Humor, Training, and Tackling Modern Workplace Challenges with Suzanne Lucas

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Welcome to another episode of the HR Chat Podcast. Hello listeners, this is your host today, Bill Banham, and joining me on today's episode is none other than Suzanne Lucas, aka the Evil HR Lady. She's back on the show, listeners, after far too long. Suzanne is a writer and speaker who focuses on HR and business issues. Before becoming the Evil HR Lady, Suzanne spent 10 years in corporate HR Her work focuses on helping people, managers, manage better and helping employees understand how to navigate the world of work. Her work has appeared in Inc., The New York Times, CBS MoneyWatch, Cornerstones, Rework, and many, many other places. Suzanne, what a pleasure to welcome you back to the show. How are you doing?

I am splendid, Bill, and I'm happy to be here.

Well, I appreciate your time. Thank you. So you've been on the show before, but for those who haven't listened to that episode, and for those who are perhaps not super familiar with your work, maybe you might want to start by taking a minute or two reintroducing yourself. And also, as part of your answer there, maybe you can share what gets you up in the morning.

I make HR better. And that isn't what I always did. I studied politics in school. I have a master's degree in political science. And so when I started in HR, I was the person who knew nothing. Right? And I was really blessed to get really good jobs for good companies right off the bat, where I learned how to be great HR. And I want everyone to have that benefit that I had in training and development and using fun tools like improvisational comedy to help you become a better HR person and a better HR leader.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the HR Chat Podcast. If you enjoy the audio content we produce, you'll love our articles on the HR Gazette. Learn more at hrgazette.com. And now back to the show. Very good. And what's that? What's that thing that gets you up in the morning? It gets you inspired, that gets you going?

Oh, I forgot. What gets me inspired right now is I have so much going on. There's so many new things in HR and I know people are freaking out. I sit in Switzerland, but my target, my clients are generally in the United States. I'm a little bit all over the world, but the vast majority are in the US. And if anybody's been paying any attention to the news at all, they know that Things are wild right now. But it's actually a really exciting time for HR and for someone like me who can take what is being thrown at them and translate it into business speak. I mean, that's one of those things I mentioned. I have the degrees in political science. And every once in a while that comes in handy because I understand how the US government works and how the Constitution works and all of that. So, when I see my fellow HR people freaking out about this or that, I can come in and be like, well, actually, which is a really horrible thing to say. I don't actually say, well, actually, this is how this works and this is how you need to apply it to your business, which hopefully will induce some sanity back into the world.

You've got a newish company. I think it was launched early 2024 called HR Learns. Tell us a bit about that.

Well, HR Learns was the brainchild of me and Victoria Purser. Victoria runs an HR consulting firm and she also does test prep training for SHRM and HRCI, which are the US big certifiers of HR professionals. And we realized that there was this little tiny gap in the marketplace, and that is there's a lot of training available for HR professionals, but it comes in two ways. One is free that is sponsored by a vendor, and so it's always very biased towards that vendor, right? And, you know, their, their end goal is for you to buy their software or, or whatever. So there's that training, and that, that you can get for free. And then you have a million training companies that offer training, but it's really expensive. And if you work for a big corporation, then that expensive training is fine. Your company will pay for it. But a lot of HR professionals work for these small to midsize businesses where when there's 75 people in the company and you say, hey, can I have $2,000 for this training? They're like, no, no, you can't. We don't have that budget. But those people are the ones that need the training the most because if you work for, you know, if you work for Amazon, you've got 40 HR people that are doing the one task that you're doing. And so you have all of the support for your one task. But if you're the sole HR practitioner for, you know, Bob's House of Pancakes, you've got to know how to do everything. And so we wanted to reach those people that work for those small to mid-sized businesses and make training that is affordable and actionable. And so that is the purpose of HR Learns, and we are loving it.

Excellent.

And there will of course be links in the show notes so you can learn more about HR Learns there, listeners. Suzanne, you just mentioned Amazon. Amazon are an example. I think it was December of last year, December 2024, of a very well-known, very large company that's been rolling back on some of its DEI efforts and some of its programs and training. Uh, you've shared views on LinkedIn about Trump's rollback on DEI programs. Um, you're based in Switzerland, uh, not part of the EU, but certainly right in the heart of Europe. Uh, the EU is perhaps moving to the right over the last couple of years, but for different contextual reasons. Will we see— in your opinion, do you think we'll see this kind of rollback elsewhere? We saw it in the UK a few years ago, although it didn't perhaps work out as much as the Conservative government had hoped. And what does the rollback mean for the HR department, regardless of geography?

Well, it's hard to say regardless of geography because countries' laws are just so, so, so different. But we're definitely seeing some pushback. And I think we need to be really careful when we use the term DEI because we all know that that stands for diversity, equity, and inclusion. But nobody agrees on the definition of diversity, the definition of equity, and the definition of inclusion. And so what we often have is the two sides shouting at each other, but they're not using the same definition. So we have on the one side, on the people that are opposed opposed to DEI saying, listen, you're giving, you're making quotas and you're giving preferences to people and we need to judge everybody on their merits. And on the other side, you have people saying, no, we're just leveling the playing field. We're just making sure that everybody has an equal opportunity. And we're not, we're using the same words, but we're not speaking the same language. And so I think that's a really important thing whenever we discuss DEI, because what the Trump administration is doing and saying they're rolling back, um, DEI and banning DEI, they're not banning a diverse workforce. They're not banning, um, the idea that we need to make sure that our workplaces, everybody feels comfortable in it. What they are banning is these quotas and preferences to, to particular groups. But because the advocates aren't using that definition, they see it as rejecting diversity and inclusion as well. And so, like I said, you have these two sides that aren't, they're not communicating with each other. At all. And secretly they agree more than they think they do because they're just shouting at each other and not hearing. And it's been really interesting from a sociological standpoint to watch these arguments go on where people are purposely not listening to each other. Our 4th grade teachers would smack us upside the head if they saw what we were doing today.

So just to add to that, uh, I, I don't think it's just about the quotas though. I mean, the Trump administration has defunded DEI training at the government level, so people aren't getting that education. That's, that's not happening anymore. What are your thoughts on that?

At the government level, for government employees, and they are saying that, uh, that federal contractors can't either. But remember What they're not saying is you can't have an inclusive environment. They are focusing on this one aspect of this, of this training, not on— and saying we need to focus on merit rather than on numbers. The new head of the EEOC, Andrea Lucas, who was appointed originally to the EEOC in 2020 by Donald Trump and is now the appointed commissioner— she hasn't been confirmed, but there's no reason that she won't be— is saying we at the EEOC are going to be steering this far more towards individuals. And there is a Supreme Court case coming up. It'll be heard on the 26th of February that is dealing with this issue, because what we have is a case in which the court said, listen, your claim is that you as a white person have been discriminated against. Actually, it wasn't white, it was a straight person, sorry. The case is that a person's claiming that he was passed over for promotion, most qualified, but they gave it to a gay person. And then the second time that promotion came around, they gave it to another gay person. And even though he was the most qualified, so he's claiming discrimination on on the basis of sexual orientation, which is illegal in the United States. You can't discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. And the court said, yeah, you were discriminated against, but straight people are in majority and there's no evidence that the company was discriminated against all straight people. So no. This is now going to the Supreme Court. My bet is, given the current makeup of the Supreme Court, that the Supreme Court's gonna say no, it's illegal to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. It doesn't matter whether you're gay or straight. That's not something that you can judge a candidate by. You can't judge a candidate by that. That's my bet on how it's gonna go. And that's gonna be combined with Andrea Lucas's new EEOC where we're focusing on the individual. Previously, there has been a lot of focus on groups and what we call disparate impact, which is how does this affect the group as a whole. And I think we'll see it moving more to, is this individual decision based on illegal discrimination? And not, how does this affect the group as a whole? And that's also a very different look. And on one side, DEI practitioners are like, we've got to be concerned with this overarching, how does the group look? And on the other side, people say, no, no, no, we need to look at every individual decision. Was this decision made based on merit, or was this decision made based on race, religion, gender, whatever. And again, we have this conflict between the two sides that they're not speaking the same, they're not speaking the same language even though they're using the same words.

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I'd like to switch focus now and talk about something else that HR Learns is getting up to. HR Learns recently partnered with Wendy Sellers to teach folks about marijuana in the workplace. Tell us more about that.

Well, I am super excited about this because, and I don't like to admit these types of things in public, but I don't know anything about marijuana in the workplace. I mean, I am a child of the '80s that, you know, just say no to drugs and And we had the D.A.R.E. program in school, which I don't remember what it stands for. Drugs are, I don't know, I don't know. Anyway, it was anti-drugs and the police came and they scared you to death. Anyway, I don't know anything about marijuana in the workplace. And so when I went looking for people that could teach things that I can't teach and that Victoria can't teach and found Wendy, she is extremely well qualified. This is a topic that she speaks a lot about. And she's gonna talk about how you're gonna handle this in the workplace, because it's actually a really difficult thing. We have a lot of states that have legalized marijuana. It's still illegal from a federal perspective. We have some states that haven't. We have some states that recreational is okay. Some states that medical is okay. How do you handle that? Like with alcohol, if, if you have an accident at work, I can immediately alcohol test you and see if you were under the influence. Right? Easy peasy, cut and dry, you are either drunk or you're not. Marijuana testing isn't like that. I can test you today and you're completely sober, but your blood test doesn't show anything different than the person who is completely high because you were high yesterday, but you were high yesterday at home, you know, and it was perfectly legal where you are. So how do you handle that? I mean, 'cause accidents happen no matter what, right? I mean, I've never smoked marijuana a day in my life. That doesn't mean I didn't slip down the stairs and bust my tailbone a year or so ago. That was super fun. You know, accidents happen. So how do you tell, how do you make that differences? And how do you handle it in terms of safety and in terms of compliance with federal laws? If you're working with heavy equipment and somebody tests positive. Is that a risk you're willing to take? You know, there's all of these things. So I'm really, really excited for Wendy with her expertise to come in and teach us all what it is we need to know to make sure that our businesses are in compliance and that we're doing what's optimal for our individual businesses. Because to be honest, I don't have good answers for all of that, but Wendy does. So that's why she's coming to teach us.

Okay, so folks, check out, uh, check out Wendy's involvement with HR Learns. So it sounds like it's a pretty important thing to be addressing right now. And also, I should just add, I'm sorry to hear about your tailbone. I hope you're, I hope you're fully recovered now.

But my goodness, and what do you do with a busted tailbone? Like, I just slipped downstairs at home. Yeah. Happens.

Now, ahead of our conversation today, I was looking back over notes from the last time you and I chatted a few years ago during the pandemic. And in there, I had a question for you at the time about a Disrupt event. Regular listeners of this show will know that I'm involved with various Disrupt chapters. And at that Disrupt event, you asked the following: if you're in need of a job What is the most important skill to have? And a few years ago when I asked you about this, I had an entirely different question, but subsequently AI has exploded. I'm involved with different AI summits and whatnot in different places. So I have a different question for you based on your question, and that's how have jobs and skills developed as a result of generative AI since you and I last spoke, which was back in mid-2022, I think.

So much has changed, but so much has remained the same. Companies keep saying, 'Oh, we're gonna get rid of our recruiters and use generative AI to evaluate resumes and to have a chatbot interview you.' And then it all falls apart. And you have people using generative AI for all sorts of things. And some of it is good and some of it is bad. One of the things that amuses me, and I don't know if it should amuse me or not, but it does amuse me, is how job candidates are using ChatGPT and Grok and Gemini and all of those things out there to write their cover letters and to do their resumes, which Some people are like, oh, I'm so opposed to that. And I'm like, no, listen, people have hired resume writers for centuries, right?

It's—

you're just mad because now people can get help for free. Like, we didn't care when you were paying $800 for a professional to do it, but now we care that you're getting it for free or for $20 a month or whatever. And but you can see in a recruiter's inbox all the applicants for this job will have identical starts to their cover letters because they're all using ChatGPT to do it. And some recruiters are saying, well, listen, if you're not doing it yourself, I'm gonna disqualify you. But I'm like, and how did you write that job description? Oh, did you put it in ChatGPT? Oh, you did, right? So there's this weird kind of situation where we have AI writing the job description, AI writing the COVID letter, and then the built-in AI in your applicant tracking system picking the best candidate, which makes for some really weird situations and brings up some ethical questions that, as I said, we're not quite ready to deal with because it's so much easier to say, hey, listen, you're— if you're using ChatGPT to write your resume, then you're horrible. But if you paid a resume writer $800 to do that, then you're awesome. And that's a ridiculous position to take. So on the HR side of things, we have all of this stuff going on. And then we have it in every aspect. I mean, admittedly, I don't pay a graphic designer nearly as much as I used to. And I feel bad. I love my graphic designer. He's a great guy. But I have to get stuff to him a couple of weeks in advance. Then we have to go through whatever, or I can go into ChatGPT, describe what I need, and then I fix it up in Canva. And, and it's 20 minutes. It was less time than I took talking to the designer, right? It's, it's a different, it's a different world. And I don't know quite how I feel about it, but my wallet prefers that I don't have to pay the designer anymore. His wallet undoubtedly does not prefer that I don't have to pay the designer anymore.

And I think that's a good place to leave this conversation today. In conclusion, it's a different world to the last time you and I caught up. So that just leads me to say for today, Suzanne Lucas, thank you very much for being my guest.

Thank you so much for having me. It's always great fun.

And listeners, as always, until next time, happy working.

Thanks for listening to the HR Chat Show. If you enjoyed this episode, why not subscribe and listen to some of the hundreds of episodes published by HR Gazette? And remember, for what's new in the world of work, subscribe to the show, follow us on social media, and visit hrgazette.com.