Complex HR Simplified, Hiring and Firing and Everything In-between

A lifelong HR professional and consultant Susan Raemer-Rodriguez is the Chief HR Strategist at R & R Human Resources Solutions. Susie helps make complicated HR simple, we all know that in today’s world HR is constantly changing, and having a professional to assist is more important than ever. Susie helps with Hiring, termination, and everything in-between to make sure that people are treated with respect and that companies are protected. This is a great conversation that is well worth your time.

 

Contact Susie-

Website – www.gethrresults.com

Linkedin - linkedin.com/in/susanraemerrodriguez

E-mail - srr@gethrresults.com

Phone number -  847-867-7307  

 

Leighann Lovely  00:20

HR professionals, business owners and operations at all levels are struggling to figure out what needs to change. Our system has been shocked practices have been questioned, and conversations are finally happening. We all know there has been a huge shift in what people want. inclusion and diversity are common phrases. But often misunderstood generations are coming together more than ever on what's important. Mental health has been brought to the forefront of everyone's mind. Let's humanize these conversations. Let's talk about what's important for employees to be successful in life and at their job and how companies can create an environment to allow them to do both, because successful people will make up a successful workforce. I'm Leighann Lovely let's get this conversation started.

 

Leighann Lovely  01:10

Susie, thank you so much for joining me today. I'm really excited to have this conversation.

 

Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  01:15

Thank you for having me. I'm excited as well.

 

Leighann Lovely  01:18

So why don't you start off by telling me a little bit about yourself.

 

Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  01:22

Okay, so I am a human resources consultant. I have consulted for more years than I sat in the HR chair as an HR lady. I have been consultant most of my clients are small to medium sized businesses. In a lot of cases, they do not have a human resources department, but they have employees, so they need help sometimes. And I get involved with everything from hiring to saying goodbye to those people who are not in the right seats on the proverbial company bus. And everything that happens in between I help write policies, I help implement employment manuals, employee relations issues, lots of employee relations issues, I do a lot of recruiting, although not as an agency would do recruiting. So just as if and HR that I was, you know, the HR person for the organization, I get involved in recruiting, I get involved in getting people on boarded, and then everything through to off boarding.

 

Leighann Lovely  02:36

Awesome. So something that I noticed, you have a motto, that's and I love this, your motto is sophisticated, HR made simple. I love it. Because we all know that HR can be so unbelievably complicated. And And as I'm saying this, it's it's funny, because I just recently read a post on LinkedIn. That was it was actually a poll that said, Do HR professionals, do they require or should they people be required to have a degree? And I was wildly surprised that a lot of people were saying no, that HR professionals shouldn't be required to have a degree you're sort of. And as I was thinking to myself, or as I was reading that I was thinking to myself, this is part of the problem that individuals don't fully understand what HR professionals and people who said in those roles do.

 

Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  03:39

Exactly. So I think a lot of people think that HR is a payroll and benefits. And yes to do payroll and benefits actually probably could be better served by having an accounting degree. I've never been of the mind that HR people should be the ones processing payroll, you know, sometimes in a small company that happens, but I think that payroll is better left to the accounting professionals. And I do disagree with our I agree with you. But I disagree with all the people on the LinkedIn poll, who said that HR professionals don't need to contribute I think that's completely false. There's many university master's programs in organizational development, human resources management, as well as, as you probably know, certifications that HR professionals can obtain, you know, early on in their career and then even a little bit later on in their career at at a higher level. So I think it is very, whenever I recruit for an HR person, I always look for someone with a degree, always

 

Leighann Lovely  04:50

Right, someone with a degree and even someone who's, you know, Sherm, there's different involved it's Sherm getting certifications that are being on that, because laws are, are constantly changing and right, in order to keep up with those laws and HR is really, it's about compliance. It's so many pieces of what we do. And then of course, there's the human side of it.

 

Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  05:20

Exactly. But it's, oh, go ahead, I'm sorry, no,

 

Leighann Lovely  05:23

and I apologize, I was just going to finish up a saying, you know, and that's where I think that people, people get lost in that they think, human resources, it's supposed to be a, you know, a human as a resource for them. But, you know, as we all know, that has gotten sidelined. And HR is really about the watchdog for the company, the compliance piece. That is, and again, that's why I go back to your motto, sophisticated, HR made simple, because it is truly, it is truly a complex process.

 

Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  05:59

Exactly. And I'm of the mind. So a couple of things. It is really hard to be in compliance with every single law at every single moment. Because there's a lot of intertwining of laws, as I am sure you know, all the big acronyms out there, Ada FMLA, you know, just all sorts of employment laws that that a company based on their size has to be with, in compliance with and in terms of, you know, simplifying HR, because it can be complex, it, you can bring it down to a simple level. So, you know, for example, I'll use an example of a performance appraisal process, I often see and one of the things I do a lot when I start working with a company is I do what I call an HR assessment, where I do a deep dive into how all their processes are run, and what their documents look like, and how they're managing different functions and of quote, unquote, HR. But I see a lot of very complex performance management processes, you know, for pages and pages of forms and competencies, and all sorts of things that need to be filled out and it becomes all about the form. Right? It becomes all about filling out this form. And that's why people hate it so much. But it really doesn't have to be it's, it's a conversation, and it's a conversation that truly needs to happen more than once a year. Maybe we're formerly documenting it once a year. But we should be conversing as managers, we should be conversing with our, with our staff all the time. Nothing should be a surprise at the end of the year. And believe me, I've had many clients that wait until that time, to let the person know how much they hate them.

 

Leighann Lovely  07:59

Well, and it's interesting that you bring that up, because I was actually working with somebody who a group of employees that, that every year they they got that big long form that they were required to fill out. And this company said, If you don't fill it out and sign it, you don't get a race, you won't get your race, right. And this group of employees just decided that we're gonna we're gonna boycott this. It's this like seven or 10 page long document basically saying, What did you do for the company this year? How do you feel your performance was? How do you think you could have improved and all of these just, I guess, outdated, almost questions, just to the point where the, you know, the employers were just like, so they they refused. It leaves, like a large group of employees refused, just outright said, I'm not doing it. Like, you never asked me through the year. You never talked to me about this through the year, we never discussed, I'm refusing to sign it. I am refusing to sign this document. And the company was kind of like, what what do we sell it right now? What like,

 

Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  09:10

What do we do now,

 

Leighann Lovely  09:11

If you've got, you know, a large handful of employees who just outright are going to refuse because they disagreed with something maybe on that forum or

 

Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  09:21

Club because it sounds like they wanted their increase. But in order to get that increase, they had to fill out this form. And that's why I'm a big proponent of separating those two processes. Right.

 

Leighann Lovely  09:34

And, and the end of the story was that they didn't sign the form, the company did end up giving them the raise because the alternative was, we don't give it to them and they leave.

 

Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  09:47

Right. So what are that? Right, right and and how did that help the employee in terms of what the performance management process is supposed to accomplish, which was coaching, counseling If necessary, you know, applying corrective action if necessary, what, you know what? These people associated doing a performance review with their increase? And really that's, that's wrong? It's interesting I have a current client now I'm sorry, no, do you want me to? Okay, so I have a current client that I'm working with now and you know, stepped into actually an eight an interim HR director role from a person who was very exact about how the processes go went. And so we have people constantly, can I have my performance review? Can I have my performance review? Because they know that when they do it, then they get their increase? Right? And so it isn't about how can I, you know, what are my goals? My career aspirations? Do you really care about me as a person as an employee? It's about what's my increase? And when am I gonna get that.

 

Leighann Lovely  11:03

And that shouldn't those two things should not be exclusive, it should be about, let's talk about your growth, let's talk about your career path, let's talk about and if a company if you are of a position where you get those incremental increases, whether it be once a year, whether it be twice a year, you're assessed at that, that should be more about the continuous conversation that is set forth with your manager, where you're having quarterly conversations, where you're having daily conversations, or maybe maybe weekly conversations of just touch points of, hey, do you need anything from me, you know, you're doing a great job, or we need to, let's, let's tweak this a little bit and do it. And again, I know that, you know, in companies that are hundreds of 1000s of people. But that's that's the point is that you shouldn't have a manager who's managing 1000 people, because clearly, that manager is not going to know every one of their employees, you need to take bite sized, you know, bite sized pieces here. And if you have a manager who's managing supervisors, each one of those supervisors should have only enough people that they know exactly what's going on in the work, you know, the work of every, every single one of their people.

 

Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  12:23

That they can truly be a good manager too. And that brings up another point is I'm also a big believer in doing assessments of the manager, like giving feedback, anonymously, of course, through a 360 or 180, I guess, if it's just the employees, but just giving the manager feedback, and how are they doing for their people? Because that's what it's all about.

 

Leighann Lovely  12:51

Right? And if if employees, if employees knew that they have the ability to, then this wouldn't have happened, you know, the whole I'm not signing my review wouldn't have happened if the employees felt that they had a voice to be able to say, hey, I don't agree with this process. Oh, I or this is, this is the reason, you know, if they had ever asked the employees, hey, how do you feel your manager does for you? How do you feel these processes are? Do you feel that these processes are effective? Because the company would have figured out that, oh, there's a problem with our process, and that the employees actually feel degraded by this process, right? They feel like it's just basically a bash session of here's what you need to do better. You did this, okay, better, but we're gonna give you your and I think it was, in this case, it was like a 3% raise for everybody. And they were all like, Oh, great. Here, I get my 25 cents, or, I mean, it's, it's basically an insult, you know, for this particular one, these people were like, some of these individuals were like, take your 25 cents and shove it where the, you know, where the sun don't shine.

 

Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  14:05

But it's a very old fashioned, I guess I'll call it right way of managing people. It's, you know, kind of the 70s 80s maybe way of doing things, you know, we're the bosses, you're the peons, and you do what we say, and you are happy with that. And that's how, you know, things worked in the 60s and 70s. And I think it was around the 80s where companies would big layoffs started happening and you didn't, you know, stay somewhere till you got your golden watch. And, you know, the children of I guess that was probably Gen X saw how their parents were treated by companies that they had put in a lot of time and effort to and then they were just like, Go Oh, and this new generation of millennials isn't gonna stand for that.

 

Leighann Lovely  15:06

Right?

 

Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  15:06

Now we've got Gen Z coming to

 

Leighann Lovely  15:09

Right now. And it's an it's, it's interesting, I love the study of the generations, because you, you watch how they're how each group is influenced by, you know, the previous group and how they, you know, and of course that, you know, the oldest group always criticizes the work ethic or the decisions of the younger group. But in essence, they're criticizing that group for making decisions based on what they learned from thegroup in front of them.

 

Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  15:46

Well, and also were the parents of that group, correct?

 

Leighann Lovely  15:49

Yes. We're criticizing our own children for for trying to do it a different way. Because created this from the pains they had.

 

Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  15:58

Right? Right. The Boomers are the younger boomers, I'll say. And the Gen Xers are the parents of the millennials and the Gen Z ers,

 

Leighann Lovely  16:10

Right? So we criticize, we criticize their actions, yet, they're, they're making an attempt to do it better and different. Because they saw the pains that their parents went through or their grandparents went through. And they, they, they don't want to, they don't want to experience that they don't want to experience that. And it's hilarious, which is why I love the study of the evolution of how the generations change, you know, I was a latchkey kid, I. And I saw both my parents working, you know, hard as hell to provide and, and I mean, it was just, you know, and then layoffs and, and just amazing. It's amazing. If you were to really dive into the analysis of why each generation does what each generation does, you know, that the kids that come up, we, you know, they get a trophy, you know, trophies and you talking about, you know, participation trophies. Right.

 

Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  17:14

Exactly.

 

Leighann Lovely  17:16

And we created, we created the whole, like, Oh, you're not gonna congratulate me for showing up to work? To congratulate me,

 

Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  17:25

I don't get that corner office. I have to actually do something to gain that that in the workplace. Right? Yeah. Well, would it be you're

 

Leighann Lovely  17:36

Not gonna, you're not gonna just pay me $80,000 A year for, this job.

 

Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  17:42

That's, that's another topic. I don't know, if we want to talk about the we're gonna mindset,

 

Leighann Lovely  17:50

We're gonna get into that. You do a lot of recruiting for your companies. And right now in this world, the idea, the mindset, what you just said, you know, the hiring in today's world, it's, and trust me, I've been around the block, you know, I've been around the block. I've, I've, you know, in the industry now hiring 20, almost 20 years. It is a it is a different animal. And obviously, every you know, every year that goes by things change, but right now, we are. It is unprecedented. You know, I say this, like every five years, like, Oh, my God, the world has changed so much. But no, we are truly in, you know, a time period in which somebody comes to me and they're like, Oh, I just graduated. And I was told that I should be able to make $70,000 At my first job. And I'm like,

 

Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  18:46

Okay, no, you can want that. To get it. Right. Yeah, there's Yes, I've always said, and I've been recruiting problem for more years than you have. But back in the day when you ran an ad in the newspaper, and you've had to call the Chicago Tribune and actually read it to them, so we won't go there. That's become easier. But in terms of people's attitudes, and so what I was saying was, I've always said, even when there's a lot of candidates out there, it's always hard to find the people. Always it's obviously harder when there's not as many people out there, but it's always been hard to find good people. Okay, so having said that, what I keep in seeing these last couple of years is one, this unrealistic view of what my worth is in the marketplace? And to know, no courteous behavior, no etiquette, no thank yous No. follow ups No, go or I shouldn't say no ghosting And I get ghosted. I actually got ghosted the other day by an HR person, I should have called them and yelled at them because that's like our people. Right, right. I'm writing a search for an HR person. And my, I have a Calendly app and like, you probably have something like that. And it actually asks the person to reconfirm a few hours before the time that they're going to be there. And this person who will remain nameless, reconfirmed and didn't show up. I'm sitting on the Zoom call. No, I'm so sorry. I can't make it. Can we reschedule just so

 

Leighann Lovely  20:43

I've had that with recruiters. I've had recruiters ghost and I'm like, You You're a recruiter, you know, the paints. You know, the frustration, you know, the work that goes into setting up interviews?

 

Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  21:01

Or HR card,

 

Leighann Lovely  21:03

Right? Yeah, absolutely. You just, it just got pulled from you, you are no longer you are no longer on our team. It's amazing. It is absolutely amazing. The amount of people the respect of time, people do not respect other people's time. And I that was always like, my, I grew up with a dad who used to say to me, if you're if you're late. If you're on time, you're early. Yeah, if you're on time, right, if you're late, if you're on time, you're late, if you're if you're just on time you're late, so you better be showing up there 10 minutes early to make sure that you know where you're going. And when I was young, and I was interviewing, he used to say to me, you need to drive there the day before, so that you know where you're going. So that there's no excuse as to why you can't show up and run. That's ridiculous. And then when I started interviewing, you know, living in it, I lived in a little tiny town. At the time, it was a little tiny town. Now it's exploding. But I lived in a little tiny town. Some people who are from the Wisconsin area will know it was a kind of walk population at that time. Like that's where my daughter went to camp. Right. So at that time population was like, I mean, it was less than 10,000. I think that now it's like 45,000. I mean, it's exploding, it's exploding. But at that time, it was under like the 10,000. Right, it was a very small town. And then I started interviewing closer to Milwaukee, which is, you know, like a 45 minute drive. And, you know, being this, basically a little small town girl going out into these areas. I was like, wow, now I understand because navigating that when you're you know, 2023 years old and going, I can't find this place. And all of a sudden made sense. Like, oh, that's why I'm driving here the day before, because it took me 20 minutes to find the building. And I would have been late,

 

Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  23:09

Right? Because I'm taking it seriously, because

 

Leighann Lovely  23:11

I'm taking it seriously. And that was the way that I grew up. Again, I'm 42 years old. There is a there is a lot of people in my generation that didn't grow up that way, I'm kind of on the cuff, but I had a dad who was adamant about that kind of thing. And, and i i People still even in the tail end of my generation still are not a huge, they still have that issue with the whole, like not respecting people's time. But I was also you know, I was 18 when I got my first cell phone. So God, wow, that was

 

Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  23:47

I was a lot older than that.

 

Leighann Lovely  23:48

I know. It's so strange. Like I was at that you mean they have an adult life but and the thing that used to drive me crazy. When I was out with one of my girlfriends, you know, we're having lunch or something and one of them with their phone would ring and sitting at a table. They would pick up their phone and just start having a conversation. And I'm like, we're out to lunch. Right? Hello. I'm here, right? I'm here in person. Now I know what occasionally happens. And people will say I'm sorry, I'm sorry, excuse me, I have to take this. And then they'll come back and say sorry, it was my wife or it was my daughter or was an emergency call. I that's there's been times where you know, I came out of a meeting and I had 21 missed phone calls because my daughter knocked her tooth out. Oh, we all have emergency phone calls that that we need to take but respect people's time right? Set a meeting show up if you set a meeting don't.

 

Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  24:48

Just cancel it what what's wrong with canceling correct Yeah, don't make don't make people chase you. Correct. Like I if you're interested if you're not interested in a job. So Someone asks you for another interview or even makes you the offer luck. Tell them Don't blow it off. Don't. I've had I've had that happen to where this just happened actually. candidate was so excited during the interview, and we made her the offer. didn't hear anything. And I call just to make sure she got the offer letter. Couple days finally said, Yeah, got it. And then she declined. Well, I, I feel like we had it.

 

Leighann Lovely  25:35

I feel like it's turned into a world where people are just so scared of saying no to somebody. And I'm like, I don't care. It doesn't affect me.

 

Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  25:45

I really could care less. If you decide to take something else. That's fine. That's up to you. Do you just tell me? Or tell me you're not going to show up? Yes, we could probably do a whole show about this. Leann? Right. Oh, I know,

 

Leighann Lovely  25:57

we could I know, we

 

Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  25:58

have opinions and feelings.

 

Leighann Lovely  26:01

It's, I just I feel like that's the same thing with you know, again, I'm, you know, I'm a hardcore salesperson, to on top of, you know, being a geek in the HR realm. But I hate if I'm doing a cold, I don't care if you don't want to buy my product, like and I don't say that as like a in a mean way. I would rather have you say, hey, Leanne, thanks for calling. But I am not interested in your product at all. Right? Then have you go? Okay, this sounds interesting. Call me in a week. Or just like, I'll stop calling you if you say like, I will never ever buy from you. I'll go okay. I'll just mark you off my list. And I will never call you again.

 

Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  26:47

Right? Like, just say no.

 

Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  26:50

Yes, this. Just say thanks. But no, thanks. Alright, so easy peasy. That's That's it, and then we move on.

 

Leighann Lovely  26:58

Right? Right, then I can move on with my life. And you can move on with your life. And we've agreed that you're not interested. But it's the maybe call me? I don't know. I can't. What is with the decision making? Process? Take a stand.

 

Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  27:14

Right? Because, right,

 

Leighann Lovely  27:18

Here's the line.

 

Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  27:19

Right?

 

Leighann Lovely  27:20

Don't stand on it. Choose one side or the other.

 

Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  27:24

Right. Exactly. Exactly.

 

Leighann Lovely  27:28

So you utilize some behavior assessment tool, correct? Yes. And do you utilize that across the board just for hiring? How? Tell me.

 

Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  27:41

I use them a lot in the hiring process. Because that's actually I think, the best place to introduce to accompany the use the use of behavioral assessments, because it's just giving you more information about the person you're meeting. Because when you're meeting someone, hopefully, that's the best you're seeing right? You're seeing the best dressed, the best manners, the best. Smile, everything's the best. But what we really want to know is what are we going to get every day? And so using behavior behavioral, which I use behavioral and motivators assessments, but using those types of assessments gives you information about what are you going to see every day? What are you going to see when the person's not happy? What are you going to see when they're there, their kid was giving him a hard time or their spouse was giving him their significant other was giving him a hard time that morning, they got stopped by a train they got into, you know, what are you gonna see when when life gets in the way? And that's what you want to know about your people, not where not only where they went to school and what their experiences, but what how do they approach people problems, challenges, compliance procedures, things like that. So yes, I'm a big proponent, but I do try to incorporate for my clients that really like using those tools in the recruiting process, I do try to incorporate them into the communication process management process team building process with those companies.

 

Leighann Lovely  29:21

What are some of the tools, the assessment tools that it Do you mind sharing? Which ones you Yeah,

 

Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  29:26

so I buy them, I'll give a plug for the company that has developed the specific tools that I use, it's TTI success insights. You can only buy their tools through a distributor of which I am and I've gone through training, I'm certified. There's many tools that can be utilized. But the two most popular ones that I use are the behaviors which tells you how which is disk. So lots of people are familiar with disk, so it uses the disk methodology. So it tells you how How someone behaves. The motivators. Driving Forces Assessment tells you why, what gets them up in the morning, what causes them to action, what's important, what's interesting, what, what, what's the why behind the how. There's also I also use EQ assessments, which we don't use in recruiting because those are not validated, or at least the company that TTI success insights, their EQ assessments are not validated to use in the recruiting process. But I certainly use those with employees of the companies that I work with when, you know, there may be some some issues with that just to help them improve because EQ can be improved, whereas behaviors and motivators don't really change so much. I have competencies assessments, which kind of looks at a variety of I think there's 25, different soft skills. So I'm a big proponent of using, but like I said, the behaviors and motivators are the most popular ones that I use in recruiting, and then and team building. Right? The EQ is kind of a one on one, it's not something you necessarily share with the rest of your team.

 

Leighann Lovely  31:15

Right? And so when you use those in the recruiting, I'm assuming that it's just a, Hey, I just want to use use this so that I can better understand some of the background drivers, you know, so did they do this before you interview them? After you interview them? How does that?

 

Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  31:33

Well, since there's a cost associated with it, what we do is we use them to, we use them, once we get down to like the final two or three people. Okay, that's the point in the process, when we're interested, you know, at the first interview, we're not sure, obviously, not sure until you're finished with the interview, if this is the right person for our team, or we think it's the right person. So once we get past that first interview is when we do the assessment for the next step in the process. And also what I also use, and again, this is a process and a tool that I've used through TTI success insights. It's called job benchmarking. And so what we do, and this is done prior to recruiting, so what we do, what we're essentially doing is giving a voice to the job, if this job could talk, this is how it will behave. This is what would be important to the job in terms of motivators driving forces, and we and key accountabilities, what are the key accountabilities of this, why does this job exist? You know, why do we have this job in our company. And we do that we we use subject matter experts to, you know, those people who kind of touched the job. And then as candidates go through the process, and they do the assessment, we can compare them or I compare them to the benchmark. And this way, and we're not looking for an exact match, because we're never going to find an exact match. But what we can say is, this is what you said you was important before you met people. And you know, here's these people that you're meeting, which of course come with, you know, education and experience and skills and everything. And here's where they're off the mark, so to speak, right? So I you know, I don't say yes, hire No, don't hire. But essentially say, you know, low risk, medium risk, high risk, right, if you hire this person based on behaviors and motivators, you know, what's, what's your risk, right to speak. So, we use that to help in the entire process along with resume, interview references background check. And so I love to do job but Job benchmarking, because then we really know who's the best fit, right job.

 

Leighann Lovely  34:17

Interesting. Very interesting. So I've talked with a lot of people who who feel that resumes are just mean it's a great way to just like grab somebody's information really quick and see, you know, at a glance if they're qualified for the position, but I think the too many people put way too much stock in somebody's resume.

 

Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  34:45

Absolutely, and

 

Leighann Lovely  34:48

I and I've heard more and more people say, like, I I literally glanced at it, and then set the appointment if they are, if I feel that they're qualified, and then Never look at it again.

 

Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  35:02

Yeah, I, I, so I'm an old fashioned recruiter, meaning that I actually read the resume. I know, and I have an applicant tracking system. I'm not that old fashioned. So you know, all my resumes go into the applicant tracking system, but I don't use like keyword searches to find because I, I, I like to see how this person progressed, you know, right, try to imagine what type of decisions maybe they made along the path of their career. But yeah, I don't really use the resume a whole lot in the interviewing process. To me the resume and remember, resumes are not legal documents. So you can put whatever you want. The application form is the legal documents, right? But the resume you will, whatever you want. And I've had, I have one client that, you know, always tells me everything that's on his mind. And he's like, they've lied, they said this on their resume, and they cannot do this. And that's why we have to interview people. I mean, not that he hired, but you know, like, I said, Yes, people will call it embellishing. I don't want to call everybody a liar out there. But people embellish, right? Because they want to get the job. This to him, so many people want the job, like you have a great company. And it's a really interesting job and they want the job. So you know, but it's up to us to really, you know, ask the right questions, and to truly determine is this the right fit? And what's being embellished and what's not? Right.

 

Leighann Lovely  36:45

And, and again, it comes back to like, if you're looking at a resume for a quick second to determine whether or not this person is qualified. You got to make your resume look really attractive. Yes. So people are trying anything and everything to make it look really pretty. And in today's world, I've had multiple people say to me, Well, you know, this person has had three jobs over the last three years. And I'm like, yeah, they're like, they're a major job jumper. And I'm like, Yeah, but prior to that, they were at the same company for 20 years, or the same company. I see that a lot. I see. Right, and, and then I have to explain to my clients, like, think about what just happened in the worlds. I am seeing more and more resumes that have that have, they were at a company for 10 years. And then all of a sudden, they have these short stents just in the last couple of years, and

 

Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  37:48

younger people like the people in their 20s, and maybe early 30s, like I have a 28 year old daughter. So her resume is not I mean, it's she's, you know, she wasn't sure what she wanted to do when she got out of college. So she tried this, and then COVID happened in the middle to right. She tried this, and now she's and and it's funny how, you know, when someone's been at a company for like a year, it's like, especially with the millennials, like it's a long time for them. I know, it's because it's not hard to get another job these days, because the job market is there's lots of jobs, there's not as I mean, there's, there's not as many people being born, as there were it you know, the baby boomers, like there was a lot of baby boomers, right? They're all.

 

Leighann Lovely  38:41

The average, what was it, it was three points 3.5 Being born per household, and now it's like 1.3, or something per household

 

Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  38:55

people.

 

Leighann Lovely  38:56

There's right. There's, there's, there's less people, and because of what has happened with COVID, more people are on the move. And now we're in the conversations around culture and finding the right fit. It's all you hear about when you're on any type of at any events, you go to any networking event, you go to any, you know, event of any kind and we're in you. And there's always the conversation about how to make, you know, a better culture at companies. So when these young people or these, these individuals who have been at the same company for 10 years finally do decide, well, I'm going to dip my toe in the water and see if there's something you know, or they got laid off because of COVID and they join a new company, they realize wow, this company doesn't have great culture. Everybody's on the move. And so now you have even with these people who are like nope, I'm not a job jumper or all of a sudden making Multiple moves right? On top of all of the millennials who think that working at a company for a year. And and I keep saying just millennials and the Gen Z, Gen Z, Z. Yes, it's Yeah. And the Gen z's, who are all making these moves. So you literally have, like, the longevity factor doesn't exist in more recent years. And so when you're working with clients, and they're like, Well, I just, I will only hire somebody who's been at their last company, you know, the last, you know, for five years or longer, you're missing out, you're missing you, you will never hire somebody for this role. Because something that something cease to exist.

 

Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  40:46

Longevity and high performance are not not mutually exclusive. Yes, they're certainly high performers that have longevity. But there's a lot of people that have longevity, that are just skating by and they're doing fine. And the company has one of their they're filling a spot, filling his seats, and the company doesn't want to upset the applecart or, or the company doesn't want to feel like they're not being nice. So they just keep the person I see that a lot. When I you know, if a company will say, Oh, we have no turnover. And I'm like, well, is that good? Like is that like I do have these great people? Who are they not? Why are they not leaving, right? They don't leave, they don't know what else to hire them or

 

Leighann Lovely  41:37

No turnover doesn't necessarily know turnover completely, does not necessarily mean a good thing, especially if you've had no turnover, and hire nobody within the last, you know, for the last five years, which means that you're going to be in a world of hurt in another five years, because every single person at that company is going to be coming up on retirement, it is you you have to have some amount of turnover at a company in order to stay fresh, but stay on the cutting edge of technology in order to stay up to date on what's happening in the world and get fresh new ideas. So the blood, right you have to there has to be a certain amount of turnover built in in order to be fresh, fresh, just and not to mention. You know, kind of keeping things while we're just at it fresh, and I'm just beating a dead horse. It's I just I can't imagine working at a company that has 0% turnover. Right?

 

Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  42:52

Right. It's it's that's not a good sign. Now, a lot of people, I mean, now they're calling it quiet quitting, but I've always called it, they quit, but they still come to work every day. Yeah. So I guess that's the definition of quiet quitting. But that's, that's gone on for years that

 

Leighann Lovely  43:12

They just become very disconnected, you know,

 

Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  43:16

but they still show up, and they still get a paycheck. And but they're, they're checked out.

 

Leighann Lovely  43:22

Right, so and I would say that there is there's probably 30% of people who have been at their company for you know, longer than 10 years are probably just, you know, they're that that robot who shows up? And I guarantee that now they are starting to think

 

Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  43:46

And this is nothing against people. I mean, there's lots of high performers with longevity. Yes, there are who progress in the company. Yep. Which hopefully opens up spots to bring in fresh blood, as you're calling it.

 

Leighann Lovely  44:03

So we are coming to time, and I want to get to the question of the season. So if you could change something about your job or the practice that people have in your job or role, what's, what would you change?

 

Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  44:23

So the question is, what would I change about a job and human resources?

 

Leighann Lovely  44:29

Yeah, I mean, essentially, you know, you're in HR. So is there something in the practice that people do in your role that you would change or specifically in in your job? You know, I can give, like, 20 example. We speak of HR.

 

Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  44:48

Yeah. I mean, I guess you know, what I would would change which is not something that's going to go away, but I think there's a way that a company can deal with there's so much transactional stuff that takes place in HR is I would look to, you know, outsourcing that, or investing in systems to, you know, like HRIS system, and, you know, which is a Human Resources Information System, and ATS, which is an applicant tracking system, and really an electronic size, if that's a word, your files, you know, there's, there's so many companies that I go into, here's our fun, or they hand me a manila folder, and they go, here's our files, here's our personnel files. So, you know, get those scanned in and, you know, have the appropriate software to manage those those functions. So that's, that's what what comes to my mind. Quickly. Just trying to say what you said, the, you have a bunch of things. So what would you say?

 

Leighann Lovely  46:02

I mean, in the HR in the, the the practices of, of HR, you know, again, we've we've had the rise of people leaders. But when it comes to just in general, I would love to see that some of the legal aspects of HR be, you know, delegated a little bit more to, you know, especially the contractual stuff delegated a little bit more to, you know, an attorney and that that HR person be able to spend a little bit more time hands on with actual employees, right, letting the employees know that, hey, not only am I here for, you know, to root for the company, but you know, I'm also here as a as a person, you know, to root for you. And I know that there has to be a little bit of a disconnect, because again, at the end of the day, it is, you know, the HR person is that that kind of that watchdog that guard dog for making sure that everybody everything is in compliance, but the HR person shouldn't be the that hated aspect.

 

Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  47:16

Why do people hate HR so much, because you do a whole show on that. Right?

 

Leighann Lovely  47:21

Right, the compliance aspect, you know, they all good, there comes the HR lady, and because ultimately, at the end end of the day, when it comes to firing, when it comes to having to let somebody go, the HR lady is or shouldn't say, lady, the HR individual is the one who's usually called into, carry that out. Right. And I think that a lot of HR individuals become purposefully disconnected from truly getting to know and liking all of the employees that accompany because they know what the end of the day, if the supervisor or manager comes to them and says, You've got to fire Bob Smith. Doesn't matter how much you like Bob Smith, you've got to sit him down. Or Jane Doe, you know, you've got to sit them down, and they're going to have an emotional reaction that you have to stay professional through. Right. Right. You know, you got to walk them out the door.

 

Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  48:32

Exactly. Or, actually, this is sort of it's not a funny story. But it's an interesting story of the world we live in. I was involved with a termination just recently, and you know, it was me and the manager, the manager, how it was a zoom call, he was remote. He the manager hopped off the call. And so we alerted or not not me, but other people alerted the IT department, but they cut off the zoom. I shouldn't I shouldn't be laughing because it was I didn't know I actually didn't realize that that was what could happen. I knew we were going to tell them that it was taking place at this time and we would wait till I was done. And the guy called me and and I said oh, you froze up. But he said no, my computer was cut off. I felt terrible that and I just you know profusely apologize. And that is not that. That was not the intention to get it cut off right as we were in the middle of talking. Because I'm a firm believer in Yes, we we this person doesn't fit any longer the role that they're currently in. Our organization has changed. Our expectations have changed. We have a different bus that we're driving and they should be on a different bus than I Our company busts. And, but we always want to make sure that the person walks out with their head held high. They, I always remind my client I always insist on on scripting. The person who's who's delivering the message. And remember, they're a human being, like, yeah, we hate them, or you hate them, or you don't like them anymore. But they're still a human being, they have a family, they have, they have to, you know,

 

Leighann Lovely  50:32

and if you can, it's gonna be an emotional blow for them. And you never know how people when it comes to their livelihood, how they're going to react to that emotional blow, some people get very quiet, they shut down. And they hear very little of what happens beyond We have breaking out, right? So some other other people. I mean, and I've, I've I haven't witnessed this, but I've, you know, heard the stories of oh, he stood up, he punched a hole in the wall, and we had to call security we had to call I've never explained said either, oh, my God, you know, like, I guess it's you're, you're you're talking about somebody's livelihood. And it's so HR. In essence, you know, it's hard for people to become emotionally involved with their employees, when they know that one day, they may have to take the steps and deliver that emotional mastery.

 

Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  51:32

And I've always found that the better you treat people when you're saying goodbye, the better the situation is, in terms of you know, is there some sort of, you know, lawsuit filed? I mean, some people are litigious, right? They're going to try to do anything. But I've, in my many years of being an HR, I've only been involved in one lawsuit. I've done 1000s of terminations, and there's only been one lawsuit where I was deposed. When someone said it was wrongful termination. And we won. That's great. She would have gotten if she had just signed the severance agreement. The first time she would have gotten more right than she what she ended up getting. Yeah.

 

Leighann Lovely  52:22

So if somebody wanted to reach out to you, how would they go about doing that?

 

Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  52:28

So I do have my website is get hr results.com. It's two Rs and their HR results.com. And my email address is S RR just like Susie Raymer Rodriguez s are at, get hr results.com If someone wants to call me 847-867-7307 Susie, thank

 

Leighann Lovely  52:58

you so much for this conversation. It's been awesome talking with time flew by so fast. So

 

Susan Raemer-Rodriguez  53:03

I know. I know. We could have talked I think for hours but I loved it. And I thank you so much for having me.

 

Leighann Lovely  53:10

Thank you again for listening to Let's Talk HR. I appreciate your time and support. Without you the audience this would not be possible. So don't forget that if you enjoyed this episode, to follow us like us or share us. Have a wonderful day.

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SUMMARY KEYWORDS

hr, company, employees, resume, assessments, call, people, process, person, recruiting, interview, job, motivators, conversation, giving, behaviors, hire, clients, generation, change