The Work Wire
SHRM CEO Johnny C. Taylor, Jr. and Bob Goodwin, President at Career Club, host a lively conversation on how the latest news impacts all things work-related.
The Work Wire
The Work Wire - Post Election Reactions from the Office
Unlock the secrets to fostering civility and respect in the workplace amidst post-election tensions with insights from Johnny C. Taylor Jr., the President and CEO of SHRM, and your host, Bob Goodwin. We tackle the thorny issue of post-election workplace dynamics, sharing strategies to cultivate a culture that values diverse perspectives—even when political views clash. Learn how HR professionals can lead the charge, ensuring productive and respectful conversations while advocating for policies that transcend political divides.
In this episode, we also explore the future of workplace policy amid an AI-driven economy. From innovative strategies for skills development and workplace immigration to managing healthcare costs, we uncover the crucial role of HR in guiding companies through these challenges. Hear our thoughts on balancing leadership instincts with strategic oversight, and join us in a hopeful discussion about job growth and workforce development. Together, we envision a thriving workforce ready to embrace future opportunities, where trades are respected alongside college degrees, and every employee feels seen and heard.
You're listening to WorkWire, sponsored by CareerClub and SHRM. Careerclub has a range of services aimed at job seekers with an empathetic approach. Whether you are a job seeker yourself, know someone who is in job search or an HR professional looking to bring a more empathetic approach to transitioning employees, check out Career Club. If you are an HR professional seeking to enhance your skills, subscribe to SHRM and explore their extensive resources, Visit SHRMorg. That's SHRMorg.
Speaker 2:Hey everybody, this is Bob Goodwin, president of Career Club, joined by my good friend, the president and CEO of SHRM, johnny C Taylor Jr. And welcome to another episode, a special episode of the WorkWire, Johnny, so good to see you. To another episode of special episode of the work wire.
Speaker 3:Johnny, so good to see you, good to be seen, my friend, and it's really good to see you. As the southerners we'd say good to be seen to be seen.
Speaker 2:Y'all come on now. Do you know the plural of y'all?
Speaker 3:no, all y'all, yeah good, and I'm a southerner. I'm as southern as you can be. I'm from South Florida. When it was the south yeah, that's a good point the southernmost tip of the country but had not heard all y'all, all y'all, my mother's from Birmingham, so yeah, we can do all y'all.
Speaker 2:Anyway. So one of the things that we like to do on the Work Wire is address very current things that are happening that affect work, the workplace, workers, right. And so we had something that happened recently that you may have heard about, which maybe is the presidential election that was in the United States last week and it's going to be two weeks ago, Two weeks already.
Speaker 2:Wow. So what clearly has happened is it was very emotional, very polarizing the election, and people have come out of that with different feelings, and what I was hoping that we could do is a couple of things, johnny, you know talk about civility and how to have productive interactions with our colleagues who may not have felt the way that we felt about the election, irrespective of who you were for, and so just how to have healthy conversations with colleagues, what companies can do to set the right tone. Some people are over the moon and feel vindicated. Other people are depressed and just feeling horrible about what's going on, and they're coming to work with all those emotions, and so I was wondering if we could talk a little bit about that and then move on to talking about some of the things that you, sherm, might see from a second Trump administration as it impacts the world of work.
Speaker 3:So yeah, first of all, this is great timing. It's really interesting. We tried to get in the front of this. We at Cherm, if you recall, when we started our civility campaign and we started much early in the year we knew that as divided as the electorate was, that to your point, you're going to wake up the next morning and 51% of the population was going to feel vindicated, excited, et cetera, and 49% and I'm using rough numbers was not, and we knew that. And so the question was what can workplaces, employers, hr professionals do to facilitate a softer landing? We thought that by emphasizing the importance of civility, tying this all to a culture of respect and diversity, because diversity, as you know, is not just race and gender, national origin, it includes political affiliation and belief systems and perspectives right Viewpoint. So we tried to set people up with it and I believe that we brought the temperature down a little bit. It's not going to go away, but I do think that people who may have otherwise responded in a really, really negative way didn't because of I'd like to for HR professionals around the globe to take some credit for bringing the temperature down. We made it clear to employers, employees, rather, what was civil behavior that would be tolerated and uncivil work behavior would not be tolerated, like we were really clear.
Speaker 3:So where are we now? We are a couple of weeks now past the election. Wounds are people. Some are still licking their wounds. In fact, in some ways, bob, it's worse, because now all of the pundits, all of the folks, are now taking shots. The president-elect is beginning to name some of his nominees for cabinet positions and that creates yet another strong emotions about it, depending upon how you felt about the issues. And we are just going to be in a constant state of turmoil is not the right word, but tension of turmoil is not the right word, but tension, that's the right word. Tension up to and through and including the inauguration. So that's what we're now all focused on.
Speaker 3:And SHRM wants to just remind people about civility. And really I don't mean to be cute about it, but this is essentially a diversity issue. Like you can't say to people we welcome diversity, when what you really mean is diversity, as long as I agree with it. It just doesn't work that way. By definition.
Speaker 3:If you're a Republican, you should want some Democrats around to make better decisions and see different perspectives and angles, and vice versa if you're a Democrat and your candidate didn't win, you should also be embracing this diversity, but we don't. We've sort of gone back in to our tribalism and you are blue or red, and if you, your team, won and you're now blue, you're poking fun at upset, et cetera. So it's we at SHRM, as you know, our position is policy, not politics. Shrm, as you know, our position is policy, not politics. So I'd love to talk with you at some point about what we're going to do, what we are advocating for with this new administration as it comes in and, frankly, what we want to say to the outgoing administration, because there's still things they can do and focus on in these last several weeks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we'll get on to the policy. But, by the way, ever since I heard you say it for the first time, you know policyM has tried to do to just set a foundation for, you know, civility, respect, empathy. I think you like to talk about extreme listening and and so you know this was, this was very proactive on SHRM's part. Like let's get out in front, you guys have tv spots on this stuff. I I mean, this isn't just you know, in the SHRM newsletter, this is like to the electorate at large, like millions of dollars of expense.
Speaker 2:You know, investment, yeah, I mean so, you know, kudos to you all and, as you say, you know taking the temperature down, but at the same time.
Speaker 2:Not the same time, but and people are going to work and they're feeling, what they're feeling as maybe an HR person, maybe just as a leader at my company and maybe just as a rank and file worker. How do we, just because there are so many emotions tied into this, how do you separate, like I feel really strongly about that, I mean this is something that I think is extremely important, and either it fell my way and like I'm talking about it because I can't help myself, or I massively disagree, and to sit back and just say nothing, or to be quiet about it is disrespectful to the issue, the consequences. So I must be loud, I must be animated to really kind of reflect the seriousness I believe these issues are grounded in.
Speaker 3:Grounded in yeah, see, the one thing that we when I talk to employees in our organization- for example, is okay.
Speaker 2:So the next day I was a.
Speaker 3:Trump supporter and we come in and I won Hypothetically Hypothetically, I'm saying it's not hypothetical that they won. And we have employees who walked in the next day and they're like my candidate won. You could come in tastefully and respectfully, yes, you can say I'm very happy with the outcome of the election results. Or you could say you all got trashed, you got dogged, you lost the popular vote, and you could go on and on and on, and all that can do is trigger people and you have to ask yourselves why am I doing that? This is a conversation that I had with someone. I said you won.
Speaker 3:At this point, rubbing it in, this is not like a Super Bowl match, where the next day your team didn't win. This is far more emotional and personal. So what we've been advising people to do is have a level this is where civility and respect and dignity comes in Appreciate that your colleague is right now wounded and this is not the time to put salt in the wound. It's time to say the decision has been made. Unless you're living, you know your head is in the sand, you know what happened, what the results were, and it's time that we get back to. It was your candidate the day before and it's now your president the day afterwards and it's all of our president-elect, and so you just have to do that. But it's how we manage the communication, how we manage our relationships, that will matter.
Speaker 3:Now, the flip side of that is, if your candidate lost and you are coming in the next day and you're pissed, so your anger is bubbling over, you also have to stop and ask yourselves how appropriate is that for the workplace? If you go in and attack someone who's candidate one, you should expect them to return the attack, and so this is very much incumbent upon all of us not to not talk about the biggest issue in the United States and arguably the world, the day after the election. Of course, you can't like pretend that that didn't happen. How we talk about it, how we show up, is what we have been really trying to emphasize. You know what I mean. That's just what it is, and what's happening is both sides are now lobbing, you know, weapons at each other and it's not cool verbal weapons. So that's what we're trying to do is just to say I got it. You're upset, your candidate didn't win. But here's news alert Two people compete. One's going to win, one isn't.
Speaker 2:That's the way it works, just because the election's over and okay, so we let the dust settle on. My person won or didn't win. Now to your earlier point. People are being nominated, policies are going to start being formed, policies are going to start being implemented. That again, I have very strong emotions about these issues. And now things are going in a way I'm happy about. Things are going away I'm not happy about. So this isn't going away. This isn't like okay, you know, wake up from the nightmare and now we can kind of get on with our life again. And it's not a nightmare, nightmare, it's just that things will fair point, but, but things will continue to be this way. So you know, if you were speaking and if I'm just making you repeat yourself, stop me. But like talking to the hr professional who's there trying to keep the thing together here, you know, and to keep that culture of tolerance, diversity, inclusion.
Speaker 3:Yes, it's interesting that you use the word that I was gonna use, which is culture, and, as we know, culture starts from the top. Hr is the keeper of the culture, but your CEO, president, managing director, whatever you call the person who leads the organization has to set the tone, and that's something we did. Right after the election, we sent a note out to our employees. Frankly, we sent it to all of our members congratulating the president-elect, and you might imagine we had a version with President-elect Harris. We had a President-elect Trump, and then the next day we sent the appropriate one, president-elect Trump, and then the next day we sent the appropriate one, and we even then. It's a really interesting story. So we were ready, since the races were called early, early, five o'clock that morning. We were ready and new, and so the you know my team said why don't we send out our note to everyone? Nine o'clock in the morning, and I said but we haven't yet had a concession speech, so, out of respect, we know what the results are, so let's wait until then. The news dribbled out. It was like well, the vice president will concede at noontime that it was sometime this afternoon. It was six o'clock. Long story, short, about four o'clock and she was supposed to do it. I guess she was a few minutes late, so 4.30 is, she actually did it. We were intentional about how we were going to operate. We waited until she had the opportunity to properly conceive.
Speaker 3:Some said you should do it right now. She should have done it last night. It didn't matter. What someone else does doesn't dictate how you carry yourself. Dignity and respect is something that you, and how you show up is something you have the ability to do and that's what HR folks have to do. I'm not going to let someone else take me down or act in a way that's inappropriate with who I am and the sort of culture that we want to be a part of. That's what comes from the top is I was literally talking with my comms people saying I know you want to do it but no, we're not going to do it. And that's what we've got to do, as our leaders have to set the tone, as the head person, hr has to make sure that it's facilitated through the organization.
Speaker 3:The second thing we need to do and there was an interesting exercise where I've heard of and I don't know how this worked but bringing employees together to actually talk about it. You know you go back to post George Floyd. We convened members of the community who we thought might have some pent up feelings of fear, of anger or whatever. Similarly, after October 7th we did some employers pull, so maybe there was literally an opportunity that I've seen companies advocate for this. Bring the employees together who took it personally, so you've got the people who won. That's one group. You have the people who don't really care, but then there are people who are really, really upset about the result. Give them a place to come talk about it, not to defend it, not to, you know you got to, but they brought together people who were like-minded and basically had a session to help them move on.
Speaker 3:I've actually heard of companies doing it quite successfully. Now, to be fair, these are smaller, medium-sized businesses, so it's not as if Microsoft could do it at one spot, but maybe they could break it up at Microsoft into departments and do it. But it's a really interesting tool so that people are seen, they're heard, they're you know all of those things that matter and then you move on. You also have the unique opportunity. I asked the CEO who did that, why did you do it? And he said it's also to reinforce this is a place for you to get it out, but let's reinforce that when you go back out there what won't be tolerated. So you're actually doing two things You're making very clear what the types of behavior you're going to accept and that won't be accepted. So those are the two things that I've seen occur in organizations as of late, and I actually think they're super smart and you know from the first point that you made about you know, culture starts with the leadership.
Speaker 2:I can also see where an HR professional, as a trusted strategic business partner, may keep a CEO from his or her less good instincts to just go, go, go and maybe, you know, serve as a little bit of a governor of. Maybe we should slow down, johnny, before we go. Do that, you know, because one of the overly wound up in either direction serving us a bit of a buffer and dialing did back down a little bit.
Speaker 2:And then to your, your kind of company. Let's debrief on this. Let's kind of just like come together like a family and kind of just talk a little bit and again to your point, not to defend or berate or whatever, but just kind of get it out to your point, not to defend or berate or whatever, but just kind of get it out.
Speaker 3:What a great forum for a senior HR person to be facilitating that conversation, Assuming he or she, the senior HR professional, has the ability to do it themselves. You know, too often we expect HR people to engage when they're not yet over it themselves, and I've seen, Bob, sadly, some of the vitriol on even LinkedIn this morning with people HR professionals. I'm not so sure that I would agree that they're a professional who attacks the other side, that they're so angry that their candidate didn't win, that they themselves are publicly online engaging in uncivil behavior. If that's the HR person you are, then you absolutely should not be the person to convene that setting, because you could simply fan the fire, put gasoline on the fire, and so I'm hoping that, as you're listening here, just because you're in the role, you should be really careful about engaging in that particular exercise, because maybe you're not the right person to do it Now. Hopefully you have a team of people and you can pull someone who can, but this is really a test of our status as a profession.
Speaker 3:I remember being a lawyer. I can despise what I think the person accused of a crime has done, but I have an obligation to advocate for them. That it's not. You know, you don't throw your professional standards to the side because you don't like something. The real professional says I wanted X person to win, they didn't. But guys, we all have to get together. We have to work for the good of the company, for the good of society. If you can't do that, then you know a whole bunch of ifs that flow from that.
Speaker 2:But for sure you should not be convening employees, because that could turn really, really bad, very good caveat to use the forum properly and again I think it speaks to your higher calling isn't to advocate for your personal position, but what's in the best interest of the company. That's your remit, not to advance your personal agenda. Let's use maybe the remaining 10 minutes or so, johnny. What are some of the policy things that you guys are either going to be advocating for hope to see coming in this new administration?
Speaker 3:So top of mind there are several. So this is a no prioritization. But top of mind for me is skills development. We have a real looming issue, as you know, because of the demographic of America everything and AI has exacerbated it where people literally may want to work but they won't have the skills to take the new jobs. In an AI-powered economy, for example, none of us can afford the United States of America to have experienced what, for example, west Virginia did after the coal mining business kind of fell apart, where you have a number of people who know how to do one thing, those jobs go away and then they have nothing that they can do. We've got to bridge people. So, very much focused on skills building and workforce development.
Speaker 3:We also believe, secondly, that we're going to focus on workplace immigration, distinct from the politicized issue of border security and immigration. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about the fact that we still have 7 million plus open jobs in America. We understand that we need to fill those jobs. That's how we drive innovation, that's how we get work done is we need people. So economic growth is incredibly important.
Speaker 3:The same time, we need to have a fair and effective legal immigration system and it needs to work that way. So we're talking about from a workplace standpoint only how can we work with the administration not to group this broad, broad conversation around immigration and do things that will impact employers' ability to get the talent they need and for people to work the jobs that they want to work in our country? Last couple of things are flexibility and leave. Like we really want to listen. You know how we felt about pure remote work, but we believe the answer is not about remote versus non-remote anymore and it's more about flexibility. How do we do it so that the employee gets what they need, the employer gets what they need and companies can remain true to their culture?
Speaker 3:The biggest one in terms of financial impact, of course, is workplace healthcare. We know that the cost of healthcare is continuing to spiral, outpacing almost every other economic indicator. Things are getting expensive and employers even if you have the traditional 70-30, 80-20 split, that 20% costs an employee a lot more when the entire cost goes up monthly or annually. So we're working to figure out how can we work with the administration to identify and promote effective healthcare solutions that are affordable for both sides, because our fear is it will become so cost prohibitive that employers will cease to offer the benefits, and then employees and the country are really in trouble. You know that half of Americans are covered by employer-sponsored health programs, so this is not something that we can just ignore. It's not just a government problem. Everyone can't leave their employer's offering and then go into the Affordable Health Care Act. It was intended to supplement the employer-provided insurance thing, not replace it, right?
Speaker 2:Okay. So if I could go back to point number one, if I remember correctly, which was skills-based hiring, just an, an add on to that, because you talk about AI and stuff is just the trades in blue collar jobs, it's just such a I mean between retiring boomers, right, and then you know the only acceptable road after high school is college, maybe the military. You know it's like, oh, my goodness, there are so many great jobs that need to be done that AI is never going to take over doing. Ai is not going to come fix my toilet period. Ai is not going to fix the roof of my you know my roof that's leaking. You know my broken car, like you.
Speaker 2:Just, you need people who know how to do stuff, yep, and, and so you know I, I hope that, uh, hope that you know that there's continued and maybe more emphasis on that is noble, important, valued work that needs to be done. So for sure, health care is really interesting because, to your point, you know, with it becoming cost prohibitive, it also starts to push out to the margins other benefits that people need for a modern workforce and it's like, yeah, but like, if you know, healthcare is eating up. You know, I don't know what the right number is 80 cents on the dollar of all benefits that we can offer our employees Again, partially to be competitive, but partially because it's the right thing to do. It's what they need, whatever, and so it's very encouraging to hear you talk about that, and the model is going to break.
Speaker 3:Not only is it going to break. I was with KKR's offices in New York. Henry Kravis convened a group of CEOs and it was a really interesting conversation where these CEOs were honest, like I can't keep giving you four or five percent a year increases merit, Plus seeing insurance benefits go up and pharma, in particular, going up double digit. Like where do I get the money from, Particularly when the customers are now saying I'm unwilling to pay $8 for a cup of coffee, Like there's nowhere to push it off to. So what we went through is a phase where we could actually pass the cost on. The consumer would pay for these things. If it costs me more because of benefits, I could pass the cost on. And now we're seeing serious pushback from the consumer and so the CEOs are stuck and I've talked about this before where I want to provide great benefits. They're very expensive, but the consumer is unwilling to pay me, to pay you. It's an interesting situation.
Speaker 2:Just very quickly. You know, one of the things I think people are anticipating in a new administration is some relaxation on basically the FTC and the ability for mergers and acquisitions and antitrust and all that kind of stuff, and that there will be kind of a loosening so that more deals start getting done and I think on the one hand that creates some growth opportunities for companies, but on the other hand it also potentially introduces what are perceived as redundancies. Do you have any take on just a more relaxed regulatory environment as it relates to M&A activity?
Speaker 3:So, listen, you have to strike a balance. When people say we shouldn't have any regulations, I think they missed the point. This is why our country is the safe space for investors around the globe, because people know that it's not a wow, wow, yes, right. Literally, you do whatever you want to do. We have rules in place. We do have to protect and ensure that there's the appropriate level of protection so that our industry and our marketplace works well. Right, so I got that.
Speaker 3:I think few of us would disagree when we say maybe they've gone too far in some areas. So I'm hoping that the new administration will find ways for business to do what it does. I mean, for example, I don't have an opinion, I just know that the big debate does Kroger and Albertsons. That's been held up. They've been unable to merge, although I think they've made a pretty darn strong case that this is very good, and they've sold off some areas where they had too much penetration. Da, da, da, too much penetration.
Speaker 3:I'm hoping that in the new administration we'll look at this and say this company, the combined company, will be much stronger and will provide more certainty for its employees and protection Long time for them. You know there's there's strength in numbers, right. So while at the same time, I get we've got to protect small businesses as well and those markets, and they're not. So you just got to do it right. That's what we use as much regulation as we need, and not one bit more, maybe. That's and I'm hoping, and I believe if the Trump administration does what it said it would do during its campaign, so the Trump campaign, the administration, does what the Trump campaign does, then I think we could be in for a good little run on that front.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I believe one is just getting the uncertainty out of the way with the election. Because it was so close it could just have fallen off of a nice edge either way. And so you've got businesses that have been fairly frozen in their decision making because, like yes, you have two different fairly significant different worldviews, and so that could lead to all kinds of you know policies and regulations and whatever it's fallen in, what I think would generally be considered a pro business kind of a way.
Speaker 2:I mean that's important, but just the fact that there has been a decision and you can start to navigate. I believe the labor market is going to open up. I think that companies are going to. Okay, now I know what I'm. Yeah, I've got some sense of which way the wind is blowing. Okay, now I know what I'm. Yeah, I've got some sense of which way the wind is blowing. Right, it's going to be a new year, you know the interest rates are falling. I'm fairly sanguine that the labor market is going to open up. People that have been struggling to find jobs will find it a bit easier and it's going to be. We're going to get some momentum back on hiring. But that's what Bob thinks. What's Johnny think?
Speaker 3:I hope you're right and I believe that on balance, you're going to be right. But listen, we have to give credit to the current administration. We've had a good run. I mean, if the markets are any indication, things are good. Four percent unemployment is very healthy. You know you can be too low and we know a couple of years ago we were in that situation and that was tough on HR professionals and talent acquisition professionals. It was really tough. So I think we're in a good place.
Speaker 3:We just need to, you know, on the edges, we need to make sure that people can get jobs who want to work. There's nothing more frustrating than I want to work but I can't, which is why that focus on skills is so important in workforce development. We can't have a whole generation of people be left out. You know 40 and 50 year olds who were not digital natives be unable to compete in the 21st century. You just can't do that. You also can't, to your point, have everyone wanting to have college degrees and no one wants to do the jobs, the trades job, because we need those as well. So if we get this right, if labor under the Trump administration gets this right working with business I think you're right, we can unleash a beautiful workforce for the next four years. I hope so. I hope so.
Speaker 2:Any parting, parting thoughts, johnny, kind of post-election thoughts yeah, the.
Speaker 3:The one of the issues that we have got to do right now is work on bringing us back together, so we talk about civility.
Speaker 3:Civility means, you know, I can still hate you, but I can be civil there is spoken like a true son right, you know, but but I think we've now got to work on unifying the country, because it was I mean, listen at the end of the day, even though it was an electoral college win a popular vote, win a House and Senate sweep come back together, and I felt good to see even Chuck Schumer's comments that got it. They won, and we've got to figure out how to work together. I think the rest of us have got to do that. Digging in and being angry for four years I saw something the other day there's a cruise ship that's advertising. You can go away for four years, insane.
Speaker 3:No, we need to come together, acknowledge that elections happen and someone's going to lose, someone's going to win. But, more importantly, elections have consequences, and so anyone who believes that the Trump administration is going to do what the Harris administration would have done on every front is naive. That's not how it works. He's going to do what he does and we've got to bring that to the workplace and bring our employees together. So unification is what I'm talking about. A lot now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I think that's a nice bow on. You know that's inclusion, that that's bringing us back together, right? So we've had the diversity part. Now it's time to come together and get focused at your company. You know, in your social circles, wherever to come together because, at the end of the day, we're Americans. Yes, so you know that's. I share that hope with you. So I appreciate you ending on that note.
Speaker 2:So, workwire listeners, thank you guys so much. You know the feedback that we get is tremendous. If this is a podcast that you enjoy, please share it with your friends. But you know, as we've gotten traction over the last year, it's been really nice to get comments, suggestions for topics. If there's something you would like to hear Johnny and I talk about, that would be amazing. But in the meantime, we just thank you for taking a few minutes out of your day to listen and encourage you to go back to your company whether you're a leader or worker, anything in between, to foster that culture of civility, of inclusion, of belonging, of unity that Johnny was talking about. Your company will be better. Our country will be better, yep.
Speaker 3:Yes, thank you we love WordWire.
Speaker 2:Thanks, johnny, talk soon.
Speaker 3:Take care, bye-bye.
Speaker 1:Check out Career Club for personalized help with your job search. Visit SHRMorg to become part of the largest human resources organization worldwide.
