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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. I'm here with Paula Nuzzi, CHRO at Tarter Gate LLC. Welcome to the podcast, Paula. Thank you. Thank you for having me today. I appreciate it, Rebecca. I'm so glad to have you here because I think this is going to be, I know we discussed your scenario right before we started recording, but I'm very excited to talk about this particular topic. So for those who are new here,
I want to tell you a little bit about HR Voices. So 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 Paula. So we're going to evaluate a realistic workplace situation and demonstrate how someone like Paula and even me ⁓ might assess risk, apply judgment, and design practical responses. So our goal here is to reveal how strong HR leaders think when facing ambiguity, not necessarily to find a single correct answer. Because as we all know, HR lives in the nuance.
And that's kind of what we're here to talk about is sort of that nuance, that gray and what you do when that's kind of what you have to work with. So without further ado, I bring us our scenario for this particular episode. So this is a fabricated scenario. So sometimes we do bring scenarios from the headlines. Sometimes we bring some that are fabricated. So this particular one is fabricated. But it's something that I think is very realistic and something that
lots of different companies are trying to figure out right now. So it's called the Neurodiversity in Hiring. So a tech company launches a neurodiversity hiring initiative specifically targeting candidates with autism spectrum disorder, ADHD, and other neurological differences. The program includes modified interview processes, mentorship, and workplace accommodations. A rejected candidate who doesn't identify as neurodivergent files a complaint alleging reverse discrimination, arguing the program gave preferential treatment to candidates with disabilities.
So Paula, let's get right into some of this. this, you're the HR person in this scenario. This is what lands on your desk. So tell me a little bit about what stands out to you as the most risky or the most unclear in the situation, just to get us started. I think with the way that companies are reviewing and understanding what to do differently with the generations that are coming in that
are getting diagnosed with ADHD and different autism levels that we have to look at things differently. But we also have to communicate it in a way that everyone understands the why behind the change and exactly, you know, where there is differences between ⁓ certain hiring techniques that are different than what we've traditionally done and how we're continuing to, you know,
move forward ⁓ and ensure that everyone has an equal opportunity to come into the organization. And that can be difficult when you many different generations in the workforce that create people that not understand the why behind certain hiring decisions. And that's on us as organizations to make sure that we're looking at it and explaining it in ways that people understand we're not discarding.
certain people were not creating better opportunities or different opportunities for people not to be hired. We're creating opportunities for people to find the right place and the right role for them coming into an organization that maybe we didn't get to do before and people suffered because of that. And how do we create workspaces that everyone feels comfortable and everyone's able to be their best person when they come to work? And that's all this ⁓ does for people.
From the sound of the person that filed the complaint, there wasn't enough explanation as to how it's not hindering their ability to get a job. It's just helping those who never had an opportunity prior. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it kind of raises the question, is there such thing as reverse discrimination in a scenario like this where, you know, it's not that you're, if you're not in a position where you will need these types of accommodations.
Is it really reverse discriminatory? Does it exist as reverse discrimination for you to be rejected because almost because you don't need them? Yeah. And then I also think that companies have to be very careful that they aren't creating a space where people feel like they'll never have an opportunity to get a role because they don't have a name behind their or a concern. Right. So.
We have to also be very acutely aware that it's about being inclusive. It's about making sure that everyone has a spot in the organization where they feel like they can be successful and they're not struggling every single day to fit a mold that.
quite frankly, has never really been there. It's just talked about a lot more now than it ever was before. And I think our hiring practices have to get past this objective. We have to be able to look and say, how do we ensure cognitive strengths and behaviors and all of those things are reviewed and understood so that people can come in the organization and say, man, I feel great doing what I do and I'm good at it.
And I good at it because it fits me. If it's who I am and I don't have to change who I am to be able to be successful in that organization. And as organizations continue to drive that, it's, really important for them to understand that that's where you're going to be. You're going to find your success. It's not about saying, I can't hire you because I can't figure out a way to accommodate ADHD. I want to hire.
all kinds of people with ADHD, they work and they enjoy work and they bring a different perspective. We hired an individual that has autism in our customer service, customer experience group. And at first it was difficult to understand how that person's gonna fit in. And it took about three or four days for that team to stop and go, wait a minute.
He sees things differently. He understands things differently. His computer skills are absolutely phenomenal. So he's like building the AI tools that no one else really understood because his mind thinks that way. That doesn't make him different. It means that he has different skills that the team didn't have and this person was able to bring that in. And I would say that prior, we wouldn't have hired someone that had divulged that they had autism because of the fear.
And we've got to get past the fear and allow people to come in the organization and bring the skills that they have because there's a lot of skills out there that are getting missed. Yeah, I agree. And I think it's like eliminating the fear to help people overcome from the hiring standpoint so that they can sort of get into the job, but also make it so that folks that, you know, are diagnosed with any type of, you know, neurodiversity that kind of falls under any of this sort of broad spectrum, right?
they have the accommodations so that they don't have to do what the expectation was in the past, which was just mask, grin, bear it, pretend that everything's okay. Now we can sort of have these conversations about, what do you need to be successful in this role that might be different from what someone else needs, but allows you to perform at your best? ⁓ It kind of, if people are uncomfortable sharing a diagnosis or being open about what those needs are,
then that workforce is not gonna be creating the best environment for any of their employees to work because you're just kind of forcing folks to work in situations that just don't bring out their best skills. And your organization needs someone to just perform at their best, right? That's kind of the point. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And I think that ultimately, this is about the evolution itself within workforces. It's not just necessarily about neurodiversity, it's holistically.
There's a generation coming in that is saying, we deserve better. Gen Zs have courage enough to stand up for what they believe in. And our generations prior taught these kids to do that, right? And taught this generation to be able to speak up for themselves. Now we have to embrace that. And we have to say, ⁓ how do we lead the next decade by designing talent and roles and the ability to hire roles?
for every single individual coming in. It's not excluding or including anyone. It's allowing every human being to have an opportunity that they've always deserved and a generation that has opened their eyes to make sure that happens. And this next generation is absolutely phenomenal in saying, I need you to assist me in helping me be successful. And then I can take my success and run with it, but you got to give me some tools and accommodations to be able to make that happen.
And when organizations step back and say, it doesn't have to be the way it's always been, we have to do something a little bit different, that's when the organization is going to win. Yeah. Yeah. And when you're looking at sort of this type of scenario where a candidate alleges or files a complaint that they're alleging that there's reverse discrimination, how much
risk, does it actually open up for the company is sort of the, you know, and we're not lawyers, right? I'm just sort of thinking, so sort of like, let's muse on it, because, there are laws in place to protect, you know, folks to have different accommodations. There's the Americans with Disabilities Act that covers, you know, a lot of workplace accommodations, and it's sort of the bedrock of a lot of these types of protections for, you know, for these folks. So when you were thinking about risk, you know, this person could have filed this complaint, but
I don't see it going particularly far specifically because of ADA protections, but what do you think? Well, I think it depends. So it depends on how the company is rolling these initiatives out, right? If a company is being full-blank and saying, I'm not going to hire somebody that doesn't have these disabilities, I don't really call them, I don't.
I don't like using the word disability when it doesn't have neurodiversity, right? Doesn't have neurodiversity. I do think you could, you could have some concerns if the organization isn't doing it in the right way, just like with any accommodation, any ADA accommodation requests, organizations have to be trained and understand how to manage it in a way that makes sure that we're not discriminating against any type of individual.
It's no different than what we've done for the last 20 years. It's just a different progression of what we've done in the last 20 years. And so ultimately, when you think about how do you create and design talent systems, what tools are you using? How are you ensuring that everybody's treated in a way that's equitable and inclusive? And your policies, procedures, and your formatting of interviewing and tools that you may use
need to ensure that you're reviewing and making sure that they're inclusive. And if you're not doing that, you could get in trouble either way. ⁓ so companies need to sit back and really look at it and say, are we, what we're doing the right thing? And have we have enough training to make sure that our leaders and our supervisors are interviewing in a way that includes, you know, questions that allow us to hire the best candidate for the.
best role, asking questions around what kind of accommodations can I assist you with if someone comes out and says they have no different than I'm in a wheelchair and I'm going to need a different setup, right? ⁓ We have to ask the right questions. And if we're not doing that, we could get in trouble. But ultimately, if you have the right HR and the right leaders in place and training and develop those people, you can reduce your risk significantly. Yeah. Yeah.
I think it's a good call out. you want to understand, you know, getting into some of the things you'd want to understand. You understand what tools they're using from the recruiting standpoint, you know, whether it's just within the ATS, but I imagine, you know, there may be other tools that they're, you know, that they're using to generate, to coordinate some of the interviews or to have the interviews. So you want to make sure those are being used properly. And I think the thing you mentioned that cannot go understated is the importance of training managers and training hiring managers so that
you know, because every single time they show up for an interview, there's a chance that they could, you know, do something not with bad intention, but they could just do something that is against the training that opens up sort of a can of worms. So having that training in those at-bats and practices, it sounds like is an important part of getting this right too. Yeah. And I think when you're working with your third party tools, your AI tools that you're using to hire or your ATS system, we use a predictive index to create our
interview guides and make sure that we're getting the right fit for the right roles. You have to make sure that you're putting the roles in correctly, right? So if you're adding things in there that aren't something somebody needs to do or you're hoping and dreaming that you can get this perfect person, and then we have to understand our biases and what are those biases and how do we train those managers to recognize those biases so when they sit down in front of a candidate,
they are aware of their own biases and they interview in a way that ensures that their biases doesn't create a situation where somebody feels like they haven't been treated fairly. Yeah, yeah, because everyone has bias. It's not something, it's not an accusation we all do. It's completely normal. The question is, what do do about it? Or what do you do with it? Or how do you bury it sometimes for situations like this to kind of put it aside and then let the situation speak for itself?
So in this scenario, excuse me, if you were the HR person, you you get the complaint, you know that this is a big initiative that, you know, that you and your team are running, ⁓ you know, but you see this complaint come through, you know, we talked about how you want to understand the different tools being used, how managers are trained, what's happening in these interviews. Who do you need to hear from? Who do you start to kind of talk to and who do you not want to hear from yet as you're starting sort of an investigation? Yeah, so I think I would first and foremost start with the recruiter and understand, you know,
Who was recruited? Who was chosen to interview? How were those people chosen? ⁓ What does the tool show, ⁓ depending on what tool you're using? For us, we're using ADP. So, tell me why you chose the top three candidates and understand that format. And then ask, what kind of interview booklet did you use? What kind of interview questions did you ask? And then go to the hiring manager and do the very, very similar.
⁓ I would probably request to see the interview notes. I would request to see the resumes of the individuals that came in. I would request to see the job description. ⁓ and for us, I would request to see the PIs and understand, you kind of how they were using that tool. I would take all of those things together and then, you know, just data analytics to understand, did we choose the right candidates to interview? What was the right step? And.
and then ultimately why was the final person chosen? And then from there, I think it would be very important to ensure that the tool that we're using is set up correctly for the job, ask for a job description and verify that we're setting things up properly. And then I would have to have a conversation with the candidate to understand the why behind their complaint and what steps they felt were missed or what was added that they didn't feel comfortable with.
And then I would just take that information and make a logical decision based on all of the data that I can gather from all of the participants in that certain hiring decision. Yeah. And before you jump to that decision, what are some, what assumptions are you careful to not make before you're kind of jumping to that conclusion? Like, what are some of those? I think first and foremost, as a CHRO, the first thing I have to do is I've got to stop my own biases to say,
You know, this person's coming in and saying that they weren't hired because we were reverse discriminating against them, right? For me, I would immediately have to step back and say, this is their perception and their perception's reality. And so you have to do the questions and the interviews and the investigation in a way that doesn't draw conclusion for people. So if I'm asking questions to my recruiter,
I'm not gonna go and say this person feels like they've been reverse discriminated against. I wanna get facts. So I just wanna ask the questions that say, help me understand how you hired, what questions you asked, what candidates you chose, why did you choose those candidates? Then they're not trying to formulate answers. And then same with the hiring manager, right? I don't necessarily have to tell them why I'm asking the questions.
they need to not have their own biases come into that investigation. They need to be able to just answer the question that I'm trying to get to the bottom of, not the reason behind it. And so that takes out some of the bias answers that you may get during investigation. I do think that sometimes we forget that we can add our own biases in pretty fast if we don't step back and say, what questions don't I ask? So that ultimately,
I can remove some of the biases that are gonna come into this investigation and make a response to the individual based on holistic data and not what I think they wanna hear. ⁓ I also think it's important for us not to try to formulate an answer based on what we think the person wants to hear, because that's where we get in big trouble and you go in front of a judge and they don't really care what you think they wanted to hear. They wanna know what the truth is.
And so my perceptions have to set aside until I can get actual data and formulate an actual response that's based on truth and not based on perception or people's biases. Yeah. Yeah. And talk to me a little bit about this data. Can you give some examples of the kind of data that you'd look at? Yeah. So I would look at
Yeah, so I would look at PIs for us. It would be, were they a match? Were they not a match? What kind of questions did we ask if they weren't a match? Because just because they don't match on the PI doesn't mean they can't do the job, right? But you have to ask different questions. I would ensure that our ATS system and our AI isn't creating issues, taking out resumes that weren't supposed to be there. The AI thought it was the right thing to do, but maybe we didn't have it set up correctly.
to review the resume and the way the keywords weren't correct, we needed to understand that. And then being able to take all of the tool data that we get and then also the investigation results that we get and put those in and say, does this match? Does this match? Does this not match? Does this not match? And then ⁓ use that to formulate a decision before you can communicate back to the complainant. Yeah. Yeah.
Thank you for walking us through that. Cause I think that's kind of the hard thing is sort of like what information does it does constitute data? Sometimes it's hard numbers. Sometimes it's conversations. Most times in investigations, it's interviews and you know, sort of compiling information from multiple sources who were involved in sort of finding the patterns and seeing, this something someone doesn't like, or is this something that's actually wrong? That's the distinction you're sometimes trying to figure out. Or is it their perception or is it reality? ⁓ right. And so, yeah, for sure.
Yeah. And so at some point you have to make some kind of a call, right? So can you walk us through how you'd weigh some of the competing pressures here between the candidate pressure, the internal pressure within the organization, the optics, right? How do you kind of weigh those? So I think it's imperative that we don't conform to what people think is normal. Our normal is changing. There's going to be a new normal in the next two years, three years, five years.
as you roll out a new program. And so I think it's really important for me at the point when I finished my investigation is ensuring I'm compliant, ensuring there wasn't anything done that was not within the compliance of all the rules and regulations. And depending on what state you're in, you need to make sure that you're looking at any compliance requirements for that state that you're in. But also then looking at it and ⁓ ensuring that you
say, did we follow the new process and is my new process broken? And if it is, where can I fix it? Because when you're rolling out new things, like ensuring that we're hiring in a different way so we can get different talent in the door, you may not get it right the first time you do it. So you have to ensure that your process isn't broken. Is there not something within the process that created this person to feel like they were reverse discriminated against?
conversation to that person or was the email that they get not set up in a right way? Was there some process that that person felt like you really discriminate against me and I don't feel good about it? Because even though we may not agree and maybe they weren't reverse discriminated against, right? And we find that that wasn't factual, that person felt that. And that means we have to own that. And we have to figure out why that happened and where we can ensure that someone else doesn't have that same.
response or feeling when they walk out of the door as a candidate, because it's all about candidate experience. And regardless if it's one side or the other, we have to ensure that we're looking at people for being, this is a human factor, and these aren't robots, and everyone has a different view on the world. And we have to make sure we're working through that in a way that we can fix any process that's created that person to feel that way. Yeah. I want to call out something you said that
goes under also, think, assumptions to not make, don't assume your process is working correctly. You know, because you're right, it can be natural to kind of go and defend the process, right? Because who knows how long HR has been fighting for this initiative in the first place, right? Because usually to do a big change, you have to get buy-in, you have to prove that the ROI behind it. So if you're at the point where you're running this strategy, you're interviewing candidates, there's a whole HR journey that happened just to get to this point.
And it can be natural to want to defend your process, defend your thesis, because one little blip can sometimes have leadership say, you know what, I don't want to deal with us anymore. Let's pull the whole rug out. And I think that's like, you know, the being willing to question your process and fix it and iterate on it and balance that to make sure you continue to have that grace and that attention, I think is really important. So the whole thing just doesn't get thrown away. Yeah, absolutely.
Morally, that's what we have to do. It's imperative that we own the fact that we're also human and there may be a part within our process that we missed. ⁓ quite frankly, that's okay. That's where we learn the biggest lessons. It's also where we create the biggest opportunity and change for people is those moments when you look back and say, man, we did all this work and we missed that. How did we miss that?
And that is absolutely the moment, pivotal moment that your process becomes true. Like it becomes true buy-in. It becomes, they said their process was broken and they owned it, they admitted it and they fixed it. And now all of a sudden people go, no, you know what? They're willing to admit mistakes and they're willing to fix them. And it's not about being the best or showing that you're perfect.
because sometimes good enough is as perfect as you're going to get it. But as long as you're willing to change and learn, it creates a better environment for everyone. Yep. I love that. I can guarantee that your new process is not perfect. I can guarantee you're going to find things that are going to break because you just don't know. You just don't know until you're doing it. And, you know, it's all about just doing the right thing to fix it and not letting that, you know, go back on the whole reason why you're doing it in the first place.
Or just trashing it completely because you've all this time on it and like, made a mistake. We can't do it anymore. And now it's more important to go, I made a mistake. I got to learn something really cool. Now how am going to fix that? What am I going to do better the next time? Yeah. Yeah. More often, it's more cost effective to fix that, but to tweak the little thing and keep going than it is to throw the whole thing away and pretend that it never existed. So sometimes it's just math. Very true. Very true.
So we talked a little bit about sort of preparation and, ⁓ you know, and training of managers, but, one other question I have for you is how, how can HR leaders prepare managers for this kind of moment? So, you know, cause most HR initiatives take a village, right? It's not just one person. So, you know, how can HR prepare managers for this moment, whether they're hiring managers or if they just maybe manage and oversee a team of people who.
hear about this, right? Like what are some things that HR can do to anticipate all the people dynamics that kind of come with this and how managers can help to control them or deal with them? Yeah, so I'm gonna go back to tried true. I guess we have to get out of being the HR that doesn't tell managers things until we roll things out. We've got to get to a point where we've got to pull managers in in the beginning and get their
and take their buy-in. And when you notice that you have situations where manager may have an unconscious bias they're not even aware about, that's when you sit down at that moment and say, hey, I noticed something today and let's talk through it. And you coach and counsel, provide examples, give an opportunity for them to get trained differently because maybe they have more of a bias than two or three of your other hiring managers. And they deserve to understand
why their mindset is the way their mindset is. And sometimes I think we get in our HR bubble and we forget that there is an entire population of people out there that can support us in rolling out initiatives. And when you bring those people to the table with you, you all of sudden gain trust, you gain understanding, people gain buy-in, and quite frankly, they have some super creative ideas that we may never ever think about.
The other thing I think that we've done really well ⁓ over the last several years ⁓ is making sure we bring employees in. It's not just about managers. They have a certain view of their employees that, quite frankly, may not be correct. And so you bring those employees in and you sit them down and say, hey, we're looking at pulling out, bringing out a new program to help, you
Create a opportunity for more inclusiveness that we hire. You have mothers and fathers and uncles and aunts that have people in their lives that have managed through not getting hired because they have ADHD or hiding behind a mask as we talked about earlier. And they felt that pain with them and you bring them to the table and they have some fantastic ideas, right? And that's just not for hiring, but for any initiative we have.
We've got to get out of our bubble as HR and as an HR leader, I try to scream it at the top of my lungs. It's not about HR creating ⁓ inclusiveness. It's not about HR creating engagement. It's not about HR fixing the problems. It's about HR empowering people to help inclusiveness and fixing problems and creating an environment of engagement for employees. We can't do that on our own within the HR bubble.
have to allow people into our space and give us ideas on how to do that. And then they have to own it. I love that. We'll scream that from the top of the podcast. We'll say, please get out of your bubble. It's OK. It's OK. And it's important. Like, you know, sit them down and say, we're in a safe bubble. We're in a safe place. We're going to ask you some hard questions. And you you need to know this OK to express some ideas here. And you're not going to get challenged or
You know discipline for that. They've got to know that they can come to the table and provide Their feedback in a way that makes them feel comfortable, too Yeah, not everything is a test. Some things are just a conversation Exactly, right. Exactly You have to quit being so scary in HR Yeah, yeah, just kind of like be a little bit, you know let the guard down a little bit maybe and I know sometimes it's hard because it's like
You know, it's hard to want to include people when you not include probably the wrong word, given what we're talking about. But what I mean is like bring people into early things that you're working on. Cause maybe you don't feel like it's ready for feedback yet, but I would always argue that that's actually when you probably need feedback the most. Cause then you're not going to spend so much time going down a direction that people are going to be like, you should have turned left all the way back there. so you're going to turn back. You missed this. this. You turned your chart.
We're rolling out predictive index for our performance management system right now. And one of the things that we did was ensure that we brought in some brand new hires, new people under the 30 day mark to say, hey, I'm going to show you this tool. Tell me what you think. And to get their feedback to say, wow, that's a lot for my brain to comprehend all of those things. Is there a way to make that easier?
Or to hear people say, can we add color to that? Is there an opportunity for you to add like little snippets that an AI comes up and I can type in a question to answer it right away. And, you know, when you think about doing that early, I don't roll out a whole new, very expensive platform and go, nobody's using it. Why isn't anybody using it? doesn't meet everybody's needs. And I didn't ask those questions. And if I would ask those questions earlier, I wouldn't be going back screaming like,
I know I just spend all this money, but we're not getting our money's worth, right? Because nobody's engaging in it. So we just have to do better. We have to do better. Yeah, I love that. I know, believe it or not, we're actually at time. And normally, I know that you just gave a lot of really good advice, especially around being willing to question your process and being willing to bring people in. But I want to open the floor. Do you have any other piece of advice that you want to give to our HR audience who's listening to this? I think so much of what you said is so worth repeating.
But any last thoughts you want to share? Yeah. So think the only thing is we've got to stop forcing humans into outdated systems. Inclusion, when done right, is a competitive advantage. And we've got to quit using it as a negative and start looking at designing talent opportunities for the next generation in a way that's going to continue the businesses to be competitive. That's how you get a seat at the table.
Yes, so well said. I warned you I might throw in a golf hop here and there. Thank you. Thank you so much, Paula, for being here and for having this conversation. Thank you, everybody, for listening, and I hope you all enjoy the rest of your day. Bye.