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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 Laura McLand the VP of Human Resources at Sun Holdings, Inc. Laura, thank you so much for being here.
Laura McLand (00:27)
Thank you, Rebecca. Appreciate you inviting me. I really enjoyed speaking with you and looking forward to this conversation.
Rebecca Taylor (00:34)
I'm excited too. And I know I think it's funny because we just finished prepping for this episode and I feel like we were just having so many good conversations that I was like, I wish we were recording already, but now we can kind of like bring more of the magic back now that we're officially in it. And so for those who are new here, ⁓ HR Voices explores real and fabricated anonymized employee relations scenarios through the lens of experienced HR and people leaders just like Laura.
So we're gonna evaluate a realistic workplace situation and demonstrate how we'd assess risk, apply judgment, and design practical responses. So I'll always say our goal here is to reveal how strong HR leaders think when they're facing ambiguity. We're not necessarily looking for a single correct answer because as we've learned in HR, that very rarely exists. A lot of operating in the gray. So Laura, I appreciate you being game to chat through these scenarios with me.
Laura McLand (01:10)
you
Sure, looking forward to it.
Rebecca Taylor (01:25)
Yeah, are you ready for it? I'll read it out for you. All right, so we're calling this one the exit interview bombshell. In an exit interview, a departing employee discloses for the first time that she witnessed her manager stealing from the company's petty cash over the past year. She estimates the total at several thousand dollars. She says she didn't report it earlier because she feared retaliation and needed her job. HR now holds a disclosure it cannot ignore, but the witness is leaving.
Laura McLand (01:27)
Yeah.
Rebecca Taylor (01:52)
and may be unavailable or unwilling to cooperate in a formal investigation. The manager has a strong performance record. So now HR must launch an investigation with limited evidence, a departing witness, and a subject who has no idea anything is coming. So, before we jump into any type of conclusion or action plan, Laura, what stands out to you as the most risky or unclear in this scenario?
Laura McLand (02:17)
Well, we definitely need some more information, obviously. And we also need to do an investigation. What is the cause of what's going on with this employee? Why haven't they communicated with HR before now and waited until the departing message to let us know what's going on? So that's what we want to do. That is on this particular
Rebecca Taylor (02:21)
Yeah.
Laura McLand (02:38)
location or in because we have restaurants. So did they even have the information available to reach out to us? Why did they not feel comfortable reaching out to us? And so that's important also. We also of course want to follow up with that employee and let them know that they can speak with us confidentially and that we are going to investigate that.
Rebecca Taylor (02:59)
Yeah, the investigation is always kind of the part where it's like, I always feel like I'm on an episode of CSI. Like I'm like, let me find the clues. Let me figure out, let me talk to some people. Let me find some evidence and see what's going on. So who are some of the people that you'd want to start to talk to as you kind of begin your investigation process?
Laura McLand (03:17)
So 100 % with that employee because they know the witnesses and that's gonna be part of our question to them is did anybody else know or was anybody else aware that this was going on? And so that helps we can actually start speaking with those witnesses and of course the manager as well. So we want to make sure doing an all encompassing investigation. Also, we want to go up a level. So even does the district manager want to do.
Rebecca Taylor (03:27)
Mm-hmm.
Laura McLand (03:43)
research on the finance set of things, did we even notice that that restaurant or location was having financial issues? And if not, how did we not see that?
Rebecca Taylor (03:55)
Yeah, there's a paper trail somewhere, right? Like the petty cash has been going somewhere and if you can't figure out where it's been going, then the roads might lead to where the departing employee says it does.
Laura McLand (03:57)
is it?
Exactly right. You know, that's what HR does, is that we put our CSI hats on, right? And so we kind of investigate. And you never know where that's going to lead. Sometimes it's an employee who is disgruntled, and they want to say something that's party that may not be entirely true. But we won't know that until we do an investigation and start talking to other witnesses and doing that analysis.
Rebecca Taylor (04:14)
Yeah.
Yeah. Now, how in terms of other evidence to, because I know we were talking a little bit again before this, I know you're talking restaurants, I come from retail. So usually in those types of environments, there's security footage and things like that, right? So how do you incorporate accessing that? I would work with loss prevention just to kind of start with that process to start to see, is there, you know, can you see anything? So how would you kind of partner with that to get more of that security type evidence?
Laura McLand (04:59)
Yeah, and that's exactly part of that investigation is working with risk. That's part of what's under their purview of getting access to those cameras. Part of that investigation is asking that employee when, what days did it occur? And so that we can narrow down the research on that footage and see if we can see where that is occurring and also where those cameras are in that particular location so that we can see from different angles and also review that.
several different days and see if maybe it was an anomaly of a certain situation that we may not know about, but also researching up, is this an ongoing issue at that restaurant?
Rebecca Taylor (05:37)
Yeah, yeah, that's the note that's interesting in this scenario. And these are fabricated, right? So we have to take some of what it says with a grain of salt. But the statement is that her manager was stealing from the company's petty cash over the past year. So to me, that implies like pattern, right? And I'm with you when you mentioned, did we notice anything about the finances of that location that would flag something that didn't look right? Because I know petty cash is petty cash, but you still
there's still a log of like what goes in and what goes out, right? It still needs to be accounted.
Laura McLand (06:08)
100%. And so what we also see sometimes in these scenarios is maybe someone, a manager, will do it at a smaller amount. So they're pocketing $20 or something. And, oh, OK, nobody noticed, so I'm going to do a little bit more and a little bit more until they get a little bit greedy of pocketing sticky fingers of a petty cash. And then it definitely comes up to a level that we know.
But we also want to make sure that again if an employee saw it the first time, that's when we need to catch it and not wait till it continues throughout a whole year and then when they're departing.
Rebecca Taylor (06:43)
Yeah, yeah. Now, this is so I can say this because I don't work at this company anymore. So if you can't answer this question, this is completely fine. This is not a gotcha situation. It's not a gotcha podcast. But I know when I was in retail and we would have, you we would see employees stealing. ⁓ A lot of times we worked with like luxury cosmetics. So sometimes they'd be stolen from, you know, from the stock areas and all that. And if we got a report and we saw we'd let them do it a few times before we would actually kind of confront them and
and begin, because you're looking for repeated patterns, you're looking for repeated behavior. And if you don't see them doing it more than once, you still have to address it. But we would see like, is this a habit? Because the more, because people tend to get bold. If they get away with it once or twice, then they start to steal more and bigger things. So, you know, is that something you can relate to? Or what do you think about just that kind of approach, I guess, in general?
Laura McLand (07:37)
Well, sometimes people think I'm entitled. I work here, I deserve it, whatever the scenario is. And unfortunately, that isn't the case. So stealing is stealing, whether it's $20 or $200. And unfortunately, whenever they've done it once, they seem more confident that it's OK, and I can do it again and again. And so we want to make sure that when it happens the first time, that that's when it's addressed with that employee.
Rebecca Taylor (07:42)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Laura McLand (08:05)
Why did they think that that was okay? And also make some decisions based on what occurred with that situation. And especially with restaurants, sometimes people feel that, have extra food left over, it's okay to go ahead and take it home. And that's not the case. We have to account for.
Rebecca Taylor (08:20)
Hmm.
Laura McLand (08:24)
And it's not just okay, free food and you can take it. And sometimes you can see in a restaurant, maybe some people over or maybe a cook, they may prepare a little extra at the end of the evening, preparing that, I can just take it home. And so that's what we don't want that to incur. We only want to make exactly what's ordered and then account for that at end of the day.
Rebecca Taylor (08:41)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, makes sense because you're trying to figure out, you know, your your loss and, you know, volume and quantity for supplies you need to order versus what actually gets consumed. And if that is tainted because some of that stuff is disappearing, then you're not able to get an accurate understanding of the supplies your restaurant's going to need. Yeah, yeah. OK, so we talked about, you know, the person who's departing. love that you said that you want to ask them for witnesses because
Laura McLand (09:07)
Exactly right. That's true.
Rebecca Taylor (09:18)
I don't think they're going to be very helpful in this investigation. They're out, right? Like, they've given their exit interview. They've kind of just dropped a bomb and left. you know, hopefully they can give some names of witnesses. So if they do, I imagine you talk to the witnesses. What if they don't? Like, what if they're like, I'm not going to put it, I'm not going to throw anybody else under the bus? Because this person sounds like they're, they were fearful, right? Fearful of retaliation. So now they're going to, I would understand if they're fearful to give, to not give the names of people because...
then they're worried that they're gonna get in trouble. So what do you do if they don't give you witness names?
Laura McLand (09:50)
That's fine. We actually continue that investigation. So we actually reach out to other employees that have worked with that manager just proactively to see if there's a situation that they've seen because we still want to investigate any particular scenario where it has a GM or a manager that's having those sticky fingers. And so as we talk with different employees, employees, even departing employees and current employees, they still talk to each other. They're still text messaging. They're still going on.
Rebecca Taylor (09:59)
Mm-hmm.
Laura McLand (10:18)
And so I know that we can continue that investigation with other people and also again looking at that footage. So I know it's been over a year, but maybe we can look at the last month. Usually there's a final incident. That's a really big thing in HR is what was the final incident. And so there was something happened recently whenever that person departed that definitely caused this particular situation to say this is it.
Rebecca Taylor (10:32)
Yeah.
Laura McLand (10:43)
checking out and what was that? When was the final day? Was there a disagreement with that manager? You we want to investigate that as well.
Rebecca Taylor (10:51)
Yeah, yeah, that's true. There's usually that straw that breaks the camel's back, right? There's that final thing.
Laura McLand (10:56)
That's it. It's not usually like
the middle of the shift when everything's running well. There's usually something that just said, I'm done. And that's what we need to investigate for sure.
Rebecca Taylor (11:05)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. Now, so what's the risk of moving too quickly to speak to this manager? And what's the risk of moving too slow? Because in this scenario, managers a high performance record, they have no idea that anything's coming, right? So like, how, what's the risk of going right to them and moving to them really quickly? And then what's the risk of waiting to approach them?
Laura McLand (11:31)
sure, and it depends on the scenario. So we definitely need to look at it from...
You know, we don't want to go too fast. We don't want to make assumptions and make a decision that is too rash. But we also don't want to go too slow because it's going to cost us money if this manager is continuing to do this. So we have to be very diligent. Do our due diligence, working with very quickly within 24, 48 hours, doing that research, trying to review the video, doing all of those conversations with the employees, and so that we do address it quickly.
We also have hotlines. So for instance, if the terminate employee is still communicating with current active employees, we want to make sure that they communicate and feel comfortable just talking to HR proactively. And that does occur. He so-and-so left, but I wanted to tell you what's going on.
And so that they also feel comfortable doing that as well. So we do get it from several different areas, not just from the departing employee, but then as they are leaving, maybe they're still doing the communication and then those people are reaching out to HR. We want to make sure that the employee that's departing understands that we took their comment in the report seriously, that we didn't just brush it off and say, they're leaving. We're not going to worry about it. No, we're actually definitely going to worry.
Rebecca Taylor (12:37)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. And speaking of worrying about it, so when you're, you know, as you're kind of working through these conversations, you know, are there any assumptions that you have to be careful to not make before you gather like more evidence, right?
Laura McLand (13:09)
⁓ absolutely. So you want to make sure that you ask some open-ended questions so that the employee feels comfortable giving you the answers. Because also when you do that investigation, you may find additional information with the other employees that the original employee didn't provide, but that you end up going down some different rabbit holes and thinking, I didn't realize this was also going on. Or they were.
they were not working their full hours or they were leaving out maybe a restaurant manager list for a time period. So there seems to be other issues that could be going on. And so we also want to make sure that we fully explore what that situation is. And maybe it's not just financial. There's sometimes other things that are going on as well.
Rebecca Taylor (13:54)
Yeah, yeah, you're right. There's usually, you know, this, I think like this employee said that she feared retaliation and that's why she didn't say something. And it kind of like, I think that, you know, I would have to try hard to not assume that that's just something that they said and versus something that could be a real threat, you know, that the manager could have threatened that, right? Cause it says that the manager has a strong performance record, but that can mean anything.
It could really mean anything when you're really kind of digging into them, like, okay, well, how do you interact with your staff and what do they know and understand about what it's like to work with you?
Laura McLand (14:31)
Exactly. know, when employees need to feel comfortable communicating and who can they communicate with comfortably and not fear retaliation. I can see where the employee would fear that. Obviously they can't go to the manager and say stop stealing. mean that that wouldn't go well for their career, but they also need to know that they have advocates on their side so that whenever they do have a concern that they need to bring to management, they do have avenues to be able to do that.
Rebecca Taylor (14:45)
Woof!
Yeah.
Laura McLand (15:00)
And so especially with, of course there is going to be some retaliation factor, would think, that they would think that that would occur. But also we have options that we can actually, like in our situation, we can actually transfer an employee, if they feel more comfortable, to another restaurant. so even as we address that manager, maybe that situation, and they say, you know what, I don't feel comfortable working there anymore, we can actually transfer them if that's something that they want to do, where they like...
Rebecca Taylor (15:17)
Mmm.
Laura McLand (15:30)
They just can't work at that location anymore. So we also facilitate that as well.
Rebecca Taylor (15:33)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. I think it's a good option for people who are kind of like, you know, if it turns out that the manager, you know, is whatever, whatever the situation might be, right? But if they just don't want to work for that manager, if you can move them to a different spot because it's their choice, I think that's a really, really good way to kind of approach it for what it's worth, because then it's like people feel less trapped probably and maybe a little bit more valued. That's what I would think.
Laura McLand (15:59)
Exactly.
If they're a good employee, we want to make sure to retain them. But then we also want to definitely look into that manager as well. Are they as good as we think they are? know, some of their numbers may be good, but then, but obviously we have this situation that we need to address with them.
Rebecca Taylor (16:04)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, so how do you approach this conversation with this manager? They're like, I've got a great performance record, I'm walking on sunshine, I'm good. How do you approach this conversation with them when they have no idea that there could be anything wrong?
Laura McLand (16:28)
We do. Well, part of that is that due diligence. So do we see any financial situations whenever we do that research? Do we have any camera footage first? So we do that, look into that to see, those are some of the things that we need to address with that manager. So if we don't see any financial situations, if we see everything looks in alignment, and if we don't see anything on video, we're still gonna, of course, interview the GM. But why would the employee think this?
Rebecca Taylor (16:53)
Yeah.
Laura McLand (16:56)
Where did this come from? Could it be that they were taking cash to the bank and they saw them put it in their pocket and they think, okay, it's going to their pocket, not at the bank. And we can say, yeah, and just that perception of stealing and it maybe it's just not actually occurring. Or if it is occurring, then of course we often address that with that manager as well, that can continue. we do address it from both ways, but also we do want to do our due diligence because we don't want to accuse a manager.
Rebecca Taylor (17:05)
They're stealing, yeah.
Laura McLand (17:25)
without having that background information of, we did our research and this is what we're seeing. But we always give them, of course, the opportunity to respond to any allegations like that.
Rebecca Taylor (17:28)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, I like that you're saying that you talk to the employee to the, you know, to the person in question either way, but you'd want to do your diligence first to kind of know like, okay, we heard this, we took a look to see is it true or not, or, know, as much as we can find some evidence and then you you lead the conversation based on what evidence you find or don't find. I like that you're talking to them either way and it's not just they're in the background and
all of a sudden people know things about them that they don't know and then that can become a factor in, you know, whether or not they're viable for promotion later just because it can put just sort of seeds, it can plant the wrong seeds in the wrong circumstances.
Laura McLand (18:16)
Exactly. We actually have documents that we use for the accuser, the accused, and the witnesses. And so we always start out with the same questions, but then of course evolve as we're talking to each in particular person and where does that go. So we start with the basics of, what did you see, what didn't you see, did you experience those kinds of things? And that's very typical in HR with having that document.
as you do investigations, but then also where is this going to lead? And sometimes it definitely leads into other areas you hadn't expected.
Rebecca Taylor (18:49)
Yeah, yeah. So now at a certain point, you have to make a decision, right? So you do your investigation, you talk to the employee. If it is true or not true that they're stealing, how do you determine what action to take with that employee? Let's assume it is true that they are. I know there's different policies for different places. Stealing is usually a little bit more of a zero tolerance policy than some others. how do you kind of
What is the flow between confirming that the thing that they're accused of happened and then taking action on that?
Laura McLand (19:25)
Yeah, well we definitely move quickly, make that decision and based on that background and the research and the investigation make that decision based on that information for that general manager. Is their career about to end with our company and that's...
Rebecca Taylor (19:28)
Yeah.
Laura McLand (19:44)
sometimes things to occur or is it a perception situation and we need to coach that manager. And also there's more to make sure that employees feel comfortable going to their manager for different situations. And so for instance, as soon as this employee saw it the first time.
Rebecca Taylor (19:50)
Mm-hmm.
Laura McLand (19:59)
Obviously they didn't feel comfortable going to that general manager. Why didn't they go to the district manager? Why didn't they reach out to HR at that time? Maybe they felt that retaliation and we want to make sure that that doesn't occur. So we also not only do we coach the manager to be more approachable from their employees, but then we also make sure that information is disseminated throughout.
Rebecca Taylor (20:06)
Yeah.
Laura McLand (20:24)
restaurants that has we have a posting or a poster that has hey employees if you have any questions comments or concerns please reach out to the HR department this is the communication here's a phone number hotline and email address we want to make sure that the general manager has that posted in the restaurant because if it isn't posted maybe that's an indication as well that they don't want them to reach out and so we also speak with the district manager as well and make sure that whenever they're going to the
Rebecca Taylor (20:42)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Laura McLand (20:53)
that they see that posting up there and make sure it's available for the employees.
Rebecca Taylor (20:57)
Yeah, that's such a good point is sort of if the poster is not there when it should be, why is that? Is it an oversight? Is it an intentional hiding of information? You know, there's there's so many different, you know, again, the CSI hat comes on and like, oh, let me go down that rabbit hole and figure out what's going on.
Laura McLand (21:14)
Exactly.
All the posters, they get kind of worn in a restaurant because there's cooking and things like that going on, but they need to have a freshman or make sure it's up all the time.
Rebecca Taylor (21:19)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, it's easy to let them get buried in the corner by accident when they're shipped to you and you forget to hang them, but it's still like you still have to hang them.
Laura McLand (21:31)
Oh, yes,
and who reads all those, right? But so we make sure that it's, know, brightly colored, has pictures and things like that. So it isn't lost in all the different other posters that they have to put up in the restaurants, especially with the restaurants. It's like, know, how to cook food. Yeah, exactly. Which is definitely a priority, obviously. But we also want to make sure that that information is available.
Rebecca Taylor (21:34)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, health codes and everything. Yeah.
Yeah, and this is where something like anonymous reporting, a poster that says, if you see something, say something, here's an anonymous hotline or an anonymous place that you can share this information. This is sort of a prime example of where that comes in handy, because you can't, mean, retaliation is illegal either way, but giving employees sort of that space to sort of be able to say something anonymously that you can then sort of take that information and investigate. might.
make it so that things get raised sooner and it's not just a bombshell someone drops when they're leaving the company.
Laura McLand (22:24)
Yeah, we definitely don't want it to propagate continuously, especially in something like that. And this is financial. In any areas of the restaurant or any of our locations, we don't want that to continue. And we definitely want them to feel.
Rebecca Taylor (22:38)
Yeah, yeah, that's half the battle. think that's kind of like part of the thing, you know, with HR is sometimes there's a reputation, you know, deserved or not, right, depending on what someone's past experience might be with other HR people where, you know, there's, there's, it's all we need and want is for employees to come to us with information before it blows up, right, because it's a lot easier to fix a small problem than to clean up a big mess. But like the tools, the mechanisms have to be there for that to happen.
And it always kind of gets me thinking it's funny because believe it or not, we're actually at time. And I warned you I was going to ask you this question. So conveniently, it segues into it. But so all we need and want as employees to feel comfortable coming to us, especially when there are real issues, right? Sometimes there are different perceptions around HR that might prevent people from doing that. So in thinking about that, what's one assumption about HR that you think needs to be challenged?
Laura McLand (23:32)
Absolutely and everybody it seems that I see comments that HR is only from the corporate perspective They're only thinking about what's better for the company and not for the employees and that's not true We look at from both sides. So we didn't look from the employee side. We need the employees We need their feedback. We need their communication. We want to work with them and then we but we also work for the company
as well. So it's too silent. But we definitely are a huge proponent of employees speaking up, bringing things to our attention so that we can get those addressed. But we also look at HR holistically and proactively for the employee. We are offering benefits for your things like that that help with the employees as well. And so we want to be that person they can speak with. It's almost like.
Who can I talk to for counseling, things like that. That's what we're here for. But then we also have to do our due diligence as well from the corporate perspective.
Rebecca Taylor (24:30)
Yeah, yeah. It's almost like you could think about it in a restaurant setting. It's like, if you're a server, you're working with customers, it's like, do you work for the restaurant or do you work for the customers? It's like, well, both. I represent the restaurant. We have policies and things that we have to uphold. And I want my customers to have a great experience here. And if both of those things can happen easily, then it's a perfect world, right?
Laura McLand (24:53)
You're exactly right. To us, we feel like the employees are our customers. And so we need to give them excellent customer service so that they can give excellent customer service to our guests. So if they have an issue with HR or anything like that, we want to make sure that they're comfortable so that they feel comfortable working with our guests as well. So it's definitely a domino effect.
Rebecca Taylor (24:58)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, I love that. Well, thank you, Laura. Thank you so much for being here and for sharing all your wisdom, your perspective. I really like talking this through with you because I feel like it was like bringing back some of my memories from my last like retail job, too. So thank you for that.
Laura McLand (25:28)
welcome,
Rebecca. I really enjoyed speaking with you. Thank you so much.
Rebecca Taylor (25:32)
Yeah, thank you everybody for listening and I hope you have a great rest of your day. Bye.