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That's quickbooks.com/payroll. Welcome to the Bringing the
human back to human Resources podcast.
I'm Tracy Chernoff and I've spent my entire professional
career in HR Each week we'll explore the delicate balance
between people and business with the aim to reconnect the two and
create meaningful outcomes. Listen in as I share my own
experiences, challenge the status quo, and chat with guests
from various industries about our mission to bring the human
back to human resources. Hi everyone, welcome back to the
Bringing the human back to human Resources podcast.
We are coming at you live sort of not really with our last.
I think it's our last. Maybe I should check actually
before I commit to this, but I think it's our last Policy Pulse
episode of 2025. No, it totally is.
I just checked. I am not incorrect.
It's crazy. I think we've done so many of
these, maybe like six of these or so over the last 6 or so
months since we started these Policy Pulse segments.
And I we've gotten a lot of great feedback.
I certainly have seen a ton of comments around these segments.
So I'm glad everyone's enjoying them and we will continue them
in 2026 as well. But as a reminder, Brian
Driscoll is my Co host on these segments and he is an attorney
and helps us to navigate all of these very interesting moments
in time where things change or may change and we need to know
as HR leaders how we navigate those changes.
So for this November episode of the Policy Pulse and last of
2025, we're going to start off with this, this first topic,
which is that there is a new EEOC chair, Andrea Lucas.
She was sworn in last week. So by the time we're recording
this, it actually is last week because, well, two weeks by the
time this launches, I guess two weeks ago.
And the agency's ability. Yeah, exactly.
Perfect. Thank you.
So the agency's ability to take action is now restored.
Lucas, who is an appointee by President Trump, has built her
career questioning corporate DEI initiatives and emphasizing race
and sex neutral enforcement. That means we're likely heading
into a period where the EEOC reinterprets long standing
protections in ways that rollback progress made under the
Biden administration. Brian, I know that there are a
number of things that could potentially change with this new
appointing of Andrea Lucas, but do you mind walking us through
what those potential changes are?
Yeah, sure. And I think just to restate what
you just said one more time for everybody, it is potential.
None of this is none of this is actual yet.
These are just things that we will most likely see in some
way, shape or form. So big picture, we're we're
going to see continued rollback of DEI.
We're expecting to see a lot of guidance from the EEOC about
rules treating some diversity efforts as possible
discrimination against against majority, majority employees.
So that means that, and this is advice that I think we've been
giving every time we've talked about DEI programs this year, is
that you need to make sure that your DEI programs are not quota
based, they're not preferential. You need to audit your programs.
This doesn't mean that you can't have DEI programs, you
absolutely can. But what it means is that you
need to take some steps to audit those programs and make sure
that you're going to be compliant with some of these
rollbacks that we're most likely going to see.
Another one that I definitely think is unfortunately going to
be on the, on the audit block for the new EEOC is the Pregnant
Workers Fairness Act. We're probably going to see
rollbacks of protected leave for that essentially for for people
who aren't intimately familiar with it.
The easiest way to sum up the the Pregnant Workers Fairness
Act is that it provides ADA like benefits and rights to pregnant
workers. That's the simplest way to to
make that comparison. So what does HR need to do if
this happens? Or in anticipation of this?
Simply as with everything, monitor closely.
These accommodation policies may need to be rewritten if the
Pregnant Workers Fairness Act is rolled back in any fashion.
I think this one is going to be a challenge for a lot of
employers to to handle correctly and they're going to have some
pushback from employees. So you may need to create your
own internal programs to sort of counteract some of the rollbacks
we see at the federal level. Well, we're also expecting to.
See, I have actually have a question about that too.
Is there, I mean, I think there is, but is there protection
under the ADA for pregnancy already or is the the the impact
that the pregnant, the pregnant Workers Fairness Act also
includes like abortion related leaves that the ADA might not
necessarily the pregnant? That's exactly right.
The so the ADA provides for job protected leave.
So if you're out on leave, your your job is is protected.
The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act also like you said, provides
for some expanded benefits, expanded protections around
abortion related leave. So you can take leave for a
couple of days to go to go have a procedure if, if you need to,
to recover from that procedure. That is, that is protected under
the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which will probably go away
under under this new EEOC leadership.
Now, that's not to say audit that states that have similar
laws and we'll talk about this. This is another theme that you
and I have talked about a lot in these in these segments is that
states have some pregnant workers acts of their own on the
books or have different laws that protect pregnant workers or
for abortion related leave. So if you're in one of those
states, you have to pay attention to those state laws.
The general rule of thumb is you always go with the stricter, the
stricter law. So if there, if the federal law
doesn't, if there's no federal law saying anything about
protection for pregnant workers, but you are in California and
there is a law saying that you have protection for pregnant
workers, then you need to follow that California law.
Got it. And then another question I'm
curious about if let's say a woman does go and, and have an
abortion or similar procedure, they in theory don't have to
even disclose that that's what they're going to receive from
their, their, you know, to that when they communicate to their
employer, could they potentially, let's say it's
rolled, rolled back rather than, you know, cuz I think people
generally kind of like freak out when these things happen,
Rightfully so. They're, it's concerning when
something that you have is then taken away, or I should say have
access to, is taken away. But let's say for all intents
and purposes, it's rolled back and someone does have an
abortion. Could they just receive a
doctor's note saying that they need time off from work because
of a medical procedure or a procedure, not give any
information and still have coverage at least?
But I guess maybe it would depend on the state and the
company specifics around, like what's covered.
But in most cases, when you have something that's like a personal
procedure, you could always use sick time.
I don't know. I'm just thinking of like other
ways that someone could still have the coverage that they need
without needing to disclose, you know, what they're getting done.
Yeah, you're right. There are other options.
You know, you can use sick days, you can use PTO.
The whole point of of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act is
so that you don't have to tap into these.
This other. Time off bucket, Yeah, in
theory, yes, you you could do some of those things that you
mentioned. I do think that's a really
interesting question because I do think we will see some things
like that, especially in some really red states that are
already sort of putting the hammer down on, on abortion
care, abortion procedures, even out of their state borders.
So I think that's going to be an interesting, an interesting
legal battle honestly, that that will probably happen if, if
these, if the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act is, is rolled back.
I, I think that that is absolutely something we could
see and I think that that employers need to understand
sort of where the line is on what they can request from
employees. Exactly.
To your point, if someone needs to go and get an abortion, do
they have to say, I'm taking three days off to go get an
abortion? No, they don't.
So like employers need to sort of understand where that line is
on how much they they can request documentation, sure, but
what can it be? It can.
It can in some cases simply be a one line note from the doctor
saying that your employee was out for these three days due to
a medical procedure. Right.
Anyway, continue. Thank you.
I asked you a bunch of questions related to that.
No, I think, I, I think it's important to, to discuss these
things because it, it, there, there is a lot of nuance to all
of these things and the EOC. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Often not great at giving real specific guidance to to some of
these topics. So the next thing on on the list
of of potential rollbacks that we could see are religious and
gender identity conflicts. I'm expecting that we will
probably see some stronger protections for employees
reciting citing religious objections.
We'll probably see narrow, narrower interpretations of
gender identity and possible new rules around bathroom use
pronoun use. It it's, it's going to be
another one of those contentious issues that I think we'll see.
And I think, you know, the kind of a theme with all of these
things. I, I think with this new EEOC
leadership and, and with some unprecedented terminations of,
of some other EEOC members earlier this year, I think we're
going to see the EEOC turn into more of a, more of a, a, a, a
policy body instead of an investigatory body.
I think we're going to see fewer investigations, broadly
speaking. I think we're going to see more
targeted investigations, religious and gender identity
being being one of those potential categories.
Yeah, I I can. I could see that too.
I mean, it's interesting, it all comes back to that one segment
that we did where we talked about the whiplash of being in
HR that, you know, every every four years.
And even within those four years, we're like back and forth
and back and forth. And you know, how do we, how do
we adjust and, and adapt? And also, I think to your point,
too, that depending on the state protection, some of this, you
know, might not really have as much of an impact, like for
people like me in New York, where they're pretty strong
protections for workers. But it's definitely, definitely
interesting and we'll have to continue to watch, especially as
we go into 2026. Absolutely.
And I think that I think that we'll see sort of related to the
religious and gender identity. I think we'll also see some
reverse discrimination enforcement.
I think they're the EEOC going to the sort of targeted
investigation comment that I just made.
I think we'll see the EEOC give give new weight to claims of of
alleged reverse discrimination and, and I think I think we'll
see some of that as well. Yeah, should be interesting to
see. I don't, I guess I'm, I'm
holding my breath or maybe I'm not, am I?
I don't know if I'm holding my breath actually.
I have no idea what I'm doing. All I know is that it'll be
it'll be interesting to see how things shake out.
And then, you know, I feel like also with these like
governmental changes, like it takes so long for changes to
generally speaking, actually be executed on that.
Sometimes it's like there's, it feels like sometimes there's all
of this commotion that's created because of the, you know, like
huge, like polarizing changes. And then it's like the changes
made for a year and then you go back, you know, and then there's
the whiplash again. So maybe I am holding my breath,
maybe I'm not. I don't know what I'm doing,
like I said. I, I, I think at least speaking
for myself, I think I'm definitely holding my breath on
some of these things because it, it not only is there like to
your point about, you know, once you have a right, it's really
hard to, to live without that, right?
And I think we're, we're seeing that, you know, we saw that with
the overturning of Roe a few years ago.
And, and we're seeing that in, in different states that are
trying to go even further. I, I think that that that's sort
of the collective breath holding at the moment is like, what's
next? What other rights am I going to
lose? And so I, yeah.
And I think to your point of the whiplash, I think that's, that's
part of it. Like it is, it's chaotic, all of
this. I mean, HR has never been, well,
I don't want to speak in absolutes.
HR has rarely been a stable environment.
You've always, you're always dealing with something that's
coming up. But this seems like more chaos
than normal. This seems like it's just
constant whiplash, constant head spinning of like, where are we
going now? What am I doing?
And I think in some states, like you said, New York, Illinois,
California, Washington, a few others, they are creating some
of that stability in the absence of that stability from the
federal government. Totally, totally.
Yeah, I guess we'll see then. And this is a, there is no great
way, way to segue into the second topic, as you know.
But because like what? What is the segue?
But I'll let everyone know that it has to do with a really
strange, bizarre ability. It like lack of ability for
someone to think critically, I would say.
And so rather than introduce the title, I'm just going to read
through what we've got here. So an employee, I think in
Texas, actually, if I am recalling what I quickly looked
up just before an employee thought it would be hilarious to
show up to the office Halloween party dressed as a suicide
bomber and was shocked when he got fired.
See, there is no great way to segue into that sentence other
than what the heck was this person thinking on so many
levels, which Ryan and I did definitely have some discourse
around this before we started recording.
And so this person's reaction tells you everything, or the
reaction in general, I should say, tells you everything about
the company's culture. Somehow this employee thought
that that costume would be OK at this particular company or at
least then no one would call him out.
And that is the problem that so many of us has have seen many
times, certainly Brian and I. And what happens here is not
just that one person makes a bad choice.
The bigger issue for HR is having other employees wondering
if they're going to do anything about it.
That what a wonderful way to to sum that up, Brian, by the way,
because it is true. It puts, you know, naturally
this is, I think if everyone should realize why this is not
OK, but there is or I should say, and there is so much
pressure that's put on HR and leadership to do something when
someone has done something wrong.
And that pressure, I think we can all, we, we can all probably
feel that we know exactly what that feels like.
Oh my gosh, now I need to respond.
What does the company response look like?
Is it strong enough? Is it not strong enough?
Do we fire someone? Do we not fire someone?
And you know, you know, that that I think is it's not a
conundrum. It's not nuanced because
there's, there's, there's some, some things I think were good
and bad or right and wrong or very black and white like this.
And yet based on what we just talked about that this company
culture is kind of seen in this person's decision, I would
imagine maybe for them there was more discussion than maybe for
others or what would have been present for others.
So Brian, I'm going to pass to you, why, why are we talking
about this today? Why does this matter for all of
us in HRI? Think I will, I will say one
thing that sort of sums up kind of kind of the, the whole topic
and the whole reason I think we're, we're talking about this.
And that is the way you respond or don't respond when someone
crosses a line in your organization.
That is your culture. Your response or lack of
response is your culture. You can say everything you want.
You can have all the motivational posters you want.
You can have all the pizza parties that people scoff at.
That's not culture. This is your culture.
And so that's that I think is the point that that really
matters to HR. I mean, look, every every
offensive costume for Halloween parties, every offensive joke,
every, every situation that goes up to the line that pushes the
line that crosses the line is is just that.
It's just bad culture. I don't I don't think it's H Rs
job to police people's taste. I don't think the dressing up as
a suicide bomber is anyone's taste.
I think it's just wrong. But I think it's it it is H Rs
job to make sure everybody knows where the boundaries are.
And sure, I would make the argument that dressing up as a
suicide bomber is probably not a boundary you need to
specifically address. It should be.
Common sense that this is across
the line. Apparently in some cases it's
not. But you can't build a respectful
workplace. And more importantly, you can't
build a safe workplace. A workplace where people feel
free to be themselves, to be open, to be honest, to be
transparent, and to show up and do the work you need them to do.
If you keep hiring people that don't respect the values that
you say you have and if you don't do anything about it when
they cross that line. 1010% more than 1010%.
I agree with you on every single point that you made and it makes
me think about those God forsaken anti harassment
training videos, which by the way, I have AI have a very
specific pet peeve when people say harassment training, we are
not training people on how to harass.
We are training people on how not to harass.
You know, so like I make a really distinct point.
It's anti harassment, anti sexual harassment.
Like I, I don't know, I kind of like die inside a little bit
when someone's like, I haven't taken my sexual harassment
training yet. I'm like, good, we would.
That's not what we want. Anyway, I digress.
My point here is that those videos, which they are very
corny and they're like really mocked up and the actors are
like, Brian touched my shoulder and I didn't appreciate it and
quid pro quo, quid pro quo and all that stuff, right?
But this is actually a really great example of how important
it is to take the information from an anti harassment training
for example, and understand why when a leader doesn't do
something. Because so much of those
training videos are about what like what the manager's response
is supposed to be in order to be complying with the law, let
alone doing the right thing. That that is what allows you to
see something as insane as this example.
And understanding that this is like this is the why that to
your point, when HR other leaders are not, or maybe it's
not that they're not doing something, but that they're
tolerating bad behaviors or they allow or maybe even enable
things that end up becoming part of the culture like this, that
all of this boils up into this bigger issue.
And so no matter how corny those anti harassment training videos
are, they're telling a very specific story that you as a
leader have a responsibility to not only the that particular
employee or group of employees, also to the company to say this
is right and this is wrong. And I think, you know, for this
person who was shocked that he got fired, like that does tell a
very specific story about this company that other people have
probably done similar, maybe worse, maybe better things that
are obviously not correct and not appropriate and frankly
disgusting that have been just, you know, allowed.
And there haven't been any, you know, consequences as a result
of those actions or behaviors. So it to me, it's all related.
And frankly, someone could easily say that this person
created a hostile work environment because maybe they
have a family member who who died at the hands of a suicide
bomber, or maybe they just found the costume to be in such poor
taste that they felt uncomfortable like that.
All of these things are so related to the, to, to what we
hope leaders are walking away with an understanding of.
But I, I think you're absolutely right that there is a, an
indication of culture here. And there's certainly an
indication of lack of critical thinking on part of the, the
employee. But it does, it definitely does
bring back around that we have so many responsibilities not
only as employers, but also as leaders or HR leaders.
Yeah. And I think you bring up a great
point about training too, because one of the things that
I've always done with with clients is to make sure that we
have two trainings. We have an anti harassment
training for the whole company, but then we also have one
specifically for managers. And to your point that goes into
what do you do? Because these types of things
will come up. So what do you do?
Sure, you can, you can learn about the anti harassment
procedures and like what might cross a line, what's illegal.
And now to be clear, some states are actually starting to require
these two sets of trainings, which is great so that managers
know what to do and how to handle these situations.
But that's the it's, it's crucial that managers are given
the tools to not only spot these things because a lot of times
employees won't come to you with a complaint.
They'll just quit. They'll go take a new job and
you'll, you'll never know why. So it's important for managers
to not only be able to field those complaints when they do
come, but also spot these issues on their own and take
appropriate action based on based on what's what's, what
they're seeing, what their culture is, what's important,
and of course what, what they need to do in order to to remain
compliant. Totally.
And you know, I've, when I think back on some experiences that
I've had in my career now over 10 years long, I have seen
companies that are really decisive and allow HR leaders to
be really decisive and say, hey, this is not OK.
We don't tolerate this. This is not who we are and this
is the action we're going to take.
And I have unfortunately seen companies who are like, well,
you know, there's some Gray area here.
And IT places a little bit of difficulty on part of the, you
know, on to the HR leader to assert the right thing.
And I think that that is, it can be a very challenging place to
to work in, meaning not like work environment, although I'm
sure that those environments are not so easy to work in either.
But when I think about like an HR leader and the nuance that's
already there for being in this role, that is, you know, kind of
duel in that you're an employee and you're asserting company
direction. And so like, if the company or
you know, senior leaders don't give you the autonomy and the
rain to say this is how we address these types of issues
because they are issues and we don't tolerate them, that it
makes it just so much more difficult to actually assert the
right thing, which is where I think that you know, it, there's
an impact here for HR leaders and non HR leaders.
And for example, with this employee, like did that person's
boss like tolerate a bunch of crazy stuff from this employee
before that then, you know, again, made them feel that this
was totally appropriate to come to work in this costume?
It's just, it's a little bit mind boggling, but I know that
it exists out there, you know, and it makes it hard.
It makes it hard for for people who want to do the right thing
to do the right thing and say, no, this is not how what we
tolerate. But you do still have to assert
yourself naturally if you know that the right thing is one way
versus the other. And I think that's a, that's an
extremely important point because often HR is sort of in
that. What's the analogy?
HR is some often times like the senior staff to the president,
where they have to be able to tell truth to power, where
sometimes you have to be able to go in that room and say, I'm,
I'm going to make this more blunt than than normal, what you
normally would in this situation.
But like, I need you to stop doing this.
I need you to act differently. If, if the leaders or if the
CEO, the owner, whatever is acting in such a way that could
be considered encouragement of this type of behavior.
Because all it's doing is making your job as an HR professional
just that much more difficult and undermining you because
you're, you're, you know, you're saying these things and you're,
you're talking about these policies and procedures and
compliance and leaders are by their own actions, sort of
counteracting that. And, and that isn't in, it's a
nearly impossible place for, for HR people to be, especially HR
teams of one, because you've got, you've got nobody to, to
talk to. You've got nobody to help you.
And I think that again, that that's a challenging spot for HR
because HR is often seen, especially in smaller
businesses, as sort of a speed bump to growth, as a as an
unnecessary thing in in a company.
And so leaders often times already have that viewpoint.
They already have that sort of bias in their heads.
And so if HR is going to tell them to stop doing something
that would change their behavior, who the hell are you
to tell? I don't even want you Like what?
Why? Why should I listen to you about
about what you want? Yeah.
So, yeah, I think that that's a great point because it's often
times HRHR can often times feel like a siloed department.
Even if you do have a, you know, a team with you and it's
challenging to be able to stand up to the owner of the company,
to ACEO and say you're encouraging this type of
behavior. This is why it keeps happening.
It is it is hard to do and it's so important to do it, which is
why like not everyone is meant to be in like an HR business
partner type of role. Because if you don't have a loud
voice or if you don't feel comfortable asserting your own
opinion, which can't relate, frankly, then that's just not
the path for you. And that's totally OK.
But I like, I've met HR, you know, I have eight former HR
colleagues and who are like, I never, ever, ever want to be on
the business partner track because I don't want to deal
with employee relations. I don't want to have to assert
my opinion. I just want to get the job done
and know exactly, you know, like run some reports, analyze and
whatever. And that's totally OK.
But I think self-awareness is really important in a lot of
these roles because you do have to have some pretty difficult
conversations, especially as you scale and grow and scale and
scope. But yeah, so if, if you're like,
oh God, I hate telling someone what I think or I, you know, I,
it makes me nervous to tell someone who is higher ranked
than me that they're doing something wrong, then definitely
reconsider the business partner track because it just might not
be the right one for you because inevitably you're in a situation
where you have to do that. Absolutely.
At some time or another, you're gonna have a tough conversation
with an employee, you're gonna have a tough conversation with a
manager, you're gonna have a tough conversation with the CEO.
It's gonna happen. Yeah.
And certainly for teams of 1, to your point, I mean that I
remember one time I interviewed for a job, this is a long time
ago and it was like party of one HR role in a luxury company that
was like, you know, fashion company that was like building.
And I was like it wasn't the being the party of one that I
didn't like. It was that I had to do payroll
that I didn't want to do, and that's why I didn't take the
job. But other people, they're like,
oh, yeah, payroll, totally cool. But when you're a party of one,
it's your point. You have no one to bounce these
things off of unless you have a really strong network of
colleagues around you in other companies.
But even still, it's like you have to, you have to be like
really concerted in your efforts and like really strong in your
beliefs around like the right thing to do.
You have to have strong best practices.
It's tough, a very tough position to be in, to be totally
alone in a department that generally is, you know,
overlooked for its importance. It is.
Yeah, it is. And, and it's stressful and
exhausting because you've always got to be on, you've always got
to be ready for the next thing. You've always got to be ready
for the next question, the compliance question.
And, and yeah, it's it, it's tough.
It is, it is tough. I I definitely, definitely
empathize with people in in that position.
I've been in it myself years ago.
It's it's tough. Yeah, totally.
And to close us out this in this segment and for the this week,
but also the last of 2025, can't believe it.
I know that I'm going to pass to you, Brian, because I know you
have had a ton of questions that you get each and every week that
I think could be a good opportunity for us to talk
about. Yeah, one of the questions that
I get sort of in, in different forms, and I'm beginning this
one for a while, but it seems to be ramping up in the last couple
of months. And it's it, it revolves around
essentially companies asking me how do we convince our employees
to come back to the office? And if you have to convince them
you've, you've already lost, you've lost their trust, you've
lost the, the, the whole point of bringing them back into the
office. And, and I think, at least in my
opinion and in my experience, the reason that I say that is
because employees see it as just nothing more than control.
If the only reason to bring people back to the office is
because leadership likes seeing people in their seats, then
you're making very clear, very transparent that you simply do
not trust your team. If you want people to come back
in the office, give them a genuine reason.
Give them a legitimate business reason, something that makes
sense, something that that, that they can latch onto, something
that they can trust is, is, is a true and honest reason.
There are many reasons why being in office makes sense.
There are many reasons why being remote makes sense.
There are many reasons why hybrid makes sense.
And there are cons to all of those as well.
If you want people back in the office because collaboration is
dropped, or new employees aren't getting the mentorship that they
need, or customer experience has taken a hit, those are
legitimate reasons to want to bring people together.
Doesn't mean you need people in the office five days a week.
Probably not. Can you go with some hybrid
thing? Sure.
But have that transparent discussion with your employees.
If you can't explain why being in the office matters, employees
will simply treat it like another compliance exercise to
show up, do the bare minimum and count the hours until they can
leave. I think that that for HR, if
you're, if you're being asked to send out another Slack message,
another e-mail that says everyone must be in the office
three days a week, everybody must be in the office five days
a week. You should ask yourself or as a
leader in a company to ask yourself one question.
Would I come in for that reason? If the answer is no, then go
back and find a better reason. Don't make one up.
I'm not saying make one up, but go back and find a legitimate
business reason, a genuine reason that people will believe
and understand and stand behind for why you want people to come
back into the office. I think that's that.
Like I said, in some way shape or form, one of the most
frequent questions I've been getting the last the last few
months. Yeah, I'm not surprised that
this question comes up because it it's an important topic.
And frankly, I have gone on record probably 1001 times on my
podcast saying I will never go back in the office.
No one could ever make me because I love being remote and
it offers me a lot of flexibility.
And yet as much as I say that, I'm also like, well, if a
company said to me, OK, well, you know, we need you in one day
a week, we can, you know, you can figure out what that day
looks like. Like I wouldn't be opposed.
But I think to this, to this end, as you mentioned about
control, that is that would be the key for me that I need to
have control over my life and my schedule.
And maybe you'd even get another day out of me if, if you, if you
gave me that type of flexibility.
And I don't think that I'm this anomaly to the to in this
regard. I think most people, we
certainly this see this with Gen.
Z and, and probably later generations too, that people
want the ultimate flexibility. They want to have the option to
be in the office. So they want there to be space,
but they also don't want to be told when to come in.
And I think that's where when you again, when you say, Hey, we
have this office space, we want people to use it one day a week
minimum, figure out what that day is.
People probably would go in more frequently than if they were
told you need to have your butts in your seats three days a week.
Because who wants to be told what to do after 5-4 or five
years of successfully working remotely and where most
businesses have made a tremendous amount of money, more
than they did prior to COVID. And I think that is the issue.
And frankly, I, I think companies need to remember that
they did not, they did not hire dummies like they're, they hired
people who have their wits about them, with the exception of the
guy who was fired for the costume that he wore.
He's he's the exception here. And you know, they're, they're
going to be able to put those things together that they were
successfully working and executing while remote.
Why can they not continue to do that?
And so, yeah, to your point, it's there's a trust issue now
and that's not great. There is and I think to your
point about about control, I think it's it goes back to the
discussion about rights. This is a a the flexibility, the
control over your own time is a right that employees have become
accustomed to. And employers, some employers
are trying to take that right away.
And I think that is part of the issue that it's mandating that
employees come back to the office, not requesting or
opening a line of communication about some sort of hybrid
environment. There's certainly reasons why
people might not want to come back to the office.
Maybe they've moved, they've they, you know, it's now a 2
hour commute each way. They're not doing that.
That makes sense. They've moved across the country
makes sense. But if, if the whole point is to
bring people into the office for a legitimate good reason, then
there's a way to find a compromise.
There's a way to find that common ground where employees
can still retain that right of flexibility, that right of
control over their their time. I mean, look at it this way.
Sure, a lot of this is sleeping time, but there's 168 hours in
a, in a work week, right? And there in a week, there's 40
that your employer gets from you.
Some employers require more, you know, but 40 traditionally,
right? So that's less than than half.
Why should my employer dictate what I do?
For essentially the entirety of those hours, not just the four.
Of that. And I think that that's, that's
something I've I've heard from employees and, and from
individuals making career transitions.
They're doing it for for those types of reasons that it's their
employer is trying to take back the control over essentially the
way they see it over their private time, their private
hours. I think that's a great point.
I never thought of things that way, but I think I mean, I guess
we'll continue to see how things evolve.
I mean, certainly the job market and the landscape in that regard
has changed quite a bit. At least from where I stand, it
seems that it has. And I think that companies, you
know, it doesn't matter that there are people on
unemployment, companies are always in a deficit of talent
always, because unless you have, unless it's, you know, a family
run business where you're not hiring people on the outside and
you always have, you know, 100% attrition.
And some companies do have, you know, close to that.
It doesn't pay for companies to do something that then risks
their their attrition rates or their tenure rates.
Like, don't you want to figure out what is going to engage your
people the most so that you can retain them and elevate your
tenure and keep people around and continue to do great
business? Like, to me, that's really just
so intrinsic in the way that I think that it's like, Oh yeah,
this makes sense. People want flexibility.
Let's give them flexibility because that keeps them happy
and it ensures better retention. But not everyone thinks that
way, especially when there is a concern from someone at a
leadership level that people are not doing what they're supposed
to be doing. But maybe that person is just
projecting. I don't know, Like, are you
doing what you're supposed to be doing if you think that others
are not doing what they're supposed to be doing?
Just saying, I don't know. But anyway, Brian, thank you so
much for your time on this segment and in general for
helping, first of all, for being a part of these segments, but
also helping kick off what has become a very exciting part of
the podcast menu, so to speak every month.
And so really appreciate it. I think all the listeners have a
lot to look forward to in 2026. And there probably hopefully
will be some, some cream. I said some ice cream, Supreme
Court decisions, that ice cream on the brain, Supreme Court
decisions that we can hopefully talk about in 2026 that again,
adding to the whiplash. But that's OK, OK.
This is part of our job. So thank you so much, really
appreciate it. And all of your information, of
course, is in the show notes for everyone to connect with you.
Thank you, Tracy. Really appreciate it.
Looking forward to talking about some of those Supreme Court
cases, I think, and maybe some ice cream too.
Maybe we. Could and maybe some ice cream.
Yeah. Yeah, right.
I love it. Awesome.
See you next year. Hey, just before you go, don't
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Thank you so much for tuning in and I'll see you next week.