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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.”
Official Julianne & Rebecca
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[00:00:00] Welcome to HR Voices, a podcast where people leaders share their side of the story. We talk about the challenges they're facing, how they're addressing them, and what changes they hope to see as the workplace evolves. This podcast is sponsored by AllVoices, the all-in-one employee relations platform. Hello, and welcome to HR Voices. I'm your host, Rebecca Taylor, and I'm here with Julianne Galli, the VP of People at Kindbody. Julianne, thank you so much for being here. Hi, Rebecca. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited 'cause I know that we have a scenario today that I think anybody who's listening to this, whether you're H- in HR or not, is gonna be sitting there like, yep, this is me.
It is either me now or it's been me before." So I don't know about you, but I'm excited to dive into this one. Oh, I'm very excited. I love to, uh, explore, you know, all different scenarios that we'll come across, in our paths, and of course, they'll come across them again. Yep. That's kind of the fun part of, like, HR too, is like, usually it can kind of feel [00:01:00] like Groundhog Day.
It's just like different versions of the same type of problem that keeps on coming up, but every day is different, and you never know what's gonna happen. And always, different challenges and different solutions, even if it feels similar. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. The context is what matters, right? Yeah.
Well, uh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna read our scenario out, and then we can kinda dive into what we're gonna be talking through with all of this. So we're calling this one The Demotion That Wasn't. A senior director is given a new title that replaces senior director, quote, with, quote, director of special projects.
His pay remains the same. His direct reports are assigned to a peer. His new role involves no team management, but he's told the change is a realignment, not a demotion. He's 61 years old. He files an age discrimination complaint, arguing the role change is a constructive demotion designed to push him out before he reaches full pension vesting, which occurs in eight months.
HR's documentation shows no performance concerns. The realignment, quote unquote, "was decided in a conversation with no HR involvement." [00:02:00] So thinking about so many different ways that I'm seeing versions of this show up in sort of the workforce today, but before we even get into any of that- Mm-hmm
Julianne, from a very high level, what stands out to you as the most risky or the most unclear in this scenario as it's laid out right now? I mean, as it's laid out, right, his age- Mm-hmm ... we're concerned, right? He has an age discrimination complaint for sure there. And I... the first thing I think about, right, is now why wasn't HR involved?
Why was HR not seen as a partner in this? You know, what if it is, a realignment that needed to happen in the department, HR should have been involved right away as a partner in it. And we see what happens when HR is brought in as cleanup. And clean up we do sometimes with these types of things.
So as you're kind of... I mean, I agree, I think, like, the age is, the age, he definitely has sort of grounds for a complaint like this from what we can see right now, right? You know, there's been no [00:03:00] performance issues. It seems very coincidental that this is happening, you know, when he's getting closer to his pension.
Mm-hmm. Um, and so, the fact that HR wasn't involved, I- it always makes me wonder, this is a fabricated scenario. These are not real people, so there's always, like, there's always sort of missing pieces that we kind of just have to work with. But it makes me wonder, you know, was HR not involved 'cause people didn't think to involve HR, or was HR not involved 'cause people intentionally didn't want to involve HR?
You know what I mean, the difference between those two? Yes. I mean, that was what I was thinking right away, too. And besides, also I want to know, which obviously they're fabricated, his peer, what's the age of his peer, too? I think is also- Yeah ... you know, something that he can then bring up as well, right?
Mm-hmm. So we have that whole, the age situation, and then no performance documentation, this real- you know, realignment without partnership from HR. And right, was it purposeful that HR wasn't involved, or [00:04:00] was it just, as we know sometimes, we can have leaders moving so rapidly- Yeah ... that they're just making these decisions, and they're not fully, you know, thinking about consequences of their decisions and who is there as their partner- in it. And I'm not trying to then also place blame on the HR side either because I, we have so much going on. But I also wanna know, what is the partnership like that- Mm-hmm ... they didn't think of them, if it wasn't done purposefully. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Even if it was, I'd be like, "What's the relationship like?"
'Cause that's not a great sign either, right? No, of course. Of course. But- Yeah ... you know, we do know sometimes we can be the most fantastic partners- Yeah ... and sometimes, you know- Yeah ... we're still 'Cause it's like they see us as, like, you're gonna introduce friction, and sometimes it's like, well, yes, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Right. Like, I'm not here to just be the, you know, I'm not here to just say no to everything, but it is kind of my job to be objective and insert [00:05:00] friction where friction might need to be, like, in a situation like this. Just, you know, I don't know how many times, like, my favorite tagline was always, "Have you considered X?"
Like, that's just how I would start so many questions, like, "Have you considered this? Have you considered that?" 'Cause that's usually the way that I figured out how to ask people, "What were you thinking?" without sounding confrontational in a bad way, so. Right. I, I think th- that's- A, a really difficult role that we play- Mm-hmm
right? And, and I've experienced this in, in talk, amongst our team about this, right? Like we, we have to be advisors and people need to see us as partners, and it can be frustrating sometimes when our advice is taken as we're purposely trying to create obstacles for them. Mm-hmm. And that that is not what we're trying to do, right?
Yeah. We're trying to see what's best for our people, what's best for the business. And we know that there's al- not [00:06:00] always a very clear answer for things- Yeah ... but we're trying to help and be a partner to these leaders and to the, all the people in the organization to make the best decisions for both.
Yeah. Yeah. It's so true. And so as you're ... So now let's kind of get into, all right, this lands on your desk. All of these factors are here. What do you do next? Like, who are you ... are you having conversations with people next? Are you looking for data and finding information first? What's kind of your order of operations for how you would kind of start to figure out what's going on?
Um, my legal partner first. So whether that's, you know, if I have someone in-house or we partner with someone externally- Yeah ... definitely want to work with them to run by the situation. And then, follow their guidance as well, right? Yeah. Uh, 'cause we have to look at that risk, right?
We have to look at the risk for the organization, and then I need to meet with the leader of the department [00:07:00] that made the decision, and I want to dig into what happened there, right? Why, again, why weren't we involved? Yeah. You know? Yeah. And I want to meet with this individual as well, and when I meet with the individual, I, I'm there as, uh, uh, it's more about me, like a fact-finding mission for them- Yeah
and also to make sure that they feel that I, I'm listening to them and I'm here to help them through this process as well, right? Yeah. So definitely not coming in any sort of biased angle, any sort of way to try to convince them that this wasn't what they feel it may be. But I'm here to help figure this out, um, with them and with- You know, the leader of the department that, uh- Yeah
did this realignment. Yeah. Yeah. And I think what's interesting about the way this is written in here is that he files an age discrimination complaint. So I look at that as he filed an internal one, not like an EEOC claim. Oh, okay. Um, [00:08:00] so that's, but that, again, that could be up to any interpretation, but usually they're kind of like called out, so they're filing a discrimination complaint.
And so I think, would you talk to him first, I guess? Like you'd ta- talk to him first about the complaint- Yeah ... and then kind of maybe walk through what, you know, what the process would be to investigate it? I would- Like to the employee ... hope he came and filed to me the complaint. Okay. Yes.
Yeah. Thinking he got an outside complaint. Yes, of course. Well, then I, then we wanna see does he want us, we'll talk through what, you know, an age discrimination complaint would look like. Is that what he feels like it was? If he, you know, then again reiterates yes, he feels that this was based on his age and based to push him out, then we go into an investigation, and I want to, talk to as many people that were involved in this as possible.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Because I imagine you wanna talk to at least the supervisor who made the decision. Yes. Um, at minimum, right? Who else are you talking to in this [00:09:00] process? I, well, I would f- when I talk to the supervisor who made this decision, who else was involved? It- Yeah ... to think it, themselves.
Like I- I don't know if what they're going to say, right? I think it depends what they're going to say. Yeah. Are they going to say this decision was, was based on performance, right? And then I wanna find out, well, how come we don't know anything about it? Right. Our documentation doesn't show that. We have no documentation on performance.
Do- do you have any documentation on performance? What has been tried to coach and counsel this individual before any of these things have happened? Yeah. I, or was this really a business need? And then again, why wasn't this done in partnership with me or my team? Yeah. Yeah, 'cause role reassignment is something you can't really just do on your own willy-nilly as a leader or as a manager typically, right?
Like it has to be [00:10:00] something that, you know, there are, could be, depending on the size of the company, you know, there could be most companies have some kind of a process, but also the larger you get, the more of a paper trail you need for evidence that a role does need to be reassigned or even just to justif- 'cause technically you're jus- you have to justify opening a new role that you're putting someone into.
Yeah. So I'm, I'm always curious, like how do you reassign someone without involving HR? Well, and then if you're thinking about there's this new role, are you, again- What about budgeting? And- Yeah ... like you know, how did we plan for this? Is there any workforce planning that has gone into this? W- you know.
Yeah. And it's, yes, I mean, there are so many different layers that they haven't approached and they need to work on, and it's not just moving, your team around like they're like, chess players on a board. Like- Yeah ... we need to see where that fits in the organization and, like I said, [00:11:00] planning-wise as well as any risks that may come up.
Yeah. Yeah. And speaking of risks, I'm curious about sort of what you think about timeline and timing 'cause, like- ... it, you know, usually there's sort of a balance between wanting to move at an ap... You wanna move at an appropriate speed, right? Sometimes too fast and you can miss things. Too slow and things can just, you know, linger too much and grow kind of in that time.
So how do you kind of balance speed with accuracy in a case like this? If you can, 'cause sometimes you can't. Sometimes it's kinda like you just kinda have to try your best. Yeah. I, I guess it depends on how many resources you have. I mean- Mm-hmm ... as we all know, we, we would all say we probably don't have as many resources- We don't have enough.
ever, right? We're always, you know, an investigation comes up and it's, it takes a lot of time. Yeah. But if you wanna do it right, and hopefully you can work, you know, whatever your team looks like, you can work with, you know, your, your teammates, your colleagues on some other [00:12:00] priorities that you may have and, that's why we all jump in and help each other out, right?
And, and you can have someone that can focus on this to make sure that they get all of the information as quickly as possible. You know, we've, we've had situations like that too where it's like, okay, we need, we need to come to a conclusion quickly. And someone has to focus on it, spend the next day or two just interviewing and, meeting with people and making sure all their documentation is right and, and analyzing and then, coming to a conclusion.
And the other things, you know, it- you have to reprioritize, or other people have to jump in. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. It's kind of one of those ones where I think the more resources you have, the better. But acknowledging most of us don't have enough ever, especially for something that, especially when it's something that you're just not expecting, you know.
Yeah. Where it's like, okay, I have all these other balls in the air, now I have to add this investigation and balance that. So yeah. [00:13:00] Yes. Yeah. But on one hand, it's what ... I mean, I know I don't wanna sound silly that these things are like- Exciting because they're not, they're unfortunate. Yeah. It w- it, it makes the role very interesting, right?
Yeah. Every day, like we said, like, yeah, sometimes you come across, you know, similar situations, but there're always there're always different nuances with them- ... that you need to discover, and they're always great learning opportunities, not just for you or your team, but for the leaders. Yeah. Um, so you just have to be prepared that, and that's why you make sure that you have the right operational processes on your team- Yeah
so that when something like this comes up, you can focus on it. Yeah. Yeah, you're not so dragged down in all this other kind of work and admin work and working so inefficiently that you don't have the bandwidth for parts of the job that come up that just aren't expected. Right. Yeah. Like this is not something AI can do.
It may be able- No ... to assist you. Yeah. But AI cannot do an investigation like this, no. [00:14:00] But, as of right now, AI cannot go and do an investigation in- Yeah ... an organization. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. I mean, this is kind of what's funny is like we're an AI employee relations platform, that's what AllVoices is, but we will always say that, like, we're here to make it easier for you to organize your documentation, to set up your consistent workflow, but like, we're not making any decisions for you.
This is a-- We're just gonna surface things. We'll tell you, you know, maybe this person had previous cases that they were involved in that might influence another case that's here, whatever that is. But it is all up to you to have the witness conversations, to then take everything that you see and then figure out kind of what you're gonna do, 'cause I'm like, I would-- it would scare me to think that AI is making those types of decisions for some folks.
Hopefully they're not. Well, that's what, uh, would allow you now when you're, something like this pops up- Yeah ... you have a tool like that, right? Yeah. You can address it and address it accurately and the way that you need to, right? Yeah. And the attention that you need to [00:15:00] pay to it, right? Yeah.
And do that because you have that, th- you know, that- Yeah ... taken care of, so you don't have to worry so much about that administrative burden. Yeah. Like, am I going in the right direction? Like I have some, guidance there. Yeah. But stuff that I, only I can really focus on, now I can do that and put more of, you know, my time and, and energy and mental energy into it.
Yeah. Into like the complicated, like nuanced, messy part of this whole thing- Exactly ... 'cause that, believe me, that is there. That will always- Right ... kind of be there. 'Cause we're people. People are just, people are just messy, and that's- Right ... and I don't-- I say that like affectionately- Right ... 'cause it's part of what makes, it's what makes us us, but it's the thing that we're always gonna be kind of balancing in HR too.
Like you could meet with this leader who made this decision, right? And- It's quite possible this person came from the best place ever. Yep. Right? They were like, "Look, this individual we h- we have this need for this special project, thought that they would be fantastic [00:16:00] on it, but they, managing people is, you know, not their favorite, or maybe managing people will be really hard for them to focus on this project.
I thought it would be a great thing for them to do." Mm-hmm. It's possible. I don't know. Yeah. You know? Oh, yeah. But it's possible. Yeah. And you need to take the time to discover what it was, and then that, then it's a learning opportunity for that leader, too, right? Yeah. You had the best intentions in mind, but, this is something that you need to work on with us- Yeah
with the individual. There are so many different, Yeah ... possibilities here. Yeah. It's like you didn't, maybe you had good intention, but you didn't consider these things that are now the part that we are now dealing with that make this an issue. Because it's kind of funny, 'cause, like, I always like to believe that people have the best of intentions in these types of scenarios, too.
It's just, you know, that I don't believe that anybody wakes up saying, "Who can I really screw over today?" Yeah. Like, I really don't think we're doing that. No. So when I see something like this, too, like if you read this in a different lens, like with different approach to what the [00:17:00] ultimate result is, it could look like succession planning, but poorly communicated and poorly strategized succession planning.
If this person, like, if their pension's going to vest, if they do want to, you know, maybe they've communicated that they, they wanna retire when their pension vests, right? Like making lots of assumptions here. Right. But it's like either way, this person, you know, may be leaving the workforce at or leaving the company at some point, and so maybe all the direct reports, they wanna have the time to move them to different people to allow this person to exit and not make their last few months crazy to do that.
L- if we look at it as sort of like an extreme version, the result could be the same, but we wouldn't be getting to a discrimination situation if that was something that was done in partnership with the employee, in partnership with HR- Right ... a clearly communicated intention, all the things that are missing in this description.
And then you can say, a- and we could also look at it like does, does the HR department have a clear process for succession planning? Yeah. It, so I mean, there are [00:18:00] so many different possibilities here. Yeah. But because they weren't addressed, that individual right away says, "This is the reason why."
Yeah. Yeah. And that is what you need to really, like, account for when you are making these decisions and changes, right? You, you need to think about, well, even if that's not what it looks l- it, it is, can it look like that to that individual? For sure. And how do we have to- account for that as we're working with them Yeah.
Like, this is what makes HR really good empathizers, too, and when we're brought into these kinds of conversations is we can almost play out a conversation from so many different angles, just sort of seeing, you know, like, well, this person could receive this information like this, or they could receive it like this.
We need to make sure that we're presenting it so that it has the desired impact as much as possible, but also give them the space to have maybe an uncomfortable conversation with us. It's like we're s- not to toot [00:19:00] our horn, but I think we're good at kind of just, you know, thinking through all the different ways people can respond to things, and just being ready for that because that's the thing, that's where a lot of these types of changes can really fall is just in the communication part, um, where things can just get misinterpreted and then get blown up into something.
Or, you know, this is assuming this wasn't truly ageism coming out, right? It was just maybe just poor d- poor communication, weird decision-making, whatever we wanna bucket it into. But the communication is where the, where things can really kinda get hairy 'cause if it's not done right and intention isn't clear, people do have rights to submit claims because they could be true.
Sure. Like you, I have no evidence to the contrary. I- if this wasn't discussed with me and I don't understand the business rationale around it- Yep ... what else can I point to? Yeah. Yeah. It's like I have to go where the evidence is because if this does go to court, guess what? That's what I have to do.
I have to go with the evidence that's there, [00:20:00] not what were you thinking or what were you feeling when this happened. It's, you know... So I think, you know, one could say, how do you avoid this? I was gonna ask, do you have advice for HR people who wanna maybe avoid this, or...? You know, I always say it does start with that partnership.
Yeah. You're not going to be able to avoid everything, right? Some people are just moving so rapidly and, you try your absolute best always. Yeah. Um, but it definitely starts with that partnership, and I think where things get really difficult sometimes is when, and again, this is, I love my HR people.
I am HR. Sure. But when we come in as, like, gatekeepers and as like I, I had an old leader that was like, "don't be the HR police," right? Yeah. Yeah. HR- We do have a reputation. Yeah, yeah. And you know, and, and it's true, but at the same time if something hap... Like I- Right
I am also charged [00:21:00] with helping to mitigate these risks, right? Yeah. And also making a great employee experience, too. Yeah. So you, you- You need to be that partner, and you need to make sure that you are developing a rapport with all in the organization. And it is difficult because then sometimes people, I've definitely hopped on a meeting and someone's like, "Oh, no, you're on a meeting with me on a Friday."
And I'm like, "No." Yeah. And I hate that. I know. I hate that. Yeah. And I'm like, "What do you mean?" Like, you know, where... So but you, y- you have to start there. Yeah. So and again, this may be the, in this situation, the, the HR partner was a great partner to this person, and they just moved really quickly, and they didn't even think.
Yeah. Um, but you can... I think it, it will definitely help if you develop the rapport, have, you know, consistent meetings, or have a partner that has [00:22:00] consistent meetings with the, you know, the leaders in the organization, and we're always talking through, "Well, what are your plans? What does the team look like?
What's going on in the team? What's going on in the business?" And you understand the business, right? That's another thing. Mm-hmm. Have to really understand the business. If this is a true business need, we in HR, or at least the leader, right, should know why, what's happening and why- Mm-hmm ... this might be needed.
Yeah. Right? Why this m- move in this department might be needed, and then they can come in and then help guide through it, right? Yes. Like, "Okay, understand. I understand this is a business need. I understand this is a focus," right? Yeah. Yeah. "We've got to look like this, but..." And what did you say in the beginning?
Have you, have you- Uh, have you considered this? Have you considered? Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yep. And then we go from there. Yeah. So it always, I think, starts with the relationship, and if you build that first and foremost you can help mitigate a lot of these things. Yeah. Yeah. I love that. That's such good [00:23:00] advice.
It's such good advice, and thank you for sharing that because I think that's like the part that we're all moving so quickly and thinking about, AI transformation and all this stuff, and I think that sometimes maybe we're missing some of the basics of just, like, preserving relationships, maintaining relationships so that ideally you can mitigate some things, but whatever you can't mitigate, that you can solve it more effectively or, you know, at least be tied enough to the business to kind of know, "Hmm, maybe there's something brewing here that I should make my business to understand."
'Cause that helps as like, you know, everyone sort of will complain about HR being the police, but sometimes it's like, well, it's because if this doesn't go right, then it's n- on me to fix it. Right. And I, you know, if I'm accountable to it, I need to be involved in it somehow. If we're, you know, and I, and I again don't wanna just sound like I'm just using, You know, buzzwords.
But like if we- Yeah ... definitely have that seat at the table- Yeah ... and we understand what's going on from a business [00:24:00] side, a change management side, then we don't need to be cleanup, and we don't need to be the police, right? Because we're there, and as the strategy's happening, we're talking about, "Okay, here are the possibilities," right?
Yeah. "And here are the other things we need to think about." And we're not knowing people, right? Yeah. Like, no, you can- like it's, I'm a partner. Yeah. I'm bringing my perspective. Finance is bringing their perspec- perspective. IT is bringing theirs. And then, you know, sometimes you gotta go fast, slow to go fast, right?
Yeah. Figure that out, and then you can make the move. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. Well, thank you. Thank you for the, all of your insight and everything, you know, into this. Believe it or not, we're actually at time. I was going to ask- ... what other advice you had for HR folks, 'cause I think you've given sort of a lot, but any other final piece of advice you wanna share before we wrap?
Ugh. I know. The big sigh 'cause like there's so much. There is. There's like, where do we even start? You know, I really would say, ~you know, it's great, like we have to, as, as a HR professionals, right, there are things that we need... I- I- it's, I'm sorry. I'm like, I'm like, but it's going back again. It's-~ Like I think my biggest piece of advice is being that partner, right?
Yeah, yeah. You do hold that information that [00:25:00] others may not think about or may not know, right? Yeah. And also always remember that sometimes there isn't a right answer. A lot of times- Mm ... there isn't a right answer. So even though, you know, you can come across and you may be like, "This is right. This is what it says.
If I go back in my books and this is what I read, and this is exactly what it says," barring something legal, right, and unethical outcomes. Yeah, yeah. There's always nuance like we were talking about, right? And there's always partnership, and even sometimes when you're struggling partnering with a leader, you need to figure out what motivates them and work with them on that so that you can get to this place where you're not that- Yeah
seen as, as almost like someone who causes friction. Yeah. So again, it's I mean, I've said it, but I really think the relationship is one, an understanding different styles to develop that relationship Yeah. Oh, I love that. That's so good. That's so good. Thank you, Julianne. Thank you for your perspective and for walking through this scenario.
And if you're an HR person [00:26:00] listening to that, to this, please feel free to reach out to me. I'm gonna offer Julianne as well. Feel free to reach out to us 'cause- For sure ... I really think that it sort of it takes a village, and we're just sort of in this time where we're all learning as we go. And so, you know, I think that, I think that the tagline for me for this episode is that there isn't always a right answer.
Right. Because that's so true. It's so hard to accept sometimes, but- ... it's true. Sometimes you just kinda have to do the best and then the next best thing, right? Yeah. So thank you. Thank you so much. Uh, this was fun. Yeah. Thank you. Thank everybody for listening, and I hope you all have a good rest of your day.
Bye. Thanks. Bye.