Tricky Situations: Workplace Challenges That Make HR Sweat

[Melanie Naranjo] (0:00 - 8:27)
Hello, hello everyone. Welcome and happy Valentine's Day to anyone who celebrates. If you are wondering what this weird red mark on my face is, I just put too much to this side.

It's a heart. It's a heart. Happy Valentine's Day everyone.

Welcome, welcome. Chantelle dressed up perfectly for Valentine's Day, bringing the red. I love it.

Yes, pop of color. Oh yes, Jersey represent Maryland. Loving it.

I'm from Jersey as well. Bayonne, baby. I'm so excited about this very spicy topic today, in particular because Chantelle and I were talking earlier about the fact that I had done a similar topic a year ago today, but we didn't have a lawyer on the call.

And so there was a certain degree of spiciness that we couldn't quite get into. And so I'm very, very excited to go one level deeper this time. So if anybody saw this webinar last time and is tuning in again, I promise you it's the next level up.

I'm very excited for it. With that said, let me do some quick intros and walkthroughs, especially if we have any new people on the call today. Oh, my name is Melanie Naranjo.

I head up the people team here at Athena. We're a compliance training company. We do everything from harassment prevention to cybersecurity, hotline and case management.

Our mission is to create more inclusive and ethical workplaces. And one of the ways in which we help do that is by creating people communities and sharing out people resources and partnering with legal experts like Chantelle on the call today. And so I'm very, very excited to host today's session today.

We're going to talk about some of the trickiest challenges in the HR space, especially the ones that sort of spill into that legal realm that sort of make even the most senior HR seasoned HR professionals sweat just a little bit. Chantelle is our lovely legal expert on the call. Chantelle, I don't want to ruin it for you.

Why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself a little to the audience for anyone who's new to the call today? Well, hello, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us today and for including me in this conversation.

It's always surprising to me when people want to talk to lawyers and that they're excited to. But hopefully, you know, we get some clarity today with some of these questions about navigating these, you know, spicy or awkward or tricky situations. I am here today as a partner at Medina McKelvey, which is a boutique law firm based in California.

I lead up the advice and counsel department there, been a practicing attorney for well over 15 years. And I focus my practice on investigations, advice and counsel, and also just helping employers keep out of hot water. Love it.

I'm so, so excited to have Chantelle on the call with us today. If you haven't seen the last webinar we held with Chantelle, it was all about investigations and all. It was a fire.

In fact, Chantelle and I were talking and we already had several people reach out to Chantelle specifically to partner with her directly because the advice she gave was so, so powerful. I'm very excited to learn even more from you today. With that said all, let me share just a little bit about how these webinars work and then we'll jump into it.

I like to make these interactive and so I will be asking questions. The ask is to put your comments, your answers in the comment section. You usually see that it's just fire comments and people actually end up making a lot of friendships on these chats.

So feel free to share your information if you want someone to reach out afterwards or whatever. I will occasionally call on someone to unmute themselves. If you don't want me to call on you, I don't want that to be a deterrent to you participating.

So just put an asterisk next to your response and that will be my cue not to call on you. But if I do call on you because you don't have an asterisk, Amanda who's working tirelessly behind the scenes will give you access to unmute yourself and then we'll be able to have a nice chat. With that said, let's go ahead and get started all.

So the agenda for today, we're going to do some tricky situations with Chantelle, really exploring some of the biggest hottest topics right now in HR that are the scariest and that lean into legal territory. I'm talking performance management, terminations and challenges with your leadership team. At the end, we will have just a moment of an Athena spotlight to tell a little bit more about who we are, what we do and a fun special promotion.

We're putting out to you a webinar. Oh, I don't know what's happening right now, but I'm going to trust Amanda asked something in the comments. And then at the end, we will leave time for questions with Chantelle.

So if you've got questions throughout the webinar, please go ahead and just put them in the Q\&A section. If you put them in the comments, we might miss them. Probably we'll miss them.

All right, let's go ahead and kick it off. Tricky situations. One of the things that I think about a lot in the HR space is what does it mean to be HR?

What is our role? And I remember chatting with someone a little while back on LinkedIn, and they gave me the most perfect definition that I have ever seen ever. Oh, that's what the asterisk is for.

Okay, just so you know, so I don't miss it, because I won't know who put an asterisk in now. When I call on you in your response, put an asterisk next to your response, and that's how I'll know not to call on you. Thank you.

Amanda told me behind the scenes what was happening because I missed it. Okay, this is the most perfect definition I've ever seen for HR, which is the purpose of HR is to make your company an awesome place to work and also make sure we don't do anything stupid. It's a little facetious.

Yes, I'm with you, Chantelle. I'm like laughing my butt off, but the reality is, right, we are balancing this really tricky sort of dynamic where, yes, our goal is to empower the business strategy through our people strategy, to retain, to recruit, all these things. And also, there is a very important aspect of HR that is also risk mitigation.

That's important, right? There are no employees to empower if the company goes out of business because of five million lawsuits, okay, or one very big lawsuit. And so, it is really important as we're talking about things in the HR space that we are thinking about risk mitigation and the legal side of things and how to make sure we're tackling things appropriately.

And I will say, something that always catches me by surprise is sometimes as situations come up, I'm sort of like, no, no, that's not real. That can't possibly be a thing. But I will tell you actually a very personal anecdote.

I was just chatting with a friend yesterday. Don't worry, she doesn't work at Athena and I'm not going to name her company. She was working with a client and she told me that her client was talking very innocuously about this vacation that he's getting ready to go on and he commented just in passing, oh, and I'll be thinking of you in a bikini.

Classy. Yeah, you're classy, real classy. And I thought, no, surely this is not real, but it is all, it is.

And the more people I talk to, the more these stories just come up. People just do real awkward, inappropriate things at work. And at Athena, that's very top of mind for us, especially when we think about things like our harassment prevention training.

You know, some of these examples, I look at them and I think, oh my gosh, is this real? And the reality is they are. These are real, very realistic, relevant examples.

And if you don't believe me, I actually want to do a bit of a pulse check with you all and then we'll jump into questions. Yes or no in the comments, and now put your asterisk next to your response if you don't want me to call on you. Yes or no in the comments, can you tell me how you answer this following question?

I have come across pretty tricky situations during my HR career. Okay, yeah, they're flooding in. All right, yeah, all of you, pretty much, right?

I have yet to meet an HR person who didn't have a wild story to tell. Now, I'm very carefully going to look through the comments and only call on someone who didn't include an asterisk, no worries. Let's call on, let's see, oh, many asterisks, so I'm gonna be careful.

Kristen Curry, yes, in all caps, Kristen, K-R-I-S-T-E-N. If you could unmute yourself, you don't have to give me the specifics if you don't want to, only share as much as you're comfortable with. But generally speaking, you know, what are you seeing in the realm of tricky situations in the HR world?

What categories or buckets of things are you seeing?

[Chantelle Egan] (8:29 - 8:33)
Hi, Melanie, also fellow New Jersey person over here.

[Melanie Naranjo] (8:34 - 8:36)
I'm mentally New Jersey.

[Chantelle Egan] (8:36 - 9:14)
Yes, yes, you know, I am currently in the startup world. So a lot of it is coming down to a lack of policies being in place. And it just being kind of a free for all where I am right now and trying to get that locked down.

So everywhere from performance management, merit increases, parental leaves, it's all a bit of a mess right now. But had some very fun situations throughout my time, including a trip down to an NYPD precinct for an employee relations issue.

[Melanie Naranjo] (9:16 - 58:47)
Oh my God, if we were, if we were in a private room, I would be asking you so many follow-up questions, Kristen, out of respect to you and your company or past company, I will not ask them right now. But thank you. Thank you very much, Kristen, for sharing.

Chantelle, I would love to turn it over to you, our legal expert for a second here. First of all, any shock in response to so many yeses to this question? Absolutely not.

I, I, this is part of why I actually love my job. I love employment law because this kind of, this human element to it, where, you know, people are people and people are going to make mistakes. And sometimes those mistakes can be pretty dramatic.

So this, none of this surprises me at all, actually. Oh boy. In that case, since we have you, I would like to, I would love to pick your brain and go one level deeper.

Just because I find in particular half the battle with a lot of HR tricky situations is feeling alone and wondering, like, am I the only one? Are other people struggling with this? Is this a common thing?

And so Chantelle, I'd love to ask in your experience, partnering with investigations as an employment lawyer, all those things, what bucket, what bucket of things in the HR space do you, do you see that most workplace tricky situations fall under in your experience? Where are they stemming from? Where are they coming from?

Well, I think what makes, you know, being an HR professional so challenging is that there are so many buckets. Like, let's just start there. There is so many things that you need to be an expert in, so many things that you need to be able to issue spot.

So sometimes it's actually really hard to say, well, this is the one where it's, you know, the worst out of all the tricky situations. But in answering your question, I think the one that is the most challenging to navigate is ones where we're dealing with leaves and accommodations. And the reason for that is because there's kind of two pieces to, to that particular issue.

There is, you know, the human issue, you know, somebody could be going through a really personal hard time, or they could be caring for someone that's going through a hard time. And then there's also all the ticky tacky legal requirements, you know, letting them know about FMLA leave, doing it in three days, making sure that you're engaging in the interactive process, and not just having a conversation with somebody about their leave, but doing it within kind of the strict parameters of the law kind of following those rules of engagement. So I think that's probably the most tricky one to navigate.

And, you know, as you were talking about these tricky situations, I actually thought of one that came to mind that plays into this, where I had someone who had an employee who was in a company vehicle with other individuals there, wasn't asking for a bathroom break, and was actually urinating in a bottle in the back of the van, and people were complaining about it. And so when we first got the, you know, got the information about it, I will admit, I had, I had a chuckle. It's like, only in my world is that the call that you get it, you know, as you're like trying to eat your lunch, you're like, oh, okay, let's stop everything and deal with that.

But what's interesting about that is that when you really kind of think about it, it's like, well, what's going on with this person? Like, do they perhaps have a medical condition? Like, is that why this is happening?

Is that why they, you know, maybe they have frequent, they need a need for frequent breaks. Maybe this person needs an accommodation. So it's that layer aspect is the other thing that is just so tricky for HR professionals to navigate.

And I just, I just have the utmost respect for all that you all do. Wow. That's literally all I have to say.

Just wow. And, and thank you, because I'm going to guess that many people, first of all, you're getting a lot of reactions, on this. I'm going to guess that there are many people on this call who have had maybe not that exact issue, but similarly tricky and bizarre.

And just like, I don't know how to react issues. And it's just helpful to know, okay, you're not alone. With that said, let's jump into the meat of this.

All right. I want to talk about performance management, because as I talk to people, it feels like everyone and their mom is thinking about performance management right now. And in fact, I want to pulse check it.

In the comments, can you give me a yes or no performance management is a top priority this year? You know, who here is thinking about yet? Okay, lovely.

I'm not going to call on anyone this time in the interest of time, but it's just helpful to see. Yeah, this is a pretty hot topic. And actually, just so you all know, next month, we're going to do a training all around performance management and how to manage that.

We'll also be sharing resources in our follow up email from this call on performance management. We'll share our performance management, our performance review template, all that good stuff. So keep an eye out for the email, sign up for our next webinar, if you'd like to learn more.

With that said, I'm going to I'm going to end the screen share, just so that well, okay, let's see if I can figure this out. If I can't figure this out, we're not going to do it all. Okay, I'm gonna there we go.

Stop sharing. You can see Chantelle and my beautiful faces here. While we chat a little more intimately here.

Let's let's dig into performance management. And I want to I want to start with with a tough one. Okay, a trick.

Um, so so I'm curious to know, legally speaking, Chantelle, just like maybe this is more like a like a spilling tea kind of question. We're seeing performance management discussions go wrong. Like what are the most common mistakes that companies make?

Not being fully honest with the person. So having performance management can be really tough conversations, especially if the person isn't seeing or understanding how they're not making like where their where their deficits are. And there's that people element to it, where navigating that you're not being clear.

And maybe you the manager or with HR support really feel like you're being clear. And that's a part of the performance management issue to begin with. But I think that's really where kind of the heart of the matter comes in.

Because I see plenty of times, especially when I litigated that, you know, someone would be terminated. And they would, when I would talk to the manager, they would, everyone would talk about what a poor performance person was. And then you look at their performance review.

And you're like, well, why was this person getting fives? And why were you giving, you know, glowing comments into that gentle balance. And this is really where, you know, years where I really think about risk mitigation, because risk mitigation means not only following the law, but also, you know, approaching people in a way that they feel that they're being heard and given a fair chance and shake.

So it's like that balance and performance management of identifying the things that they're doing right, and they shouldn't be changing, but also being very direct about the things that they need to change, how quickly they need to change it, and working with them to develop the tools in order to change them. And then of course, documenting it, because you don't want a situation down the road where someone says, nobody ever talked to me about that. And the manager's like, I've been talking to you about it every week for six months.

So definitely write it down too. Oh, Chantelle, this is okay. This is so spicy and relevant.

First of all, towards the end, we're gonna talk about leadership challenges. Chantelle, we're gonna chat about this, because to your point, sometimes it's hard to get people to commit. And in this month's webinar, we're also going to talk about why do managers do that?

Why do managers refuse to give the tough feedback, but then want to fire the person? Why do managers tolerate underperformance and then ask HR leaders to come in and do the performance management for them? When they're exasperated at that point.

Yes, they don't win until it's sort of like, now it's damage control versus proactive partnership, right? Oh yeah, we got that. Okay, Chantelle, let's go one level deeper then.

Let's assume this person truly has been struggling with their performance. And the manager, they've been partnering with HR, they're giving the direct feedback, they're not sugarcoating, and they're even being clear on the severity of the issue. Hey, if you don't make meaningful progress on this soon, quickly, in the next few weeks, your job is going to be at risk.

And then you find out, oh, well, the reason this person is struggling, talking about nuance and layers, is this person is struggling with mental health issues. Maybe there's something horrible happening in the world, which is quite often. Maybe there's a personal issue.

Maybe someone is struggling with a miscarriage. Maybe there is just a personal issue that's going on. How do you manage this sort of situation?

What are your options when, yes, you want to have empathy, you want to support this person, and also it is still your job to hold people accountable to the very real business needs that you need to hold people accountable to in order for the business to continue to thrive. Right. So this is really tricky.

And a lot of times this does come up because through these discussions, you realize that it's not necessarily something happening in the workplace, especially for that, you know, person. You're like, you're a star. Like, what's happening?

And the key thing here is, this kind of goes back to my accommodations comment that I had earlier and how tricky it is. Because once you as the manager or HR are on notice that somebody's not meeting their performance expectations because of these outside influence, in particular mental or some kind of physical ailment, you're now on notice that this person may need an accommodation. And you need to start having a conversation about that.

What I want to see in a perfect situation, and I know perfect situations don't always exist, but I really love it when your HR team is big enough that then you can collaborate. This is not a manager discussion, having, walking through the accommodation. That's an HR discussion.

And if you've been pairing as a manager, if you've been pairing with HR to deal with the performance issues, it's great if you have a big enough HR team that somebody else can swoop in on the side that's not a part of the performance issues and can help navigate and help this person explore what they need, whether it's leave, whether you have resources that you offer counseling or any of those things.

But in a perfect world, you really have them in channels so that this person understands, all right, with this team, I'm dealing with my performance. And with this team, I'm getting the support that I need that's kind of separate and apart from kind of traditional performance issues in order for me to meet those goals and expectations. I really love, I think implicitly what I'm hearing there, which is in order for this to work, your managers have to know enough to know when it's time to take a step back and pull in HR.

I can imagine, and we'll talk about this a little bit more in a second, right? I can imagine an HR, a manager from a place of good intent, just getting two in the weeds and two involved. Tell me more.

What do you mean you're struggling with this? Well, let me give you some advice because I went through a similar issue and this is what I think you should be doing, right? And it just quickly spirals out of control.

And so I really like this idea of separating out the two things. And if I'm hearing you correctly, the two can coexist. You can be performance managing someone and you can be providing someone feedback.

In which case, I want to ask a tricky follow-up question, which I think comes up quite often, more often than most of us like to acknowledge, which is to your point, thinking about if somebody needs needs or has needs and reasonable accommodations. I personally, in my HR experience, in my decade of working here, I have seen many instances where, you know, you put someone on a PIP, for example, and upon communicating the PIP, a person responds, well, actually, I think I need reasonable accommodations, right? And now I would like to request those.

And I'm not making any comments or any judgments. I'm just saying that often happen or can happen at the same time. My question to you is, right, if somebody does that, what does that mean?

Does that mean that the PIP has to be on hold? Does the PIP continue? How do you navigate a situation where someone has now requested a reasonable accommodation, but you're now at the 30-day mark?

And, you know, they've been underperforming and now things are really at a boiling point in terms of their performance. What do you do? Yeah.

So I think this is one of those things where, you know, each situation is completely unique. And, you know, while there's, this is part of why an HR job is so challenging, is that while we have these guideposts, there are, you know, shades of gray with every single person. And part of this is to think about, okay, are these accommodations that are actually are impacting their performance?

Or what is the accommodation that they need? So for example, if the person is like, I just need leave. I need to reset.

Then obviously, then the PIP just pauses. The person goes out on leave. But this is really important to remember.

If somebody goes out on leave, that doesn't like wipe the slate clean. They just come back into the PIP. It's, or if they're your performance managing someone, you've been coaching somebody.

It's not like the leave erases at the past. It's okay. We took a break because you were on leave, but now we've got to get back to doing the work.

Because remember, that's the purpose of a leave. The purpose of a leave is to get you back into work in a way that you can fully function at your job. All right.

So then there also could be accommodations where you realize through this conversation that part of the reason they're not meeting the expectations is because they haven't been properly accommodated. And, you know, I've certainly seen situations where people who are, you know, strong performers have perhaps kept things kind of under wraps. So for example, maybe somebody is, you know, has, suffers from dyslexia.

And part of the issue is that they are, you know, creating copy that has lots of typos in it, and they're having spelling mistakes and grammar, and they haven't told anyone about their issue. And then they disclose it as part of the performance management. And then you can work together, obviously with HR support, like, oh, what do you need?

Let's get you grammarly. Do you need more leave time? Part of it can be in a really interactive discussion about how we can meet these performance goals.

Because I certainly see this, you know, there's a myriad of reasons why people take leave or take or seek accommodations. But I've certainly been seeing a trend. And I think actually, in particular, with the shift into a remote workforce, where people thought that they could keep certain things kind of under wraps, because they weren't coming into the office.

And then when they dealt with performance management, it really put it to a head that like, actually, I need to disclose to you about how I need support. And then that's where HR comes in to figure out if this is actually something that you can support. Is this reasonable?

And also, I mean, it really could go a long way to helping the person actually reach their performance goals. I really love this balanced approach that you're taking. Because, you know, I'll speak for the HR community here.

And in the comments, please feel free to disagree with me if you're like, Melanie, you are misrepresenting. Okay. I think sometimes when you're in the thick of it, and you've got, you know, maybe there are like five performance issues happening, and you're managing it.

And then, you know, maybe two of them request reasonable accommodation, and it's up, you know, 11th hour, I think it's very easy to sort of feel one overwhelmed. But to then wonder, you know, is this even relevant to your point where you said, you know, sometimes the reasonable accommodation request is not relevant to the performance issues that are happening. And it's not going to really make a difference.

But sometimes it genuinely is and could lead to a path of solution. And so I really like this sort of reminder of like, hey, let's look at this holistically, it could be this, it could be this, it could be a myriad of things. But let's explore it and see where it takes us.

And it doesn't have to be, you know, this really overwhelming, scary thing. It's a process. It's a process.

And you keep performance managing throughout the process. Yeah. And even with accommodations, remember that you still have to be performing the essential functions of your job.

And so like I said, you know, not this, you know, free pass or things get erased. But it is like, okay, how can we truly support you? Because frankly, any performance management conversation should be what are the tools and support that you feel like you need that you're not getting in order to do your job.

And sometimes you may not be able to offer all of those. I mean, putting accommodations aside, but it's good to understand kind of where they're seeing their limitations. And as also a plug, this is why you want to do performance management before things are acute.

Because there's nothing worse than someone saying like, well, I need to leave. And the manager's like, the world is crumbling around me. We want to start this early in the process so that the world's not crumbling around the manager when they're dealing with this.

100%. I even like sort of, I think what you were hinting at, which is, you know, maybe the person just didn't, maybe they felt embarrassed, and they didn't want to disclose this thing. And they only disclose it when they realize, oh, wait, like, it's actually causing a problem, I now have to.

And that's understandable, right? People are entitled to their own privacy, and maybe not wanting to disclose a thing. And so the more you can have these transparent conversations, the more opportunities you can have to encourage someone to share something if we can help them.

With that said, I'm going to pivot into or I'm going to, I'm going to ask our last performance-based question. If you have more questions on performance management, please put them in the Q\&A. We will try to leave 10 to 15 minutes at the end for this.

Last question. Now, this one I think is real tricky. We're going to have to time box it.

Let's see, like, in three minutes what you can share, because we got so many. But I had to ask this one. What if in the middle of a manager sort of performance managing someone, maybe they put someone on a PIP, the direct report shares or sort of, you know, goes to HR and they say, do you know what?

I think that this is gendered feedback. Or in any other way, I think this is biased feedback. This is not fair feedback.

It's not justified feedback. I have a problem with it. I think there's discrimination happening.

What do you do? How do you handle a situation like that? I know, this comes up.

This is my world. I get these calls all the time. And I would even, you know, add to your hypothetical, sometimes it's happening in the performance management where the employee is telling the manager directly, like, you know what?

I think you're doing this because you're biased about X, Y, and Z. That's how I take this performance management. So if that happens, obviously we want the manager to let HR know if they weren't in the room.

And as a, you know, obviously, you know, there's different situations. But as a general matter, what we want to do then is just pause the performance management. This would be a good time to investigate, determine, all right, is this performance feedback, is it legitimate?

Is there anything here that is giving us the indicator that there may be bias here? Because if there is bias, then you don't want to move forward with the performance management as is. You need to be able to address it.

And then, you know, when you're talking to the manager about it, who may be up in arms because, you know, they feel like they've been wrongly accused and the person isn't listening to the performance management. This also on the back end will help them do the performance management because then it won't be assuming it comes out that the performance management is legitimate and there is no bias. Then the performance management won't be questioned down the road, especially if you have to terminate this person.

So it's better to take a pause and address it right away. This really goes into the investigations piece of, like, why you want to do this kind of promptly so that you can move on with the performance management piece as quickly as possible, assuming that you don't find bias. This also applies in the context of, I've certainly seen this where somebody's been, I'm about to move forward with the termination.

They've made the decision. They just haven't notified the person yet. And lo and behold, the person goes to HR and says, hey, this has been going on and I think this person is, you know, treating me differently because of X, Y, Z.

In that situation, your best bet is likely to pause the termination, look into the issue, and then if there is nothing there or you can't substantiate it, then to go ahead and move forward with the termination at that time. Super helpful, Chantelle. What I love about these questions is that I imagine these are questions that many of us have that we're maybe too nervous to ask about or we don't have resource to ask about because it is this really tricky territory where it's an HR responsibility, but it's also a little bit legal.

So thank you very much on behalf of all HR people for chatting with us about this. Oh, we're gonna pivot. Did I do this right?

Can you see this slide? Yes, termination. Well done, well done.

Thank you, thank you. I'm trying. Oh, we're gonna talk terminations.

I would do a quick pulse check question just to get us back engaged in chatting with each other. One to five, I'd love to hear from you all how much you agree with the following statement, five being I really agree. I sometimes wonder if I could have handled a termination better.

And while the answers come in, I think this is just such a relevant topic right now, especially because if you all were on the call with us last month, we were chatting about this new TikTok trend where people are recording themselves being let go from their companies and just put this real spotlight on terminations. And for the record, we should always be thinking about how effectively we're handling terminations, but it sort of made it a little more top of mind and even scarier than it's been for a long time. Yeah, I'm seeing all these fives.

In the interest of time, I'm not going to call on anyone also because I imagine this is probably a topic that people are a little nervous to chat about. So don't worry, I'm respecting you all. I get it, I get it.

I'm curious to know, Chantelle, please put us out of our misery. When you think about terminations and when you partner with HR professionals about this, what comes to mind for you as best practices? And in particular, I'm curious to know about that live discussion.

How much do you recommend people communicate? How long should it be? How brief should it be?

Do you give people warning? Do you not give people warning? Is that cruel?

Is that strategic? Talk to me a little bit. Yeah, so it really depends on the grounds for the termination.

And as a general matter, I would say it shouldn't be a big discussion. The termination has been made, the decision has been made, the time for discussion is actually over. This is really about notice and doing it in a way that shows compassion and professionalism, but also just really kind of puts a fine point on the end of the relationship.

And there's so many reasons that someone could be terminated. And I recently heard a story of their position was eliminated. It was a layoff.

And the person conveying it to them was, you could tell they didn't want to eliminate the position and was giving them job referrals. But that actually, I think, was really helpful in that situation. It really showed that it wasn't this person.

It wasn't about them. It wasn't about their performance. It was just, we can't afford this role anymore.

I think an important piece is that I see this a lot where there is numerous reasons to terminate somebody. And instead of addressing those, sometimes an employer will want to go to either the low-hanging fruit and just really hang their hat on one thing. I would just caution you in that situation, if there's any legal risk, you want to be probably disclosed more at that point.

Simply because if there is a lawsuit and they ask, why was this person terminated? And you only tell them one thing in the termination meeting, or more importantly, you give them a termination notice and it says, you're terminated for absenteeism or something that's very black and white, for example. But part of the reason you didn't give this person a second chance is because they've been in performance management.

There's been all these issues. People, they create this toxic environment. If you don't address that, then down the road, if they sue you, your hands are really tied as to the reason for the termination.

So while I can't give any kind of black and white, like this is what you do, because of course I'm a lawyer, so I don't do black and white. It's all very fact specific. I think you really need to think through the long game here.

And anytime you think that you've gotten an easy way out, I would just encourage you to pause and think, is there a reason to tell this person more? And with the performance, if someone is being terminated for performance, it should not be a surprise to them that they're going to be terminated. That doesn't mean that you tell them a week in advance, like, hey, we're going to term you in a week.

That's not what I mean. I mean that their performance management has been such that it is not a surprise that this is going, this is the next step, because you have done everything else to get yourself there. I really love that.

And I think, you know, I know this is scary for most managers and maybe even for some HR people. I always recommend that the managers say at some point before that termination discussion, hopefully several weeks before then, the actual words, your job is at risk, that those stakes are on the table right now. That's what we're working with.

Because at that point, at a minimum, you can refer back to that conversation. You know, when you're having that live discussion, hey, especially if it's performance-based, hey, we're meeting today because, as you know, we've been having several performance discussions around things that aren't working. As I shared with you, your job was at risk.

We have unfortunately made the difficult decision today to part ways. You know, however you word that. But it's so, so important to be able to reference very specific things that have, in fact, very specific conversations that have, in fact, already happened.

I'm gonna ask you one, like, lightning round question real quick before we move on. Because I think this is a tricky one, especially with the TikTok trend. What do you do if the conversation goes off the rails?

What do you do if the manager goes off script? What do you do if the person on the other side of it becomes, you know, a little bit belligerent, for lack of a better word, and they just start interrupting and trying to take control of that discussion? How do you take back control or do you take back control?

What do you do? You just yell technical difficulties and you shut your computer and run. No, I'm kidding.

You don't do that. Are you sure? Because I just wrote that down as a no.

Is that not, not me? I can't hear you. I can't hear you.

Must be that connection. No, I think really what it comes down to is having that gut feeling where you realize, I can't, I think the most important thing is realizing you can't bring it back in. So even saying in a termination conversation, you know what, I don't think that this conversation is actually fruitful at this point.

So if you're in person, making sure that there's someone there to escort them out, and then you can let them know, like, if there's anything you need to share with me later on, I encourage you to, you know, give me a call and reach out. But I don't think that this conversation is fruitful anymore. And having the wherewithal to just be like, all right, like, we can't come back from this.

But I will say too, about the manager issue, it is really important with your managers, that they know exactly what they're supposed to say. And I strongly encourage you to give them a script and say, this is your part. This is my part.

And sometimes it may be beneficial once the manager, while you want two people in the room, if you have a manager, who perhaps it does seem like they're going off the rails, you may excuse them at a certain point and say, all right, we're just dealing with logistics stuff at this point, final pay, giving them their notice about, you know, Cobra and things of that nature. Why don't you leave the room or have them exit the Zoom? That's a way to kind of take control.

And one last little tip is I really like having it be, here's the notice where it's important to have the manager, and then now we're going to deal with the logistics piece of the puzzle, because that way, if it does become appropriate to excuse the manager, it's very easy to do. So there's no reason necessarily to bring that manager back in. Yeah, I think it's a great tip.

I actually always, you know, obviously in preparing the managers ahead of the conversation, I always let them know that, you know, if I'm no longer comfortable with how the call is going, heads up, I may excuse you. Don't be alarmed. Just hop off and we can chat more after.

It's just helpful to set that expectation. And I really like what you said earlier around the fact that, you know, when you're having this termination discussion, this is no longer for discussion. The decision has been made and what you're doing is communicating.

And I think sometimes even saying that explicitly to the person on the other side with empathy, of course, but if things start, if they try to like negotiate or they're trying to explain their way out of it to just very clearly say like, hey, I'm so sorry, I hear you. And also those conversations have already happened. This is no longer a conversation.

This is now a notice. I'm here to share some information with you, including around payroll and benefits. If you have questions around that, we can chat.

If not, you know, we can chat more async. So yeah, sometimes it really is just about being super direct. Oh, these questions are going so well.

We are getting short on time. So I'm going to have to be real selective with which questions I go up on. Let's see.

I will ask one more question around terms and then we'll move on because I want to just a little bit of time for leadership. How does a company, actually, let me caveat this with, I think all of us here on the call probably know the feeling of someone no longer being at the company and other employees being very, very curious and eager to know more and talking amongst each other and asking their managers for more. I'm curious to hear as a legal expert, how does a company balance, you know, protecting an employee's confidentiality with communicating about an employee's departure to other employees?

I know this is a tricky one and this is also one where it's really important if you're feeling like it would be beneficial to disclose more information to connect with legal counsel because in some places there are very strict laws about what you can and cannot say. And so, you know, you just don't want to run afoul of that. And I think really it's here about a balancing act.

And it's, there's a difference between curiosity, you know, rumor mill, things of that nature versus like there may be a need to disclose more because it's kind of integral to the culture of the company. So, for example, let's say someone has been, you know, terminated for, you know, very like egregious behavior and they've been, you know, a bully. They've, you know, terrorized the employee workforce.

Being more open about that person's termination, not necessarily grounds, but letting them know like, you know, we've excused this person or this person is no longer working with us. We're having a meeting to let you all know that this person isn't working with us. I'm going to be your point of contact.

This is our plan going forward. If you have individual questions, you can come and talk to me individually. You really want to set that tone that if someone does have questions, they really need to go and talk to HR individually.

Now, that doesn't mean HR is going to be in a position to talk to them about it and give them specific details, but it's much easier to have a meaningful conversation. Even just like, you know, why are you curious? Like, how can we make sure, like, is there something that we need to address?

Or I really want to prepare you and make sure that you have the support that you need without this person going forward. And I would say, too, as another tip, when there is that kind of important termination and you need to kind of make a more, you know, obvious disclosure that the person is no longer with the company, a key piece of that is already putting a plan in place about how you're going to support the remaining employees, what changes they're going to see, and really focus the conversation on their ongoing workplace experience rather than, like, rehashing the past. I really love that emphasis on, like, the why. Like, why are you asking?

Because let's be real. Let's say 50% of the time it's just gossip. It's just, you know, curiosity.

But the other 50%, very meaningful 50%, is I'm curious about, you know, I'm nervous about my own job security. I don't know how this is going to impact my team. My direct reports are asking me questions, and I don't know how to handle those conversations.

And so, to your point, it's so, so important to approach with curiosity and partnership versus just being like, everybody, shut up. I don't want these questions. Yeah, and, like, think about it.

Like, anytime someone tells you not to talk about something, everyone's like, ooh, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. So you're better off inviting the type of conversation that's going to be productive and collaborative instead of just trying to get everyone to, you know, keep their mouths shut. And also talking to key leadership that may be fielding these questions proactively.

Like, if you get questions about this employee, just, you know, be like, hey, that's actually kind of an HR issue. You need to talk to so-and-so. I can connect you.

I always kind of convey it when anytime I'm asking leadership or management not to do something, I'm like, think about it. When do you get to tell somebody that it's not your problem, and you go talk to somebody else? Like, that's as easy as, like, quickly, you know, you can get rid of an issue.

I'm like, take advantage of that. So, you know, rope in HR right away. I love that.

There's an interesting conversation happening in the comments that I think may be worthwhile, worth addressing very briefly, because I want to squeeze in one leadership question. Somebody's asking, because in my example, I had said, like, I'm so sorry on the thing. And it is true that many HR professionals are trained never to say sorry on any calls like this, because it could come across as admitting culpability or something we did wrong.

So, I will actually correct myself and say what I meant to say is, like, I'm so sorry to interrupt you, but I think it's very important to be clear about what it is you are apologizing for. I personally am also not a fan of a blanket apology. Somebody else in the comments said, you know, there's a difference between, like, I'm sorry, you know, I'm sorry that you're struggling with this.

I'm sorry, blah, blah. I also think it's very helpful, but, you know, we have a lawyer on the call. You know, what do you have any strong opinions on, you know, whether or not it's okay for an HR professional to use the word sorry in a termination discussion, for example?

You know, all I can think about is, you know, if you get in a car accident, you can check on the person, but don't you dare say sorry. So, I think that this is, once again, like these blanket rules. If it's giving yourself a blanket rule, like, I'm just not going to say that word because I won't be able to properly frame it, then, like, do that.

Know yourself and own that. I think it really depends on the context. If you do end up saying sorry, I think the key thing is what Melanie says is about being present and naming what it is that you are sorry for.

So, like, I can see that you're distressed. I recognize that this is a hard thing to hear, but I do need a couple other things we need to go over, and I just need you to listen right now is, I think, one good way to kind of reframe the issue without also saying sorry, and then if you do say sorry, like, talk about, like, explain what you mean. Now, that doesn't mean you then talk for the next five minutes, like, because the more you're talking, you know, that's a problem, but, you know, be concise if you do say that I'm sorry, and then, frankly, once again, with the position elimination, you know, we're just dealing with so many companies right now that are in financial distress, and, you know, saying that, you know, you're, you're sorry that the business isn't strong enough to hold on to their role or that, you know, that there just isn't finances to keep this roll, and we're having to let go, you know, dozens of people. Having that kind of apology is, is genuine and heartfelt, and I think makes people understand that it's not personal that they've been let go as part of this riff. I love that.

It's thoughtful and empathetic as always. Okay, we're going to squeeze in one last question before we go to the end. All right, so this one's about leadership teams.

It's a hard-hitting one. What do you do when your own leadership team doesn't follow your own company policies? Making, maybe they're, you know, they're granting promotions without going through the right process.

Maybe they themselves are getting, like, a little too buddy-buddy. Maybe they're asking very nosy questions about someone's medical. What do you mean, this person, that you're going to approve their leave?

I need to know more. Tell me the details. What do you do when you have a leadership team?

Okay, there's some people that need this question. What do you do when you have a leadership team that is just, like, going rogue? Ah, well, first you do, like, a big sigh in, at your desk, just like, because here's the, here's the take-home.

People can't, there's no, can't be different rules for different people. Like, someone was sharing earlier, Kristen was talking about, like, being in the startup community and, you know, it's, you're trying to literally, you know, develop the rules as you're building the plane, you know. It's like, with that expression, like, you're building the plane as you're flying it.

Like, so I certainly see in the startup world where we even see more of that, you know, disparage, like, disparagement between, like, it's, you know, what managers are doing and what maybe people that are less senior are doing. But the key thing here is that it doesn't matter what your role is, what level you are, you have to follow the same rules as everybody else. So the person that makes the coffee in the office has the same rules as the CEO.

And if anything, the CEO has an even higher standard because of how they represent the company. And there can't be exceptions made. And that's really a cultural issue when we really talk through it that needs to be addressed holistically.

And obviously, a huge legal risk when there's a different set of rules for the more senior folks. And your responsibility as an HR professional is, I often think it's, like, akin to being, like, the grown-up in the room or the parent, where it's like, okay, these are the rules, these are the structure. I'm going to help you and encourage you and give you support so that you can do your job.

But these are the rules that we all have agreed to play by. And I'm going to help you play by those rules. So, you know, I always love kind of starting for us as a positive, like, hey, what you're doing doesn't follow our policies.

And this is the consequence. How can we support you to ensure that you can follow them in the future, one, by education, two, by coaching, things like that. And then ultimately, on, like, the more extreme end, if you're seeing this as a more kind of larger issue, especially the very senior leadership, it may be appropriate for, you know, you to reach out to your senior HR person or even the board to let them know that there's this discrepancy because it does pose a really great legal risk to the company.

I really like that framing in particular because, you know, I often tell people sometimes part of your job in HR is to remind people what your job is. And I don't even, right, it sounds so silly, but it's true. And I say this to empower HR professionals who worry that, you know, they're going to come across as naggy or they're going to come across as, like, problems, you know, starters, like, oh, why are you always stirring things up?

Why can't you just do what I tell you to do? You literally hired me to help you mitigate risk and to, like, call a thing out when I see it. And so if you're getting that kind of pushback, it's important to understand and have, be equipped with the right language to navigate those tricky situations.

We'll actually share, this just reminds me, we have a resource on this, so we'll share this in a follow-up email, how to build relationships with your stakeholders and how to navigate pushback with your CEO, so keep an eye out. Really, really helpful, Chantelle. Yeah, and I would add, like, one other thing, because, you know, I just can't be quiet, is, you know, I do a fair amount of executive coaching as well.

And sometimes what I've really realized in doing this is sometimes the executive gets so focused on the one thing they did wrong that they don't actually see the bigger picture. And when you help them understand the bigger picture, how this is impacting, for example, attrition, how this is impacting your brand, how, like, what is the larger kind of reaction to what it is that you're doing, then it helps give them the perspective that you're not being nitpicky. You are helping them and helping the business and all these little things, when they all add up, become very big things.

So let's address it. Love that. All, okay, we are short on time, so let's get back into it real quick at the very end.

I'm going to share our promos real quick, and then we'll squeeze in as many questions as possible, and then we'll set everyone free. All, I want to spend just a quick minute sharing a little bit about Athena. We're a compliance training company.

We were chatting earlier about setting your managers up for success. We actually literally have a training that's all about that. It's basically managing within the law.

It trains your managers on how to know when to identify a reasonable accommodation, what their role is, and how to partner with an HR partner on terminations, all that good stuff. And we have, of course, there are some prevention training, really realistic examples, fresh content. Additionally, we have a hotline and case management tool, so if you are struggling with any difficult things that are coming up and, you know, it's hard to track everything, we've got a platform for you all.

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It doesn't take very long. Here are some examples if you want to check them out. With that said, anyone who tuned in for SHRM or HRCI, credit.

Thank you. I'm going to leave this up. Amanda, if you could please also put up the poll.

We would love if you could help us answer just a couple of questions. I'm going to be at Transform next month. I would love to meet with some of you if you all are around.

Let us know which of you is coming when the poll pops up, and we will see who we can connect with, maybe set up a couple of meet and greets. I will be quiet for a second while people pull up their SHRM. Actually, I'm not going to be quiet because I wanted to say thank you to everyone who asked for us to provide HRCI credits.

We got this registered just for you, so please continue to share feedback. Now I will be quiet while you complete the poll, please. While people go ahead and fill that out, I'm going to go ahead and move it over to Q\&A.

Chantelle, I'm going to start asking as many questions as we can squeeze in. My question to you is an interesting one. We had a couple of people asking about HR and the conflict of interest that can come up sometimes.

What if you are both the manager and HR, and you are managing a tricky performance issue like a reasonable accommodation request or an accusation of bias in the process? This is where it just becomes so important to collaborate. If you have the resources to have, you know, you have a large HR team or even frankly an HR team of two, bringing in someone else from the team to assist and help you navigate those issues.

And so that way, as I was saying earlier, you know, you can, if needed, kind of break things into channels and kind of wall things off. And if you don't have those types of resources on the HR team, I would even just look to your leadership, you know, is there somebody that can join with you in the performance management, in the navigating of, you know, the tricky situation from HR, so that once again you have kind of these two people's perspectives. Because one of the things that was kind of coming up earlier, and I saw this in the comments, is you know, for example, for a termination meeting, ideally you want to have at least two people there because then you have two witnesses, if you will, to what happened.

And that absolutely is the gold standard, and you want two people there. I would say you're only excusing the manager in that instance if, you know, as we said earlier, you're going off the rails. But this is a good example, too, where it's like, all right, let's leverage that proactively.

So grabbing someone from your team to help, or grabbing someone from leadership so that you're not flying solo. Love that. Super helpful.

We've got an interesting one, which is sort of, I think, an addendum to our last question around leadership challenges. What if the issue is less that they're being nosy, but in fact that they are perpetuating toxic, unethical behaviors, like they themselves are part of the problem that you are trying to solve at your company? So, you know, I see this, for sure, in my line of work.

And sometimes it actually, you know, comes from a mindset where they have no perception that it is actually creating a toxic and unhealthy environment. I see this especially in the context of competition and how competition is managed within a company. This is really when, you know, it's important to kind of take a step back and say, all right, if this person is a part of the larger problem, like is an investigation warranted?

Do we need to kind of deal with this in its own, you know, in isolation before we can address the kind of larger cultural issues? And I have certainly seen a trend lately where, you know, in the last couple of years where, you know, for example, let's say like a founder in a company is, you know, the company is very different now that the company has gone public or the company has been sold and the founder ends up being, instead of a source of inspiration, ends up being, you know, somebody that it's their leadership style no longer matches where the company is.

And so where I really see is investors in the board kind of stepping in and helping HR address these issues, whether it's through an outside investigation, whether it's through coaching or even, you know, asking the executive to leave or demanding that they leave. So really just, I would say my encouragement to you all is when you see a problem, take a moment to kind of think back to be like, okay, what are all the potential red flags and causes that we have here? Because it's very often not just one thing.

And you may need to be attacking these problems in a approach. Really appreciate that, Chantelle. We are at time.

I want to say big, big thank you to Chantelle for all your valuable insights. We had so many questions, more than we could answer. Chantelle and I are chatting about whether or not we need to schedule a follow-up webinar, maybe do a collab where we answer some of these questions.

Keep us posted on what you want. Amanda has shared a survey form. Please fill that out because we want to know what other topics do you want to hear?

Should me and Chantelle do more collaborations? What kind of resources can we share? For anyone who was just super wowed with Chantelle, which is basically everyone is like Chantelle, I need your services, fear not.

We're going to be sharing Chantelle's contact information in our follow-up emails. So please keep an eye out for those. Chantelle, a pleasure as always, truly can't thank you enough.

Oh, my pleasure. Thank you so much for including me in this conversation. Thank you all.