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HR entrepreneur Mike Coffey, SPHR, SHRM-SCP engages business thought leaders about the strategic, psychological, legal, and practical implications of bringing people together to create value for shareholders, customers, and the community. As an HR consultant, mentor to first-stage businesses through EO’s Accelerator program, and owner of Imperative—Bulletproof Background Screening, Mike is passionate about helping other professionals improve how they recruit, select, and manage their people. Most thirty-minute episodes of Good Morning, HR will be eligible for half a recertification credit for both HRCI and SHRM-certified professionals. Mike is a member of Entrepreneurs Organization (EO) Fort Worth and active with the Texas Association of Business, the Fort Worth Chamber, and Texas SHRM.
If your job isn't able to be the priority when you're at home working, it's going to reflect. It's going to show, and so I think that, you know, using that as a crutch or an excuse not to go into the office is actually gonna end up hurting you in the end. You're you're not gonna be able to be successful.
Mike Coffey:Good morning, HR. I'm Mike Coffey, and this is the podcast where I talk to business leaders about bringing people together to create value for shareholders, customers, and the community. Please follow rate and review Good Morning HR wherever you get your podcast. You can also find us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or at good morning hr.com. The last Thursday of the month means I'm joined by a friend to discuss timely HR news topics.
Mike Coffey:In this month, I have the privilege of welcoming Karen Cunningham to the pod. Karen is principal consultant and president of N Trust HR. She has over 25 years experience in HR and is a senior level certified HR professional by both HRCI and SHRM. Welcome to Good Morning HR, Karen.
Karen Cunningham:Thank you. I appreciate you. I love being here.
Mike Coffey:So layoffs are in the news again. Last week Tesla laid off about 10% of its global workforce and according to Crunchbase over 47,000 tech workers have been laid off in the US so far this year. Now of course those are folks who are finding jobs generally pretty quickly, so it's not like we've got 47,000 unemployed tech workers, you know, eating Cheetos on the corner and and and in their flannels. But there is a trend here where layoffs are happening. But when I read Elon Musk statement, he put out a statement in on X, formerly known as Twitter, saying that about every 5 years we need to reorganize and streamline the company for the next phase of growth.
Mike Coffey:And when he said that, I remembered back to a Wall Street Journal article from about a month ago talking about a company, a medical technology company called Hologic, whose CFO said that mass layoffs are a failure of leadership. So what do you think is going on with all these tech layoffs and just layoffs in general? Is this a normal business cycle, or are we really dealing with a failure of leadership?
Karen Cunningham:Well, I would lean towards failure failure of leadership more. I know sometimes there's a lot of reasons for layoffs. I mean, if there's a, you know, a a shift in the company's focus and there's a department that no longer is is needed, those are hard decisions. Those are decisions you have to make. But if you're reorganizing every 5 years just to make yourself realign, then I believe that is the failure of leadership.
Karen Cunningham:Why in the world you would you need to wait 5 years to be realigning your company? That should be a continuous improvement process. I also think that we're sending the wrong message to employees when we're telling them that their job is insignificant enough that we are gonna go through a rotation just every few years of cycling through them. And if that's the message that we're sending employees, I'm not sure when we're ever gonna get back to the point where employees are gonna be loyal to us as companies anymore.
Mike Coffey:Yeah. They're looking over their shoulder all the time. It's hard to call them engaged, right, if that's really their concern.
Karen Cunningham:But as as a company owner, the one thing that they want is employee loyalty, but that's a reciprocal engagement. That's not a blind faith engagement that an employee does for an employer anymore. Our grandparents did that, because they actually worked for companies they could trust that we're gonna take care of them through their entire career. But that's not the day and age that we live in today. So what does the company need to do to make sure that they're creating the environment where their employees will feel loyal to them for a long period of time?
Mike Coffey:And I think employees have learned, and I remember, you know, the the light bulb going off in my twenties early in my corporate career where I realized, you know, there we've got these salary bands here and they're only gonna let me get so much of an increase every year, but if I leave this employment I can go get that much more money and you know they don't see it as a raise and at the new place and so they're not concerned and then you can go back to the original company coming in from the outside and go back to where you wanted to work and get the full money. So I mean, yeah, so employees, you know, I think for 30 years have known how to game this system And so I think it's kind of a two sided thing and maybe it's, you know, an incentives issue on the employer side. How are we structuring our our pay? Are we really recognizing the employees that we really most need to keep, and are we incentivizing them to stay and have that stability? But there are like you said, there are these other issues around, like, just the dynamics of economy.
Mike Coffey:Tech companies especially, I know because we we work with some of them, those who are in in different rounds of venture funding, they get all this cash and they have to do something with the cash. You can't hold on, you got to spend this cash until they just start buying stupid stuff and they start investing in employees that they don't need yet. And then when things change or or you know, and they constantly are changing their strategies, some of that happens. And and most of, like, Elon Musk companies are pretty, you know, still relatively early stage company. I wouldn't call, you know, Tesla fully mature company there.
Mike Coffey:They're still trying to figure out what how they're gonna come to market and with different products. And so some of that stuff's like I can see, you know, okay, we're going in a different direction. But I think and I I'm not a big fan of the Jack Welch constantly be cutting the bottom 10% of your employees, that whole attitude. But I do think there's something to be said for, more aggressive performance management. Because if we're honest, most of the time, we don't lose anything in our layoff process because what we're who we're really laying off are those employees who we probably didn't manage along the way?
Karen Cunningham:Well and sometimes, the layoff is an easy out to performance management issues that should have been addressed a long time ago. So, you know and to your point, the Jack Welch philosophy of the top of the bottom 10%, why are those even employees? And what's wrong with an organization that has employees that are all performing at a at a at level, if not higher level. And, you know, I think that type of system automatically assumes the worst in employees and in companies and their leadership.
Mike Coffey:Right. And Peter Capelli, who's a professor at Wharton University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, was on the podcast a couple months ago, and he was quoted in that Wall Street Journal article. And he basically said, layoffs are often a way of employ of companies covering how lazy they've been about their performance management. And I think especially larger organizations are still on this idea that we manage performance on an annual basis. Once a year, you get a performance review.
Mike Coffey:And that's where you find out how you did previous 12 months rather than on an ongoing basis managing day to day performance and giving especially these younger workers. They want that constant feedback. They wanna know where they stand, what their quality is, what their, you know, productivity is, or whatever you're measuring them against. They want that feedback. And I think that we're we're we just don't have enough, especially large organizations who've clued into that, and they're still trying to you know, HR is still trying to crack the whip to make these frontline managers do performance assessments.
Karen Cunningham:Well, how about, you know, layoffs that are done annually in December before the fiscal year closes? Again, what kind of morale are you creating in a company when there's a cyclical process to, you know, to your employment? And you're you know, maybe you've made it through the last 7, but you finally get hit in, you know, round 8 of, you know, the constant layoffs that an organization goes through. And we're never going to create loyal employees that way. We've gotta find a way that we can actually treat employees like we wanna be treated.
Karen Cunningham:You know, go back to and there's there isn't the same environment that our grandparents had in the work place. There aren't organizations. The biggest of the best of the companies are vulnerable to acquisitions, mergers, gosh, just complete failure, you know. So all those things can happen and we know that, but if we're trying to create a mutually respectful relationship with our employees and we're focusing on that continuous performance improvement, you know, really focusing in on what do we need to be doing to coaching this employee through the life cycle of their employment, and And if things aren't going well, what are we doing to make sure they're aware of it, to let them have an opportunity to succeed or to let them know if they're failing? And a lot of times, the employee knows it, and that's the argument I get from managers often is, well, you know, I can do this this 30 day performance improvement improvement plan, but they're failing anyway.
Karen Cunningham:You know? Well, you don't know that. What opportunity have you given them to let them know that this is the expectation that's been created and either you need to, you know, expectation that's been created and either you need to fulfill these obligations within the next 30 days or your employment is at jeopardy, and how many companies think they've done that, but then when the employee gets terminated, they're surprised. So and I gosh. I can't even count the number of times that process has happened.
Karen Cunningham:And so if that's the case, then we aren't doing what we need to do in performance management. And I find a lot of that honestly is just natural tendency to avoid conflict.
Mike Coffey:Mhmm.
Karen Cunningham:Managers don't enjoy it. They wanna coach to the process, to the systems, but to deal with, behavioral issues in particular. It's hard. It's really hard. And it's easier for them to, just kinda skirt past it and keep, you know, driving the, you know, the widgets, the number of widgets that you're producing versus dealing with why the quality of the widgets isn't there or how many people that person just bulldozed in the process of creating their widgets, you know, that they that they did while they're doing that.
Karen Cunningham:So, you know, to me, we're losing focus on the wrong we're we're changing focus on the wrong things, if that's the right way to say it. And by doing so, we're we're failing the employee and we're failing the company.
Mike Coffey:Yeah. And that employee who wants to do the job well and has the behaviors we want, is it those two things cover a multitude of sins. I mean, if I have the if I've got an employee who wants to be here, wants to be successful, and has the right attitude to think about just laying that employee off or just not dealing with performance issues and just waiting to see what happens. That didn't even occur to me because this is somebody I'm gonna invest in and and I don't think we see management and leadership as an investment in those employees. You know, we we too often, you know, we see frontline supervisors especially who say, here's what the standards are, you have to figure out how to do it.
Mike Coffey:And I think they use the excuse that, well, everybody wants independence. They want autonomy. So I'm not gonna tell them how to do their job, you know, but if they don't meet the standards. But that's not what that was ever about, you know, that autonomy we talk about with employee engagement. Those managers need to make the investment to get help give those employees the tools.
Mike Coffey:So if you have to fire somebody or terminate them or let you know, you know, use the ruse of a layoff to to exit them from the organization, you should be able to say, I did everything I can to help that employee be successful. And despite their best efforts and mine, it didn't work. And and sometimes that's the case. Jobs change, technology changes, and we and people sometimes can't adapt. And I think we're gonna see more and more of that with AI where, you know, you know, I use the example a lot of times.
Mike Coffey:You may have 3 HR reps in your organization right now, and after you implement some of these new technologies, you may only need 1. But that doesn't mean you wanna get rid of those other 2. Maybe you need to find you know, upscale them, you know, find a a lateral position in another department that they, you know, that they can excel at, and and really keep those people sticky to your organization. But that's an investment, and that's investment that you feel like I can put a dollar sign to. You know, I can sell you know, if I if I send them this training and it's gonna cost me x dollars versus we don't have any reliable metrics that your management's gonna accept about what does it cost when we hire our next employee to train them, to onboard them, to take some, you know, some percentage of failure rates with the hiring, what's all of that gonna cost versus taking somebody we know who loves this company and who likes working here and has been exceptional and just retraining them to do the new job?
Karen Cunningham:Yeah. And giving them an opportunity to figure out what's their passion, where's that career path, you know, for that person as well. I mean, you know, you talk about even a smaller organization too. There's not gonna be layers of positions and levels that are naturally stacked upon each other. It's going to take sometimes some more creative thinking in terms of this person's skill sets could be transferable over here.
Karen Cunningham:Or a lot of times, it's what are we doing as a department? What do we need to do differently? You were talking about, you know, HR in particular. How many HR professionals are dealing with the day to day how you produce what you produce or why how you produce what you produce or why your employees focus on certain things each day. I mean, really understanding the business and how to partner with them so that the things that you're doing in HR are backing up the business.
Karen Cunningham:And if AI has taken over part of that, that's great, But that just means you've got more time to put your feet on the ground and go walk around and learn from the people that you're serving within your, you know, within your organization and figure out how you can serve them better. And I think that even by doing that, you know, the expansion of the role just naturally occurs.
Mike Coffey:And I think very few of us got into HR so that we could explain benefits to employees over and over, answer the same dumb benefits questions over and over again. None of us do, you know, or process payroll changes after the fact, you know, and those are things AI will will resolve for us. And those are the things that AI is gonna really make, and they're gonna free us up in whatever whether it's HR, accounting, you know, you know, wherever in the organization you are, I think that AI is is really gonna free people up to do their best and highest work. And and and and that's not what we're talking about, but I can't I can't have any conversation lately without stumbling into AI. I just spoke at the Dallas HR Chamber North Dallas HR chain, North Dallas Chambers' HR conference, last week, about the on a panel about AI.
Mike Coffey:And and I just think, you know, it's going to lead to some upheaval, but an employer should start planning now. And one of the things I said at, that Hologic company in the Wall Street Journal article was, you know, they if somebody comes to if a leader comes and says I need to hire a new person, they immediately say go look at your lowest performer there If you and how can you offshore offshore you know, send that work to somebody else or get that work done some other way. And then so we're at a net zero gain for when we hire somebody else and we move that employee someplace else or exit them from the group. But I also thought it was interesting because Hologic during the testing, created COVID test and so their their business exploded in, you know, in in 2020, 20 3, and 1. And they didn't hire any new people.
Mike Coffey:They have about 7,000 employees. But I thought the interesting thing was, so and and I was really skeptical because how do you scale and ramp up at that high at that level and still do all your shipping operations and all of that and not add any headcount before or after something, you know, this giant, boom of inner of of business. And what they ultimately when you read deep enough in the article, it was, oh, they hired a lot of temps. And so now, okay, so you're still adding FTEs, they're not your FTEs, but you're still paying for labor and you're still bringing people in. Do you have an opinion about, you know, the balance between your regular employees and your, your temp employees coming through an agency and and how employers ought to balance those things?
Karen Cunningham:Well, yeah, I actually think that most of them should be your core, should be with your internal employees mainly because, again, from a culture perspective, when you're building an organization's culture and you're really instilling the values and, you know, the principles in which we wanna operate, when you when you have an when you have an individual who's working with you but doesn't have the commitment of an actual full time job, then how are they going to engage at the same level as someone who knows that you've invested in them for full time employment? And I I mean, the the temporary staffing to me really should be utilized when there's a need that isn't going to be ongoing. There's a ramp up and it's going to last for 6 months, a year possibly even, but it's going to go down after that, and you don't want to hire full time staff just so that you can then lay off half of them a year from now or 6 months from now. But there is a cost associated with it that that needs to be factored in as well. But from a, you know, from an employee culture perspective, you know, I think that if you're investing in them as an employee from the very beginning or as close to it as you can, once you've identified where those full time needs are going to exist, then why not just convert them over and help them be part of the team?
Karen Cunningham:I I admittedly have worked for very few extremely large companies. It's intentional. That was never something I wanted to do. I worked for a couple of of them and it reminded me why I didn't want to do it, because I just didn't work well in an extremely regimented environment where individual creativity and decision making, really wasn't part of what I could do. And and maybe maybe I was just with the wrong organizations, organizations, and and that is quite possibly the case.
Karen Cunningham:But within those organizations, you know, there are there is a larger tendency to use temp staffing at a much higher level, and I'm not sure if that's a if that's a financial decision that they're making so that on the books, the the full time labor cost looks different, if that's the reason why or, you know, if there's other factors to consider. But, you know, from an engagement standpoint, I do believe there's a point where there's gonna be an impact that the, you know, that the workforce gonna is gonna feel differently, and there's gonna be an effect to that.
Mike Coffey:And And if you have long term temps, the people working alongside them don't view them as temps for after a while. And so you're gonna have the same negative effect when you tell the agency quit sending this person because you still got this gap and people are still gonna be concerned about somebody that they've worked alongside and cared about. And so, I think there's a place for for for, you know, that short term temp. But if you think this is gonna be a boom for 6 months or a year even, I think bring them in and maybe, you know, bring them in through an agency, and if they really excel after 90 days, bring them on, you know, bring them on. But that may lead you to a layoff down the road, but it's a net effect either way because you're you've got people that you've invested in, you've trained at some level, and they're still exiting out.
Mike Coffey:I but I what I did like about the Hologic thing is being very cautious in hiring because I see it, you know, I've just seen it too often and when I was in corporate America and I've seen it with our clients over the years and I you know, especially on the background screening side of my business, I love it when my clients hire a lot of people. But sometimes I see, you know, I know enough about their business and I see a big bump in hiring and and I talked to him, you get some new contracts or nothing. Oh, no. We got new budget. And I'm like, well, I'm glad to take my share of your budget, but I'm not sure that's necessarily the, you know, just pouring more people into the organization without a real strategy about how you're gonna use them, and where you can immediately start to leverage their skills is always the the the best the best plan.
Karen Cunningham:Mhmm.
Mike Coffey:And let's take a quick break. If you're an HRCI or SHRM certified professional, this episode of Good Morning HR has been pre approved for 1 half hour of recertification credit. To obtain the recertification information, visit good morning hr.com and click on research credits. Then select episode 145 and enter the keyword Cunningham, that's c u n n ingham. And if you're looking for even more recertification credit, check out the webinars page at imperativeinfo.com.
Mike Coffey:Good morning. HR is brought to you by imperative, bulletproof background checks with fast and friendly about the people they involve in their business. Whether that means about the people they involve in their business. Whether that means very thorough pre employment background checks, due diligence for family offices or private equity firms, or any other kind of business transaction, if there are people involved, there's risk involved. We help businesses mitigate that risk.
Mike Coffey:You can learn more at imperativeinfo.com. And now back to my conversation with Karen Cunningham. So the other big topic continues to be this m 20, I think 2024 is the year of the return to office tug of war, and and there's all these studies out there and it just depends on who does the study and what and most of these studies aren't studies by people selling a product. And so I'm always skeptical because I go look at what they're actually selling and you're like, oh, I see why they why they skewed the study this way. But companies are trying to lure their employees back to the their cubicles and some are resisting.
Mike Coffey:And then there's a company called LiveCareer, they did a survey that doesn't totally surprise me, but it said 43% of workers say they are more afraid of working in an office full time for the rest of their careers than losing their romantic relationship or getting a divorce. And, I thought well, the word fear here, I mean, I don't think I'm gonna get a divorce. So I don't have you know, so if you ask me which are you more, you know, afraid of having to go work in an office or I'm more afraid of having to go work in an office if that's not what I wanna do because you know, I'm not worried about my marriage. My wife is extremely patient, so I'm not worried about my marriage falling apart. So I think the word fear is a little bit strong there, but I do see that there's still that really cautious approach from employees about going back to the office.
Mike Coffey:What are you saying when you're talking to your clients about that?
Karen Cunningham:No. I agree. I mean, it's it is tug of war is the perfect description of it. I think one of the challenges is some of the companies that proved to be successful with a remote workplace that had a culture of you everyone has to come in the office no matter what, but it proved that it worked. And now that we're back to where, you know, we are in 2024, you know, far enough away from the pandemic that we're not, you know, fearful daily of our lives, but for our lives.
Karen Cunningham:But, you know, if you if you look at where we are now, some of these organizations have some of these organizations have forgotten how productive their workplace was in 2020 and how these, you know, these independent contributors who do things like, marketing or especially IT, have been able to be really productive at home.
Mike Coffey:Right.
Karen Cunningham:And a lot of those individuals are people that need focus time and need creative time. They need time where they can actually just focus on what they're working on and not have the interruptions of an office. The flip side to that is where is the collaboration? Where is the connectivity with coworkers? Where is connectivity with the company?
Karen Cunningham:How do you create that environment? When I think about myself in my twenties, that's this is another component of it too. I learned so much, not by the work I was doing, but by the work that my coworkers were doing down the hall and by me having a natural curiosity to go down and just ask. So tell me what this is with this comp ratio that you're working on or, you know, a merit matrix or, you know, I didn't I knew nothing about compensation and compensation planning. But I got to sit in the in the compensation manager's office enough or even just go to lunch with her to just learn enough to have of what that looks like.
Karen Cunningham:Same thing with with the benefits manager, areas that I didn't work on day to day. But I wouldn't have had that opportunity if I wasn't down the hall from them and just had that casual interaction, that casual opportunity to learn from a coworker, and I don't think we can create that same environment when everyone's working remote. So there's a balance. There's a, you know, how do you allow people the independent time to focus and get work done and maybe even just a little bit of flexibility in the traffic and, you know, just life activities and things. You know, how do you balance that with the other piece of it, the collaboration, the cross training, the growth, and and the connectivity with the company.
Karen Cunningham:How do you balance those? And I really do think that, where possible, a hybrid environment tends to work better because you're able to provide them with both. You've got, you know, the opportunity to work independently, but then there's connection days. There's automatic days every week when everyone has to go in, And if there's gonna be meetings, team meetings, and it's on those days where everyone can be in the same room, not in a Zoom meeting together where half the people are trying to figure out their connectivity, or their camera's off because they're actually really busy with something else instead. But, you know, where's that balance?
Karen Cunningham:And I think that's still where we're struggling.
Mike Coffey:And, you know, it's interesting because my oldest is about to turn 25. He graduated from UT, with an engineering degree a few years ago and, like, works for a large employer here locally. I talked to him and his friends, and I also you know, I'm teaching I teach yoga, and I'm teaching yoga with a lot of 20 somethings. And most of them want to be in the office because they're right they're they're recognizing they're not getting mentoring. If they're if they're remote, they don't they're not building those relationships.
Mike Coffey:They're not getting that water cooler kind of just learning things through osmosis and being in the environment. And I think they're realizing that. I think the people that are really pushing back now just from talking to clients and and anecdotal stuff from my circles is that it's that mid that mid level career professional is who's really pushing back. And I think it's a mistake for them probably too in a lot of circumstances, because we do have you know, there are you know, whether we recognize them or not, there's always gonna be a bias for the people we worked with in person most recently. If I'm a leader and I'm looking for my next, you know, you know, right hand person, it's very likely it's gonna be somebody I'm working with on a more closely daily basis, 1 to 1.
Mike Coffey:And even if you're a better producer, better, you know, potential leader, but you're remote and we only talk once a week on a 15 minute Zoom call, you're probably not gonna have that level of credibility. And I think, you know, there's some of that. But, you know, we're fully remote company. I sold my office building. I mean, I don't you know, we I've got employees all over the place now.
Mike Coffey:But one thing I found is that to keep myself accountable as a leader, we just did our quarterly planning session last week and I realized that I'm as the leader losing connection with my team at the level that I need it. Because I'm the ADD guy, they're all real focused you know, and but I get busy and and haven't been making those especially last 6 months that intentional investment and connecting directly with them. And so to make that happen, once a month, we do a 1 to 1 every week, but once a month that one to 1 is gonna be in person. We're gonna go to lunch, and then we're gonna go sit down back to the conference room that that we've we've replaced our whole office with is is one conference room now, and and and work an afternoon together. And that way, I'm going to get that deeper connection, better understanding what's going on, and not be sitting here as and I'm the one who's forever distractable.
Mike Coffey:And, you know, my employees can be as focused as they want to. So I think sometimes from the leader point of view, maybe we need to think more about even if we've got a remote workplace, how do we connect back in more often? And I you know, so any any what are you telling leaders about how to be better leaders in a remote environment?
Karen Cunningham:Well, the good news is you're doing a lot of it, so congratulations. But, you know, the one on ones, the I can't tell you how many managers forget to have one on ones, completely forget, and and then wonder why they don't know what's going on with their employee 3 months later. So, but one on one meetings, you know, finding an opportunity to connect with someone and just visit. Hey. How are things going?
Karen Cunningham:You know? Just, I see you're working on this project. Tell me how it's going. You know, just what you would do in the office, but finding it I guess being intentional in those connections and finding a way to build those relationships, but in a remote way, it yeah. It's not as easy.
Karen Cunningham:You do have to think more of it, and I totally get you on the ADD part because my my mind is jumping in, you know, 20 different directions throughout the day. And so trying to actually remember, oh, yeah. I should pause and take time and actually find out for my employees how their day's going, you know, what they're up to. Hey. How did that cheer competition go for your daughter last weekend?
Karen Cunningham:Again, the things that we would, you know, find an opportunity to idly connect with in the office, how can we do that, whenever we're remote? And so I think those are a lot of the key points. Also just being connected on our objectives and what we're working on and knowing what someone's doing well in and what they might be struggling in and finding coaching opportunities and ways that we can, you know, provide some additional investment in them and their development and their growth. I do agree with you. I think the 20 something year olds, 1, a lot of them live in apartments by themselves.
Karen Cunningham:Yeah. So if they aren't in an office, then they're not seeing anyone all day long. And so, I think they're craving that some of them, not all, are craving that social interaction. And whenever you get to be, you know, that mid professional, you've got the spouse, you've got the children, what I find one of one of the mistakes that
Mike Coffey:Both of which are reasons I would wanna go to the office, but okay. Right.
Karen Cunningham:But, you know, one of the mistakes that I think employees have made is taking advantage of that situation and making the excuse that they can't can't come into the office because they don't have childcare. Well, how are you getting your job done every day? Because I've raised 2 kids, and I remember how much work they were. And and if someone isn't able to help you, and I understand there's financial considerations and everything else, but if your job isn't able to be the priority when you're at home working, it's going to reflect. It's going to show, and so I think that, you know, using that as a crutch or an excuse not to go into the office is actually gonna end up hurting you in the end.
Karen Cunningham:You're you're not gonna be able to be successful.
Mike Coffey:Have you seen this overemployed trend? There's a whole subreddit on it about people who went remote in 2020, 2021 and took 2 full time jobs. And, you know, I'm kind I'm in most cases, I'm I'm kind of like shame on the employer for not, you know, measuring productivity and making sure that you're utilizing, you know, this employee at at a higher level. But, you know, they're juggling 2 jobs remote and and they don't know. I've had several clients call me up and say, how do we figure out if somebody's working someplace else?
Mike Coffey:Because we're concerned about them. And, and one recently found out through a LinkedIn post that one of their key, technology employees was working to for a direct competitor, just because and that's only because the, the the company he's working for posted a LinkedIn thing, welcoming him to welcoming him to the company. And so and there's a whole subreddit about the people who are doing this, and there's a story in Business Insider recently about a guy who was doing that and and pulling down about 225,000 a year doing his main job plus a second job that was only worth about 80 grand and he hated that boss but it was an extra 80 grand and he didn't have to work too hard. So I think, you know, I don't know if you have thoughts on that other than making sure you've got policies on it and that you're you're measuring, you know, how much of your employees time you're really utilizing.
Karen Cunningham:Well, after I get over the shock and bewilderment of the fact that someone would actually do that, because, again, the moral compass on that one is really low if you're going to be, you know, working for 2 companies full time at the same time. Now there's there's people who work a day job, a night job.
Mike Coffey:For sure.
Karen Cunningham:Those things can work, but working 2 full time jobs during the day, I actually ran into someone at a HR conference about 2 years ago, and and we were just standing in line together to get our lunch. Never had met met him before that day, before that moment, And he just casually tells me that he's working for 2 different companies and that one of them was going to figure it out eventually because he had to pick 1 of them to list on his LinkedIn profile as the employer, and he couldn't list both. And so he said the one that he didn't list, you know, he was concerned that eventually they were gonna figure it out, And he was a recruiter.
Mike Coffey:And and that's that is a time intensive job that really takes you know, if you're doing that well, you're investing every minute you've got into fill oh, sourcing candidates.
Karen Cunningham:But he had no shame in it whatsoever. He he was just I mean, I didn't ask. I mean, I forget how it even came out of his mouth, but he just freely shared that, you know, that this is what he was doing. And I looked at him and I said, well, I have a feeling that's gonna cause a problem at some point. And he said, well, yeah, I guess it might.
Karen Cunningham:But he, you know, it didn't affect him. And and I thought, wow, this is not a good sign of where we're going. And again, what does that say to companies who are already fearful of this work from home environment and what can we do as as individual contributors? What can we do as humans to, you know, to help that greater cause and make that we're doing things the right way so that companies will see that we can, you know, be trusted and be productive and not take advantage and, you know, all those things by being able to work from home. And, I think that's, you know, probably why we're seeing some of the trends we're seeing.
Mike Coffey:And I'll I'll in the show notes, I'm gonna put a link to that Reddit subgroup for over called over employed because if you're a a people leader at all, it will it will make your eyes roll. It's it's it's kinda crazy what people, at least claim to be doing on there. But that's all the time we have, Karen. Thank you for joining me.
Karen Cunningham:Well, thanks for having me. I enjoyed the conversation.
Mike Coffey:And thank you for listening. You can comment on this episode or search our previous episodes at goodmorninghr.com or on Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube. And don't forget to follow us wherever you get your podcast. Rob Upchurch is our technical producer, and you can reach him at robmakespods.com. And thank you to Imperative's marketing coordinator, Mary Anne Hernandez, who keeps the trains running on time.
Mike Coffey:And I'm Mike Coffey as always. Don't hesitate to reach out if I can be of service to you personally or professionally. I'll see you next week. And until then, be well, do good, and keep your chin up.
Karen Cunningham:Up.