Suzanne Lucas: The Great January Exodus

Full Podcast Transcript – Suzanne Lucas

Hello, I am Katrina Collier. And as part of my mission to inspire all the people that recruit people to treat people better, I bring you The Hiring Partner Perspective unedited podcast. Here you will hear from those hiring leaders who create true partnerships with recruiters, HR and talent acquisition, because they know that it delivers a better result for the business and a better human experience. May these podcasts inspire other hiring leaders to create better partnerships with their recruiters and HR, and may it inspire recruiters to create true and valuable partnerships with their hiring leaders? Because people make businesses succeed, and people matter. So let us begin

Suzanne Lucas, welcome to The Hiring Partner Perspective proudly supported by the beautiful people at WORQDRIVE. For listeners who actually don’t know who you are, they might know your alter ego, though. Can you tell the world what it is you do?

Suzanne Lucas 1:04
Well, what I do is kind of weird and complicated. It’s not quite so easy.

Katrina Collier 1:13
Yes but that’s what makes you so fabulous.

Suzanne Lucas 1:14
Yes, fabulous. So if you don’t know my name, it, you, you may know me as the Evil HR Lady. And I’m basically all over the internet, my primary thing, my primary thing is I write about HR business management. But I’m not a reporter. So I’m not like going out and interviewing people and writing up what they think I am telling you how to apply all this stuff to your life in your business and to make your business better or to make your relationship with your manager better or to explain your rights as an employee. That type of thing. So that’s one thing that I do. Another thing is,

Katrina Collier 2:01
Why would we just do one thing when we can do so many different things?

Suzanne Lucas 2:05
Well, I’ve kind of got this Attention Deficit Disorder thing going on. So I like to have 400 things going on at once. I also do webinars I did once upon a time, you may you may have known this, but there was a time when people like went places and and did in person things.

Katrina Collier 2:27
Was that something like 2019?

Suzanne Lucas 2:29
Yeah, yeah, like way back.

Katrina Collier 2:31
Way back, way back.

Suzanne Lucas 2:34
Once upon a time, I did go places and speak and now I do it via webinar, or I did this year of virtual reality keynote, which was amazing. was totally weird.

Katrina Collier 2:45
Was that for the Virtual HR Summit?

Suzanne Lucas 2:48
It was no it was for it was for a recruiting convention in Canada, of all places, but because it was all virtual. I did it in my living room. Yeah, it’s really and they made me this nice little avatar. And it was cool.

Katrina Collier 3:02
So cool and you wore the headset and everything?

Suzanne Lucas 3:04
Yeah, wear the headset. And so you could see the audience. Yeah. And they were all these different creatures, because reality. But it was so weird, because it was like, viewing it in real. Like you could see people shifting in their seats, or someone would get up and walk out and you’re like, Oh, dang it. Well, someone new would come in and sit down. And like you could tell when they were paying attention, whereas when you’re doing it via zoom, and you can’t see anybody’s faces or whatever. You’re like, I’m just talking to a wall. So it was a really neat experience. I don’t know if it’ll catch on, though.

Katrina Collier 3:41
Yeah, no, I’ve done one as well. I have a feeling we’ve done it for the same person as well. And Lance was panting at my feet through the whole thing. Lance, my dog.

Suzanne Lucas 3:51
Yeah. And it was like, Lance is the name of the guy.

Katrina Collier 3:55
All right, no, no, it was Matt. Two different peoples but Canada as well. So it’s quite interesting with this stolen from each other. But he was panting at my feet. So even though I was aware of everything you’re saying, I was totally distracted as well. But yeah, it’s a much better experience as well.

Suzanne Lucas 4:09
Yeah, I really enjoyed it. Now. I don’t know that I would enjoy it so much as a participant. As I did as a speaker.

Katrina Collier 4:15
It does make you wonder about the whole Metaverse thing that’s coming as well. But that’s completely off topic and not why I wanted to talk to you.

Suzanne Lucas 4:22
Yeah, that’s a different topic.

Katrina Collier 4:25
That’s a whole other Oh, God. Hoepfully, I’ve retired before that takes over. So I saw your article that you wrote for INC.com, ‘If you think the great resignation is bad, just wait until January.’ And I love that because especially as the UK is already a bit behind because the US is certainly having its great resignation. I think we’re about three months behind. So we’re about to have it, on top of January, with very exhausted recruiters, who are trying to backfill because we obviously over fired now we’re trying to over hire and it’s just all a mess. But I would love to to talk to you more about that, because you know, some of the stuff you were saying, which was people waiting for bonuses and then resigning. And I know of one specific person who’s doing exactly that she is literally waiting for it. So, what’s your advice for hiring managers and managers full stop?

Suzanne Lucas 5:17
I mean, here’s the thing, if you don’t give them the bonus, they will definitely quit. So. So you can’t say, oh, I’ll just say the bonuses coming next week. That’s, yeah, that’s not going to help. You have to do that. But you have to do more. And, and this is where we get stuck in this old school sign of thought that I am the employer, you should be grateful for me. You know, I give you an actually, since I’m sitting here in Switzerland, I’ll throw in a, a German term they use, like the owner of the company, the word that they use is ‘work giver’. So it’s like this very benevolent, I give this to you. And I think a lot of Americans have this concept too, but that is switching.

Katrina Collier 6:20
Yeah. And it’s not like when you and I started out, you’re a few years younger than me, you know, we had that carrot and the stick, you were lucky to have a job. But fast forward 30 years and throw in a pandemic.

Suzanne Lucas 6:32
Yeah, and people are not like that anymore. And now it’s very much ‘Hey, you’re lucky to have me as an employee!’ And managers, owners have to do that switch. And the thing is, is that the employees are right. Your business disappears if your employees go away. It’s gone. It’s, it’s gone. And, and there are options now. And you know, one of the things as a, I’m working with a coaching client, I also do coaching. And she lives in the middle of nowhere. And yeah, she works for a local company, but she’s done with them for good reason. And 10 years ago, they would have had a lock on her because she grew up there, her husband grew up there, you know, grandma’s right there, there’s no reason for her to want to leave, she doesn’t want to leave. But now she doesn’t have to she’s applying for remote jobs. And, and these people that once upon a time didn’t have any competitors for their employees, now have competitors for their employees. And that is true, whether you’re in New York City, or London, or the middle of nowhere Iowa, you now have competitors that you didn’t have before.

Katrina Collier 7:59
No, which is a goldmine of opportunity. But what I’m hearing is for some recruiters and talent acquisition, thankfully, not all, but they’re already having this problem where they’ve got hiring managers saying, we will only recruit people who want to come into the office. In fact, I saw a post even yesterday, like I can’t believe that people don’t want to come into into the office, and they don’t need to for this particular job either. What advice do you have for us to convince them? What can… other than slapping them around with a cold, wet fish? A really great option that we shall leave in 2021 and not do in 2022. But

Suzanne Lucas 8:38
What we have to give up the cold wet fish?

Katrina Collier 8:41
What can we do to persuade them that like, other than it gets to that critical point that they just can’t recruit, and they can’t deliver projects, and it’s finally costing them money?

Suzanne Lucas 8:50
Well, and some of them, it’s going to take just that. Some people have to learn the hard way. And they’re going to have to learn it that and I will say, there are people out there that want to work in an office. There are. There definitely are I know many, many people that prefer that

Katrina Collier 9:13
Just not five days a week anymore,

Suzanne Lucas 9:15
Right? And even if they are doing it five days a week, they also want that flexibility to stay home whenever they want to because

Katrina Collier 9:23
Avoid the commute, start later

Suzanne Lucas 9:25
Get the laundry done. Yeah. Yeah, whatever. So you have to have that flexibility built in there. But there are people out there so if you want to focus on that you focus on that but just realize that you are cutting your group of people that are available down by two thirds, because I think that’s what the numbers say. Is it like a third of people are willing or want to work in an office.

Katrina Collier 9:51
The stats I’ve seen it’s like 7 or 8%. It’s really low.

Suzanne Lucas 9:56
See, I don’t buy that.

Katrina Collier 9:58
’cause most people want to do like a three, two.

Suzanne Lucas 10:00
Yeah. They want to do the hybrid.

Katrina Collier 10:03
Yeah, yes. So but a lot of companies are still saying fully, because hybrid is hard!

Suzanne Lucas 10:08
But hybrid is my favorite. Because you have all the benefits from working from home and all of the benefits from working in the office. The problem with hybrid is that you limit your talent pool, because of geographics.

Katrina Collier 10:24
Yeah, you then miss on the remote.

Suzanne Lucas 10:26
But I am willing to drive further if I’m coming into the office two days a week versus if I’m having to be there everyday.

Katrina Collier 10:34
Yeah, there is that balance. But I think it’s hard for managers to manage it. And that’s some of the reason that they just can’t cope with it.

Suzanne Lucas 10:43
And this is one thing where HR needs to really step in and start doing that training on managers of how to do it. But here’s the problem. Not everybody in HR knows how to do it either. Because we are all used to the whole managing by walking around. And in my Facebook group, we had someone ask, ‘Am I the only HR person that’s an introvert?’ and everybody just like exploded. No, we’re all introverts. Of course, we’re not all introverts, but a lot of people are. And for an introvert remote work can also have a challenge that’s not there in person. And you say, well, if I’m an introvert, then I want to be alone, if I’m an HR person, and I, you know, I do employee relations. So I want to know what’s going on, I want to make sure that no one sexually harassing everybody, one of the best ways to do that is to know your people. Well, as an introvert, I walk around, and I see you and I can say hi, if I’m sitting at home, I have to make an effort to reach out to each person. And that’s difficult for a lot of introverted people.

Katrina Collier 11:49
Interesting I would have thought it would have been the opposite, but I get what you’re saying.

Suzanne Lucas 11:52
Yeah, ’cause if I run into you in the kitchen, while I’m getting my cup of tea, or whatever, then Hi, I’m Suzanne. Oh, you know, Katrina, what do you do? Oh, okay, you know, I’m the employee relations person, nice to meet you. But if we don’t do that, then I have to be like, Dear Katrina, my name is Suzanne. I am the employee relations specialist.

Katrina Collier 12:19
Let’s schedule a call. And then we do 16 emails emails just to get a call booked in. Yeah, that’s true. And actually that would go back to managers will have that problem as well, because it’s proximity bias, as well, isn’t there. So they’ve got some work to do Suzanne is sitting there in the office, Katrina’s at home, you get the work, even though I might be better at doing it.

Suzanne Lucas 12:39
Exactly! And so HR really needs to, to work with managers to let them know what is different about managing from home, because it’s not instinctive. And the other thing is, is that in March of 2020, overnight, we went from an office based culture to a home, and no one was prepared for it. And, and we all thought, two weeks, flatten the curve.

Katrina Collier 13:08
As we enter 2022.

Suzanne Lucas 13:13
I just got my my booster shot two days ago, so I’m like, yeah we’re still doing this!

Katrina Collier 13:20
How is your arm?

Suzanne Lucas 13:21
It’s fine. I am one of the blessed people that I haven’t had anything other than sore arms from all three shots. So.

Katrina Collier 13:31
So but yeah, so in 2020, you know, we bounced into with two weeks, flatten the curve, suddenly, everyone’s working from home. And I suppose everyone just thought everyone would be back in the office again,

Suzanne Lucas 13:41
Of course we did. Of course we did. We two weeks, we go home, and everyone’s back in the office. And so when recruiters HR in general are trying to reach hiring managers to say, Look, you need to at minimum do hybrid, you also have to say, And I’m going to support you in this. And I am going to help you through this. And I am going to give you the skills and the tools. And this is something that the business needs to commit to. You need different forms of communication when you’re working at home, because that formal thing the sending an email, dear Katrina, you know, that doesn’t work. You need to be able to, quote, run in the hallway in someone and you know, and run into someone in the hallway. You know, and there’s Slack. And that can work to some extent. But there there’s plenty of different programs out there. The HR vendors have been on top of this, but you need to be aware of what’s out there as an HR person, you need to be able to speak up and offer training and say to them, I know this is hard. Yeah. And I know this is not what you’re used to. Yeah, but

Katrina Collier 14:56
And I think there needs to be more of that vulnerability. That this is, we’re all learning together. We haven’t got it right yet. That kind of thing. And I definitely want to point out what is wrong, though is monitoring software on people’s computers to see how long they’re sitting at their desk stroke leaving a Zoom window open all day, because that is going to cost you people just throwing that out there in case anybody listening actually doesn’t realise that.

Suzanne Lucas 15:25
There are still people that do that? Although I think they have down in, number.

Katrina Collier 15:30
Yeah and obviously don’t bulk fire via Zoom as well, but we won’t go there. That’ll be a future podcast. There we go. So the other thing we were obviously talking about. So if we were trying to convince HMs to offer hybrid, and I think you’ve got some great clues there. And I think one of them is I will help you do this. I think actually, that could be the biggest stumbling block to doing it is the fear, I am not going to do it right. Oh my god, I’ve been through enough. I’m so stressed just bugger off, come back into the office. So I like that idea. But we were also talking about, you know, there’s been a change in people’s rates. And of course, there’s been, I mean, here in the UK due to Brexit, due to obviously, the pandemic as well. But mostly Brexit, we’ve had a huge increase in inflation. But we’re not the only country. And then we’re offering bonuses and salary increases that don’t match. So people are leaving for salary increases. So have you got any advice for managers on that, and what if they don’t have money as well, which you also touched on.

Suzanne Lucas 16:36
Here’s here is a reality. And a lot of people don’t understand this. And yesterday, I was I was perusing through the Antiwork Subreddit, which is fascinating. But one of the things that the people on there don’t realize is that a lot of business owners are living on the edge. A lot of them are not taking salaries at the start of their businesses. And there’s a lot of business owners that make less than their employees do. And people don’t understand that they think that if you start a business, you must have millions and millions of dollars sitting in the bank. I started a business, you started a business

Katrina Collier 17:16
Yeah, we know that’s not true.

Suzanne Lucas 17:18
I don’t know maybe maybe you’ve got millions and millions.

No, no I definitely haven’t earned as much as I did the last time I was properly on a contract rate. However, I’m much happier. Buto that’s not your point.

My point is, is that there are times in which in which you literally cannot give raises to people. Yeah. Because the easy answer is give raises, give bonuses, give retention, blah, blah, blah. Those are great. And you should absolutely do them. But it’s not something that is is easy for everyone. And that’s when you have to start…

Katrina Collier 17:56
And it’s probably not sustainable if you’re close to the brink as well.

Suzanne Lucas 18:01
Right. So some of those things that you can do is offering equity and some owners go Oh, but it’s my business. Well, it’s not gonna succeed without employees. Right? It’s just, it’s not, it’s not. And you need to look at more creative things like that. But you also need to speak with and be honest, you would be surprised at how much honesty, helps with retention. Because if you say to people, like, look, here’s my books, I know that you could go to competitor and make more. But this is where we’re at. What can I do to keep you? You know, is it equity? Is it flex time? Is it more vacation? Is it remote work? What is it? Because I’ll tell you, you said you said you’re much happier now than when when you were working that I noticed the other day on LinkedIn, one of my co workers who we were making the same salary when I quit corporate life. And she just promoted, said, You know, I’m grateful to accept this new promotion. She’s still at the same company. 13 years down the road, and she’s got some huge, big title. And I know she’s making a lot more than I am. But I also know that she’s getting into the office at seven. She’s coming home at seven. She’s working into the night. And that’s fine. That’s a trade off that she’s willing to make. Right. I’m not willing to make that trade off anymore.

Katrina Collier 19:41
Yeah, I agree. And I was actually I was having this conversation, my Chiropractor who’s you know, fought to keep his business through this pallava and he knows me very well, he’s known me for years. And I said, I probably don’t work eight hours a day. I work solidly for five or six hours though. And I put out what I probably would put out if I went into the office for 12 hours. It’s that kind of a thing where the prison to use them as opposed to. And I think that’s another thing that organizations don’t really understand is how productive their people are, if they have the space, because obviously there are people working from home is a challenge. kids run around, they don’t have an actual space. But if they have the actual space to shut themselves off, and work, they usually got a lot more done.

Suzanne Lucas 20:19
And that’s something that you can offer your employees especially, I mean, if you’re a grocery store, you have to have a cashier there. Like that’s how it is, you have to have one. But if you’re doing knowledge work, which a lot of businesses are, say, look, I will give you a four day work week, I will keep you at that same salary, but you can have a four day workweek, they will probably get as much done. As they are with your five day workweek. But you will build loyalty, because you know what, it’s hard to find a four day work week job. And so once you’ve cut back, it’s really hard to do the extra

Katrina Collier 20:59
The extra. Your employees will also be more relaxed, they’ll get more, they’ll feel more refreshed. They’ve got more downtime, they’ve got like these three day weekends to go plan. I mean, they’re going to put more effort in on their 4 days, because they’re feeling more energised. It’s just how it is.

Suzanne Lucas 21:16
Exactly. And that’s something that you can offer if you and you should offer that anyway, if you can. But if you’re running low on cash, and your salaries aren’t keeping up, offer that perk.

Katrina Collier 21:33
It’s almost a 20% payrise without giving one, isn’t it?

Suzanne Lucas 21:36
Yeah, that’s exactly what it is. And there are plenty of people out there that will jump on that and say, hell yeah. But you have to mean it. So yes, you’re saying, Okay, you work for days. So you’re not going to be in on Fridays, you’re not gonna be on Mondays, or Wednesday or whatever. Fine. You don’t call them. You don’t expect them. You don’t say, Oh, well, we have a client presentation on that day. You don’t schedule it on that day for them. Because then what you’re doing is just lying to them. And remember when I said honesty, let’s, and if it’s going to be that, you know, once a quarter, everybody needs to work five days a week, because that’s when we have our blah, blah, blah. Fine. Be upfront. And, and people will know what they’re getting into. And you’ll find people and if they leave also, can you imagine, you know, recruiting? This is an 80% job four day work week, work four day a week.

Katrina Collier 22:42
Four day workweek

Suzanne Lucas 22:43
Four day workweek.

Yeah, that’s it. But it’s aslo I think something I really want recruiters and managers and everyone to focus on in 2022. Is those boundaries, is what you’re talking about. You know, too many people have sloppy boundaries, either way. So either the manager does by saying, you know, I’m going to give you four days, but actually, technically, I’m going to five, because I’m going to WhatsApp, you at 10pm and stuff like that. And then the employees have to push back and say, No, this is the boundary, this is what we agreed. And this is how we’re going to work. It needs much more clarity around that.

It really, really does. And they need to be on both sides. I mean, one of one of the things that I found I live in Switzerland, almost all my clients are in the US. I write from an American perspective. Someday I will move back to the US. So I frequently will send emails when people are sleeping. I don’t expect them to get up at three in the morning to respond. Likewise, they send me emails while I’m sleeping, but they don’t expect me and that’s one of these things that we have to change in the culture. Okay, so you’re gonna get copied on this on your day off, but you don’t have to open it. Right. Exactly. It’s gonna show up in your inbox. There might be some slack messages there. But you don’t have to look at it. You know, we are not doing brain surgery here. I mean, brain surgeons, there’s someone that has worked in the office. The rest of us are not doing brain surgary, no one’s gonna die if you don’t open your email.

Katrina Collier 24:23
It’s interesting, because you and I both deal with the US a lot. And I occasionally, thankfully, rarely will get somebody go, can we speak at 4pm West Coast time and I just laugh and go, No, I’m not speaking at midnight, and we sort that out. But I don’t know that recruiters do that enough because they have a lot of problems working into the evenings. And I think they just need to establish some ground rules, like you’re talking about saying, like, for our overlap of working time is going to be four to five in the afternoon if they’re on the West Coast, unfortunately. But you know, and just try and pull their hours back because there’s the recruiters working some ridiculous hours.

Suzanne Lucas 24:59
It’s interesting, I saw in a recruiter group that I’m in, someone said I was doing and phone interview with someone. And then I heard in the background, a knock at their door, and it was clear that they were at work. And so I can’t believe someone would do a job interview from work. I’m rejecting them.

Katrina Collier 25:22
What?

Suzanne Lucas 25:27
Exactly Unfortunately, most of the people in the group were like, are you crazy? What? What do you think? People when you set up an appointment at two in the afternoon? Where do you think they are? They’re not going to take a vacation day for a 30 minute phone screen or recruiter, they’re not going to do that.

Katrina Collier 25:47
And you don’t know that they weren’t at home having their wife knock or their husband knock on the door, whatever their partner whatever.

Suzanne Lucas 25:54
That’s another thing people are like, How dare someone be? Okay. I live in the city. I have two kids. And so sometimes even, my kids are not little, they’re 18 and 13, and still, from time to time, one of them will wander in on me and like the door, the bedroom door closed means go away. But yeah, I’m like, Well, this is this is part of my life. And at which point, you know, I’ll say go away. I’ll be done in 15 minutes. Yes. Anything on fire now. All right. Go.

Katrina Collier 26:33
I will confess, there’s a actual, like note to Royal Mail on the door. Because of course, I’m expecting package which of course is due the only time that I’m recording a podcast today. I’ve put a note on the door saying please don’t ring the bell. Thank goodness that Banjo is not here or their would be dog barking. So you can manage that sort of stuff can’t you. Interesting that she didn’t realize that, what a bias she was having that as well.

Suzanne Lucas 26:59
And this is something that you know, when you talk about boundaries, we also need to live in reality. And the reality is that when you’re hiring people, they’re taking time off of work to speak with you.

Katrina Collier 27:13
So they deserve feedback, people. They deserve feedback. Feedback!

Suzanne Lucas 27:18
And here’s one of my pet peeves of hiring. We have this thing where after I after I have a job interview, then I’m supposed to send you the interviewer a thank you note thanking you for taking the time you’re being paid to interview me, You should be thanking me for taking off work or if I’m unemployed, I gotta hire a babysitter or I’ve you know, washed my hair and put on pants.

Katrina Collier 27:46
She means trousers for the British listeners.

Suzanne Lucas 27:48
Hoepfully for Great Britain LOL

Katrina Collier 27:55
It’s so true. And actually, then I see bias around that, oh, they didn’t send me a thank you note so I’m not proceeding with them. I mean, seriously, most people don’t know to do that we’re a lot older. We remember, you know, we would do things we would send a thank you note, we probably put a cover note on our application as well. So that’s just what we were taught to do. But yeah, the stuff I see, which is just kind of crazy. But I think, to me, it’s interesting. You live in Switzerland, and recruiters job is to be neutral. You’re looking for the best person for that role. And to match that person to the hiring manager and to remove all of your silly little biases. I saw one this morning. And she was saying, If anyone sends me a message Dear Sirs she rejects them. And like, well, culturally, that’s what some people in some countries use. So what what are you doing? Like? That’s another whole podcast episode.

Suzanne Lucas 28:51
It is. But this is also something where, where recruiters and HR need to be coaching the hiring managers on that too. And, you know, living in that global society that we live in, you know, where I live in Switzerland, in Basel. Basel is 50% Swiss and 50% foreign. And so, if you’re a Swiss hiring manager, you’ve got to be willing to accept some of the quirks of, of other cultures. You just do or you’re not getting anybody. And basically, the whole world is this way now. There’s, there’s very small enclaves of tiny towns where everyone was the same, but otherwise, we’re global. And yes, you can say, hey, I as the recruiter will say as a tip hey, in the future, don’t use Dear Sirs, say Dear Hiring Manager if you don’t know a name. Or if you’re not sure What pronouns are just say dear full name, you know, instead of Dear Ms. Jones just say, Dear Hannah Jones, you know, just but that’s a five minute fix. And not something that you should reject someone

Katrina Collier 30:15
Exactly. I mean, I was always touched to Dear Sir & Madam back. Now, I would probably do like Hi Suzanne coma enter new sentence. And if that would got me rejected, that would be fine because you know, I’m a bit relaxed like that.

Suzanne Lucas 30:28
This is the thing, if you’re applying for a job in Switzerland that doesn’t go. You need to say, Dear Ms. Lucas. Because I’m not even supposed to call my neighbor by her first name until she’s allowed me to. But as an American, I, you know, the only person I would use a title for would be like, a governor or senator or something or doctor, you know? No, Dr. Jones, otherwise, I’d be like, Hi, I’m Suzanne and I freak people out here all the time. Because I’ll I always will say Hi, this is Suzanne instead of Hi. Hello. Here’s Frau Lucas you know, like, they’re like, who like

Katrina Collier 31:11
If anyone called me Frau Collier, I wouldn’t like it. It’s amazing, isn’t it? So there we go. Lots of work should be done. But I think a lot of it really is that just start getting a bit more honest, set some good boundaries, you know if you’re going to find other ways around, I can’t compete on salary but this is what I can offer.

Suzanne Lucas 31:33
Yeah, and HR

Katrina Collier 31:35
And be a little bit more humble as well like hey, you’re not in charge. The internet has made it so that people can see the jobs you are no longer in charge!

Suzanne Lucas 31:43
Yeah and people can see salaries now that they didn’t, weren’t able to before and starting I guess tomorrow in New York, they have to put the job range on the job posting. Colorado did that earlier this year, and companies that were hiring remotely started saying, we’ll hire but you can live anywhere but Colorado, because they didn’t want to put the range and I’m like, Why? Why are you going to waste my time? And honestly, when

Katrina Collier 32:20
Exactly! Who’s going to apply without a salary? I’m not. I want to know, I’m not gonna waste my time.

Suzanne Lucas 32:27
I’m not gonna waste my time if you’re not offering me enough, well the market rate we’ll find then put whatever the market rate is on there and don’t do this stupid ranges. I see these sometimes. Range 52,000 to 150,000 No, it’s not!

Katrina Collier 32:42
The most annoying one I had was doing I was facilitating a workshop. I’m just saying that to annoy you. But that’s what I was doing as the proper person at the front leading it. And HR would say the salary is like 40 to 45,000 Euros but you can only offer 42 and a half. Like, what is that as well. So the poor hiring managers are pulling their hair out going but you said 40 to 45 Why can’t I offer… So there’s much work to be done.

Suzanne Lucas 33:08
And this is where the honesty thing comes in. Just just be honest. Just, just be honest. And do you know how much hassle honesty saves you

Katrina Collier 33:22
So much

Suzanne Lucas 33:22
So much! So so so much! And be open, this is how much this job pays? Oh, well my current employers might see that I’m offering more well

Katrina Collier 33:36
Perhaps you might notice they’re leaving

Suzanne Lucas 33:38
Because they’re gonna walk across the street and make a bigger salary.

Katrina Collier 33:43
And I think the pandemic has.. One, a lot more people are using technology than perhaps were. A lot of people become a lot more confident with it because they’ve had to and I think that whole life realization of I don’t have to stay where I’m not happy it’s been a real wake up call.

Suzanne Lucas 34:00
It’s been a real wake up call!

Katrina Collier 34:01
It really has. Well Suzanne Lucas you are of course amazing and I don’t know why you said Evil HR Lady really but trying to work that out is so not evil. Is it because HR is evil?

Suzanne Lucas 34:12
It was fantastic marketing before I even knew about branding and all of that

Katrina Collier 34:18
And it’s just stuck. If people want to find you is that the easiest just, Twitter?

Suzanne Lucas 34:23
I am so easy to find if you Google Evil HR lady will pop up. My website is EvilHRLady.org You can see my Facebook group, which is called Evil HR Lady. I’m on LinkedIn as my actual name Suzanne Lucas.

Katrina Collier 34:43
Just as well though because they shut you down otherwise. And you know anyone interested in HR and how we can do the world of work better, should join that group because it’s quite fascinating seeing the discussions and just seeing what work needs to be done.

Suzanne Lucas 34:56
It’s a really good group. That’s really good people in there. And I have this fantastic team of moderators who admittedly don’t get paid. I do send them chocolates from time to time.

Katrina Collier 35:12
As in Swiss chocolates? I’ll just give you my postal address at the end. Anyway, thank you again, I really appreciate your time as ever, amazing advice.

Suzanne Lucas 35:25
It was so fun to talk with you.

Katrina Collier 35:27
Thank you for listening to The Hiring Partner Perspective unedited podcast proudly supported by the people at WORQDRIVE. Hopefully you really enjoyed what you heard and have left feeling inspired. And if so, I would love your help to create real change. Please pass this podcast on to your hiring leaders and other recruiters and HR, even share it on your social channels, if you feel so inclined. The more reach we can get, the more change we can create. So please remember to subscribe, of course, on your favourite podcast platform. And do come and say hello @HiringPartnerPerspective on Instagram where I share behind the scenes of what’s going on. Until next time, thank you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai