Andrea Brunet, Director, Employee Relations at Greystar

Show Notes

Human-First Employee Relations: Greystar’s Director on Multi-State Investigations, AI, and Trust

Summary

How do you lead fair, fast, and human investigations across dozens of jurisdictions—with California in the mix—and still keep people at the center?

Andrea Brunet, Director of Employee Relations at Greystar, supports 2,400 employees across multiple states for the global real estate leader. She shares how rigorous organization, clear triage, and deep partnership with field leaders power compliant, compassionate employee relations.

Andrea explains her system for managing time-sensitive cases (think EEOC and wage-and-hour), why rapport lets HR deliver risk-based guidance leaders can hear, and how to handle AI-authored complaints without losing the human story.

Expect practical insights on turning “small” complaints into root-cause patterns, coaching managers through tough conversations, and preserving dignity in terminations—so HR is seen as a trusted partner, not “Toby.”

Timestamps

[00:01] – Role and scope: Greystar’s footprint, multi-state support, and California complexity

[02:25] – Staying organized: tracking investigations, deadlines, and time-sensitive compliance

[04:44] – Building trust: collaborating with leaders and giving risk-based recommendations

[06:52] – AI in ER: the upside, the pitfalls, and why a phone call reveals the real story

[10:03] – From symptoms to root cause: the “coffee complaint” and pattern-spotting in ER

[11:39] – HR as connective tissue: first and last impressions and company-wide impact

[14:19] – Service mindset: triaging requests, team collaboration, and shedding the “Toby” stereotype

[18:45] – Dignity in terminations: coaching leaders through hard conversations and de-escalation

Takeaways

- Build a simple, durable tracking system (spreadsheets or case management) to manage investigations and meet hard deadlines.

- Earn trust early so leaders accept risk-based guidance—even when it’s not the answer they hoped for.

- Treat AI-generated complaints as a starting point; connect live to hear the human behind the text.

- Look beyond surface issues to identify patterns and root causes; small complaints can reveal bigger gaps.

- Position HR as organizational triage: route quickly, respond personally, and reduce friction across functions.

- Protect dignity in difficult moments: frame decisions as business-driven, allow pauses, and coach leaders to de-escalate.

Sponsor

AllVoices brings all your employee relations work together in one place. No more jumping between spreadsheets, emails, and legacy systems just one place to document and manage reports, cases, investigations, and performance conversations. It helps you run a more consistent process, takes busywork off your plate with AI, and makes it easier to spot trends early, so you can work proactively, not just put out fires.

See a demo at ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.allvoices.co/

What is HR Voices?

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 this episode of HR Voices. My name is Rebecca Taylor. I'm here with Andrea Brunet. She's the Director of Employee Relations at Greystar. Andrea, welcome. So good to have you.

Andrea Brunet (00:27)
Thank you, Rebecca. Thanks for having me.

Rebecca Taylor (00:30)
Yeah, I'm excited to chat with you about all things employee relations, everything that you're kind of working on right now. ⁓ Before we dive into some of the really exciting stuff, I just want to kind of ground us in some context. So can you tell us about your role at Greystar? How many employees are you overseeing? And what does your position really do?

Andrea Brunet (00:49)
Yeah, absolutely. So ⁓ I work for Grey Star, which is a very large organization. ⁓ manage real estate, rental properties. ⁓ That's the core of the business. We are a global organization. We're based in Charleston, South Carolina, but have multiple.

business locations throughout the world. My direct reports, I don't have any direct reports per se, but I do support approximately 2400 employees spread across multiple states, with California being one of them and California being very special and notorious in the human resources world for having very specific laws.

Rebecca Taylor (01:29)
in every way. Yep.

Andrea Brunet (01:33)
to even jurisdictionally speaking where San Francisco is different from San Jose, for example. But I do have about 2,400 employees that I support and my day-to-day is providing guidance.

and partnership to the leaders in the field to help them be strategic and to ensure that they comply with state and federal laws and company policy and with that, work with them on investigations as they take place.

Rebecca Taylor (02:06)
Sounds like a very easy job without a lot of nuance at all. So thank you. Yeah, yeah, I was going to say it sounds very chill. So good. That's great. So in this type of role where you are kind of overseeing things that can be very stressful, right? So investigations, when you're also looking at investigations across so many different states, like you mentioned with so many different laws,

Andrea Brunet (02:12)
I'm interested in vacation, right?

Rebecca Taylor (02:33)
I have to ask, do you do it? How do you keep yourself organized? How do you kind of function knowing that there are so many variables that ultimately you have to make sure that you're aligned with in any kind of investigation?

Andrea Brunet (02:37)
you

Yeah, so organization in human resources is key. mean, skills can be learned. ⁓

You can stay current by engaging in industry events and webinars and seminars, but ultimately to be successful human resources, having some kind of an organizational system will really make or break you. And that's something that I've found. I've been in HR for approximately 20 years and over the years my organizational systems have changed. Now I'm a big believer in Excel spreadsheets and that's how I keep myself on task, especially with

investigations that may be, you know, this is a brand new investigation, this one's getting wrapped up, this one here might be somewhere in the middle, but it just helps me stay on task and focused. And of course, especially when things are time sensitive, as they often are, we think about ⁓ having to respond to the EEOC or a wage and hour claim, the clock starts ticking right away, very time sensitive. So those are the types of things that I like to prioritize.

and stay focused upon.

Rebecca Taylor (03:58)
Yeah, that's the stress sometimes with employee relations, Is when it can be very timely. So it's like, this is a claim that was filed. We have to gather all the evidence and information and we have to move really, really quickly and we don't have a lot of room for error. So half of the battle, know it's one of the things that I know that All Voices does really, really well. as I've been kind of getting to know the product and getting to know the team, it's one of those things that I was like,

When I was doing investigations, I wish that I had something to keep me that organized, because it's about putting all the documentation in the right place. That's usually half the battle is like, what's in email? What's in Slack? What was the text? What was an interview? It's like, that's the kind of stuff that if you can organize that in one spot, the rest of it is gravy, right? Well, gravy with exceptions. Yeah.

Andrea Brunet (04:42)
Exactly.

Rebecca Taylor (04:45)
You know, we talked a little bit about some of the challenges, sort of, you know, overseeing that many employees, that many locations, just a lot of nuances that go with that. But let's flip it for a second. Do you have anything that you're really proud of that you've built or something that you're excited about that you're working on right now?

Andrea Brunet (05:00)
Yeah, I mean a couple things just working with...

a terrific top notch employee relations team is something that I'm just so grateful for and feel that my colleagues, we reach out to each other. We're very collaborative. We run things by one another. And just having that rapport with the group is something that I'm grateful as well as proud of. Another thing that I'm proud of is just working with a terrific group of leaders. I've been in my role for about three and a half years and

Many

of the employees that I support have also been with the company a long time. So we have this rapport, we have a trust, and I have found in my career as I look back, I've had roles in HR where I didn't have the opportunity to develop rapport and just have a stance. It wasn't one thing or another, just sometimes the rapport wasn't there. And it made the job harder because I felt that HR isn't a trusted partner.

And we just didn't have that balance. And here I truly feel they've had a good experience with HR. I want to make sure they continue to have a good experience with HR. And sometimes a leader will reach out to me and the feedback I provide isn't what they hoped for. Maybe it was a matter of may I move forward and terminate an employee? And I will say, well, here's the risk. I I don't make the ultimate call, but I do provide the recommendation.

parting ways with an employee makes sense and sometimes the risk is too great and I explain the why and sometimes people don't want to hear that but I believe that because the rapport is there they trust me and we have a dialogue and it's respectful even when we disagree so it's something that I truly am quite proud of.

Rebecca Taylor (06:48)
That's so good. And kudos to you because that's sometimes the hardest thing to do, especially when you're dealing mostly with people who are in times of stress. They're either trying to fire an employee or they're getting fired or usually by the time they come to HR, they've already been bounced around to a few different spots. So if you're able to kind of build that rapport, build that trust where people do feel seen, they do feel heard, they feel understood.

but also they know they're gonna get good advice and good perspective. That's what puts the human in human resources. It puts the employee in employee relations. That's just great. And it can't be, the value of the human part cannot be understated. It's the thing I've been sort of on this soapbox about within the age of AI is like, AI is a very helpful tool and it can be something that can help keep things organized. It can help you if you have a lot of

data in a system, help understand the data, but ultimately you have to be the one to interpret it and you have to be the one to communicate it and share it. And that's the human side and all the kind of pieces of that puzzle that kind of go along with it.

Andrea Brunet (07:58)
Yeah, I agree and I've certainly had the opportunity to see the both the up the upside and.

Rebecca Taylor (07:59)
WHAW!

Andrea Brunet (08:04)
the downside of AI and chat GPT, where on the one hand, it's great. It's a tool. I'm a big believer in work smarter, not work harder. And certainly we're all so busy. think we all experience quite busy days. It's a great tool for that. Where I find that it can be diminished is when it's utilized as a tool and someone will send a complaint to HR. And now that I've had enough experience with AI and chat GPT,

I'm more savvy. In the early days, Rebecca, I'll be honest, I did receive an email from an employee. And the first thing in my mind was, this person's consulted an attorney. Look how this is written. And then it took a little bit and I said, okay, they're using GPD. But part of me, it gives me pause too, where I'm reading through something. Okay, obviously this person is discontent, maybe with the manager or the workplace in general.

Rebecca Taylor (08:47)
Yeah.

Andrea Brunet (09:02)
but I still believe that, ⁓ here's something that they perhaps didn't entirely write on their own, but contributed to it. I still believe that picking up the phone and making that phone call. And what I generally do is I'll send an email. I'm in receipt of your concern. Can we carve out some time to have a conversation? Because then I feel that it's interactive and then I get the real person and not the chat GPT version of them. I feel that it's when you put the human side both on both ends, they realize,

I'm a person and then I know that they're a person and you know our end goal is to understand each other and figure out what's happening and and sometimes the solution is meeting in the middle and sometimes they just need to vent and you know that's okay and they just need to be heard and you know we're we're all people we're all working hard and trying to do our best and sometimes I truly believe that that's what we need to do is just hear each other out.

Rebecca Taylor (09:56)
Yeah, I love that you're saying that too. It's funny because I posted about something on LinkedIn the other day about when I was in HR, I got so many complaints that people didn't like the coffee that I made. So I stopped making it. Then I got complaints that no one was making coffee. long story short, it was one of those things that that was how their symptoms of discontent came out in that moment. But that's not what any of it was about. And that's often the case I find with complaints that someone might submit, you know, either through email or

through whatever tools you might have, right? It's usually a symptom of something and it's our job to kind of dig in and find patterns, find other things that might be influencing this that sort of connect some of the dots and then try to address sort of the core of it while making sure that the humans on the other side of it really feel heard. Because in my case, it wasn't about the coffee, it was about the fact we were understaffed, we needed an office manager. People didn't want to have to do all the office stuff anymore because they had a thousand other jobs.

Sometimes it's, you I need my manager to listen to me because they're not hearing that I need help or they're not hearing that I need help to succeed. I don't want to fail. Help me get some help. So, you know, that's the part where the human part is really, really important. And also the ability to find those themes and patterns. You can also see sort of does this also happen in other areas? Are the same names coming up a lot in these?

even if they're small complaints, right? It's like that's kind of where you start to really get to dig in and find out what's going on.

Andrea Brunet (11:27)
Yep, absolutely. And by the way, I've read your LinkedIn post and it resonated with me. So thank you for posting that. I had an experience like that about a decade ago and where I was the first human resources manager for this organization. They had just hit 50.

52 employees in fact, and they said, we need in-house HR. And they had outsourced HR up to that point. And I believe they didn't know what they needed or wanted at the end of the day. And there was a point where they asked me to order supplies and coffee and tea and so forth. And I pushed back in the sense of where, no, this isn't quote unquote, it's not that it's beneath me, but I believe that I was hired, you you asked for strategy.

Rebecca Taylor (11:45)
Hmm.

Yuck.

Andrea Brunet (12:15)
So part of my strategy is I'm going to hire somebody that can do that and help plan our parties and be Wonderful and amazing and do those things well rather than me try to stretch myself too far and fail or just do it halfway So I did get an office assistant that was able to do those things beautifully and I got to focus on the HR HR which they desperately needed

Rebecca Taylor (12:39)
Yeah,

yeah, that's great. It's so funny because that's basically that was my story too, same size company. They were, I think they were like 45 people. I was the first HR hire. It's just, it's such a common thread because HR really is, I know I'm biased because I come from HR, but it really is the connective tissue of an organization. It's the, it's the department, it's the one department other than the CEO that does work that impacts every single person in the company. You know, other.

Other C-suite positions, other teams, they have the luxury of having just their own little neighborhood that they take care of, right? Sales is in sales, marketing is in marketing. Sometimes there's overlap, but usually it's just a handful, you know, whatever those handfuls of groups might be. HR does stuff that's for everybody, and it really is that connective tissue. And what's funny is that sometimes people don't really see what HR is until something's going wrong. And then it's like,

we're solving all of the problems, which I think is it makes it our superpower that we're really good problem solvers like that. And I think it's something that I'm finding as I'm chatting with more people just on this podcast is that that's what a lot of the work is. It's a navigating the people parts of the relationships and just kind of creating and cultivating as much of a workplace experience as we can that feels values driven, that where people do feel safe and they do feel like they have what they need to succeed.

and that our leaders are showing up the way that we need them to. It's kind of the fun part of it.

Andrea Brunet (14:04)
Yeah, I agree completely, Rebecca. think that we really, HR really is the core and I think people don't often...

entirely understand what HR does. And I think of this case study that I learned a long time ago in college. It was talking about Nordstrom department store and their focus on customer service and how somebody had returned a tire that wasn't even purchased at Nordstrom. And Nordstrom took it and the associate was very gracious. They took the tire back, no questions asked, and the customer went on their way and just spoke about how

terrific the customer service was and what it came down to was, you know, people don't maybe they don't understand what you know what this entails. You don't buy tires at Nordstrom. However, the customer service was there and I relate to HR where people come to me for so many things where and I know in my mind, okay, this is and sometimes it's a very easy. this is definitely a payroll and we have a dedicated payroll team here. You could eat. is how you can reach them or benefits, for example. But then there's other things.

Rebecca Taylor (15:09)
Yeah.

Andrea Brunet (15:11)
where I look at something and think to myself, gosh, is this HR? This has never come across my plate. And circling back to that wonderful employee relations team that I'm a part of, I truly have this luxury of being able to reach out via Teams message to the group, hey, I've got a new one for you. And they do that too. And we learn from each other constantly. And sometimes you just see stuff like, hey, I've been in HR for two decades. I've never seen

Rebecca Taylor (15:17)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Andrea Brunet (15:41)
I've

never had this question. This is great, you know, but it really is. I take it away as an opportunity to continuously learn, provide good service, and even if it means, good service means directing somebody in another direction, but just at least, you know, giving, again, that human touch, helping them, you know, helping navigate, hey, I hear you, no, I can't help you, but this is where you can get the resources you need, help that you need, and giving them the opportunity to know

Rebecca Taylor (15:42)
Yup.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. ⁓

Andrea Brunet (16:12)
you know, okay, so maybe HR doesn't handle this now I know, but this is who does and you know, they wouldn't know if they didn't ask. So I, I feel that it's an opportunity to work with employees, get to know them, you know, our paths have crossed now. And, and I do hope that when things like that happen, they walk away thinking, I reached out to HR, it wasn't bad. And, you know, I know that, like some TV shows, the office that many of us are familiar with.

Rebecca Taylor (16:38)
Toby, our

nemesis.

Andrea Brunet (16:40)
Toby did not get the best rap for being an HR. So I always think to myself, all right, don't be Toby.

Rebecca Taylor (16:45)
You

Yup.

Andrea Brunet (16:50)
people a good experience and you know, know, everybody, know, whose paths I cross and and then when things are tense and difficult and maybe a conversation has to go ⁓ in direction that they weren't an employees and hoping, you know, I do hope that the mutual respect is still there that we can get through a difficult matter together.

Rebecca Taylor (17:12)
Yeah, I love that. It's funny because HR being the department that everyone goes to when they don't know where to go is sort of sometimes it can feel really frustrating because it's just like, ugh, I'm just trying to run a performance program or I'm trying to do the thousand different things that are in my job and I have to stop to kind of help you figure out this thing that I don't know either. But there's also something kind of special about where

often their first impression of the company in some way, right? We're recruiting or then when they're hired, we're onboarding them until they're sent off to their manager to do whatever it is that the managers are gonna do. And then we're also often their last impression of the company for better for worse, right? even this time of year, January, I always remember being sort of that time of year where I would always hear from all the employees. The former employees who I didn't hear from since they left, because they're all trying to get their W-2s. So I'd be like, hey.

Andrea Brunet (18:05)
Yeah.

Rebecca Taylor (18:08)
It's like, here's where

you can get some help. Also good to hear from you because you're still that lasting, for better for worse, sometimes impression of what it is. And I think if you can just make sure that they have an experience with you that is professional, dignified, they feel heard, you know, that's the that's how you're not a Toby.

Andrea Brunet (18:25)
Yeah, exactly. Don't

hide in your cubicle, your desk, know, be out there. And yeah, that's I agree. That's just something that's so important to make everything as positive as you possibly can in the HR profession, because it's not always going to be sunshine and rainbows, so to speak. I mean, it isn't. But you helping employees maintain their dignity.

throughout the process, whether you're an HR professional who works in recruiting and you're the one that delivers the message, hey, you're not the candidate that was selected for a job or you're sitting in on a termination meeting. That's the part of HR that is difficult and it's the type of challenge I don't enjoy, but I do believe that we can make those matters easier by maintaining that respect. And that's something that I speak with the leaders that I support,

especially when we're talking about employee terminations and I've presented on this where, you know what, nobody loves terminating anybody. mean, you know, we're human, we're about to upheave someone's existence. So when you maintain the dignity, no terminating people never gets easier. I've been in HR for 20 years, I can assure you, it never gets easier and I don't ever want it to feel easy. But when we let them know it's a business decision and it's not personal, we maintain their dignity,

Rebecca Taylor (19:27)
Yeah.

Andrea Brunet (19:48)
then I think somebody can walk away knowing that, oh gosh, my employment just ended, but it's not personal and life will continue, life will go on. it's just, it's one of the things that I talk about and just in partnership with leaders as far as, well, how do we, you know, how do we get through this difficult conversation or when people don't like to confront situations, you know, as leaders, say, you know, I'm strategic, I've been promoted, but I struggle with difficult conversations.

Rebecca Taylor (19:56)
Yeah. Yeah.

Andrea Brunet (20:18)
how do I get through this? one thing that I enjoy that really energizes me in my role is when I can partner with them and say, well, what's giving you pause? What's giving you hesitation? Well, what if they get mad at me? You're right. Nobody likes when people get mad at them. I said, but think about it. You've gotten mad at people, right? And to say somebody gets mad at you, take a deep breath. And I've asked people before, would it be better if we reconvened later today? Would that be better or do you want to continue?

Rebecca Taylor (20:35)
Yeah.

Andrea Brunet (20:47)
Sometimes we have reconvened, sometimes that gives people enough pause where they say, okay, you know, I need to get back on track here. And then they recalibrate themselves, so to speak, and we keep going. But that's certainly, again, just one of those aspects of human resources where let's keep the human in it. And I'm a big believer in that.

Rebecca Taylor (20:57)
Yup.

Yeah, I love that. It's so true. it's like, people are entitled to their feelings. But we're also allowed to say, I don't need to I don't need you yelling at me or if this is getting very tense, it's like, let's just reset this go be mad elsewhere. It's fine. I get it. Come back to me when we can chat a little bit further and kind of have a productive conversation. Yeah. And I think that's kind of the key is like knowing

knowing enough about ourselves and understanding how to read people well enough to say, hey, maybe this is a moment where we take five and we come back to it, or we just change the subject because this is something else that we also have to solve for that maybe isn't as stressful for you in this moment. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for being here, Andrea. I definitely feel like I could talk to you.

Andrea Brunet (21:51)
Yeah, agreed.

Rebecca Taylor (21:57)
all day, I'm sure we have stories we could swap about things we've seen, surprises that have come our way, what's our own tire that's brought to Nordstrom story, I'm sure we all have so many. And thank you so much for contributing and if you ever wanna share anything else with me, please do not hesitate to reach out because I love this conversation. And thank you everybody for listening and have a great rest of your day.

Andrea Brunet (22:21)
Great, thank you Rebecca for having you. Such a pleasure speaking with you today.

Rebecca Taylor (22:25)
Likewise, thank you.