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HR Voices is a scenario-based podcast for People Leaders who’ve actually had to make the call.
Each episode brings experienced HR and People leaders into realistic, anonymized workplace scenarios—the kind you recognize immediately. Performance issues. Messy conflicts. Investigations that don’t fit neatly into a policy box. Instead of talking about their own companies, guests react to outside cases and walk through how they’d think it through in real time.
There are no right answers here. What you’ll hear is judgment: how seasoned leaders balance risk, fairness, legal reality, and humanity when the stakes are high and the path isn’t obvious.
HR Voices is for HR, People Ops, legal, and leaders who want to hear how other smart humans actually handle employee relations—without confidentiality breaches, hypotheticals that feel fake, or a lecture on “best practices.”
Rebecca Taylor (00:17)
Hello and welcome to HR Voices. I'm your host Rebecca Taylor and I'm here with Robert R.C. Whitehouse, the Chief People Officer, MiQ Digital. Robert, thank you so much for being here.
Robert (00:27)
Thank you for having me, Rebecca. I'm glad to be here.
Rebecca Taylor (00:30)
I'm
glad to have you here. And for those who are new, HR Voices is a podcast that explores real and fabricated anonymized employee relations scenarios through the lens of experienced HR and people leaders, just like Robert here. So we're going to be evaluating a realistic workplace situation, and we're going to demonstrate how someone in Robert's position will assess risk, apply judgment, and design practical responses. So the goal here is to reveal how strong HR leaders think when facing ambiguity. We're not necessarily looking to find one single correct answer.
because in HR we so rarely have one. So Robert, are you ready for your scenario?
Robert (01:05)
ready for my scenario.
Rebecca Taylor (01:07)
Okay, this one's called the complicit bystander. During a workplace investigation into harassment allegations, multiple employees admit they witnessed inappropriate behavior but didn't report it. Some say they didn't think it was their place to intervene. Others say they mentioned it to their own managers but never filed formal complaints. HR is now questioning whether the bystanders should face discipline for failing to report misconduct they witnessed, especially in a company with a clear reporting obligation policy. So...
As we absorb this particular scenario, let me just start you off right with what stands out to you as the most risky or the most unclear of what I just described.
Robert (01:49)
⁓ The most risky part that's also the most unclear is who knew what when ⁓ in terms of the need to report.
Rebecca Taylor (01:59)
Mm.
Robert (01:59)
My
experience has been that sometimes people know they're supposed to report and other times people do not know that they're supposed to report. You know, they all say, yes, I read the handbook, yes, I did these things. But in the moment, all of that knowledge kind of goes out of the mind or they didn't actually read it, so they didn't know. So that feels to me the most important based on what you've shared so far to get at the heart of that.
Rebecca Taylor (02:23)
Yeah, I think it's good is just kind of like know what they know or try to figure out what they know so you know whether you're dealing with non-compliance or ignorance or likely a combination of something, right?
Robert (02:37)
Exactly,
exactly. It's the idea of did you willfully make a choice not to report in that moment or were you just not sure or did you just not know, right? That's a different, it's a different, I think the intent and the like decision in that moment is an important data point.
Rebecca Taylor (02:43)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, I think it's a good point is sort of intent is something to kind of try to understand without assuming first, just kind of go in face value and then try to figure out like, what's going on and where do we begin with this? in that, who would you like, so you're trying to understand like what people know, what they don't know, who do you talk to first?
Robert (03:18)
I'm gonna make an assumption here that like we have verified that the thing being Discussed has happened that we've already verified the facts that this moment took place These people didn't report. Okay. All right. Yeah, I mean who would I speak to I would speak to First I would start with the managers because you mentioned there that some of the managers people said I told my manager But we never saw a report
So I would want to speak to those managers and check, did anyone ever highlight this to you? ⁓ And that is partially because in this kind of hypothetical scenario, I would want to hold our leaders probably to a different standard than I would just your average employee. If I think about,
say someone who's worked for a few years, someone comes to them and tells them something and says like, I don't want you to say anything, I don't want it to be a big deal. That's a difficult position for you to be in with your colleague, right? So I can understand how you might wonder what to do in that case. For a manager though,
Rebecca Taylor (04:12)
yeah.
Robert (04:17)
My understanding and I would hope is that your managers understand the expectations of the business and they would understand their duty of care and their responsibility in that moment. So I would start with the managers. Did anyone share this with you? Were you ever made aware of anything like this? That would be the place I would start to get a sense because in that case, if they said, yes, my direct reports told me then the direct reports actually did the right thing. You know, they actually did follow up. They brought it to a senior level person, someone more senior than
Rebecca Taylor (04:43)
Yeah.
Robert (04:47)
them and if the managers you know said that I didn't do anything after that because they said they didn't want anything done then that's a you know non-compliance I hate that word but that's what it is it's like non-compliance and notice to you is notice to the company is the sort of mentality right so that's where I would start
Rebecca Taylor (05:05)
Yeah, I think it's a good start to I'd agree with you just starting with the managers because they're supposed to know better. Like you said, they're supposed to have sort of a duty of care. And that's for some of the people said that they told their managers. There's also the subset of people that said they didn't think it was their place to intervene. So what do you try to understand about that group? Like, what's your thought there?
Robert (05:27)
Yeah,
it would be similar where I'd want to understand, okay, why did you think it was not your place? You know, what was said in the conversation again, because if someone's saying, have to promise me you're not gonna tell.
you know, there's strata and layers in every organization of people's professional maturity and experience levels. So all of that I would want to take into consideration, but I want to understand what was the scenario that made you think you didn't need to report this? ⁓ Because I also need to make ⁓ sort of an understanding and make sense of.
Did they think it was a big deal in the first place? Everyone sometimes has a different scale about what rises to the level. So understanding all of that will allow me to say, OK, is this a willful decision to not report something that they knew was problematic, or is this that they didn't recognize it as problematic?
Or is it that they didn't know what to do and their friend made them promise that they wouldn't say anything and so they kind of just felt trapped in the moment? Or they just didn't know they had to, right? ⁓ And then from there, it really becomes a question of is this a disciplinary action or is this an education moment? And it can be both, by the way.
Rebecca Taylor (06:30)
Yeah.
Robert (06:41)
but I think that's what I would be trying to get at. And again, I think you have to take the context of their role, their tenure, their professional journey, right? ⁓ If it's someone who was an intern six months ago and this is their first job out of college, you might be a little bit more lenient because they're still learning. If this is a 20 year veteran of the workforce, that's a different scenario.
Rebecca Taylor (06:55)
Right?
Yeah.
Yeah, I think that's important is just sort of level of experience navigating stuff like this as an employee, because especially when it's, you know, if you hear of something from a friend, you know, or friend that you work with and they ask you not to tell someone, it is complicated. Like it is hard as the employee to kind of know. And and I think there's also the do they know that there's a reporting obligation? And if so, do they know how to how to do that? How do they go about doing that? Right.
and there's, especially with situations, you know, like harassment, there's power dynamics involved. People are worried about being the person whose name is on something. So then it's, there's, it's not, it's never, I say this all the time, it's never as straightforward as just like, there's a policy, you should report it. End of story, right?
Robert (07:53)
It's never that simple, you know, because there's the human heart, human dynamics at play here. You know, I, you know, we say it can be hard for people in those moments. It's hard for HR in those moments. You know, you've done the job, you know, when someone comes to you and wants to report something and it's like, I really don't want you to do anything. I just needed to tell somebody and you felt safe. You know, there is a moment where you're like, I don't want to make their life more difficult and I don't want to do something that they're asking me not to do, but it has to be balanced with, okay, but what's my responsibility?
Rebecca Taylor (08:06)
yeah.
Yeah.
Robert (08:23)
my duty of care, not only to the individual, but to any future individual who could be impacted by whatever this behavior is, but also the larger business. But that conversation happens. I think HR people would not be honest if they didn't say that at one point or another, they've had that internal dialogue about like, do I, don't I, I know I'm supposed to, but I really don't want to make Rebecca's life difficult. So maybe is there a different way to do that? I think everybody does those mental gymnastics, but hopefully
Rebecca Taylor (08:47)
Yeah.
Robert (08:52)
HR lands on the right outcome where it's like I do have to do something right but I think it's hard for everyone you know.
Rebecca Taylor (08:54)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, I agree, especially when, you know, folks want, they want to be able to go to HR and they want HR to say everything you tell me is confidential. And that's just not true. And that to me is where HR loses so much trust with people because they say that everything is confidential or they say this is a safe space. You can tell me anything without the caveat of, but if it falls into some of these buckets, I can't keep it confidential. I'm not.
Robert (09:09)
not.
Rebecca Taylor (09:27)
I'm not a therapist, right? I'm not a priest. I do have, I also have a duty to take something above this. you know, I don't say that to scare you from saying something to me, but I do say it to set expectations of, I may have to take action. I may not be able to keep this quiet.
Robert (09:43)
Yeah, you know, we try and be really clear with that in the trainings that we do in the business. So when we do bystander intervention training, you know, we talk about, you know, that you have a duty of care and notice to you is notice to the company if it's something that rises to the level of harassment or, you know, wrongdoing that you have to report. And we put that in the training, but we also sprinkle it in where we can in conversations around like HR is here for you. HR is here.
to make sure you have a good experience and that this is a good culture. Part of the way that we do that, though it may seem counterintuitive, is by taking things where they need to be taken when we hear something problematic, right? For us to go handle it by ourselves is not the right course of action. ⁓ So it's hard sometimes for people to understand, but I think also for HR professionals.
Rebecca Taylor (10:26)
Yeah.
No.
Robert (10:36)
Being open about that whenever you can reinforces that. So people understand, you know, the HR role is the complicated one. You work for the business, you work for the people. You're there for the people, you're there for the business, right? And thinking of it as a collective, I find sometimes allows it to be an easier decision. Because you're like, it's not just about this one person in this moment. It is about anybody who could be impacted in the future. It's also about the broader business.
Rebecca Taylor (10:56)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. And it's about setting precedent too, without getting into all of the details of what that means. if you address something one way, one time, and you address different claims inconsistently, then that opens up a whole ⁓ other can of risk and worms of all kinds that you just kind of don't want to do that.
Robert (11:28)
⁓
You don't. mean, you know, it's ⁓ my grandmother used to say, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. You know, you can't have different types of process depending on who you are in the business or where you fall. have to, you know, you have to do the, I mean, that's why HR has sometimes a difficult job is you have to come times to do difficult things.
Rebecca Taylor (11:46)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I feel like most of the time it is, because it's so much of judgment of, know, usually it's sort of one of those scenarios where everybody loses a little bit of something. And that's just because that's just people just working with people, working with organizations. That's just like the truth of it, right? The company might have to give on something, an employee might have to not have the outcome that they're looking for. And that's just the reality, you know, of a lot of things that we see.
And if this case were in front of you, are there any assumptions that you're careful to not make?
Robert (12:23)
Yeah, I we talked about intent earlier. I try really hard not to assume intent. So it would be very easy to be the queen off with their heads. They've all violated the policy. There's no gray area. It's done.
Rebecca Taylor (12:25)
Yeah, yep.
Mm-hmm.
Robert (12:39)
That's not my version of HR. I don't think it's a particularly effective version of HR. I think it dehumanizes and takes the human out of the equation. So I try never to assume intent. I actually try to assume the opposite, which is that they may not have known. They may just not have known. So trying to go in free of memory or desire, as I've heard it say in sort of group dynamics work, there is no story in my mind.
Rebecca Taylor (12:43)
No. Agreed.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Robert (13:06)
I just am here to collect information. My job is to be impartial, to look at the facts. I'm not a judge, I'm not a lawyer, but like I also can't be going around with those assumptions. So I try to avoid assuming intent. Also try to avoid assuming any kind of outcome. You know, I found in my career, sometimes there is a, it's the human mind to say like, okay, if the answer is they did know and they willfully chose not to report it, your mind just goes to, okay, so what would happen then?
I try and stop that and shut that off when I can because I think sometimes it influences the types of questions you ask. The kind of outcome that you're seeing in your mind because you've thought it and done the thought exercise can influence it. I try and just stop that when I can. Like if I find myself doing that, it's like you don't know what happened and you won't know until you're done with that conversation.
Rebecca Taylor (13:33)
Right.
I think that's such good advice because it's so easy to want to say if this is true then this is true and this is true and this is true but we have not yet established if the first this is true is true, right?
Robert (14:06)
Right. Right. And it's complicated.
mean, you know, there's, there's always two versions and the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Another saying my grandmother used to say, right. And it's, it's very, it's very important, you know, and I think, again, I try and go in and just say, I don't know anything until I know something. That's when I act.
Rebecca Taylor (14:15)
It's true.
Mm-hmm, yeah. I think
that's it, yeah. And we may never actually get to the actual truth in these, because like you said, you know, there's so many different versions of it, and what's true to me might not be true to the other person who's involved, but as HR, we still have to find the thing that, we still have to make the judgment at some point about what to do or what's true and what's not to the best that we can, right?
Robert (14:46)
Right. Right.
Yeah. Yeah, we are not judge jury. You know, that's not our job.
I think of our job when it comes to these moments, which are hopefully few and far between for most HR professionals, right? Like that's why this is such a powerful example. It's like these happen rarely, but when they do, stick in your mind. ⁓ It's like, you know, I always tell the team, we don't go in to judge. We're not deciding the outcome. We need to collect the facts. That's step one. You just gotta understand what has gone on.
Rebecca Taylor (14:57)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. And it's, you know, at some point, HR has to make a call of some kind, right? So you've done your investigation, you've collected as many of the facts as you can. How do you weigh the competing pressures in a scenario like this?
Robert (15:31)
Yeah, I mean, I'm a big fan of laying it all out on the table, figuratively and literally. It's like, OK, what have I learned through the conversations that I've had? OK, those are those facts. OK, then I have to think about the broader context. Where do they fall in the organization? What is their role? Do they have any kind of disciplinary history before that, right, or not? And I think you just have to go back to, I'm a big fan of thinking about what are the values of the organization.
what decision is going to align.
with our values. That is the guiding principle. So when there's all these competing priorities, it's like at the end of the day, could someone say that the outcome that we've chosen, the decision that we've made is aligned with our values, then I can be with that decision, right? Because I believe in our values. If it feels incongruent with our values, it's probably not the right decision, right? And so I try and really focus on that, which silences the noise around, you know, the if this, then that, then that.
Rebecca Taylor (16:04)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Robert (16:31)
than this, it's just sort of like what is the most consistent with our values? If we say we are about backing each other and challenging each other, for example, does this decision back people and challenge them or is this letting someone off the hook? If it's letting someone off the hook, it's probably not the right decision because that's inconsistent with who we are. ⁓
Rebecca Taylor (16:32)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Robert (16:51)
And I really try and push all of us to think that way. know, as values as a compass, they set direction. They don't necessarily tell you exactly what to do, but they set direction.
Rebecca Taylor (17:02)
Yeah, it's so true. I read something, I'm going to butcher the quote, but it's something like culture is the worst behavior that your company will tolerate. It's like your company culture is the worst behavior that they'll tolerate. And these are the moments where you can say, our culture these, is it truly these values of what we stand for? Or if we let something slide, that then becomes our culture, whether we update our values on the wall or not, right?
Robert (17:13)
Yes.
Exactly, exactly. I mean, and you have to make room for people being people. I think, again, like the sort of very command and control model of HR is just not, I'm not a fan of it. ⁓ There are obviously environments where it must be that way, right? Medical, where you have sensitive information, things like that, right? Obviously.
Rebecca Taylor (17:40)
Yeah, agreed.
Yeah. Yes.
Yeah.
Robert (17:50)
But
for the most part, think the most effective form of HR is always just keeping the human in it, right? So like people make mistakes, right? And that is context that must be considered as well. know, if you have a star performer who has made a mistake.
Rebecca Taylor (17:55)
Mm-hmm.
Robert (18:04)
Do you give them some education? Try and change the behavior? I mean, there's obviously a scale of what that mistake is. Is that a huge mistake, a small mistake? But those are all the decisions that have to be weighed. But I think it's important just to call out, think, understanding that humans are human. They're going to make mistakes. They are not perfect, flawless. They're not robots, right? Everyone has said something maybe that they went, gee, I don't know if I should have said that. HR has done it.
Rebecca Taylor (18:15)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Robert (18:33)
I mean, would be dishonest
Rebecca Taylor (18:33)
Yes, we all have.
Robert (18:36)
to say that we have not, right? Where we're like, skated the lot. Yeah.
Rebecca Taylor (18:37)
Yeah, I don't know. I've been
perfect the whole time, so I don't know what you're talking about. ⁓ Everyone's lucky to be around me.
Robert (18:43)
I'm sure, I'm sure,
yes.
Rebecca Taylor (18:48)
I want to go back to something you said earlier that is like, you know, that you're kind of getting around now too, is you said, could this be a moment? Because one of the questions in the scenario is, do we punish the people who didn't report? So you mentioned something that this could be an opportunity for punishment or education or maybe not punishment, consequences, right? Consequences or education or both. What could that look like in a scenario like that?
Robert (19:14)
Yeah, I mean, I think, again, it depends on the intent piece of the equation. But I think if I
Rebecca Taylor (19:19)
Yeah.
Robert (19:21)
think about what would probably be the case is I would probably err on the side of education because my instinct and my experience tells me that most of the time it's that they're not sure what to do. So I think punishing people sends the wrong message because then it becomes a conversation about compliance and the whole point of reporting is lost in that conversation. Nobody's going to walk out of that room and think to themselves, gee, yeah, it's too bad what happened to that person and I need to report to make sure.
Rebecca Taylor (19:38)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Robert (19:50)
that they're okay and because it's the right thing for business and you know for the culture. They're gonna think my god I'm never gonna say anything to anybody ever again because I'm just gonna get in trouble for it. I thought I was doing the right thing. So I think education is where I would probably go. For managers maybe again I might hold a different standard where it's like you get the education but also here's a written warning like this cannot happen again.
Rebecca Taylor (20:02)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Robert (20:16)
You know, again, if I find out someone was deceiving or trying purposely not to tell, even when asked to tell, very different scenario. That is more disciplinary, firmer hand. But I think the education, because the point that you want people to walk away from this is, not you have to report everything.
what you want them to walk away with is that the duty of care exists, that the reason that we carry things forward is because, know, I'm gonna, your name is on the screen, Rebecca might come and say, I don't want anything done, but Rebecca has taken the time to tell you this thing has happened, which means somewhere she needs an outlet, something needs to be done. ⁓ You know, I say often that a complaint is sometimes a request in disguise. I think sometimes a,
Rebecca Taylor (20:36)
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yes.
Robert (21:06)
Sharing of something is a request in disguise as well. I'm going to tell you I don't want you to do anything, but I have still made a conscious effort to tell you something that has impacted me. I think there's a request in there. And so I remind people of that. But again, I think it's education. Education, because then next time they spread the word about the duty of care, the duty to report.
Rebecca Taylor (21:10)
Yes. Oh yes.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Robert (21:29)
and it becomes
Rebecca Taylor (21:30)
Yeah.
Robert (21:30)
less punitive and more about education and creating the culture that you want, which is people speak openly to each other,
Rebecca Taylor (21:37)
But it's true. you want to kind of treat it as, know, I like the, I like what you said, a complaint is sometimes a request or an ask for help in disguise. You know, it is, it is true. And it is natural to sort of say, this is the thing that happened. And then you're naturally kind of backpedaling with, I don't want to make a big deal of it because now all of a sudden it's nerve wracking as the person who that's happened to, right? But if you've made enough people aware, cause it sounds like there's enough people in this scenario where that you've, you've spoken to.
more than one person about it, right? You you are looking for some kind of a support. And it is kind of a chance as HR to take a collaborative approach to sort of say, hey, look, if we, you know, if the system works the way that it was meant to, ⁓ we could have heard more about this earlier, maybe intervened earlier. You know, we could have all done our part to take care of our colleague. And...
Robert (22:08)
Right.
Right.
Rebecca Taylor (22:30)
You know, it's not, I think that's the part that is always so funny about working in HR is everyone just wants to sort of submit their complaint and then not deal with it anymore and just see their, mess get cleaned up. But it's like, no, we're in a workplace. Like it's gonna, it does take all of us. It takes all of us to, you know, to see things and to be, make each other aware of things and to know better and to support each other. I know that sounds corny, but I will die on that hill.
Robert (22:53)
No, and
it's a hill worthy of dying on, I believe, because I think, you know, it is human resources. It's right there in the name, right, the human element of it. And it would be naive for us to think that, ⁓ humans are just gonna come in, there's never gonna be any drama, nothing's ever gonna happen, there's right and wrong, it's black or white, none of that, you know, that.
Rebecca Taylor (23:02)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Robert (23:16)
creates a very, very fear-based culture, which is just, I haven't seen it work anywhere.
Rebecca Taylor (23:19)
Yes.
Me neither.
Robert (23:24)
You know, you know, what you want is for people to feel like, okay, I can be my human self, which means I am flawed and I will have imperfections and I will make mistakes. The failure is not final. You know, it's not an off with their head scenario. It's a, let's learn from this, you know? And, you know, those moments are moments to create culture and to reinforce the culture that you want. And I think, again, like taking really drastic action again,
Rebecca Taylor (23:42)
Yeah.
Robert (23:54)
Qualifying that there are moments when drastic action is the right course of action But in these ones that are a little bit more gray and a little bit more nuanced You have an opportunity to build culture versus destroy culture and if you send six people out the door Not reporting you're probably doing more to harm your culture than you are to develop and support your culture
Rebecca Taylor (23:56)
Right. Right.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I could not agree more. And I have one final question for you as we wrap up, because believe it or not, we're at time, which is this flu, right? So I feel like this is an appropriate question just based on kind of what you're saying in this particular scenario. So what's one assumption about HR that you think needs to be challenged?
Robert (24:21)
I can't even believe that. Time flies. Yeah, time flies.
Great question. I would say the number one is that our primary loyalty is to the business. I was in the gym just last week and I was like, dagger to the heart, because some woman was like, well, HR isn't really there for you. They're there for the company. They're there to protect the company. And I wanted to be like, that's only partially true. I want it, but I'm like, we're at the gym. I'm not even going.
Rebecca Taylor (25:00)
Yeah
Robert (25:01)
But I think there's this common perception that that's the only reason that HR exists. But most HR professionals I know and the business that I work for, they want HR to exist.
for the people. It is not primarily to support the business. Of course, we're like finance. We have duties of obligation. There are things that we must do to protect the business. But I would say that's true of everyone on the floor as well and everyone in the business, right? Like they have a duty of care to the business and a responsibility to business. They're not spending outrageous sums of money just because they're not stealing, right? All of the same responsibility that I have.
Rebecca Taylor (25:30)
Yes.
Robert (25:41)
The only difference is that I sometimes get different information. It's a different job.
I think there is that real, if you don't get the answer that you want from HR, and that's mean it's because they work for the company and not you. The company is the people. So I work for the people, right? I work for the people. Yeah, I have a boss, but so does everyone else. But we work for each other because a successful business breeds opportunity. So I think that's the number one. think I'm not saying that HR doesn't work for the company. We all work for the company. We all work for the company.
Rebecca Taylor (26:13)
We all do. Yeah, no one's a volunteer. We all make paychecks.
We're hired to do a job for the company. Yeah.
Robert (26:16)
Correct. Correct. Yeah.
So I don't want to give the impression that I'm like, yeah, I'm only here for the people. That's not true either. But I think the fantasy or the misperception is that HR solely exists to protect the company. That's part of the job, but I believe it's part of everybody's job.
Rebecca Taylor (26:35)
Yeah, very well said. Thank you. I love that. And it's so true. You see it everywhere. see so many, you overhear it at the gym. I overheard it in the grocery store the other day. And I'm always just like, you know, like we're all here to just kind of get paid and do our thing, right? But you know, we're all here. We have a profession. The integrity of our profession is both for the business and for the people. And that's just the truth. So.
Robert (26:59)
Well, and typically when you hear those comments too, I'm often thinking about like flip the script. And I've said this to people in my career is like flip the script. Would you want me to do the opposite of this decision for someone that wasn't you? Right? And most of the time people have said to me like, okay, well, when, you know.
Rebecca Taylor (27:14)
Mmm.
Robert (27:18)
put it that way. I'm like, because then it's not really fair to the other people, right? ⁓ And is it doing good things for the business? you not want that action to be taken if this was someone else? And most people are able to do the twist of saying, okay, wait a minute. I realize the reason I'm disappointed in this answer is because it's the answer that I want, but I'm not.
Rebecca Taylor (27:39)
Mm-hmm.
Robert (27:40)
looking at the bigger picture of like, is this a fair decision, but is this a replicable decision? Could you do this over and over? I mean, there are decisions you can make, but you do them enough, you're out of business, right? So I just think, you know, it's important to shift that perspective and get people to think about, okay, if you were on the other side of this, what would you do? And if you had to do it multiple times, what would you do? Because that's context that's important too.
Rebecca Taylor (27:52)
Yeah, so true.
Robert (28:07)
The decision isn't in a vacuum. It doesn't just happen with that one person. Because we're people and we work together. Every decision affects other people as well.
Rebecca Taylor (28:08)
I love that.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, so true. So, true. Well, Robert, thank you so much for this conversation and for offering all your wisdom. I have so many quotes that I can pull from this just to kind of like think through. mean, even just like your last, you know, your last point, like if I did this for anybody else, would you feel different? Or I think that that's just such a helpful, it's a helpful rebuttal, I think, when you're the HR person who's kind of dealing with an employee who might be unhappy with.
Robert (28:26)
Yeah.
Rebecca Taylor (28:44)
the outcome of an investigation for reasons, right? It's a good clutch to kind of explore. So thank you for that. Thank you so much for being here.
Robert (28:51)
Of thank you for the invitation. I enjoyed it and I love this idea of let's talk through these scenarios. It's helpful because we can learn from each other.
Rebecca Taylor (28:57)
Yes.
Yeah, thank you. That's the point, right? It's like we're all just trying to figure it out. So it's like if we can just get more expertise from each other, why not? Awesome. Well, thank you, Robert, and thank everybody for listening, and I hope you have a great day. Bye.
Robert (29:08)
Exactly.
Thanks, bye.