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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 (00:01.442)
Hello and welcome to HR Voices. I'm your host, Rebecca Taylor, and I'm here with Danessa Quadros, the VP of People at WH Smith North America. Danessa, thank you so much for being here.
Danessa Quadros (00:11.953)
Thank you, Rebecca. I'm super excited about today.
Rebecca Taylor (00:15.124)
I'm very excited too. And I think that like, you for those who are new here, just to give you some context on what HR Voices is, we explore real and fabricated anonymized employee relations scenarios through the lens of experienced HR and people leaders, just like Danessa. So we're going to evaluate a realistic workplace situation and demonstrate how we would 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 a single correct answer because so often in HR that just does not exist. And the beauty of our role is that we get to kind of live in the gray and this is kind of the gray that we're gonna be talking through today. Denessa, wouldn't it be so much easier if there was like an obvious answer to every single thing we had to deal with?
Danessa Quadros (00:59.085)
Yes, every day I think about that.
Rebecca Taylor (01:02.05)
That's the dream. It's like when they say, what's one thing you could do if you could wave a magic wand and change your job? What's the one thing? I'd be like, make it easy to make the answers clear always.
Danessa Quadros (01:10.875)
Yeah, but that's the fun of it too. You know, that's, that's the people part of it. We, we are problem solvers at the heart of our jobs in HR. So I wake up every day and I know there's going to be something for me to solve. And it might be little, might be big, but there's satisfaction in that.
Rebecca Taylor (01:29.346)
Yeah, I think that's why so many things just end up on HR's desk when no one knows what to do with them. Because like we are really good problem solvers. We are good with like, never done this before, let's figure this out. Which kind of takes us to, you know, to our scenario. Because I always say that these scenarios are kind of like, it feels like an episode of CSI where we get very little information and we have to kind of piece together the clues. So are you ready for your scenario today? Okay.
Danessa Quadros (01:52.892)
Let's do it.
Rebecca Taylor (01:54.798)
We're calling this one the counteroffer cascade. A valued analyst receives an outside offer and presents it to HR expecting a counteroffer. HR approves a 22 % raise to retain her. Within two weeks, three other employees on the same team discover the raise, demand similar increases, citing pay equity, and threaten to leave. Two of them do have documented performance levels comparable to the retained employee. HR must decide whether to conduct a broader pay equity review, whether the counteroffer set a precedent it can't walk back,
and how to address the employees who are now aware of a pay disparity they find discriminatory. The retained employee is furious that her private salary discussion became public. So, before we jump into too much, what stands out to you as the most risky or unclear in this scenario?
Danessa Quadros (02:41.085)
So the first thing that I hear when you read through the scenario, and it's a scenario I think that is very common, you will find this in your career. And it's unique because depending on your organization, if you're a big organization, maybe you have a large comp team and a whole department in compensation that can help you through this, or maybe you're an HR team that's smaller in.
Rebecca Taylor (02:49.591)
Mm-hmm.
Danessa Quadros (03:06.811)
You're the HR business partner and this lands on your plate today and you've got to solve that problem today. But the number one thing with compensation is there's always emotion behind compensation. So you want to look at the people first and really solve the root problem of what's driving this emotion for them. Compensation, if we like it or not, is tied to our value. That's how people see
their value in the organization. How much am I getting paid? How much do they recognize me? So that's the first thing that comes to mind. This is an emotional situation and we have people that we have to give answers to one way or another. So what I wrote down while you were going there, and I always like to look at it like a math problem is, okay, we have three employees that are upset and asking for more money.
We have one employee that we retain that's highly valued. They're upset that their information somehow got out to the rest of the group. And then we have one other person in this situation. We have probably one stressed out manager, one stressed out leader, and we have to solve for all five of these people. So that's my first thought going into the situation.
Rebecca Taylor (04:22.253)
Yeah.
Rebecca Taylor (04:30.753)
Yeah, yeah. And so who do you start, who do you talk to first? So you've got those three employees that you mentioned, you've got the stressed out manager, you've got the employee in question who's retained. Who do you start with in having any kind of conversation and what information or context are you trying to get?
Danessa Quadros (04:48.455)
So the first person I'm going to start with is the leader, the manager. And I'll just do some open-ended questioning here. So I want to stabilize first. That's my first kind of action. Let's stabilize. So I'm going to talk to the manager. Tell me what's going on. What have the employees told you? Most likely they have gone to the manager first and have been upset with the manager. So I'm going to get that information. I want to stabilize. Then I'm going to go to the team, those three individuals that are really upset.
I want to acknowledge them. I think sometimes HR hears a concern and they go automatically to problem solving. And maybe there's work being done behind the scene and then the employees are there asking what's going on. What's going on? So.
Rebecca Taylor (05:29.909)
Woof! Woof! Woof!
Danessa Quadros (05:37.401)
I would acknowledge the employees and I would do that on a one-on-one basis, call them into my office, go meet them somewhere in a public space and just chat through their concerns, really try to get data from them on what's causing this problem for them. Is it really compensation driven? Are you just upset because somebody else is getting paid more on the team and that might be an assumption? We don't know. Or is there something more? You're not feeling valued in your role?
Maybe there's some family issues happening. So those are things I would just search for.
Rebecca Taylor (06:15.531)
Yeah, kind of trying to get to like, where's everybody starting? Like, I like that you're saying you don't want to assume what the reaction is about or what the root of the situation is, because even if you have three people with the same reaction, they could each be coming at it from a different spot. You like you said, one, could be about not feeling seen, one, could be about my family could use that money, and one, it could be just about truly about like fairness, right? Like why if we're all doing the same job,
you know, why is one of us getting paid more than the other, which is it's complicated sometimes, right? Because there's not I think that's what makes this hard. I mean, there's a lot that makes it hard, but it's like not everybody is going to have the exact same salary in a role all the time. Right, wrong or indifferent, even in states where there are pay transparency laws, you have to post a range because there's usually a range for a role. And the range is kind of based on your level of experience, your perceived value, right?
all these different things. So when you're talking to the manager, that leader, so I start to make up like things because these scenarios are fabricated. So I'm like, I'm going to follow a thread. if the retained employee is the one who's mad about her information getting revealed to everybody, these three employees know what's going on. And HR didn't say anything.
I have to wonder, is it the manager who said something? Like, how did they even find out that this happened in the first place, right? So how do you line up a conversation with that leader? And what is it that you're really trying to get from them? you know, how do you want to, what do you want to talk to them about basically?
Danessa Quadros (07:47.547)
Yeah, one of the one of my most favorite things to do when questioning leaders or managers is ask really broad questions. Don't go all the way down to the point where you're trying to solve automatically. Go broad because when you go broad with your questions, you're going to get these little nuggets of information and then that's going to help you solve the bigger picture. So.
I will most likely go to a leader or, you know, this, this upset employee and just start with what's going on, you know, what a really simple question, what's going on and have them just tell me everything and follow that thread. Like you just said, and ask them, you know, again, more open ended questions until I get to the point where I feel like, okay, I have enough information. Who knows the employee might say, I was telling my boyfriend.
Rebecca Taylor (08:22.594)
Yeah.
Danessa Quadros (08:43.035)
And then my boyfriend told their friend and their friend works in the same department. It's a snowball. It could be anything. And then, you know, if it was the leader, it could be a scenario of, I was just telling another leader in the lunchroom and somebody else overheard. And then, you know, it snowballs from there. So whatever the root cause of that is, I will. And again, I like to take notes.
Rebecca Taylor (08:48.941)
It could be anything, yeah.
Danessa Quadros (09:11.985)
That's one of my biggest things in HR and a tip I would give anyone coming into the field, make sure you're taking notes because a scenario can really snowball to the point where you lose what the, you're trying to solve in the core of it. So, you know, if it was the leader that told somebody and it got out, you want to go back to that moment. You want to make sure you get your coaching, the leader and saying, Hey, you have to be more.
Rebecca Taylor (09:28.322)
Yeah.
Danessa Quadros (09:41.287)
cautious about what you're saying in public spaces. Or if it was the employee, okay, I hear why you're upset. I understand it, but you want to be careful about who you talk to about compensation. Not saying not to talk about compensation. Just be careful about it. And if it's going to make you upset, be aware. So always looking for those coaching moments and making sure you're circling back for those coaching moments.
Rebecca Taylor (10:03.137)
Yeah.
Rebecca Taylor (10:09.185)
Yeah, yeah. And other you say, you know, write things down because you never know how something can snowball. Most of the time, it's like most in my experience, most things, most employee relations situations, for example, start with something small that gets allowed to escalate or that, you know, the more you kind of start to pull at a thread, you start to see things really unravel. And you can really only see the bigger picture when you've got the documentation of your conversations or
even of the complaints, right? It's just like, if you have to do an investigation now to figure out the pay disparity or the pay discrimination part, like that's a heavy accusation or just a heavy scenario to deal with, right? So you need to kind of look at lots of different data from all over the place, like how were decisions made about whatever their current compensation is? What was the discussion in figuring out this counter offer?
and how were these decisions made? And if you don't have the documentation, even the old documentation from how these original decisions were made, it's really hard for you to kind of start even here to prove or disprove that there isn't discrimination happening. And sometimes it's like, if you don't have really good evidence to show that it's not discriminatory, that there's reasons and here's what they are, unless you have that, you open yourself up to so much more risk, unless you just level everybody out to the same salary, right?
Danessa Quadros (11:34.301)
Right. Right. And in this scenario, that's exactly what you're trying to avoid. You're trying to avoid, I think the biggest mistake here that you can make is making three more emotional comp decisions in response to the one. You don't want to make an emotional response. And the sound bite is actually really interesting because the employees are coming to you and saying, well, she got a 22 % increase. Okay. 22%.
that could be that she was underpaid before. Maybe she came from a different role and now she's even with you guys. You don't know the full story. the employees are telling you 22%. I want 22%. Well, you don't even know what 22 % entails. So let's go and discover the data and go on this journey together and ask the right questions so we can get to the right solution.
Rebecca Taylor (12:17.635)
Yeah.
Rebecca Taylor (12:28.364)
Yeah, yeah. I would say there's also something, there's a little detail in here that, again, these are fabricated scenarios. This is all made up. So we have to take some of it with a grain of salt, right? But there's a detail in here in that first sentence that this valued analyst, whatever valued might mean, receives an outside offer and presents it to HR expecting a counteroffer. So if you're expecting a counteroffer, why were you interviewing in the first place? Why, you know, what was the, is this really about?
Is it really about compensation for them? it, cause there's a lot of discourse about counter offers in the HR community, right? It's like counter offers and backdoor references are the two like most debated things that I see in the recruiting side of the business. And you know, it's like, if you're going at expecting a counter offer, could that also speak to maybe the comp philosophy of the organization? Like, could this be something that flags maybe bigger issues that this is the first person who's really kind of giving you an idea that something's going on?
Like maybe everybody feels underpaid and like the only way they can get a raise is if they go and get another offer somewhere else and eventually convince the company to keep them. Like that's where my brain goes. I just always assume that it's a bigger thing unless I'm proven otherwise.
Danessa Quadros (13:38.365)
Yeah. And I'll say, you know, exactly to your point, counter offers should be rare. They really should be rare. It shouldn't be a trend in the organization. And exactly to your point too, why was this person interviewing? Why are you looking outside? There is so much importance to the HR business partner role doing stay interviews or encouraging the leaders to
Rebecca Taylor (13:48.621)
Yeah.
Danessa Quadros (14:07.911)
do state interviews with their team. I would say, like at least quarterly, to make sure you have a pulse on what your team is doing, if they have any concerns, if people are looking for growth, especially because this talent market is so competitive right now. If you have somebody that you want to hold onto, you need to be having conversations with them, checking in on them and building that trust with them so they don't decide to get wandering eyes and go outside.
Rebecca Taylor (14:37.75)
Yeah, so they know how you feel about them and why they're so it's like if I'm that valuable, then show me. And, you know, if there are things that I can do to be more valuable, also tell me what that is. I think that's the other part of the conversation, too, right? It's like if I'm not considered a highly valued employee for whatever reason, what is a highly valued employee and how do I get to be that too? Like, what can I do and how can we kind of work with each other on that?
Danessa Quadros (15:02.543)
Yeah, I joke with my team. and if they're listening to this, they'll probably laugh. All I always say, all things can be solved with communication. It's really true. So either you're being curious or you're being really direct about the situation. so all things could be solved by communication.
Rebecca Taylor (15:12.82)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Rebecca Taylor (15:23.66)
Yeah, it's so true. It's so true. And you think about when you're weighing, there's there's competing priorities or competing things that you're kind of fighting in this situation too, right? Because there's, you know, you've got the three employees who are obviously disgruntled because now they feel like they're underpaid, whether that's true, valid, whatever, that's how they feel. And like one thing that I learned in HR is like, feelings aren't facts, but feelings are facts in situations like this. It's like, even if you're not underpaid, if you feel underpaid,
Danessa Quadros (15:50.109)
Yes.
Rebecca Taylor (15:53.249)
act as if you are or like talk to the person and like don't dismiss the way that they feel because it is true. is their truth in that moment. And sometimes it might actually truly be the truth. But it's like you can't just dismiss that or pretend that that's not there because most of our job is just meeting people where they are emotionally to kind of get to the right sort of, you know, conversation and communication to get to the right outcome. Well, there's also like usually, you know, a company will fight to retain someone.
because they're like, well, if this person leaves, we're totally screwed. This person is owning this many projects or they're the top performer or whatever that is. So to your point, you make an emotional decision to put together a counter offer to save that one person. And now you see the fallout of that. You make a short-term decision to save one and now you have three who are upset and four who are no longer.
working with the same enthusiasm because now this retained employee is upset that her information was revealed, right? So it's like, it's really, really, these things can really snowball really quickly if you don't address them in with as much thought as possible.
Danessa Quadros (16:59.771)
Yes, absolutely. And that will have to happen in conjunction with the leader. always HR is a part of the conversation and help coaching the leader in the conversation to make sure that the message gets delivered properly, right? With the right tone and you're hitting all those facts, but it's important that that message comes from the leader.
Because sometimes you see leaders kind of wipe their hands, this is not my decision. Well, you know, leader, you're going to have to deal with them moving forward. This is your team. So making sure that the leader is fully bought in on the solution too is going to be important there for success moving forward.
Rebecca Taylor (17:46.031)
Yeah. Sorry, I just knocked something off my desk. So if you heard that crash, it's just some casual agreeing that sounds here. It's true. like you have to partner with the leader. it's like there are so many things that are hard about leadership and about being a manager. And some of it has to do with the fact that a lot of managers aren't really prepared for their moment of managing or their moment of leading. It's kind of like you learn when you're already in the fire.
Danessa Quadros (17:49.021)
What was that?
Rebecca Taylor (18:15.896)
you're lucky if you learn and you're not just dealing with kind of situations after situations. So thinking about this, like, you know, this specific incident, you know, is one example. But if we look more broadly, what are some things that HR can do to prepare managers for these kinds of moments, counter offers, you know, disparity in pay? Like, what are some things that HR can do to help so that these don't blow up as much as this particular scenario has?
Danessa Quadros (18:45.445)
Yeah, that is excellent. And it really depends on your maturity in the organization and where you are. Again, if you're a large organization and you have a whole compensation department, maybe you have a comp philosophy that's out there on your internal site and everybody knows that comp philosophy. If it's pay for performance, potential, you pay to the market. That's the first thing. What is your compensation?
philosophy and do people know it? Do people know that? And then you can't help the rumor mill, you know, people just talking about compensation. It's always going to happen and you shouldn't discourage the conversations at all. It's important to have that paid transparency for everyone. But sitting down and talking to people about their value, their career, where they want to go in their career.
Rebecca Taylor (19:17.955)
Yeah.
Danessa Quadros (19:42.415)
is probably the best tool managers can have. And it applies to compensation, but it applies to a lot of different parts of the employee life cycle. So we've actually done things where we've done workshops with managers, small groups and all from different departments, but doing some role playing and having the conversation with an employee that's a top performer and really want them on the team for a long time.
Rebecca Taylor (19:51.831)
Yeah.
Danessa Quadros (20:11.067)
And then maybe the employee that needs encouragement and guidance. So sitting with them and really talking them through what that conversation could look like and giving them a structure to that conversation. So I've done that many times. I've done it one-on-one. I've done workshops, but it's all about practice. know, it's all about practice. You have to practice before you get into the scenario.
Rebecca Taylor (20:29.537)
Yeah. Yeah.
Rebecca Taylor (20:35.947)
That is exactly it. It's like the practicing over and over again because it's always gonna be, it's always good to know something in theory, a framework, a piece of paper, it's helpful, but unless you really build those muscles, like it's always, you're never really going to have that skill unless you're practicing and doing constantly. So yes, I love that.
Danessa Quadros (20:54.841)
Yeah. And it's scary too, you know, I can see how that's scary for a leader to have a pay conversation, a performance conversation. So the more you're comfortable with it and you're comfortable just getting those words out, that's the hardest part, right? You're just getting your thoughts out. The easier it will go for you. And then the team member will feel that. They will feel that you prepared for it, that you actually care. And then you're building trust with that person.
Rebecca Taylor (20:58.444)
Yeah.
Rebecca Taylor (21:11.01)
Yeah.
Rebecca Taylor (21:23.809)
Yeah, I was going to say that's the big thing that you're getting at is that trust because that's what puts people in a situation where if you are dealing with counter offers or if you are dealing with, you know, looking for a new role or if someone on your team decides to leave and then stay, if your employees trust how the leader handled that situation, then there's going to be less questioning around the pay disparity. There's going to be less questioning around, you know, well, this person wanted to leave and now they're staying. So why are they getting paid more?
and just the situation kind of around it. It's like, that's the hardest, trust is the hardest thing to earn and the easiest thing to lose. And it comes with having those ongoing conversations, leaning into discomfort as a leader, giving people space, right? To kind of just express what their questions are and honestly giving them honest answers when they ask direct questions. Like I understand that not everybody, not every single question or piece of
corporate life can be completely transparent, right? Obviously, that's just not true. But there could be a lot more transparency if managers feel equipped and confident to talk about it in an informed way. Because that's what gives people, you know, just the distrust in an organization. It's when an answer to a question feels like it's like a rehearsed, polished PR answer to a question. Usually you do that because you're not sure you can actually talk through what the truth is. It's not because the truth is something that can't be said.
And there's like, I don't know, just, that is one of the things that I am kind of interested about and how the workplace is evolving is this call for transparency and how communication really kind of helps with that.
Danessa Quadros (23:02.545)
Yeah, I've learned throughout my career, one of the most powerful phrases for me personally is, I don't know, let me find out and I'll get back to you. And the, I'll get back to you part has, is the game changer. That's what builds your credibility with the organization. cause HR can be hard sometimes you, employees don't necessarily trust you from the beginning.
Or leaders don't trust you from the beginning. So you're building your, your own brand in the organization and that follow through is going to be important. So yeah, I, I have learned many times. I do not know the answer. I'm not going to give you an answer that I think is right. That could actually get you in a lot more trouble. Please don't do that. so, you know, say, I don't know, let me get back to you. I'll find out and, and mean it, you know, and, follow through on it.
Rebecca Taylor (23:44.545)
Yup.
Rebecca Taylor (23:54.35)
Yeah, yeah. I think it's great advice, especially for anybody who's listening to this who might be facing a similar scenario to this or something in a similar vein, especially if it's your first time, it's okay to say, I don't know, let me get back to you. It's okay to slow down and not implement solutions or provide solutions without thinking about, okay, if we do this, then what happens?
It's kind of like, you know, they call it scenario planning for a reason. It's like, okay, let's say we give this person a raise. What are the things that could happen here? Let's say we let this person leave. What are the things that can happen here? It's okay to take the time to do that and to figure out what the best plan is and to work with your leaders and make sure that you have that foundation of trust before you make a gut raise and then have to clean up what happens afterwards.
Danessa Quadros (24:42.941)
Absolutely, absolutely. I think, especially as you go into your HR career, let's say you're a generalist and you're going higher, higher up the ladder, you're just going to have to do that at a pace that only gets faster, but you really start to master it. You really start to know who your stakeholders are and you problem solve almost quicker.
So going back to my note about writing things down, that's something I've taken through my career, but it helps me problem solve faster. And as you go into bigger environments, I think startups right now are really interesting. People are pivoting more to the smaller organization that's leaner and more agile. So decisions are gonna happen quicker. And I think a lot of people are feeling that currently in organizations.
So just set yourself up for success is kind of the point. Make sure you are stable so then you can stabilize others and really problem solve with a clear mind.
Rebecca Taylor (25:49.933)
Yeah, I love that. Make sure you're stable so you can stabilize others. I like that a lot better than put your oxygen mask on first. So I like that a lot better. So if you can believe it, we're actually at time. So I have one final question for you, and it's a little bit putting you on the spot. So it's OK if you have to think about it for a second. I promised I wouldn't put you on the spot. So I lied. And I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. But what is one assumption about HR that you think needs to be challenged?
Danessa Quadros (25:55.559)
Yeah,
Danessa Quadros (26:23.213)
wow, that is, that is good.
Danessa Quadros (26:31.901)
I think one assumption about HR that needs to be challenged is you can't be dynamic in the sense of being a people leader and a business partner. And I'll just try to explain it maybe I could say it more eloquently. I think HR, there's two sides of HR.
Rebecca Taylor (26:51.937)
You're doing great.
Danessa Quadros (26:59.225)
or two buckets that HR gets put into. I think HR either gets classified as you're a heart leader, you lead with your heart a lot, emotions, or you're more of a business focused HR leader. I think there is the world right in it. I think it's today. I think the world today needs HR leaders that both see the person and both, and sees the problem.
and brings those things together. that's why this compensation scenario is so fantastic because you could have two camps really. You could say, okay, this is compensation. It's all data. Let's just go off the data and solve it that way. Or you can make it a real emotional decision and say, well, these people want more money. We want to keep them. Let's just give them more money. When you do both things, that's where the magic is. And that's where you find the real solution. So
Rebecca Taylor (27:27.19)
Mm-hmm.
Danessa Quadros (27:57.857)
I think there's a new generation of HR leaders that are doing both. We're learning from leaders that have come before us and I think it's a new environment and I'm really excited for it. I love this type of work. I wake up every day really energized by the things that I do and the community, this HR community. And Rebecca, I want to say thank you for creating the space too because this is so important.
you know, maybe there's an intern out there or a generalist out there listening to your podcast and learning, or maybe there's a CHRO getting a new perspective on how to solve a problem. I just want to say thank you for creating this space because it's important for our community.
Rebecca Taylor (28:33.825)
Yeah.
Rebecca Taylor (28:41.676)
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for contributing to it. This is like, to me, my HR career was built on learning from people like you, learning from my peers, learning from other CHROs who had been doing this for like 20, 30 years. And I just think that's like the more that we can kind of just like break things down and learn from each other, the more dynamic we're going to be at finding solutions for things too. So thank you for offering your perspective, your view, your experience here, because that's what makes these conversations so interesting, fun, valuable.
And I think something with a lot of really good takeaways for people who are listening. So thank you.
Danessa Quadros (29:15.907)
So thank you.
Rebecca Taylor (29:18.252)
And thank you everybody for listening and I hope everybody has a good rest of your day. Bye.