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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 (00:01.719)
Hello and welcome to HR Voices. I'm your host, Rebecca Taylor, and I'm here with the Claude Silver, the Chief Art Officer of VaynerX. Claude, thank you so much for being here.
Claude Silver (00:11.106)
So to be here, I'm so excited to see you.
Rebecca Taylor (00:14.219)
I'm excited too. For those who might not know who Claude or I are, we've kind of like circled around each other in the last few years. And so this kind of feels like a little bit of a reunion of sorts. So it's exciting to be able to be here and to chat about you for this particular scenario. So thank you for being game.
Claude Silver (00:31.278)
Thank you. my God, totally game and I love seeing you again. It's been too long.
Rebecca Taylor (00:36.705)
I know, same, we need to catch up again more, but that'll be a whole other conversation. Yeah, yeah. And for those who are new here, 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 Claude. So we're gonna evaluate a realistic workplace situation and demonstrate how we'll assess risk, apply judgment, and design practical responses. So we're here to reveal how strong HR leaders think when facing ambiguity.
Claude Silver (00:38.55)
I know. Maybe we won't take that one.
Rebecca Taylor (01:06.145)
We're not here to find a single correct answer because that so rarely exists in our work and so much of our work lives in the gray. So that's what we're here to talk about today.
Claude Silver (01:14.294)
Yep, I love it. Let's do it.
Rebecca Taylor (01:16.739)
you're okay. You ready for your scenario? Okay, we're calling this 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 and may be unavailable or unwilling to cooperate in a formal investigation.
Claude Silver (01:18.595)
Ready.
Rebecca Taylor (01:45.761)
The manager has a strong performance record. HR must launch an investigation with limited evidence, a departing witness, and a subject who has no idea anything is coming. So, to kick us off.
Claude Silver (01:56.049)
Yeah, I was gonna say, you know, we've all gotten those bombs, not the same scenario, but ones that are just like, oh God, I wish I would have known this.
Rebecca Taylor (02:08.755)
Yeah. I know exit interviews, especially, which we'll get into this because that's usually when people are you could take some of the things that are said with a grain of salt because it's sometimes there could be different sort of like reasons for it, right. But it's also sometimes where you get the most truth. But before we jump into all of that side of it, what stands out to you as the most risky or unclear in the scenario as it's been laid out?
Claude Silver (02:35.118)
I guess the most unclear is probably what the leaving employee, the data that this person has, the information. like, when did you see this? How do you know it's a thousand, thousands of dollars? Like, did you see this repetitively? These are the questions that I had in my mind immediately. Like, was this a one and done? Did you see this repetitively? Was anyone else around?
Do you report to this person? Does this person report to you? I think those are the things immediately that stand out. It doesn't matter to me about the person's performance. But I certainly wouldn't want to assume guilty before we go through the investigation and understand what
if this is valid, understand the why, know, understand, you know, we were a place that could help if you let us know, maybe we could help, maybe we could advance you some money, whatever. So that's, I would say the thing that's most ambiguous to me is like, thanks so much for coming forward with this bomb. Now you're leaving, I'm gonna need a little bit more information from you before you leave.
Rebecca Taylor (03:55.447)
Yeah. Yeah. And so as you're, you know, hopefully we can get some more information from the departing employee, right? But where else would you go to start to find some of that information? Like, let's put on our CSI hats. Like, who do you talk to? What tools do you have to find out more? Where do you start?
Claude Silver (04:04.27)
Yeah.
Claude Silver (04:15.126)
Yeah. Okay, so the first thing is, I would like to know where the petty cash is stored. And is anyone watching it? Is it in a safe? Is there a video camera on you? You know, oftentimes there are I don't know, you know, I'm gonna, I'm going to guess that this is a store of some kind where people give you cash and whatever. So who manages the petty cash?
Rebecca Taylor (04:36.919)
more.
Claude Silver (04:44.686)
And are there other people around? And is there a video camera? These are some CSI things immediately. I would probably ask some of my HRBPs if this has ever come up anywhere else. Like, is this the first time we're hearing this? Has this departing employee ever come to us with other?
accusations or information like this. That's probably where I would go immediately. But I would really want to know like, is the petty cash just like out there in a lockbox? Or is it in a safe and and what's the the company's policy on petty cash? Like petty cash is usually, you know, for quick things that you need, let's buy the office coffees or whatever. So
I understand that petty cash could be, you know, people could have access to petty cash if they are certain at a certain level of the company.
Rebecca Taylor (05:48.033)
Yeah, yeah, it's true. It's like sometimes it could look like to someone who doesn't know that petty cash exists. Like, let's say this employee just sees this manager taking money out of a safe or a drawer or an envelope stored at the top of the closet, right? And is like, this person must be stealing. So, you know, you're right to kind of look at, well, you know, how is petty cash managed? And I would also think how is it calculated, right? Like, has there been
financial discrepancies in money reported back from this location or you know what's that?
Claude Silver (06:21.942)
Yeah, yeah, that and I think just in layering on again, like we both did like.
what is the policy around petty cash and who is allowed to go in there? Who's allowed to touch it? Because I used to work in a small kind of like boutique grocery store years and years and years ago in San Francisco and we had petty cash, but there were only a few of us that could go in there. But we were allowed to go in there and go buy coffees for the cashiers, know, or for the people making sandwiches. Like that was allowed.
Rebecca Taylor (06:47.97)
Mm-hmm.
Claude Silver (06:56.878)
So, but also, I guess how much petty cash is usually in there? Does anyone at this company know like, is it, do you have $300 or do you have $3,000 sitting there? You know, and then I think it's like, well, why, well, why? But we're not gonna get into the why do you have $3,000 there, but yeah, those are the things that are most like eyebrow raising, like, huh?
Rebecca Taylor (07:14.026)
Right.
Rebecca Taylor (07:23.074)
Yeah, yeah. And it's, you know, it's funny because the the way this scenario is laid out and these are fabricated scenarios, right? So these aren't rare people that aren't rare things. You have to take all of it with a grain of salt. But the way that it's laid out is she estimates that the total she estimates the total at several thousand dollars that have been stolen. I would think we would notice before someone drops a bomb like this, but I don't know.
Claude Silver (07:29.966)
Yeah, of course.
Claude Silver (07:42.766)
Yeah.
I mean, I would think so too, unless the person that is supposedly stealing the money is the person in charge, but then why would you be calling that out? So I think there's some questionable things here. I seriously understand the fear of retaliation. I think that's a common fear we see in HR, which is unfortunate that people...
feel as though, that person's going to go after me. Having a no retaliation policy is the best thing you can do, even though that gets broken sometimes. knowing when someone comes forward, like, we have a no retaliation policy. If this person should come out and attack you verbally or whatever, just come to us, because we will take care of that. But yeah, has this been missing? Has this gone unaccounted for? For how long?
Rebecca Taylor (08:16.183)
Yeah.
Rebecca Taylor (08:22.403)
Yeah.
Rebecca Taylor (08:40.385)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're going right to try to figure out the truth. Now, at what point, you so you've maybe looked at the cameras, maybe looked at the financial logs, looked at the policies, like gotten some of the context. So now you've gotten some more, I guess we'll call it evidence. How do you start your conversations? Who do you start with as when you're kind of kicking off more of the interpersonal part of the investigation?
Claude Silver (08:40.43)
$7,000 is a lot.
Claude Silver (08:58.893)
Yes.
Claude Silver (09:07.052)
Yeah, so obviously I would speak to the departing employee and just ask everything I possibly could and this person's out the door. So they're going to either tell me or not, right? So that's the thing. want to know the people I would ask immediately is who else has access? I need to know who has access to petty cash.
Rebecca Taylor (09:15.179)
Yeah. Yeah.
Claude Silver (09:26.03)
And I need to know whether or not it's the finance department or whatever, how much petty cash is in there on a daily basis? What are the logs? Like, are you always at a consistent 300? Or are you at a consistent 1500? And you've you know, where where are the gaps? so I would go speak to, let's just say someone on finance or someone on accounts receivable or something, whatever that person is, whoever that person or that department is. Again, like you said, I would
Rebecca Taylor (09:49.943)
Yeah.
Claude Silver (09:55.937)
look at the cameras, and I would ask whomever the powers that be are, who is allowed into the petty cash? And then I would go and talk to Bob and Sally and say, you know, it's come to my attention that, let me think of how I would say that. I don't want to scare them off. So it's not that petty cash is missing, because obviously that would scare them, but.
Rebecca Taylor (10:04.268)
Mm-hmm.
Claude Silver (10:21.396)
We maybe we've we've heard from so and so department that that there's some petty cash that's gone that was that was missing over the last few months. Have you noticed anything? Have you noticed? Did you did you document that at all? Or did you see this? This has nothing to do with you guys at all. Just need to get some information because it seems as though we're missing $7000.
Rebecca Taylor (10:38.37)
Mmm.
Rebecca Taylor (10:48.62)
Mm-hmm
Claude Silver (10:48.682)
right, or whatever. like, whatever that delta is, because I imagine that there will be, okay, we're missing 1000s of dollars or, and then but I want them to know, like, all is good. I just want one, one information from them that their names are, their names are not important. you know, have they noticed that it was a little slim in there? Right. And also, like, what do what, what is petty cash used for? I would ask a number of people.
Rebecca Taylor (11:09.782)
Yeah.
Claude Silver (11:15.618)
What is it? I'm really, you could say I'm really hung up on this petty cash part because I'm like, does it, is it just in a, is it unlocked? Like can anyone go in there?
Rebecca Taylor (11:25.046)
Yeah.
Claude Silver (11:28.214)
So we need to know if there's a delta in what finance has been reporting or whomever closes up the store reports. We need to know who has access and what they have seen or not seen or witnessed or not witnessed. And then there's a part of me that would want to know this relationship between departing employee and the person that she is.
saying stole some money. I would really need to know that. and you know, being in HR, that could be anything. They could have, they could be seeing each other. They could have seen each other. They could whatever, you know.
Rebecca Taylor (12:02.487)
Yeah.
Rebecca Taylor (12:07.725)
Mm-hmm.
Claude Silver (12:10.794)
all kinds of mischief could be happening there. Could have been happening outside of work hours too, which is not our business necessarily, but it's our business because they're both employees of the... So what's the relationship there? And is there anything interesting that we should know about? At some point, we need to talk to the person that she has called out.
Rebecca Taylor (12:13.622)
Right.
Rebecca Taylor (12:24.034)
Yeah.
Rebecca Taylor (12:36.29)
Mm-hmm.
Claude Silver (12:36.582)
And but we don't want to do that until we have a little bit more information under our belt. Like, yes, only three people get to touch petty cash. Sally, Bobby, and this Ricky. And Ricky is the person that usually is the one that closes the safe at night. You know, all kinds of stuff.
What we want though to do is like at some point let this girl go, the person that's leaving, let her leave. She's done her part, whatever that part looks like. And when we go talk to the person that she was accusing, this person's gone. Like this person is gone, this is what we heard. Can you explain why she would have said that?
Rebecca Taylor (13:06.477)
Yeah.
Rebecca Taylor (13:15.629)
Yeah.
Rebecca Taylor (13:22.411)
Yeah, I like that you say that because one of the pieces that this scenario highlights is that you're dealing with a witness who's departing. And I kind of don't think that matters when you think about how many witnesses, you know, they're one person, right? So in a situation like this, the story is going to have to be, you know, you've assumed corroborated by other areas, right? So this person gave you enough to know.
that there's maybe something to look into, whether or not it's true, right? But the fact that the witness is departing, I kind of don't really care about that part.
Claude Silver (13:56.961)
Yeah, yeah, we already planted the And now we're going to investigate it could end up being nothing. It could have been. It could be nothing. It could be talking about retaliation. could be opposite retaliation. mean, you know, we want every I want everyone to be innocent. We just need information.
Rebecca Taylor (14:13.41)
Yeah.
Rebecca Taylor (14:20.129)
Yeah, I was going to ask you about that. if it could be, you know, we know sometimes in scenarios like this, the exiting employee might have a grudge against the manager for whatever reason, maybe because of a relationship outside of work that's now bled into work, or maybe, you know, maybe this manager has written this person up several times because they've been late, right? So do you look at this person? Do you look for any trail of, I guess, mischief in this person throughout their employment as part of this case?
Claude Silver (14:45.614)
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's what my intuition would say immediately is look at things that are not on the surface. you know, lo and behold, someone's going to say, well, we saw them out at the bar on Friday night after work and they were fighting or, you guys didn't know that they'd been together for three months or, you know, he gave her terrible feedback.
whatever, there's something there. And I like that you're saying like, yeah, intuitively I'm like, okay, well there's something going on here. Yeah, but she can go her own way. She can go, thank you so much. Bye bye.
Rebecca Taylor (15:22.829)
Something's up. Yeah, something's up. Right.
Rebecca Taylor (15:31.618)
Yeah, yeah, it's funny because I had my first HR job. I was at Lord and Taylor Fifth Avenue. So retail, lots of drama and a high traffic location, right? So there was always people were always thinking things were getting stolen. And sometimes it was true. Sometimes it was by employees. Sometimes it was by customers. But so I've done I feel like this is like Groundhog Day. I've done this type of investigation so many times. And when it's something like.
Claude Silver (15:38.742)
Yeah.
Claude Silver (15:55.278)
wow. Yeah.
Rebecca Taylor (15:59.796)
is something that comes out in an exit interview like this. I don't know the stats off the top of my head, but I would feel pretty good saying it's something like 50-50 where this person just had a grudge and they just want to kind of stick it on their way out. And then 50%, there was actually something to look into. So that's why I'm always skeptical. I try to assume best from everybody, right?
Claude Silver (16:12.248)
Yeah.
Claude Silver (16:16.174)
Right. Best intent. But I guess the other thing that you and I would look at is has this person, has either of them been written up before? Like is anyone, is there something one day, three years ago that said XYZ? Maybe, maybe not. But yeah, I think it's in retail and grocery stores. There's a lot of...
ceiling that goes around. There's a lot of, you know, I mean, I can't believe he works at Lord and Taylor on Fifth Avenue. That is, whoa, I know RIP. Yeah. Ooh. And I remember when I first, grew up in New York, and we moved when I was 12 to Santa Fe, New Mexico. But wasn't there Gimbals? Right? No. Harder up. Yeah. Yeah.
Rebecca Taylor (16:49.929)
RIP, I missed that store. Yeah, the building's not even around anymore.
Rebecca Taylor (17:06.515)
Mm There was a Gimbals. That wasn't where Lord and Taylor was. It was further up Fifth Avenue, but there was a Gimbals. Yep. Yep. Yeah, it was up towards I think it was like 55th Street or something like that. Yeah. Throwback.
Claude Silver (17:12.534)
It was like by Blooming's maybe or something. Yeah.
Yeah. my God. Yeah. I mean, back to your original point, there's no right or wrong here. There's just what we have and what we're going to do with the information we have. at some point, we're going to drop it or we will have found something to then say, hey,
Rebecca Taylor (17:37.943)
Yeah.
Claude Silver (17:40.938)
So and so or the cameras or finances said that we've been missing a chunk of money every time you close the store.
Rebecca Taylor (17:50.231)
Yeah, yeah. So now here's the, this is kind of where I think that there's a moment for HR to kind of really show its humanity. Because now let's say it is true that Ricky's been stealing. Let's say that we've, you know, all of the, the accusation is true. We've done the thing. How do you talk to him? What do you say?
Claude Silver (18:09.078)
Yeah. I would say, Ricky, this is going to be an uncomfortable conversation. I just want to say that upfront, that it has come to our attention that you have been stealing from the company. It appears as though it's been thirty five hundred dollars. And I just want to I want to just put that out there.
Is there anything you want to say right now? I can go into more information, but I just want to put that there. And Ricky's going to say yes or no. He's going to say no, or he's going to say I did and I'm I feel terrible and I'm so sorry and I needed to buy this or I needed to help this or my daughter son this. So.
I want to go in there with grace and generosity of spirit and say, for the most part, someone that's stealing money most likely needs it, know, you know, pay off a debt, all of this stuff. So I would really want to just say like, is there anything you want to say and then go from there and then it's like, okay.
Rebecca Taylor (19:08.736)
Yeah. Yeah.
Claude Silver (19:22.784)
Stealing is a fireable offense. I'm so sorry that we're at this place right now. I understand why you did it. Unfortunately, it happened more than once. And I'm not gonna ask you to repay it, but I am gonna let you know that today's gonna be your last day. Something like that. Yeah.
Rebecca Taylor (19:45.443)
Yeah, think it's a really good way to show up for him because it's true. I mean, you don't steal from work unless there's a real reason, right? Like there's something you really you need the money for whatever reason it is. Because if you're risking your employment just for this, right, like there's it's usually not just because it'd be great if the world was just good people or bad people. But that's just not you know, that's just not true.
Claude Silver (20:02.348)
Yeah.
Claude Silver (20:09.902)
That's just not it. No. And when it's a chunk of money or like something's going on and you know, in the future, we would hope that people would come and talk to us if they need money or whatever. This just happened to us yesterday. Not a steal, not a thievery, but someone needed to go home for a family emergency, didn't have the money. And so we paid, we bought the ticket. You know, yeah. And
Rebecca Taylor (20:34.765)
Wow, that's culture.
Claude Silver (20:38.006)
Yeah, that's culture. And that's a generosity. And that's, you know, that's where I work. I had to ask, do you have the money to buy the plane ticket? Right? And mean, I had to ask. And when that person said no, I said, Okay, we'll take care of it.
Rebecca Taylor (20:47.489)
Yeah.
Rebecca Taylor (20:52.547)
Yeah, yeah, I love that. Because it's just, it's so easy to say that, you know, you can create policies and procedures for so many different things in HR. And more often than not, our work is in that kind of stuff. It's in one person with one unique scenario in a vulnerable moment who needs help. And, you know, we could say it's against our policy to, you know, provide spot bonuses or, know, whatever that is. Or you can just get them the plane ticket so they can go be with their family.
Claude Silver (21:07.394)
Yeah.
Claude Silver (21:20.558)
Yeah, and I'm going to remember that. That's the company I worked at that is like, yeah, we can buy a plane ticket for you home. Yeah, it's all about, it's all about humanity. All about humanity.
Rebecca Taylor (21:21.645)
They're gonna remember that. They're gonna remember that.
Rebecca Taylor (21:27.201)
Yeah. Yeah.
Rebecca Taylor (21:33.579)
Yeah, I love that.
Rebecca Taylor (21:39.787)
Yeah, yeah. I think that's a perfect segue for our last question, because if you can believe it, we're actually at time. So my last question for you is, what's one assumption about HR that you think needs to be challenged?
Claude Silver (21:47.427)
Thanks.
Claude Silver (21:53.87)
One assumption, there's a lot. One is that HR people say no all the time. That's what I would say. They are in defense of the company all the time and are just no people.
Rebecca Taylor (21:59.021)
Hahaha.
Rebecca Taylor (22:04.995)
Mm-hmm.
Rebecca Taylor (22:11.299)
That's a great one. It's a great one. More often than not, we have to hear no a lot and push towards it and we don't take no's easily.
Claude Silver (22:20.468)
No, exactly. And by the way, we're humans too. also have, we also need growth plans. We also need someone to check in on our mental health and our level of burnout. We also need to make sure someone is saying like, did you take your vacation yet? Like, you know.
Rebecca Taylor (22:37.025)
Yeah. Yeah. I think it's why communities are so strong in HR too, because at least then we can sort of check on each other that way. Yeah.
Claude Silver (22:44.02)
It's family. It's total. You're so right. You're so right. Yeah.
Rebecca Taylor (22:48.035)
Well, Claude, thank you so much for this. I feel like it's like we could go on for such a long time. This was so fun. And thank you everybody for listening and I hope everybody has a great rest of your day. Bye.
Claude Silver (22:55.564)
Yeah. Thank you.
Claude Silver (23:00.579)
Bye.