L&D In Action: Winning Strategies from Learning Leaders - Valuing Just Organizations: Overcoming Challenges to Retention, Acquisition, and DEI

Episode Date: July 30, 2024

Learning doesn't happen in a vacuum. Often, policy, diplomacy, and current events have a direct impact on our organizations, and can even cause us to reconsider our learning goals for employees. We've seen discouraging trends when it comes to layoffs, failures in diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, and generally slow business cycles for multiple years now. All in all, there's been a clear erosion of trust between employee and organization. This week, Peter Rahbar joins the show to share insights as to how we can rebuild organizational trust.

You're listening to L&D in Action, winning strategies from learning leaders. This podcast, presented by Get Abstract, brings together the brightest minds in learning and development to discuss the best strategies for fostering employee engagement, maximizing potential, and building a culture of learning in your organization. My guest this week is Peter Rehbar. Peter is the founder of The Raybar Group, a boutique employment and labor law agency based out of New York City. He has worked extensively as representation for both individual professionals and major companies, giving him a unique perspective on the modern world of work. Peter frequently writes and contributes to articles on pertinent

workplace issues. Some topics he has addressed are diversity, equity, and inclusion, COVID-19 and subsequent changes to the workplace, pay transparency, and mass resignations and layoffs. He has been featured in CNBC, Inc. magazine, LinkedIn News, and the New York Times. Let's dive in. Hello, and welcome to L&D in Action. I'm your host, Tyler Lay,

and today I'm speaking with Peter Rebar. Peter, thank you so much for joining me today. I'm really looking forward to this conversation. Thanks for having me Tyler. I'm looking forward to it as well. I was surprised when I got your name from your agent. I was kind of looking at your background and thinking I'm not so sure this would be a good fit for the show honestly because you're a lawyer. you do a lot of work both from the employee side and from the corporation side. And I thought for a second about where we are as a country and said, you know what, this actually might be perfect. For some context for our listeners. Joe Biden stepped down from the presidential race about a week ago, I think right now. And there's a little bit of political turmoil going around and

Kamala Harris is sort of like the presumptive nominee. Maybe it's not entirely clear right now She's raising a lot of money and there's a lot to talk about here I'm gonna try to avoid overtly political talk But I do want to get into the DEI question one thing that I did see was the New York Post DEI question. One thing that I did see was the New York Post immediately after Biden stepped down post the headline, I believe it was America is about to get its first DEI president in Kamala Harris. And that we don't have to dive into how goofy that seems to me or to you or what that really means. But

DEI is a is a big thing right now. A lot of these functions and departments have come under attack, have not been doing very well. Just a week ago now, actually, Sherm, the Society for Human Resource Management, changed how they refer to DEI. They now are doing, I believe, IND. You actually told me this in our pre-chat. That's how I learned.

And they cited a lack of shared understanding of the term equity. So they're focusing on the things that we all understand, which is diversity and inclusion, rather than that word equity, which is maybe a little bit more nebulous. You have actually told me that as a lawyer, from your perspective, and you know, having your own firm, you've seen a little bit more to this story and what's happening to various companies. Can you share what you're seeing from that legal standpoint and how it might be a little bit larger of a story than just this semantic change? Yes, of course. And I'll start by saying you're not the first person to be reluctant to speak

with a lawyer or to speak with me specifically. But I think once we get going, you'll get comfortable with it. Yes, we are in a time of incredible political divisiveness, I would say, is one way to describe it. You know, I think this sherm announcement really comes at as a culmination and maybe not the total culmination, but a big moment in the DEI debate, which, you know, grew out of the Supreme Court affirmative action decisions last year. And look, I'm not going to get into the legalese, but I will say those Supreme Court decisions dealt with government-funded public institutions or private institutions that had government-funded programs or received government money.

They're subject to a whole different set of rules than private employers. And what we saw and what we've been seeing in the aftermath is various conservative interest groups filing lawsuits against various employers who have different forms of DEI programs, DEI initiatives, DEI programs, DEI initiatives, diversity officers, diversity funding programs. So we've seen these lawsuits, they've been funded by these conservative action groups, some of them led by Stephen Miller, he's been the most prominent voice, one of Trump's advisors. And their viewpoint is race shouldn't be a factor in any decision making and that what they're trying to do is extend those Supreme Court decisions over to the private sector.

The lawsuits on a legal level have not worked. Many of them have been dismissed. One of the most prominent ones, which was brought against a company called Hello Alice was recently dismissed. But on a practical level, they've had exactly the impact these groups wanted, which is we want to scare companies and we want to get rid of programs and we want to bring down DEI.

And a lot of companies have reacted by, you know, either eliminating or changing programs. And this SHRM decision goes in that latter category of, look, these goals are still important to us. If the acronym DEI is now going to be this really toxic and divisive term, then let's call it something else. But we're not throwing the objectives out the window. We're just calling it something different. And frankly, that's what a lot of companies are doing. You know, they're looking at, when I talk about this, you know, if you're a company, you should look at your values and what you stand for and what your business objectives

are and what your objectives are with employees and companies and make decisions based on that, not what a political action group is telling you to do. And so what companies are doing are saying, well, diversity, equality, inclusion, those are all important things to us. They're good for our business. They're good for our employees. They're good for the development of our employees. But we don't want to be in lawsuits. We don't want to be spending money and time on these things. So let's figure out a different way to do it that could withstand any legal challenge, that could stand out of the could withstand any legal challenge that could stand out of, you know, the eye of these political action groups and let's keep pursuing these goals in a way that is important to us and meaningful to us. And so that's a lot of what I'm seeing is what steps could we take? It

could be as simple as how do we change descriptions for programs? How do we change titles of programs? How do we change applicants who programs are made available to? There's a variety of different ways that companies are trying to address it, but that's mostly what's happening right now. Shurm also did some surveying on the topic. I'm not sure if it was directly related to this decision, but recently they set out some numbers. It was, I think 68%, nearly seven out of 10 employees said that they essentially believe that these initiatives are imperative,

that DEI is important in the way that you just described, but 1% more, 69% feel mixed on the results that they've seen from them, that the results are mixed at best. So not necessarily a success. Seven out of 10 aren't seeing like, yeah, this has done its job. 10% said this is making things actually worse.

But I just wanna know from your perspective, if you can say anything on why you think some of these outcomes have struggled. You know, there's been lots of reports on just how these initiatives and functions were initially started and just what the expectations were. And if the leaders who instituted them actually cared in the first place is always a big question.

I know that you're somebody who often gets asked by leaders of companies, executives, how should we react to these major social events? Should we put out a statement? Should we do something specific in our organization? How is that going to make my social events? Should we put out a statement? Should we do something specific in our organization? How is that gonna make my people feel? So do you have any thoughts on, based on how you've had those interactions and just based on what you've seen in larger organizations,

why these initiatives aren't doing so great at this point? I'm actually not surprised at all to see those numbers because I think a lot of companies just dove in over the past couple of years and took some steps that maybe weren't fully thought through and weren't fully consistent with their values and their business practices and beliefs. So you have a situation where employee expectations were really high. We were after the George Floyd shooting or death, we were in a very tense moment. We were still in COVID. There was very intense feelings.

People were looking towards their employers to do something and employers were scrambling to do something really quickly. And in some cases, it was statements, in other cases, it was programs. But I just think a lot of these were not fully thought through and then weren't really executed on fully. I've heard a lot of, we've all heard a lot of stories about turnover in DEI departments or last year when there was layoffs across the tech industry, how human resources and DEI departments were targeted. Those are just signs to me that the companies who took those

steps didn't really believe in them and think fully execute on them. And not every company is in that category, by the way. I mean, there are companies that and other institutions that have always believed in these principles and have always had difficult conversations. And in those companies and institutions, I suspect the numbers would be a lot higher. And so now I think we're at a time where companies are reassessing what they want to do, how they want to do it think we're at a time where companies are reassessing, you know, what they want to do, how they want to do it. There's been a number of institutions that I've seen in the past few months,

put out statements saying, we're not putting out statements anymore. That's it. We're, we're not talking about world events. We can't pick and choose what the right world event is. Most of these world events have two sides to them. We're just not gonna do it. And I think the bigger message there, again, is not that companies don't care about

their employees or their community and their feelings and supporting them. It's just that they want to minimize disruption and they want to focus on things they can do well and that are truly important to the company. And so they're finding other ways to support, you know, their employees and their customers and, and, and the public statements are, have proven to not be a good way to do that. So that's another trend that's, that's happening right now. But, you know, even when this was at its heights, you know, a couple of years

back, my advice to clients was always look at your values and your company's values and act based on that. And I think the companies that do that are the strongest and the best places to work and the employees know that too. Yeah. I know you also work with HR leaders. So I'm curious what you've seen in response to the same things from HR folks,

because I think what it comes down to is human resources probably takes on some of that responsibility if executives aren't willing to make statements and sort of demonstrate that they are aligned with their employees. I can understand why when you have a massive organization of, you know, five and six figure employees, you can't please everyone, you can never please everyone in the way that you react to maybe some world event. But what it comes down to is that certain departments theoretically, hopefully, maybe have the power

to address some of those things internally. So this is a learning and development focused podcast, obviously, I do think that corporate learning is always a place for solutions, where you can roll out programs roll out education that teach you about a major issue. At the very least, you know, we're not releasing a statement on this, but we do want everybody to understand why it's a major issue in the world right now. Here is a you know, a

module, here's some access to education through your organization, to help you understand that. Hello dear listener, quick interjection as we discuss this issue of workplace education specifically in the USA where Peter and I live. Legislation has been proposed, in particular by Ron DeSantis of Florida, to effectively ban DEI training in the workplace. His Individual Freedom Act, or STOPWOoke Act, outlined eight relatively commonly taught observations of race, gender, and history seeking to edify that they constitute discrimination

based on race, color, sex, or national origin. This legislation has been repeatedly blocked at the federal level since it was introduced in 2022, and just last week at the end of July 24, an injunction was made by US District Judge Mark Walker to permanently block this part of the bill in particular. So you can at least rest assured for now that DEI and justice-focused training that you deliver won't come under attack. If you have a different or unique perspective on this issue of DEI training, please reach out and let's have a conversation.

Back to the show. From an HR perspective, I don't know, things like making therapy available for certain groups of people. Just are there other things that you've seen from the HR leaders that you have worked with that have been done to internally address these things when executives dealing with the world externally maybe aren't hitting everybody's needs internally? I've had a lot of these conversations with HR leaders. I mean, the number one thing I think that's important for them is to be a voice

for the employees with, with leadership of a company and remind them constantly that this is a very difficult time for employees. I mean, right now in the, in the introduction to this podcast, you, you mentioned like really three or four cataclysmic events that have happened in the last week. And that's really unsettling to employees. And that's in addition to everything else that people are still dealing with. I mean, one thing I love or I remind people of all the time

is we're still dealing with the fact that COVID happened and the world came to a stop and people lost loved ones and people worried about their economic and personal security. So HR leaders have that unique responsibility of being at the table and reminding corporate leaders of those things and keeping themselves apprised of those things when difficult decisions are being made and important decisions are being made for a company. So, you know, whereas, you know, the CFO may focus on the dollars and cents of a particular decision, HR is responsible for bringing the human element in. And that includes advocating for employee

support initiatives, whether it's things that you can do in the workplace. So group meetings, different types of affinity groups, different types of support, mentoring that can happen within a workplace, but also external options such as therapy, other type services that are available that are really important benefits for a company to have. I mean, most companies up to a few years ago felt like it wasn't their responsibility to engage with employees about their mental health.

And now it's one of the top issues they face. And it's a very complicated one to deal with employees about their mental health. And now it's one of the top issues they face and it's a very complicated one to deal with, but there are resources that are available. You know, employee assistance programs are very popular and very useful for those situations. So, you know, there are many things HR leaders can do to help advocate for the employees. And then they also have to realize they can't do everything. And so the managers who are really the front line with the employees where most of the

problems occur, where most of the difficult discussions happen and where the real growth and connection opportunities are, those managers, they need constant training about how to deal with these new problems and new issues. The playbook is constantly evolving. And the managers, I mean, we've had, you know, I've had a ton of discussions about people promoted into management roles with no training on how to be a manager. And that's, that's a decades long problem, right? But, but now, you know, it's even more important because one bad discussion

happens in the workplace that could be out on social media. That could impact your recruiting efforts. It could create a huge public image problem for the company, and it could also impact employee morale and perhaps business. So the managers are having these important conversations. So if you're an HR, you got to talk upwards, but you also got to support your managers and say, do you have the tools you need to deal with these situations? Do you know how to spot the issues?

Do you know how to have the conversations? Do you know the right words to use? And that also goes to potential employees and the recruiting situation, you know, and giving the people who are conducting interviews and interacting with candidates the tools to have conversations properly in 2024. It's a fraught landscape out there. And some of the lawsuits we talked about earlier, those organizations send in candidates with an agenda. Oh yeah.

You know, and so if you have a manager who's speaking to freely and doesn't know that your company could inadvertently end up in a problem without even knowing it. So that's a pretty, pretty wide answer to your question, but the center point of all of it is HR, HR professionals, you know, making sure that these things are happening and advocating for company leaders to spend time on these and resources on these important items. HR has a massive remit right now. I think that's why we see big influencers and thought leaders in that world like Dave Ulrich and I had Jonningham on the show recently,

who also works with him. These folks doing massive research on, you know, what actually are we doing with HR right now? What is the role of HR long-term? What was it in the past? How has it changed? Do we need to give more resources to HR, restructure what people are responsible for?

That's a huge conversation. I actually do wanna dive into some of those retention and like talent acquisition topics as well. But first, I do want to get vaguely philosophical with you, because this is a thing that I've seen happen a lot with language. So the DEI thing kind of devolving into a problem. I also think that this exists pretty abundantly in organizations where, you know, a lot of people who aren't sort of really dedicated to DEI who, you know, maybe vaguely see that it's sort of important. They, you know, people start to roll their eyes at these things. If they're given a training of something that they just don't fully believe in, or they don't fully understand, it's very easy to become sick of something like diversity, equity and inclusion measures. I'm sick of something like diversity, equity, and inclusion measures.

This happens with something as broadly supported as psychological safety, where the goal is to make everybody feel comfortable enough to speak up and recommend innovation and just feel comfortable in their organization. But if you announce, you know, we're doing a psychological safety program in the company, people kind of roll their eyes and say, oh, this again,

you know, these things that are good important ideas, sort of lose their value over time because they become ingrained in organizational practice. And they just, they bore you, they take up time that you otherwise like need to be putting toward your job. Or that's how it's felt by most people is like, this is kind of taking up my time where I actually need to earn my money. And I see this happening with lots of different things, just this like this is kind of taking up my time where I actually need to earn my money. And I see this happening with lots of different things, just this like enfeebling of language over time, because of how it exists in the schema of our day to day work. I'm curious,

you working with the word of the law every day and just how all of that works, very specific interpretations of precedent. Do you see this as well? I mean, why do you think this is and what can we do to, you know, prevent language and these concepts and sort of losing their power as we practice them? Oh, I see it for sure. I mean, I see it all the time. I mean, we also saw with with ESG right before, you know, oh, yeah, the attacks on ESG. And you talk about a number of different initiatives that are either derided or made fun of. I think we saw a lot of that around the increase

in identification of pronouns in the workplace. And there was a lot of commentary around that. For me, this is such a dangerous time for companies because of a number of trends that are sort of coming together at the same time. And AI is one of them, the rise of AI, because one of the first use cases for AI that we're seeing in companies is HR and different HR functions. And, and we can debate about the good and bad of that. You know, I think there are some good uses, like there are questions that people want to have answered about basic things that they never had anyone to call

about, you know, that's great, but should AI be doing like your job interviews and your job screening, you know, I don't think so. And there are laws to protect against that. But I think to get at your question specifically, I think a lot of it is about how these programs and concepts and initiatives are communicated within a company. And they have to come from the top. Okay.

No. Yeah. And they either have to come from the top from your leadership team or your HR person needs to be seen as someone who is a part of that leadership team, who is strong, who is independent, who is a voice for employees, but also a corporate representative. That's a very hard line to toe for HR professionals, but that's how the person needs to be viewed. And if the message is coming from an HR person,

that's how it needs to be viewed. If not, it needs to come from the top. The company CEO or some other person in C-suite needs to say, these are important things to us. Diversity is important to us. It is central part of our mission. If a company has a mission statement,

it should certainly be part of it. It should be cited. I think every company should have a mission statement. Not everyone does. I used to work for a company that had a mission statement in their elevator in every location of the company. You knew what it was, you knew what they stood for. I think if employees know what a company stands for

and then the things it does comport with that, you get rid of the ridicule and the derision and the lack of respect. I mean, it's important to be consistent. And I feel like a lot of the institutions that are having trouble or have had trouble over the past couple of years, they never talked about these things.

They never told their employees diversity was important to them. They never acted like it. talked about these things, they never said, they never told their employees diversity was important to them. They never acted like it, you know, and, and, and also nothing's going to get fixed in three, four years. This is sure. This is a long term, uh, a long term fix. And, and, and the last thing I will say on it is the best way for, if we're

talking about diversity specifically, the best way for a company to not only show its employees that it cares about diversity, but also becomes good at like issue spotting and initiatives and implementation is to have a diverse group of executives. I mean, that's essential. And I can't even tell you the work I do these days, I still look at websites of leadership teams and I still see all white males. I mean, that is, I'm not saying every company operates that way,

but there's still a lot of them that do. And you can send a great message to your employees by saying, look at our leadership team, we're diverse, we believe in it, you need to believe in it too, you need to every day, you need to take steps that support that goal. And then it's real, no one's gonna go walk around making fun of it.

And if they don't like it, they'll leave, they'll go work somewhere else where it's not important. And there are companies, believe it or not, that have said, we don't care about diversity, we just care about the bottom line and that's that. I hate to say, but I feel like most companies historically have not cared about diversity until at least very recently and were like that. You know, whether their leaders truly do care about that deep in their hearts, whether they have that conviction, I think is still up for debate in many large profile cases. I do wanna push back on one idea that you threw in there

around the mission statement, somewhat ironically, this was kind of the topic of a recent conversation I had with Ryan Berman on the show, who does a lot of work with companies, putting more courage into their mission statement and into their people, just into the organization, operating with courage rather than without a fear and the desire to sort of get ahead.

And we talked about how mission statements and all those, the placard that says what it is that you stand for, how especially with younger generations in the workplace right now, those things really seem to have lost their significance and their impact. And I think this from my own sort of experience as a younger millennial, dealing with social media, all my adult life and all of my teens, that's how I learned about businesses is what and also commercials on television and that sort of thing,

but this is how I learned about businesses, is their branding and their branding is very public. And that's only true for the last 15, 20 years is that they're communicating through Twitter and through Facebook and Instagram directly to people or putting out regular posts about who they are as a brand. That's how I learn about a company's mission, whether it aligns with what they say on their website under mission statement or not.

That's how I learn. I think that's how most people, young people these days are learning about what a company stands for. I do think that we've kind of lost that value. If a company has that placard with everything on it sort of all throughout their company, I do think that's one way of ingraining it into its employees internally and demonstrating that it is important there.

But now that we're decentralized as we are post-COVID, I think that's really hard to do. And I do think that still companies aren't doing a whole course of onboarding on their mission statements and that sort of thing. So I just want to push back a little bit on that and say, you know, as much as I agree that that's an important thing and it still should be established very clearly what your mission, what your mission is. I'm not sure it has the power that it has HR, the learning world where they're taking that mission statement and they are deliberately threading it through their learning, their

HR practices, their recruitment, anything along those lines to really get it to people that this is serious and we take it seriously and there's conviction behind it? I mean, I have. And look, I don't disagree with what you're saying. I mean, a lot of people learn about companies and form opinions based on what their public actions and their marketing campaigns are at the top of that list. Right. But how do you get there is, you know, the question.

I mean, some executives are deciding what is right, the right way to represent the company, right, either with an internal group or an external agency. And, and how are the executives making those decisions? Well, hopefully one thing they're drawing on is the company's values, which should be expressed in the mission statement. So I think if you have a clear mission statement, it makes all decision-making. Easier doesn't make it easy. It makes it easier.

Um, it gives you a central starting point and you know, the good companies, they will show it to candidates. They will have it on their prominently on their website. It will be an option that you could choose when you learn about the company. It will be communicated to new hires. It will be part of training. It will be part of every training that you have on a recurring basis. It will be prominently displayed in places in the workplace.

It sounds so hokey, but it is important. You look at some really successful companies that have, you know, articulated values, some that we may agree or disagree with, but at least they know what the mission is. You know, I've spent a lot of time with the army, the U S army, huge organization, millions of members. You could go and talk to any single one of them and they know what the mission is and, and what the chain of command is. And what, you know, like that's a very just big,

obvious extreme example, but like that's one of the things that's so impressive about the army. You could talk to anyone and they, you know, get virtually the same answer on what the core functions of and duties of, you know, the army are. So, you know, it sounds very hokey in old fashioned, but it's also very important. And it's important to have these conversations

with employees. And it's, you mentioned like the fact that you're of a younger generation. I mean, right now we have five, we're relying six generations in the workplace. I'm not saying set a mission statement and etch it into a tablet and never change it. I mean, these things need to change.

They need to evolve. And you should invite feedback from your employees and you should give them a voice. And we were talking earlier about DEI programs and what the success and failure rates of them. Another part of why they haven't succeeded is because they didn't really change and adapt and, and, and DEI became viewed as like just standing for one or two things and not other things.

And I think that's, or, or a couple of groups and not other groups. And I think that's part of something that needs to be addressed on an ongoing basis. So, I guess I look at it more from a decision-making and responsive point that it is helpful, but it should inform every decision and every corporate leader should be thinking about the company's core values when making important decisions, including marketing, advertising. You know, even looking at the wall behind you, I could think about what's happened to Adidas over the past week and, you know, wonder what their mission statement says and how

can, you know, wonder what their mission statement says and how their recent marketing campaigns and celebrity affiliations of I don't see any. Yeah. For those listening and not watching, I have one hundred thousand sneakers behind me in the podcast background. This is a new development. But yes, I don't think I have any Adidas on the wall. I do own some for what it's worth. That's an interesting anecdote. I forgot about that.

Yeah. From the perspective of, like I said before, I want to circle to like retention and talent acquisition and those things. You already mentioned that some companies are getting into trouble utilizing AI in these processes. And I have had folks that represent companies that do that on the show.

AI generated or AI powered candidate databases. I don't know how much they're actually getting into, like, the process of recruitment and the hiring processes, but it's out there and it's having an impact for sure. There's also just other problems that have been prominent in the hiring space for a long time now. I just hear so many stories on LinkedIn of people getting ghosted during their application and just very lazy sort of processes, it seems,

from the part of the organizations. And I think this is a space where also we can take that mission statement and those value systems very seriously and demonstrate them not only through the process, but in the process, you know, teach about it and also show it the value systems as you're looking for new candidates and all of that. But I'm curious, are there any other problems, first of all,

that you've seen in hiring and recruitment and talent acquisition that you've dealt with from your perspective as a lawyer as well, in addition to the AI thing that you described. Yeah, I mean, one theme that's really coming through lately with the introduction of AI screening tools mostly, and the cuts in HR is just, there's a real view that there's some disrespect

or that the recruiting process at a lot of places has become sort of demeaning for candidates. And I think the recruiting process is such an opportunity for companies to communicate their message to candidates, whether they hire them or not. I mean, this is a one-on-one opportunity you're having with a candidate. Why would you outsource it to a computer-generated blue avatar to have an interview? Why would you do that?

Why would you want to be known? Now, the answer will be, we have thousands of candidates, and we have no other way to do it. But I view this recruiting process as an essential and important process, a very human process. I work with a lot of executives, C-suite executives. There's no way you're hiring a C-suite executive based on what AI says. You're going to have a lot of interviews.

You're going to have a lot of screening. You're going to have a lot of references. And I really, I get discouraged when I hear employers downgrade the importance of a search for lower level entry level positions. These are potential future leaders of their company. And then when they come to me when things don't work out and say, well, this person wasn't who we thought they were, and I started asking questions about the hiring process, about 99% of the time I get my client to admit that they didn't spend as much time on the search as they probably should have when they rushed into a search

because of, rushed into a hire because of limited resources or immediate needs. I mean, to me, there's no cutting corners in this process. I think you need to put some of your best people on the front lines to talk with candidates and to represent your company. Because guess what? These candidates, they have a lot of options these days. They have a lot of information. This is not a candidate from a decade ago or two decades ago. I mean, the candidates today are much more sophisticated, much more demanding. They're not most cases going to jump to the first job that comes to them. You know, they're, they, they have a lot of information on the company

that they didn't have before. And so they're going to ask tough questions and they're, they have very high expectations. So the company needs to be prepared for companies need to be prepared for that. And that includes, as I said earlier, working with your employees to make sure they understand what the rules of the road are, what the laws are, you know,

what types of conversations they should be having with candidates. That's always been important, but I find that it's more important now than ever. I know you deal a lot with contracts and how to make sure that candidates are seeing what they want in a contract that actually, pulls the best talent in.

This generally probably doesn't fall to L and D folks, maybe more HR, but in general, anybody listening hopefully can learn something to advocate for in this part of the conversation. But what would you say is losing people in the contracts that you've seen? I know you've worked with some really massive organizations that, you know, have a lot of just requirements as to what they have to have in their contracts. But what would you say are some attractive things, some unattractive things that could show up in a contract when it comes to the sort of, you know, how do we keep, find and keep the best people out there? It's a great question. Something I talk about a lot.

You know, first of all, I will say when I was an in-house lawyer, one thing I advocated for and I actually did a lot of was training managers on what the company's contracts say and what the different provisions mean. Interesting. People sign contracts and what the different provisions mean. Interesting. People sign contracts and they don't even know. And then they get into a job and contracts evolve

and they have no idea what's even being presented to candidates. So I think it's important for people involved in the hiring process to understand contracts, the company's contracts and commitments. But I will say now, candidates are really looking for fairness and balancing in contracts. And I've definitely had a number of clients pass on jobs because the forms are just so outdated and they were either too one-sided or revealed a lack of sophistication by a company.

And I could say that across many different industries. I could give examples of major power players in an industry that have outdated contracts that are essentially so one-sided, the company saying, trust us, but candidates saying, why? I could go somewhere else and have an equal level of trust and less stress. And, you know, your reputation isn't so great for trust anyway. So I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with the trust us type statement. So it's, it's not something often thought about, but I have actually been

talking to firms recently, you know, ones that I've dealt with repeatedly have now reached out to me and said, hey, could we have a discussion and just about what you think we could do to maybe update some things or, I can't always take that conversation, but I think it's interesting they're asking. And I think it's something that needs to be

continuously evaluated because, again, employees have tremendous information on contracts and compensation and what's happening just at particular companies. I mean, with the implementation of pay transparency laws in different cities and states, with sites like Glassdoor, with just Google and LinkedIn. You can look and say, yeah, you've had 30 lawsuits filed against you by employees. Why should I trust you?

I'd like to have this contract be a little more fair. So it's one of the ways that employers have to deal with the fact that employees have more information and feel more power and have more choices. If there's one thing that I know from surveys that I've read, in particular the Conference Board pretty frequently does an update on the impact of development opportunities and training and learning toward growth within an organization, a vast majority of employees always say that development opportunities and like direct

growth learning is something that is very attractive to them. It keeps them in an organization and it's also a good determinant if they're going to go into an organization in the first place. Is this something that you think should be emphasized in the hiring process? I've never seen it myself going into an organization. And I also quite frankly didn't really even know that corporate learning and L&D was a thing until I got out of the sort of education industry when I was working in K-12 and then college stuff.

So I didn't even really know any of this was real. Now I'm doing it. Selling textbooks, right? Yeah, exactly, yes. So I'm curious, do you think that this being something that has been established is pretty valuable for a lot of employees? Is it important to establish for the purposes of, you know, acquisition and retention in that hiring process? And also maybe even in contracts? I know

there's also the question, where does the line of you know, benefits and LND sort of where does that get crossed up? But these are things that I feel like, hey, you know, if you're coming into my organization, I want to let you know that we have these systems in place for you to seek growth, these potential opportunities. Here's what our learning looks like. Here's how you know that you will grow. Does that make sense to you too?

Oh, yeah, definitely. And I think in different industries and different jobs, it has different levels of importance. But it's something that should definitely be emphasized. And it's something I hear a lot from clients who are leaving companies that they've been at for several years is I just didn't feel like they had an investment in me, I didn't think they cared about my future. And, and so it's, it's a topic. It's a pretty hot topic of debate right now because some of the trends and the surveying

shows that entry-level jobs, the people going into entry-level jobs really are expecting to be there for two, three years and don't want to be there any longer no matter what the company does. Companies hate that. They hate hearing that in most cases. But you know, at a certain point, you know, people do become interested in staying somewhere. And so they will seek out these opportunities. And they will ask questions like, what is my pathway to promotion? And they'll ask that in job interviews. And employers have typically viewed that as entitled

or arrogant and I think the most admired employers would say, that's great, that's great that you care about those things. I personally would, I mean, if a great question. I think that's a better question than how can I earn a million dollars one day, you know, to me. Um, and I come from an industry where training is really important. And, and so I know the importance of it. So I think, I think it's a great question. Um, and I think it's a great question. Um, and I think it's a great question.

Um, and I think it's a great question. Um, and I think it's a great question. Um, and I think it's a great question. Um, and I think it's a great question. Um, and I think it's a great question. Um, and I think it's a great question. Um, and I think it's a great question. Um, and I think it's a great question. Um, and I think it's a great question. Um, and I think it's a great question. Um, and I think it's a great question. Um, and I come from an industry where training is really important.

And, and so I know the importance of it. So I think, I think it's a great selling point for companies. It's a great benefit that they can offer. That is not just something that's going to the employee. The company is getting a return on, uh, the investment they're making in the employee, because look, I mean, there are certain things you're going to be able to do to keep employees and others you're not going to be able to do. I mean, and you know, someone swoops in and offers your employee double, triple their

salary. I mean, you know, what are you going to do? But if you have a demonstrated record of caring about their advancement and their training I mean that is a tough thing for an employee to distance themselves from that's something they remember They value and frankly used to be a corporate priority I mean GE used to have incredible training programs and you know, the best companies still do but I would say it's definitely been de-emphasized and limited. Unfortunately, now some of it being transferred to AI, I think companies really need

to take a strong look at this and say, wait, is this the right area to outsource? How can we expand the circle of people we're gonna train? And I think that's a great way to also improve diversity, whether it's socioeconomic or racial or gender, is expand the training circle, expand your circle of future leaders. I mean, that's really important with the people you already have. I'm glad we worked away from depressing political scenario

to a nice strong statement in support of learning and development. I think we will wrap it up there. So thank you, Peter. Before I let you go, can you just let my listeners know where they can learn more about you, your firm, and how to contact you?

Sure. I have a website, the Raybar group.com. I'm also, you can find me and all my content on LinkedIn. Happy to speak with people and you know, I've had a lot of great exchanges over the years and loved our conversation today. So thanks for having me on. Yeah, absolutely. R-A-H-B-A-R is how you spell Raybar. Did I get that right? Yes. Okay, cool. Again, Peter, thanks for joining me today. It was a great conversation. For everybody listening at home, thanks for joining us. We will catch you on the next episode.

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