Newsletter #5 (September 9, 2024)
Gen Z don't want your corporate jargon, Wells Fargo employee dies at work, DEI struggles, Texas water issues, AI hype train, HR apps, HR is changing jobs, and more
Welcome to Newsletter #5, my twice-monthly, long-form newsletter where I write about all things HR and L&D, the business world, and/or other interesting current events. Let’s go!
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1. Gen Z not playing the corporate jargon game is quite refreshing.
Honestly, what’s not to like about this? I’ve certainly said some of these silly things. More importantly, I have been on the receiving end of so much filtered corporate jargon in my career that I had no clue what the intention was nor any idea what I was supposed to come away from it with.
2. Wells Fargo employee found dead at her desk because, well, no one gave a shit.
I guess that’s the simpler way to say it. But there’s always more to the story when something like this hits the online chattersphere with such clickbait headlines as there were on the mainstream news sites. This poor woman clocked in for work on Friday, August 16th and was not found until nearly 5pm on Tuesday, August 20th.
A sparsely attended office with a low employee population in a rotating hybrid environment probably increased the likelihood of something like this happening. This may not be the last time something like this happens without some basic building checks happening (which is a good plan for every company with a physical presence).
Is it a bad look for Wells Fargo, whom I’ve wrote about before as being preternaturally fixated on controversy? Yes, of course it is. Was this avoidable? We’ll probably never know. But, it is an absolutely terrible look for this bank that can ill afford continuing bad press that someone died at their cubicle and no one was seemingly around them in their final minutes. It certainly gives credence to the notion of “work until you die” and that the all-mighty corporation just moves on without you when you do.
3. Those DEI initiatives sure are being backtracked, aren’t they?
As mentioned in prior newsletters, companies are waking up to the realization they cannot please everyone and need to recalibrate their approaches to diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace. Add Ford, Lowe’s, Molson Coors as well as JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs to the list of companies publicly changing their tune about their DEI processes. Other companies like Williams Sonoma are being challenged legally for the first time about their DEI practices.
What is happening? For some companies with a checkered past, going back on their DEI work may also not be such a good look. To be sure, I thought this video interview did a pretty good job encapsulating what is happening with this change of pace from just a few years ago.
I’ve previously written about how companies can go about retrenching DEI into their actual processes and not make DEI a ‘thing’ or a ‘program’ in an effort to help combat the noise around it. Companies have long strived to operate with a democratic mentality based on merit and equal access to all employee processes, at least in theory, and adjustments will have to be made in this realignment climate.
There are ways you can spot DEI in action, absent actual programs, according to other HR practitioners such as this one and suggestions on a different approach like what is written here. To be sure, there are several studies and data to show what DEI practices can do for an organization in a positive way. HR practitioners must find ways to advance DEI in ways that have tangible benefits to the organization, is not viewed as a cost-center program and can transparently demonstrate progress to employees (and leadership) at the same time.
4. Once again, can the Texas boom continue without changes for the water supply?
Others are catching on, including the Wall Street Journal and hyperlocal publications like the San Antonio Business Journal, to the challenges that a very strong economic boom in Texas brings. Accordingly, though, there are many variables for the state to contend with.
Despite all of the population growth, construction boom to support that population growth, and the climate issues affecting the state, the failure by the legislature to address aging infrastructure is also a primary culprit for the possibility that the state will not have enough water for all of its various needs. Others are vocalizing concerns as well including the Department of Agriculture and investigative media reporting, even to the point that the Agricultural Commissioner is sounding the alarm. Suffice to say, with all of this obvious data and compounding issues, the state’s number one priority in the 2025 legislative session should be water, plain and simple.
5. Insert my AI hype eyeroll of the newsletter here.
No, that’s the real tagline haha! Amazon’s CEO, Andy Jassy, came out about two weeks ago and said AI has saved Amazon $260 million in “efficiency gains” and 4,500 years of development time.
It is difficult to pick up some of the contextual details from Jassy’s announcement needed to have a better understanding of what this truly means for Amazon (measured against what? over what time frame?), or any other company trying to decide how they could extract similar gains at their company. Amazon’s sheer size and scope could likely dissuade smaller companies from trying to do this, especially those where AI just doesn’t make prudent financial sense in its current generation.
Once again, there are legitimate gains to be had by the use of AI but details matter. I wish more companies would spend time explaining in detail how the use of AI helped them. How much did they spend implementing it? How long did it take? What testing did they do? Jassy provided a glimpse at some of this for Amazon, but if I am running a $10 million mom-and-pop company, I want to know: can I expect something similar (at scale) for my company? And is it worth it? The answer for now, beyond the hype and headlines, is probably not.
From a customer service standpoint, few people want to interact with a chatbot for significant matters, especially if you run a local business. Now, did I frankly enjoy changing my billing cycle with my cellphone provider by interacting with a chatbot? Hell yes. It took maybe 20 seconds and I did not have to talk with anyone, navigated what I needed to do and moved on with my day. That same type of transaction used to be a phone call, where you would then keep pressing 0 to get a live person (to ignore the number tree of departments or selections, don’t act like I’m the only one), wait until you got a rep to answer the line, tell them what I wanted to do, wait on hold while they did whatever, come back on the line to tell me it was done, etc etc for 10 minutes. Who doesn’t want that kind of change, either as the customer or the company? But that’s for the big corporations. The scale and price likely isn’t there yet for a small operation. This will take time.
6. Eventually, even family members working in a family-run company can run themselves out of town and out of a job.
That’s exactly what happened at Tyson Foods. John R. Tyson, son of the chairman of the company, found himself fired from the company recently after his latest bout with the law.
John R, Tyson’s now-former CFO, had been suspended from work since June 2024 when he was arrested for alcohol-related crimes. This incident followed a similar issue with alcohol in 2022, when he was arrested after being found passed out in a stranger’s house.
Employees certainly deserve the opportunity to correct their prior conduct and behave more appropriate to the needs of the company (and their role). Hopefully, John R gets the support he needs to return to the family company down the road, albeit likely in a different role.
7. Iran running a covert operation as a HR consulting firm was not on my 2024 bingo card.
So, basically, the Iranian government was allegedly using a fake HR recruiting firm to try and recruit fellow Iranians into positions of selling out their own government. That’s a new take on the traditional recruiting firm, and certainly an inventive way for a government to root out mischief in their population. Turns out there has been something to that whole “fake job postings” trend after all, at least in this case.
8. HR apps are drowning employees? News to me that it’s just HR apps.
Business Insider recently published an interesting article calling into question the number of HR apps in the workplace, that they are ‘drowning’ employees.
Look, are there probably a lot of HR apps in your company? Very likely. But let’s be real: it’s not just HR apps. It’s everything you need to do your job, regardless of the role!
According to this research, the average company had over 250 – that’s TWO HUNDRED & FIFTY – software programs in 2021, with most departments using between 40 and 60. That was up significantly from 2018, when the average was around 130. So, in other words, the average company nearly doubled the number of software/apps on their employees in 3 years.
So, are companies drowning employees with collectively more software? Umm, yes. Is it avoidable? In some ways, maybe. But truth be told there’s no one-size-fits-all program out there (sorry, WorkDay, you are not it). Can we work cross-functionally to find ways to use other department’s programs? Absolutely.
9. It may not be quite the LinkedIn Lunatic of the newsletter, but it could be even better.
I’m not quite sure what to say about this one. “What the hell?” is the first thing that popped in my head when I read it through for the 3rd time (just to make sure my eyes didn’t deceive me on the first two passes).
For my fellow HR or operational friends out there, if you’re not good at math and you know you’re not good at math, ask a friend before you reply. Please.
10. The majority of HR people are still planning to leave the industry/their role/their company.
The data in this report from Blu Ivy Group follows a report earlier in the summer from Paycor, which found half of HR professionals have been with their current company/in their current role less than two years.
I referred to this in a prior newsletter, but this should be of no surprise to anyone who has worked in HR since COVID. While its not just HR practitioners who have had it “up to here” during the COVID era, a lot has certainly been asked of them.
All of that said, it is not just HR folks looking for a change of pace. Companies are also saying they are looking for the same.
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And that’s a wrap. I’ll be back in two weeks. Let me know what you think!
© September 2024 Brandon Caldwell, all rights reserved. Hyperlinks are used frequently for proper credit to source material on respective websites, news articles, social media or other sources. While it can be a useful tool, no ChatGPT or other generative AI was used in the production of this newsletter. Opinions are mine and do not reflect the opinion or policy of others including employers past or present.