. And we'll even have an open-ended so you can provide which one you call it. Actually we'll make that our poll for Spotify as well, but potentially every episode on Spotify we have polls. And as well, now that we're talking about all of our three deliverables, because we do really try to make this meaningful. In our newsletter, we have discussion guide questions that we can have for you and your

teens. I am not going to include in our discussion guide question, tell me your poop stories at work. Yeah, shit. Yeah, I'm not going to include that because I think if these things organically come up in your conversation, that's fine. I'm not going to set you up for failure in your next team meeting and set you up to be to end up getting written up by bringing that up as a topic. But so we will, we do have our limits here a bit on the bod. Thank you. I appreciate that. That's a hard limit for us. We won't give you a poo test or anything.

We'll just stick to the sniff test or smell test. But I do think that that guy's full of shit who just tried to make smell an acronym, you know? Cause that's a real word. You know what I'm saying? It's not like it's pronounced weird. So it's funny because this was like, looks like it was just published July 16th of 2024. So like a couple weeks ago.

Okay. Okay. Was that your husband, Jamie, that published this alleged acronym? No, some finding reliable sources, some college. Unreliable sources. I'm not remembering the acronym for SMELL. Come on. Come on. Smart was hard enough.

Okay. I had smart goals beaten into me. That's it. Like I got to draw the line somewhere, you know? But I do want to create my own acronym. Why don't we also take the takeaway to make acronyms of our names? Ooh. Ah, just for shiggles. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. I had to think about that for a second. You have five letters. You both have five

letters in your name. I have six, so I gotta do some extra work. Extra work. Oh, I know. Well, yay. Why? Why? Why? Yay. Yes. Yippee. Yeah, there you go.

See? It's an exclamation at the end. There you go. I like it. All right. Well, shifting gears, if we may. Let's move into our hot topic of the day. Now I know a few weeks ago, I shared a story about being on a call with a

recruiter and asking, hey, this role you're calling me about, this executive HR role, who does it report to? And the guy told me, finance. And I said, oh, then I'm not interested. And he got all upset with me. But this happens in a lot of organizations where we see HR reporting into somewhere else and other functions even reporting weirdly or where we didn't think they maybe should report. I've certainly seen that across, whether it was legal or finance or ops or whatever. And so today we're going to tackle, hey, what does that symbolize?

What's your take on this? And just the power of org structure. We're going to reflect on that and share some thoughts. Ladies, what does that mean to you if you were to see HR reporting somewhere else than directly under the CEO? Well, as someone who has reported several times to a CFO or some level of accounting, it can be extremely frustrating, especially when it comes down to budgets and money. So whether you're trying to get raises, market adjustments, bonuses, or even just like engagement

budgets or food budgets or something, it's very difficult because finance typically holds the pocketbook. And so trying to show that you're bringing value, but unfortunately there's a monetary value attached to that has been incredibly difficult for me, at least in my roles. And I can think of a couple where I was the HR department of one typically, that I reported to a finance role or the CFO. Now, do the two roles have to work very closely together? Absolutely. Growing up, I always was told, like growing up in corporate, I was always told that HR

is on one shoulder for the leader and finance is on the other, for that GM or CEO or whoever the main person is, whatever that title is, because you really do need both insights to make, I think, personally, appropriate decisions for your business. It definitely sends a signal about what the organization cares about. And so when you slot HR under the CFO, which I think is the most common when it, when the function does not report directly to the CEO, it does turn humans into resources.

And a big criticism of HR is human resources, you know, that's, it's that says it all. Well, historical title, certainly there's true when you have everything going through that finance lens. And I agree, there has to be push and pull. Where you have seen organizations fall short, meaning they really F up life for their employees is when they're not looking at the numbers. They're counting on another fundraise.

They're counting on PE money, VC money, whatever that looks like. And all of a sudden when that dries up, then the employees are cut loose because there literally is not money to pay them. And so having finance provide that budgeting is really important, but not giving HR an equal voice sends so many signals to the overall organization. And so if you back up and ask leaders, like a CEO, what do you want your glass door score to be?

Do you care? And people that are going to say, I do not care, that's where I think also you may see them under the CFO, but do you care about them? Do you know what signal that sends as people look at it? And a lot of CEOs, I think, will say, nobody knows who people report to. But things like reporting structures, whether HR overall or individuals who you report to even within HR, they matter greatly. And that can send extremely loud signals to your organization. And so you can, when you start putting people into those reporting

structures, it really can create at the outset, things that immediately send that message to the employee, you do not care about me because I don't have anyone that's championing my voice. The Shoppers Beauty Plus event is back and bringing you even more reasons to celebrate. Shop new and favorite beauty products including makeup, signature fragrances, skincare, and so much more. Plus, get big PC optimum points. More points, more brands, more beauty. Start September 7th at Shoppers Drug Mart. After decades of shaky hands caused by debilitating tremors,

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Learn more at sunnybrook.ca slash special. I remember working with a leader, maybe they were called a VPG and the head person of like 10,000 people. It could have been a CEO probably 20 times over, right? But you know, big traded company. And I remember he would always say, reporting lines don't matter. Structure doesn't matter to me, says the guy who's in charge. So I'd always say that like a cheeky bitch.

Like, yeah, of course they don't matter to you. But org structure absolutely drives the power dynamics and the decision making within an organization. Jamie gave an incredible example that I just like to harp on when it comes to requesting monies for promotions or bonuses or whatever. You know, all of the the people payment stuff, right? Those purse strings are held by the vertical leader. You know, so in her case, it was absolutely the CFO or the VP of Finance or whatever, and they are holding those.

And so when you yourself are your own respected and respectable should be function, you should be your own vertical, it is so demeaning. It feels demeaning. It feels like a child-parent relationship, being unable to make the decisions you should be able to make for your people and organization. Because I totally trust and know, and again, in this example of Jamie's, Jamie knows her

people. Jamie knows the work they do. Jamie knows the background required. She knows the KSAs, knowledge, skills, and abilities. She knows all of that, all things HR. And then so when it's shifted under there, you have a finance leader that doesn't know that shit because that's not what they went to school for. They shouldn't know all those intricacies. So naturally, bias. People have bias. They're going to put the finance stuff over the HR stuff because they're closer to it. They get it.

So it's a wonderful example when you have that sort of structure alignment of one structure that's kind of less than. And it doesn't just happen with HR. You all probably have other examples across other functions, perhaps, where you see this as well. I was actually reflecting, I've had three jobs that I have reported to some sort of like finance or accounting. And each of those, I was a Department of One too, which is typically where you see this, right?

And I was also thinking about how toxic those places were. And it honestly happened to be my most three toxic jobs. Like thinking and I'm like, wait a minute, now that I think about it. And I, and I think that there is some alignment there. I even used to say to my old boss at this one particular company that, and she agreed that, you know,

I really deal more with operations and the CEO than her. Like she doesn't know what I do on a daily basis. She, if someone came up to her and asked what Jamie does, like she couldn't know what I do on a daily basis. She, if, if someone came up to her and ask what Jamie does, like she couldn't be able to tell you because really I'm working with ops and the CEO daily. And that was no fault of her, but HR got thrown under her. And I think that happens a lot. You know, they don't have nowhere else to stick us.

So they throw us under accounting because of payroll, right? Well payroll and accounting, so they all go together. And like I said, where they do work very closely together, but then you have that, that, unfortunately that line where I've always felt like in those jobs, I did not have as much, not power. That's not the word I'm looking for, but maybe influence over the CFO as I could have on the CEO or even operations because I'm explaining how another microwave will take care of our employees or whatever it is. And oh, the microwave's only this much money. No, we're not spending this much money or what have you. So it's funny that I think

back that those really were not the greatest jobs. Yeah, not surprised. Every organization, whether you're a corporation, a nonprofit, a government, everything at work is, it's a game of telephone and reporting structures are absolutely a game of telephone. And I think it's a great point, Jamie, when you, when you ever, you have a layer above you, no matter who it is, they're going to be trying to translate for you. And they're going to do it through that lens.

And so for HR in particular, what can be hard, especially if you're reporting up through finance is HR people, at least a subset of HR tends to know what other people make. And it can be tricky because even with things like pay transparency, you'll see at times in the laws saying people that have to know salaries based on their job can't use that information for their own benefit. And whether that's a law or you may have at an organization someone saying, okay HR, well don't try to look out for your interests. You don't understand what everybody's jobs, you know, but it can feel if you're in HR and you look through finance and you look at that CFO, she or he has their team, but their team is protected, you see what they're making, they're getting their salaries, their increases, their bonuses. They're probably not going to be advocating as much for you because they're looking around at their direct team. And so I've but I've seen this as well to Lee's point is having been illegal. And at times I was actually the head of legal and people.

And I took that on because I was in legal, but I liked the people aspect of it. And constantly I've been in like development tracks, I've been towards a chief people officer role and eventually just was in HR. But it was always tricky because at times, even as a lawyer, you would get more respect. When I would say things as a lawyer, it would get more respect than when I said it as HR, because lawyer, I could, and sometimes it was helpful

because as bad cop, I could say, if this happens, these are the penalties. Like, okay, that's scary. It can be a lot harder to quantify, but that's why when you're when you're in HR, whether you're a team of one or a large team, looking at data and resources, and we talk about things like Harvard Business Review, while that sounds super lofty, it's a lot of their information really talks to people more at that like eighth grade level or high school level in ways that you can

translate that to data, whether it's making the case for reporting structures or anything like that. And so I just think you already are at a bit of a disadvantage in HR because you can frequently be seen as a nice to have. And so finding ways to translate that into data are some of the best ways, whether it's to change your reporting structure or to influence, which is what I know a lot of people in HR want to do. They just do not know how. Yeah.

And I mean, I know that especially in the financially focused organizations, like it's all money focused, right? A lot of startups, right? Boy, there is this, and I speak from experience, there's kind of this HR, ew, or people, ew, or unknown space, ew, gray space, ew, right? To your point, Ashley, about the perception that HR could be less quantitative and way more qualitative in nature. So it's kind of like, wow, okay, that's lawsuit zone, that's gray zone, that's I don't get

this zone because I personally, as a finance leader or ops leader or CEO or whatever, I think in boxes, like whatever, right? You kind of hear it all. But that, really that position of the leader is what drives a lot of structures. You know what I mean? So whether you have a leader that is people first focused or balanced in their approach or focused, believe it or not, that has a significant effect. You all can believe it, but it has a very direct and significant effect on org structures. I've gone into organizations and they want to turn the org structure inside out.

I've had a leader do it for a people first focus reason and I had another one do it because HR scared the shit out of him. He would never say it like that to me, but that's exactly why. He wanted to get control over that function or whatever. It's like, no, no, we're not doing that. A lot of what happens in an organization is trickled down. It's absolutely top down. And so when you look at the structure in your organization today, it's most likely a reflection

of the leadership style of that top leader. That's what's so fascinating when you look at that. Is it flat? Because that means then communications are getting to more people, right? There's less noise, confusion, and chaos. Well, then you probably have a leader that's very democratic and not totalitarian and loves everyone being in the know and bringing people together in collaboration and teamwork. Just think about that, how that top leader and decision maker ultimately is having an effect on that structure. Nothing is on accident in the workplace. We are all making just, we are all making these decisions very consciously, you know, these, it's not natural.

It's totally unnatural. We're creating these things, right? So everything's influencing everything. I just find that fascinating. I just nerded out real quick. I'm all into org behavior. I've got like a master's in this bullshit and I just love it, you know, it's fascinating.

If you're looking at this and you're thinking, okay, you know what, I'm going to use some data. I'm going to go to the CEO and ask for reporting structure. Is to be mindful that anytime you're making a request and whether you're in HR or looking to the CEO, whenever you're requesting it to somebody, you can't just go in at whatever that request is and go all about yourself. You can't, you can, you, everybody can make their choices. But thinking about that person that's going to hear their message, and Lee has put this well many times, do you want to be right or do you want to be happy? Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?

Or do you want to be happy. And so you may be right that you're in an organization and the CEO's decision or the board's decision or the investor's decision to put HR under finance, and we'll say that because I do think that that's the most common that we tend to see. But that choice has led to power structures that employees feel in a certain way, how you feel about that role. And so you want to change that.

If you go to the CEO and say, I want to change the reporting structure, they're going to think it's just about you and your ego. And so it's important to not just go, I listened to this podcast and they said, I mean, you can, we always welcome you liking and sharing. But to think about that, what message does that send to other people? I mean, I've had this conversation when I've had title changes in my career. I, for whatever reason, am not largely driven by ego.

I tend to be one of those people that like, it's fine, you know, it's fine. And that's a people pleaser mentality that's also not helpful for you or the organization. But when you think about these things, whether it's having a title that's on equal footing to the C-suites, like Lee had talked about in her story that kind of generated this, or it's your function, is to think about that person's interests and how you bring this out for the broader organization and those benefits, and ultimately how it helps them personally. Because, especially as you get to the top, those leaders do tend to have pretty significant egos.

And so, while you may be absolutely correct that it's bullshit to like for you to be doing work and not be, you know, not have the reputation, the pay, the title, all of those things to get to your path. And so you will hear me say my plug, like always, it can be a great prompt for chat GPT to go in if you're trying to have these talking points and saying, how do I make that case in a way that's the CEO is going to hear me to report, whether it's report to the CEO or think about your title? And those are the ways that I think can really transform it. But you have to be realistic on it.

You do. And you have to, like you said, you have to be careful because hierarchical organizations centralize authority and control. So you're basically going to the guy or gal that has all the authority and control. So you're basically going to the guy or gal that has all the authority and control and saying, hey, let's decentralize this place a little bit, which basically means, right, shifting some of those power dynamics outer,

out into the organization. So that's hard. It may take, try. I'm not saying don't try. Have the data, like Ashley says, that's perfect advice. But just know, you may need another leader sitting in that seat for that to actually come to fruition. Someone who values that spread of authority or decentralization. They don't need that power, you know, because they designed it that way, perhaps. Who knows? You know, every org is different, but it is, it's something.

I was even just going to say, I would suggest anyone who's looking for a job and they get in the interview, give it the smell test, right? See where this position reports to. Ask questions. Don't be scared to ask questions in the interview process. I wish that I had one particular company that was probably the most toxic. I've referred to it a few times. I met with the CEO, the COO, and the CFO. That was my interview with all three of them. And in that company, HR Department 1, I reported to the CFO, but I worked mostly with the CEO and the COO. I also sat on the floor with the C-suite, but I had a director title because HR wasn't valued. And all of those things I should have picked up on during my interview and I didn't.

So be aware, ask those questions because it truly will reflect how your employment will go at those companies. Reflecting, what do you think that is a sign of? Well, I think it truly that HR wasn't valued. HR was a function that they found was necessary, but HR was the function for hiring and firing. HR did the necessary legal things. There was actually a director of compliance, so it wasn't necessarily that piece, but still

the training. Are we being paid? Do we have the proper notices? It was more because it was necessary for a few functions, but I had lots of ideas and things we could do and engagement and all that was like, no, no, we're not doing that. And so I look back on it now and granted, this was like five years ago. So maybe I didn't know what I know now. But I look back and I'm like, Oh, girl, it was right in your face. You never know. And so many organizations are like that, especially director of human resources is like you are the director of human resources. But if you're the director

of HR and you see the CEO, CFO, COO, and you are the C no no, then that is a sign. I think for me, knowing how much experience I have, and once I'm like you, Ashley, I don't care about the title or, you know, but if I have a seat at the table and my knowledge and I'm respected, why do am I not, even the vice president of human resources, why am I sitting in the same hallway, but I'm the director? So it's things like that, that I definitely for future, when I'm looking for a job, those would be things that I would suggest anyone paid more attention to.

Yeah, and what I'd love to say is that that's fine if y'all don't care about the titles for you personally. Here she goes. No, I know for y'all personally, but it means so much in the organization. It does. Yep. Okay. It does.

It does. Assume everyone else does. Your team needs you to have the title, your org, the function. The employees. Your peer, your colleague. You have to have that to be able to have that voice, right? That's really what titles symbolize. That's why there are titles. Yeah, there's why there's a hierarchy.

Yeah. Yeah, you know, so, oh gosh. I think it's true and there's others throughout the organization, especially if you are diverse in any way and you have people in the organization that feel like the other and they look up and think, okay, well, is that the highest that we can go? Do we always have to take, be willing to satisfy by taking that step down the ladder a little bit and wait to earn it?

And so ways, I think, just thinking about how you can phrase that as questions, like, what would it look like to prioritize people and strategy and the ways that you can ask it again, that don't put someone on that defensive, but get you thinking collaboratively. And they may think, well, well, this is my idea. That's such a great idea. You're so right. That you're so right, CEO. My title should be Chief People Officer. Exactly. Exactly. And that's something like just asking to see the org chart in an interview. You can just read so much into that. I love asking for that. I always have to have that and I just eat them alive because it just tells me so much. I'm Natalie Barbou, host of the RealReal Podcast, where we go behind the highlight reel to find

out what's really going on in the lives of content creators, entrepreneurs and everyone in between. After quitting my corporate job to start my own businesses, I realized that while things might look glamorous on our Instagram feeds, things can get real behind the scenes. You can listen to the RealReal every Monday to start off your week with some realness and inspiration. Find my podcast wherever you're listening right now and be sure to rate, review, and subscribe so you never miss a beat. Should we shift into Qs and Cs? Questions and comments, are you all ready? Yeah, since Jamie's already covered us

off our bingo card of CorporateSpeak. I mean, you're so good at that, Jamie. So good at that. She is good at that. Oh gosh. Questions and comments, what do you all have? I have a question, but it's definitely not at all related to what we just talked about. Great. It's fine. It's a typical staff meeting. Okay, cool. So this is very weird, but I happen to think about it.

Do you guys plug your phone in at night when you go to sleep to charge. Yes, I do. No, I mean, I lay it on a dock. I don't plug anything. But you still like you charge it at night when you say I charge it. Yes. Do you know that there's people out here free balling and raw dogging their percentage and they don't charge it every night? Yeah, sadistic.

Is that not wild? I learned that a friend of mine doesn't charge her phone every night. She just wakes up and might be at 30%. What? No, no, it's very random, but like this really shook me to my core. Smell test. See, I didn't even think that was optional, right? I didn't even think that was optional to not like charge your phone overnight.

Wow. I'm never going on a road trip with her because I can guess her gas and what she does going down to the little E and all of a sudden, I'm going to be pushing her probably big-ass SUV down the highway because she doesn't charge her phone and she's not filling up that gas proactively as I like to live my life. So we think that's just a lack of conscientiousness. That's like a personality trait thing that drives that. Is that someone who just loves risk?

I feel like we're all probably type A. Maybe that's type B. I don't know. That's what I'm asking. What the fuck type is that? Type Z. What the heck? That's why we need to have a poll on this. Because I'm like, this blows my mind that there are people that don't, like it's an

instinctive thing. Like even I got my kids doing it now. This is like one of those, those personality quizzes at work that you do. Well, it's kind of like a Buzzfeed quiz, to be honest with you. It's a pre-employment quiz. Yeah. Those, the quizzes that you do that you answer these questions and you're kind of like, you know, cruising through it.

All of a sudden it generates this profile and you're like, oh my God, this is just like me. Like, what? This is crazy. And so I do feel like that probably does read into people. So we'll make we'll make an HR besties Buzzfeed level quiz and we'll tell you your working style and all those things. Which episode you should listen to based on the answers. Well, I did AI it. I just chat GPT because I'm I'm like, I said to Google, what the fuck type of person doesn't charge their phone overnight to see if they would tell me? And they say some people might not charge their phones overnight because of potential issues with battery

health and safety. Supposedly lithium ion batteries could explode or something. I don't know, blah, blah, blah. Well, it's going to explode near my face. Okay. Charging your phone overnight can also be a fire hazard if you leave it in a case or on a soft surface like a bed or pillow. No, no, no. Don't do that.

No. Don't put it in your bed for like, no, that's like for getting out of sight, out of mind. What? So people think that charging your phone can damage the battery. Like it won't hold charge, you know, because you're giving it too much charge. My husband's really weird about like, it's got a cycle. It's got a cycle. You gotta let it die. Oh my gosh. No, it's fine. I'll get a new one. Come, you know, I'll get a new one. Come out Apple day or whatever. Oh, look at that feature. That's fun. Here we go. He does, though, like everything, like everything's got it.

Wear out first, like shoes. Well, we learned something. I didn't even know that was an option. Well, I have a comment about titles, and you will probably not be surprised that the story, as I think of it in my head, sounds a bit more corny than I thought it was at the time. When I started Manager Method, I left my biggest job I'd ever had, head of HR North America for a large, very well-known consulting firm.

I left that job and was starting Manager Method in a prior company. Let me come back to do legal and HR and we're fine with me starting Manager Method as well. So shout out. But I got all excited and talked to the CEO who I was reporting to and said, I really want my title to be SVP of people and legal, because legal stuff's always there, but people should come first. Oh, I love that. Almost said that's what she said. Yeah, like see me I'm like, oh, that's so sweet, Ash. And Lee's like, that is a mouthful. Yeah, like see me, I'm like, oh, that's so sweet, Ash. And Lee's like, that is what she said.

That wasn't good. That's what she said. That's good. But that is good. But anyway, I do think titles are meaningful. I am assuming. But I did. But when I talked to people, and I

would literally talk to people sometimes and say, this is lawyer. My lawyer hat is on. I would like mimic like this. I didn't actually have hats, although you might imagine I would wear like a wig. But I would say this is my lawyer hat and like, okay, I'm like, this is HR. This is like, this is the risks. This is what's going to happen. But this is also from a people perspective, what's going to happen to this person if we

don't do this. So we got to be comfortable taking risks and it did that to that. So if you have those dual roles, I know that can be hard, but I do think it can send messages. But as you can imagine, I brought it up when I'd be on calls with people and say, that's why my title is People Before Legal, because I want to prioritize like the legal stuff will always be there. But I really want to be a people focused leader.

And now I feel like if I put that on a LinkedIn post, I would fly right over to LinkedIn lunatics. So I'm not putting that in writing. Servant leader, see? There you go. There you go. But what's so funny is you would have told me that in a meeting, and I would have loved hearing it. But I would have already made that assumption based

on the order in the title. I have spent hours working on titles, even just one title. I'm not even kidding. Because of just the power, the optics of it. Nerds, shit. Oh, I love it. Words, oh, love them. Oh, gosh.

Hashtag. I love that. But good for you. I like that. And I love that you shared that too with people. I think that's bad ass. OK, well, I don't have a question, but I do have a quick comment, if I may.

And I will. We started this meeting talking about shit. Okay, just to remind you all, I'd like to end it talking about shit as well. So we quipped about how there's lots of shit going on in the workplace, like literal feces happening at work. And I'm not going to gross anybody out, right? But I have definitely had many situations of employees shitting in the sinks and shitting in corners and wiping feces like on doors and walls and whatever. And if that is happening in your workplace, okay, some of y'all know I've got a psych

background. Like that's my number one passion. That's like what I started doing. I was pre-med for psych and all of this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's a control thing. That person feels so out of control that they are symbolically, they don't realize this, they are controlling what they can, which is their own defecation and symbolizing their distrust and lack of control to you by doing stuff with their shit. And when you think about it, air quotes, it makes sense. I know it doesn't make sense, right? I've never, I've never shit somewhere like in a sink in public. I've never done those things, you know, but

that happens in the workplace sometimes. And you can Google this. I'm sure there's research papers. I haven't read them. I've only gone just, you know, a little deep into this to try and figure out the motivations of people for doing it. But when an employee, let's say it's an hourly employee, is having all their decisions made for them, they are getting no communications and they feel completely out of control in an extremely toxic work environment. Layoffs are happening left and right. They can't trust their boss. That's sometimes what people do They can't trust their boss. That's sometimes what people do to say, fuck you, right? To say, fuck you.

I hate this place because they just feel so trapped and out of control. So isn't that something? Yeah. Yeah. I know. I know. I'm just like, ah. It's sad, but I've had it a lot.

It is sad. I know. But when you think about it, if you've ever had a shitter, I've had a shitter a few times, and it's like, oh yeah, that workplace frickin' sucked. You know what I mean? No one's shitting on the walls in a well-run workplace. Okay, I've never seen that. Think about it.

There's a correlation there. You know what I mean? They're saying this place is toxic and I'm going to double down on the toxic by putting some of my toxic waste on your toxic walls, bitch. The reverse UNO card that... It's a reverse UNO card. Well then the question is who has to clean it up? Jamie.

Jamie. No, but seriously, why does it always come to HR? Like I got to clean it up. Oh man, shit. That doesn't pass the smell test. We're only the figurative shit picker uppers, not the literal ones. Damn. Though I have picked up shit.

Y'all have heard that story. I think I told it in season one. I know. Exactly. Yeah. You're fucking tripping doing that, girl. You crazy. Well, on that note, we hope your day is not shitty. Yeah.

Right? We hope you have non shit filled days. How do you say that? There really is no salutation with poop, is there? We're just going to sign it off. And end scene. Oh off. And end scene. Oh, gosh. And end scene. Have a wonderful Smell Good day.