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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.
So I guess now we're encouraging people to come into work while we're sick, and then all these people that are in work are all making out in the copy room.
Mike Coffey:Yeah.
Sarah Glaser:And it's it's we were just giving everybody everything.
Mike Coffey:Good morning, HR. I'm Mike Coffey, president of Imperative, bulletproof background checks with fast and friendly service. 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 goodmorninghr.com.
Mike Coffey:And happy Leap Day. And because it is February 29th, I knew I needed a really special guest for our end of the month news wrap up. So today, we have Sarah Glaser's triumphant return to Good Morning HR. Sarah is an employment attorney with the Austin based law firm, Lloyd, Goslingk, Rochelle and Townsend. Sarah has been named a Texas superlawyers rising star and a top Austin attorney by Austin Monthly Magazine.
Mike Coffey:Sarah and I also serve together on the board for Texas SHRM where she co chairs the legal and legislative core leadership area for the 31 Texas SHRM chapters. Welcome back to Good Morning HR, Sarah.
Sarah Glaser:Thank you so much for having me. I have been checking my phone on a regular basis wondering when I was gonna get that email or that text message inviting me back, and, finally, it has happened.
Mike Coffey:You have a standing invitation anytime you wanna come on. But, anyway, so you were on the podcast exactly 99 episodes ago. 99 episodes and a lawyer ain't one, and we talked about the pandemic's impact on employers. The pandemic. Doesn't that sound quaint?
Mike Coffey:What happened? I mean, we've gotten way past that. So now we're in February 2024, and we just celebrated Valentine's Day, except if you're my wife, you celebrate it every day. And, apparently, we're all trying to kick start the pandemic all over again by swapping spit at work. In a new survey by resume builder, 29% of workers say they have had an office romance since returning to a physical work environment.
Mike Coffey:It's almost a third of all the employees. I mean, you wanna talk about your how to lure your employees back to the workplace? I mean, there you go. There's a there's a chance for love or something there at the office waiting for you. And half of those those lovers who had relationships at work, they had they said they haven't disclosed it to HR.
Mike Coffey:So do any of these numbers surprise you?
Sarah Glaser:I have to say I'm pretty surprised by these numbers because I haven't heard about any of these romances. And as as my firm's employment law counsel, I'm I'm kinda surprised that,
Mike Coffey:Well, they're just not telling you. Right? Apparently, half of them
Sarah Glaser:aren't even reporting. Whole bunch of folks, going out on dates and having fun and not telling us about it.
Mike Coffey:And so, I mean, full disclosure here, I'm the HR guy who just celebrated his 27th year of marriage to, a lovely woman with horrible taste in man who I met while we worked together in HR and she actually reported to me. So, I mean, it happens. We spend half our waking hours or more at work, and so, you know, things are gonna happen and people are gonna get, you know, involved in relationships. What's the company to do about that? You know, they're doing you know, some you know, and you see a a lot of times people say, oh, the company didn't have any it's none of their business what I'm doing.
Mike Coffey:Is it their business?
Sarah Glaser:Yeah. I think it's their business in in certain instances. I think we have to acknowledge that you cannot prohibit employees from developing personal or romantic relationships. We as you said, we spend a ton of our time in the office, and it's only natural that people would will develop, friendships and romances with the people who they work closely with. Now there are some instances in which that becomes problematic, and those are the instances in which the employer wants to know about them and should have policies that are set up to, prevent the problems from occurring and to protect the organization in the event that somebody decides to have a a romance that they really shouldn't be having.
Mike Coffey:So let's talk about those situations. What's the first one that comes to mind for you about a a relationship you really shouldn't be having in the office?
Sarah Glaser:Okay. Well, the the one that comes to mind first is the supervisor subordinate relationship. Sorry, Mike and Mike's wife.
Mike Coffey:Well, I will tell you this. As soon as I realized we were dating, I called my boss who's the VP of HR and said, hey. I think I'm dating Christy. And she said, yeah. And now I'm like, no.
Mike Coffey:You didn't because I just found out. But, apparently, everybody else had figured out that there was something going on before I was smart enough to figure that out. So
Sarah Glaser:I've I've heard that that happens sometimes that the guy is the last to know about a number of things. So
Mike Coffey:Yeah. And we can be clueless.
Sarah Glaser:Yeah. But but, yeah, that that's the one that is really problematic from from, I think, kind of a a bunch of different perspectives. First being that when you are somebody's supervisor, you are in a position of power over them, in in a whole bunch of different ways. And when you are in a position of power over somebody, you also should not be having, sexual relationships with them. So worst case scenario, the way that I see it play out in in the, you know, everything has gone wrong here is either the relationship ends badly and the subordinate later claims that their relationship was not actually consensual.
Sarah Glaser:I often see I don't wanna say often. That's that's too much. But I see and, when these things go poorly, I see folks complaining or saying that I tried to leave the relationship. And every time I left, they, you know, either overtly threatened to fire me, or they just stopped mentoring me in the same way that they did before. And so I felt like I couldn't leave the relationship.
Sarah Glaser:And, and that is a great start to a sexual harassment claim. So so that's that's kind of worst case scenario.
Mike Coffey:And so and I can even see once that relationship's gone south, this person may not even feel, depending on how, you know, how it all worked out, feel comfortable being behind closed doors or in a 1 on 1 meeting with this form with this, you know, person, you know, you know, this former relationship who's also now their supervisor, but it happens. So what's the you know, if there's a trigger mechanism that says, hey, we've got this policy, you've got to tell HR or, you know, somebody. What what do you do about it at that point? Okay. So we did anticipate, you know, it just kind of has worked out, and we're all mushy about each other, and, you know, I feel rainbows and unicorns flying around when we talk.
Mike Coffey:What's the employer to do? So is does somebody have to leave the organization, or do we change relationships or jobs or or you know? And and what are the sticky wickets around those things?
Sarah Glaser:The only the employer, the organization can find a way to reorganize so to reorganize so that the subordinate is not reporting to the supervisor. That's that's best case scenario. Then you can move them to different reporting structures and, and then they can have their relationship. And you're not you're not interfering in something like that. But it's also important that employees understand that if you're gonna be in a relationship with somebody for a long time or it's a long term relationship, then that can impact your career trip trajectory.
Sarah Glaser:Mhmm. Because if I'm, you know, if I'm dating someone who is below me, then that and I I don't ever want to be in a reporting structure with them, then I don't know how I'm ever gonna be the CEO of the organization or or more more likely how they would continue to work for the organization if I was the CEO. So we're not talking just about what the reporting structure looks like today, whereas looking into the future as well and and thinking about how what impact that might have. And and that's something that you can so even if you have employees who are coworkers, who are lateral to each other right now, they they might need to understand that, if one is up for a a promotion, that could be impact they could impact their relationship or impact their, their promotion.
Mike Coffey:And what about the argument that, well, this person's a director, you know, and they were lovely while we were dating, but now, you know, I you know, it went south and I feel like, you know, my new director who I transferred over to is, you know, they're best friends. So now I'm reporting to my former, romantic partner's best friend or, you know, they're all, you know, and now everybody's talking about me and all those things. How does all how do those things play out?
Sarah Glaser:I think you're getting into kind of a a gray or a difficult area if you start telling people that they they shouldn't they can't complain about their supervisor just because they're friends with someone. I mean, am I upset because my, my old boss was friends with my husband? Like, I can't you you can't really start making those connections. But you do raise a another really interesting point that is is problematic as well is that everyone else in the organization sees the relationship. And and so even if there isn't a direct conflict of interest or or direct relationship that's prohibited, there's still the possibility that everyone can go around and gossip that, that that employee is getting special favors or they're, they got this promotion because of their relationship.
Sarah Glaser:You know, whatever happens, that relationship is always has the potential to come into the conversation.
Mike Coffey:So how should the policy read then? You know, when is official you know, when are we officially dating? When do I have to tell somebody in HR? You know, if it's a peer, do I need that policy or if it's just a supervisor subordinate relationship? And then what other policy considerations should there be there?
Mike Coffey:I mean, can HR say no, you're not allowed to do this or what's you know, is it just a we're gonna put this in a write this down, put it in a safe someplace, and use it later? How do we what's the policy for, and how do we use it?
Sarah Glaser:Yeah. From my perspective, the policy is is not designed to police all of your employees' behavior. So I don't really wanna know if, if the 2 paralegals downstairs are dating each other. That's that's fine. And they don't I I don't really wanna create an obligation for every employee who works at my organization to report a romantic relationship that they have to to HR.
Sarah Glaser:But I think I think more importantly, the policy should be designed in a way that it accomplishes the goal of making sure that the organization is aware of relationships that should not be happening. To me, that is a subordinate and a, and a supervisor relationship or someone who is in some sort of position where they have the ability to, impact someone else's employment. So so that's what I want to know about. That's what the organization wants to know about. And I when I write policies, I tend to write them in a way such that they leave leeway and and autonomy to the organization to do what they think is best in that scenario.
Sarah Glaser:So, of course, we HR consultants and and employment lawyers know that when we do things in in the organization, we create precedent for how the same situation should be treated in the future. So you can't you don't have full autonomy to do whatever you want. But a I I write my policies to say that, that those the types of relationships that could create a conflict of interest or or some concern about the, the power dynamics in the relationship, they're required to report them so that the organization can take appropriate steps. And sometimes appropriate steps look different in in different scenarios, but the goal is to make sure that, that you are not putting anyone in a position where they feel like they, they they can't do their job properly or that they their ability to do their job is impacted by the relationship.
Mike Coffey:What about just having a non fraternization parles policy? I mean, it used to be the standard thing. Right? That's why you said you're not allowed to do this at work. Keep your business at home.
Sarah Glaser:Uh-huh. And then how would you enforce that, Mike?
Mike Coffey:Exactly. Well, yeah. That's, yeah, what you're doing, it's like it's like having PTO for sick time versus PTO for personal time. It's begging employees to lie to you, right, when they need to
Sarah Glaser:take time. Exactly. And we that that I think from that from from my perspective, that's the worst thing that can happen. If you create a situation where people are disinclined to report even when they really ought to be doing so. So telling telling people that they can't have any kind of relationship or they can't fraternize, or or that they have to report every inner every relationship that they're in is gonna create a scenario where people are not complying with the rules.
Mike Coffey:And what if an employee comes and says, hey, we were dating. We broke up and and she won't leave me alone now. And she's my boss and she's really, you know, pushing me to get back together, but we didn't tell you HR. So what's HR's response to this at that point? Take disciplinary action against both of them for not telling us?
Mike Coffey:Or
Sarah Glaser:I would say no. I mean, maybe they violated your policy, but I think you have bigger fish to fry than disciplining someone for not complying with that policy. And and, honestly, I mean so you you told that story or you created that scenario where, it's the guy is the subordinate and the the woman is the supervisor. But if you flip it, you you would say, oh.
Mike Coffey:Yep. Exactly.
Sarah Glaser:Not good. You can't do that. And and, really, that's how what HR should do. They should investigate to determine whether his allegations are true, and if so, take appropriate action.
Mike Coffey:And for clarity, it makes no difference what the what the subordinate's gender is versus the the supervisors if it comes down. And I think that's I think there's a strong bias out there though that, you know, you know, boys will be boy, you know, he he got into the honey trap and that's on him, whatever. If he's a subordinate, and and and, you know, I think just without thinking about it, we are probably more forgiving of the female supervisor who's, you know, aggressive about the former relationship. So it doesn't matter. The genders don't matter.
Mike Coffey:What we've got to do is figure out how to fix the problem. And are there if there's situations where they told us about it, and now that relationship has ran its course and, but there's just a ton of animosity, and it's affecting everybody's performance. And maybe both both of the employees have complained to HR about the other and all of that. It's all he said, she said all this stuff. What risk does HR have in in trying to, you know, you know, there's gonna become a point where somebody's just gotta leave the organization if if we can't get along and we can't you know, and it's gonna be disruptive.
Mike Coffey:So we're just gonna have to manage each each person's performance separately, or what do we how do we deal with that?
Sarah Glaser:Yeah. Well, I think you hit the nail on the head in that this when they stop dating, I think you have to treat them like 2 separate people. And not being able to get along in the workplace and not treating your coworkers with professionalism, with respect, and not doing your job in whatever way, shape, or form that looks in this interpersonal conflict, those are performance issues, and and sometimes they even get into misconduct. So when you say, it sounds like somebody might need to leave the organization, it's possible. And the reason that they might need to leave is because they can't be professional to one of their coworkers.
Sarah Glaser:And maybe it's both of them or maybe it's one of them, but I don't think it would be appropriate to let the fact that there was a romantic relationship be an excuse for that type of behavior. They should still be held to the same professional norms. So one last question on the policy.
Mike Coffey:So so that we know that from this date forward, you know, this behavior isn't desired? Or is there you know, do we have to we've told you about it, so do we need to tell you when we break up? Or is No. That's too much. Process?
Mike Coffey:Or
Sarah Glaser:And that I think that that gives me an opportunity to talk about something we haven't talked about yet, which is I don't think that goes in your policy. But what I do think it goes in is when you have 2 employees who come to you and say, we're in a relationship, you have to sit down with them and say, okay. Well, these are our expectations for your behavior. And and a part of that conversation includes, by the way, we wanna know if you break up.
Mike Coffey:And so we need you and Yeah. We need you to conduct yourselves professionally all the time, but let us know if something's broken up and probably if at any time you feel coerced or threatened or, you know, being manipulated, you can always come to HR. We'll hear, you know, we'll hear you out. We'll we'll and we'll we'll investigate.
Sarah Glaser:Yep. And no making out in the copy room.
Mike Coffey:While there are other people around. Yeah. Okay. And let's take a quick break. Good morning HR is brought to you by Imperative.
Mike Coffey:Bulletproof background checks with fast and friendly service. While most of the good morning HR audience knows Imperative as the background screening company for risk averse employers, we also provide due diligence services outside of the employment arena. For instance, next week, I'm sitting on a panel at an investors conference in Beverly Hills, woo hoo, to discuss due diligence for a $100,000,000 net worth investors. These are ultra high net worth families who want to be sure they know who they're getting in bed with before they make a significant investment. Not only could they lose their money, but partnering with the wrong people could cause them regulatory or reputational problems.
Mike Coffey:So whether you're hiring an accounting clerk, considering a new vendor relationship, or entering into any relationship where others people's characters will make a difference, we're here to help you make a well informed decision. You can learn more at imperative info dotcom. If you're an HRCI or SHRM certified professional, this episode of Good Morning HR has been preapproved 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 137 and enter the keyword romance.
Mike Coffey:That's r o m a n c e. And if you're looking for even more recertification credit, check out the webinars page at imperativeinfo.com. And now back to my conversation with Sarah Glaser. So not only are we in the season of love, we're also in the flu season. Maybe some people's more preferred season.
Mike Coffey:So there's yet another resume builder survey. Do these people ever work? But it found that 20% of managers say they encourage workers to come into the office even when they're sick. And then then what's weird is half those managers, the ones who encourage people to come in sick, admitted they often shame visibly sick employees. Do we all just deserve to be extras on The Walking Dead at this point?
Mike Coffey:I mean, is are we just so deranged that, you know, we just need to embrace the next pandemic?
Sarah Glaser:So I guess now we're encouraging people to come into work while we're sick, and then all these people that are in work are all making out in the copy room. Yeah. And it's it's we were just giving everybody everything.
Mike Coffey:So these managers don't trust their employees. Right? I mean, you know, when somebody calls in and says I'm sick and they say, oh, yeah. We really need you to come in. It's it's really a matter of I don't think any of us wanna be exposed to whatever somebody's carrying around, but it's as it really boils down to, you know, a quarter of the managers said that they think that their employees exaggerate or lie about illnesses just to get out of work, especially in a in a remote environment.
Mike Coffey:So what should the standard be for if an employee wants to call in sick and and maybe we do need them, but what what what what's the what's should the what's the ethical or the the the good manager kind of thing to do, but also what are the legal considerations?
Sarah Glaser:Well, I think you kinda have to start with the policy. We write sick policies in a really specific way, especially if the per if the organization is a governmental entity. Like, when you are a governmental entity, your sick leave policy can be only be used for the reasons that are specifically laid out in the policy. And and that that leave is something it's a benefit that you give to employees for a particular use. And I think at some point, you have to allow your employees the autonomy to decide whether the reason that they want to use the 10 days, 20 days, whatever you have given them, if if that if their personal reason for wanting to use that fits in the criteria, then, you know, they only get 10 days, 20 days, or whatever they've got.
Sarah Glaser:And if they use them all up, then then they're gone. So I think that it's really counterproductive to question whether somebody is so I know I'm not answering your question, but I don't think there should be a standard. I think if an employee want has a reason that is good enough for them to use their sick leave, then they should use their sick leave. And I was reading through those articles you sent, and, and I was I was kinda thinking about it in a a bit of a different way. I wasn't really thinking about it in the scenario where, an employee calls up their supervisor and says, I'm too sick to come in today, and the supervisor tells them they have to anyways.
Sarah Glaser:I was thinking about it more in the sense of of the culture that supervisors create. And, and, you know, if if I come into my office when I am ill and I I am visibly ill and people see me working through it, then they think that that's what's expected of them as well. And and so now we're the organization that expects its employees to come into work unless they, you know, are, on their deathbed or something.
Mike Coffey:Yeah. And I think that's true that, you know, especially when we see the people that are even if it's not your direct supervisor, but you see the people in the organization who, you know you know, play injured that kind of, approach. They're the ones who are incentivized and who are rewarded and who are promoted that you create that environment, where people feel like they've gotta do it. And then even in a non pandemic era, it's just such a risk. I mean and there is an OSHA standard too and to to maintaining a healthy work environment.
Mike Coffey:And if you're really setting that expectation that people are going to drag in sick, you know, there's that issue. So back in the day, and, I've been around HR long enough to that this was more common. If you were out if you were out sick more than 3 days, you had to bring a doctor's note. What what's your thought on that kind of policy?
Sarah Glaser:I think that that is a policy that is legal. And, and in some instances, for certain organizations, it it makes sense. But the reality is that it it does a couple of things. It it 1, it can disincentivize people to be out of work when they really ought to be out of work. But secondarily, there are a lot of reasons that we are out of work under a sick leave policy that do not involve a visit to the doctor.
Sarah Glaser:In fact, I would say probably most of the reasons that we stay out of work, don't involve a, a visit to the doctor. Now the 3 day rule is interesting because it implicates FMLA as well. You you know, and I probably most of the people who are listening to this know that if an employee is out of work for 3 consecutive days and they've they've got medical treatment, then that is potentially an FMLA qualifying absence. So I kinda see the connection to the 2, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you have to get a doctor's note at 3 days. It just means that the organization needs to think about whether they need to start the FMLA process.
Sarah Glaser:So, you know, if that's your rule and you've got people who are, you've got people who are abusing your sick leave policy and you find that that 3 day rule actually has positive impact in helping you to police this rule, then you're allowed to do it. But I would suggest that there are possibly, more effective ways to make sure that folks are complying with your your sick leave.
Mike Coffey:And there are just a lot of times where, people are sick, but the doctor's offices don't even see them. I mean, you know, yeah, you describe your symptoms. Yeah. You've, you know, you've probably got COVID. There's nothing we can do for you.
Mike Coffey:Just, you know, hang out, you know, you know, let call us if it gets a lot worse, and they ride it out for 2 or 3 days and they're better. Same with the flu, and then doctor's offices over the last 4 years have been have have become a lot more difficult to get into. And so now you're talking about, okay, well, we want a note from you, but you can't get into your doctor for a week. So you and you have to go to a minor minor emergency center or something like that and spend an arm and a leg to, to see a doc. It just seems we gotta trust our employees.
Mike Coffey:I think this really boils down that policy and a lot of those pull down to we don't want people gaming the system. And the real problem is you've got a bigger problem. You've got a problem with who you're hiring and how you're managing and incentivizing them. And we look for these kind of policies to play gotcha sometimes with employees rather than really managing their productivity. Got any in insight there?
Sarah Glaser:Yeah. Absolutely. I think that it it's far more, there's far more value in looking at what your issue is and what your problem is and trying to trying to solve that than creating this blanket rule that has the potential to, 1, be not very efficient or effective. And and, 2, in some instances, cause real problems for your employees or some doctors won't give someone a doctor's note without them paying for it. So so you're incurring costs, and there's there's a more efficient or effective way to address it.
Mike Coffey:And just, you know, hire people you trust, manage them in a way that that they're gonna give their best. And then if they're really sick, they're really gonna be they're gonna call in and tell you they're sick. But so while we're talking about not trusting our employees, France, they have this privacy regulation, that's, you know, common in the EU, and they just fined Amazon $35,000,000 over its surveillance of warehouse and workers. And so basically your your Amazon warehouse guy is walking around and they've got hand scanners and they're scanning items that they're pulling for from inventory for deliveries and and I scan the barcode And Amazon, according to TechCrunch, is looking at the amount of time between each barcode scan. So really how, you know, is this person pulling 3 items a minute or 1 item a minute or one item every 5 minutes And seems to me like, you know, especially when it's averaged over a day or over a week and compared to his his or her peers, a pretty good productivity measure.
Mike Coffey:But according to TechCrunch, the French government said that it was illegal to set up such a system, for measuring these work interruptions to see how long somebody was may not have been working, because it potentially required employees to justify every break or interruption. That's what I want them to do. I want them to work and if they're not gonna work, I want them to, you know, I want there to be a reason for it and, you know, and there's no allegation that I read that said Amazon was cracking down on people for, hey, you took a a 45 second break here or but, but that's France. Okay. So the good news is I I I think the only 3 listeners I have in France are bots that are trying to get my passwords or something, so I'm not worried about that.
Mike Coffey:But employee surveillance has been a big deal in the US too and, that story jumped out at me just because of that. But, since 20 especially since 2020 and everybody went remote, we've built out all these systems to monitor how long somebody's active on their desktop on their their laptop keyboard, things like that. Looking at the length of Zoom meetings, there were several of those listed in a Harvard Business Review article on it. You know, everything from, you know, how long Zoom meetings are, there's even software out there that I talk about in my AI presentation that monitors, the actual nature of the conversations in Zoom meetings, and and and reads all the emails to determine if they're, you know, through AI to determine if they're related to work or not. So there's a lot of surveillance going on.
Mike Coffey:I think most of it is well intentioned by the employer, but I can see why some employees feel like it's kinda creepy. Is it coming up much in your conversations with employers?
Sarah Glaser:I don't have any clients who are going to those kinds of lengths. Or if they are, they're not telling me about it. So so if you're listening, call me. Let's talk.
Mike Coffey:Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. Call your lawyer.
Mike Coffey:But
Sarah Glaser:Yeah.
Mike Coffey:You know, there's even more basic stuff like dropping into employees email boxes. And we tell employees you don't have a right to privacy at work. Your email belongs to us, and and, you know, and so a manager's sniffing through somebody's inbox or their sent file or whatever. Anything you have any concerns about anything like those kind of issues or that, like, you know, when it comes just to more routine, you know, just making sure they're doing you know, it used to be managing by walking around. We you know, we'd walk over and see what the you know, just look over their shoulder, see what's on their screen.
Mike Coffey:But now that everybody's remote, that's not available. Mhmm. Any thoughts on about that?
Sarah Glaser:Yeah. So I think that so long as the employees are given appropriate disclosures as to whatever it is that you're doing, if the employees know that you're doing it, then from a legal perspective, it's your system, it's your work, it's, you're paying the employee for their time. Now do I think you should be checking in on what they're doing while they're on their lunch break? I do not. But but so long as you got a personnel policy and and you are very clear to your employees that that the systems belong to the organization and they shouldn't have an expectation of privacy, then then from a legal perspective, I think I mean, you can look at that stuff.
Sarah Glaser:But the bigger question to me is is should you look at that stuff? And and that implicates, importantly, employee morale. I I don't want anyone looking at it's not that I don't want anyone looking at my email because there's nothing in my email that you can't see except that it's confidential and privileged. But Right. Yeah.
Sarah Glaser:But As an assignment. That. You know, I don't have secrets in my email, so it's not that you can't see it, but but there's it begs the question of why do you want to see it, and and do you is it because you don't trust me, and and why don't you trust me? And that's that that's sort of an overarching thing that you can say about all of these surveillance measures. So I was reading that Harvard Business Review article you sent, and I thought it was really interesting that they split surveillance into 2 different kinds.
Mike Coffey:Right.
Sarah Glaser:Right? Like, the the surveillance to check up on employees and make sure that they are doing what they are supposed to be doing. And then the types of surveillance that we do, like data collection, to help employees be better at their job, however that looks. And a great example of that is that, the the Viva Digest that you get every Monday morning or Sunday night from Microsoft that tells you how many meetings you've been in and what you did. And, you know, I don't really find that data to be particularly helpful because I just do what I do.
Sarah Glaser:But and I don't find myself in a whole bunch of meetings, but, but I could see how that would be really valuable intel for someone who is sitting at their desk saying, what did I do all day? I don't even know what I've done, and I haven't gotten anything accomplished. Well, let's look at how many meetings you were in. So that type of data and that type of surveillance can be really beneficial to employees. But if you're just watching my email or watching, the the websites that I click on, in my browser, which by the way, I'm an employment lawyer, so I'm looking at all kinds of weird stuff.
Sarah Glaser:Oh, yeah. So so you would find that really interesting. But, but if you're just looking at that for with the intention and the goal of getting someone in trouble, then, then you're not really serving your purpose and you're not, you're not moving the organization forward in a in a good way.
Mike Coffey:Yeah. I think that they called it control versus development and and that there are managers who and we've all dealt with them, who play gotcha with their employees and are just looking for, especially and that's the other thing is they they once once somebody's on their bad list, that's when they really start paying attention to this, and so it's not consistent across the organization. But like in our organization, all my employees get numbers about their quality from the and they come in in the morning, there's an email that says, here's what your quality numbers were yesterday, and here's what your productivity numbers were. Here's and and so that's in that's good for them to see, you know, you know, what what did I do wrong yesterday, and they can go look at each of those, you know, any errors they had. But they can also say, oh, yeah.
Mike Coffey:Well, here's why I know why my productivity was low yesterday because I worked on this one thing that shows as a one item on a productivity list, but it took 2 hours and it and it killed a big part of my day. Well, that's what it is. And so but we can also, as supervisors, review that and say, you know, why is this person why is their productivity low? So maybe we need to do some retraining or have revisit with them. But it's not a gotcha.
Mike Coffey:It's not like, you know, if you don't clean up your act, we're gonna toss you out of here. You're being lazy. It's okay. Let let's figure it out. Let's figure out what's going on.
Mike Coffey:Let's figure out how to help you deliver value and and maybe have a less stressful work environment throughout the day.
Sarah Glaser:Yeah. And, you know, there's sometimes you do have someone who is, devious or engaging in misconduct or or not not working because they're not working. And and it doesn't mean that you can't use that, surveillance, for lack of a better word, to work with them and to issue discipline or ultimately to support a termination. But, but it shouldn't be your primary goal. As you said, it should not be a gotcha.
Mike Coffey:And and on some of that like the content of people's emails, maybe, what websites they visit, some of that should be really I think not every frontline supervisor should have access to that. Let's route it through IT and IT, you know, the flags go up on you know in IT. Hey, we've you know, we've caught this thing and then maybe HR is involved or something. So it's not every supervisor having a lot of discretion about what they care about and what they don't.
Sarah Glaser:Yeah. Absolutely. I think if you've got your frontline supervisors looking at this stuff, they number 1, surely, they have better things to do. I know. But but number 2, whenever you give a bunch of people the same job, then you run into inconsistencies in how that job is done.
Sarah Glaser:So this is something that really ought to be treated in a kind of a consistent manner. If you're gonna collect data about people's productivity and stuff, then then you shouldn't have Joe treating people differently than Jimmy does.
Mike Coffey:There you go. And, well, that's all the time we have this month. It's the very last day. So well, thank you for, rejoining us on Good Morning HR, Sarah.
Sarah Glaser:Always a pleasure. Hope you'll have me back.
Mike Coffey:Oh, definitely. 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.
Mike Coffey:And thank you to Imperatives marketing coordinator, Mary Anne Hernandez, who keeps the trains running on time. And I'm Mike Coffey. Please 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.