HR: A Seat at the Table - Who’s In Charge? - Ep 4 of 5 FITI HR Series - HR: The Good, the Bad, and the Potential

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:07:08 00:00:07:08 - 00:00:22:14 Stephanie Hi, everybody, and welcome back to our podcast From Illumination To Innovation. My name is Stephanie Crain. I am the Corporate Mystic and owner of Tapas Innovation, and I am here with my co-host Shaniqua Brown. 00:00:22:16 - 00:00:47:18 Shaniqua Hello everyone. I'm Shaniqua Brown, the founder of Elevated TA and today's topic is HR: A Seat at the Table. And, we have the privilege of having the lovely Mindy Honcoop with us today. And I did write down my intro. I wanted to make sure I remembered all the high points! 00:00:47:18 - 00:01:05:02 Shaniqua So it's a true privilege to welcome Mindy Honcoop to our show today, a person whose reputation precedes her as not only a beacon of inspiration, but also as a pioneering force in HR. Yeah. our paths crossed. 00:01:05:04 - 00:01:29:02 Shaniqua as I was volunteering for Disrupt HR in Austin, and I was having dinner with Melinda Stallings, and she just raved about Mindy, your impact in HR and your authentic dedication to transforming HR So, Mindy, would you please share with our audience a little bit more about, you know, who you are and your your journey in HR. 00:01:29:11 - 00:01:56:05 Mindy Well, thank you so much. Like this is an incredible eye opening. I think probably one of the best. so yeah, Mindy Honsoop and I founded Agilent HR in September of 2022. after 20 years of being a, HR practitioner and leader. So my last role in-house was as a chief people officer with a private equity, workplace technology that focused on time and attendance. 00:01:56:07 - 00:02:36:05 Mindy And as I left that, role and I was interviewing for full time positions, I just became really passionate about the need for small medium businesses to be able to afford a 20 year expert. but they don't necessarily need that person 40 hours or 50 hours a week. And how what would it look like to be able to take my years of experience and come alongside of often young HR, leaders, head of people that often I found it, at least in my experience, were a former recruiter because the startups are really scaling to grow. 00:02:36:07 - 00:02:50:15 Mindy but they didn't know what they didn't know. one of the companies that I was interviewing with actually hired me to be an HR advisor. And so that kind of sent me down this path of fractional and HR advising, which became Agilent HR. 00:02:50:17 - 00:02:53:02 Stephanie Oh. So. 00:02:53:04 - 00:03:01:04 Shaniqua I do have a question for you. Like when we discuss, you're actually an inspiration. Mindy's the inspiration behind our HR series. 00:03:01:09 - 00:03:02:09 Stephanie She is. 00:03:02:09 - 00:03:15:18 Shaniqua Stephanie, I came to you in our meet and greet, and we shared our vision for this discussion. And you helped shape our HR series that Stephanie is like she's like spearheading that. So thank you both. 00:03:15:20 - 00:03:24:14 Shaniqua but when we think about it at a high level, like HR, a seat at the table, what does that mean to you? What comes to mind first when you think about that? 00:03:24:16 - 00:03:32:03 Mindy Well, first of all, what comes to mind is that HR truly Co shares the strategy of the business. 00:03:32:18 - 00:03:53:02 Mindy I think you can think you have a seat at the table as an HR leader. You're sitting with the executive teams. But I think the differentiator for me of what is a true seat, which for me means that you have an actual voice that's being heard that you're being able to drive that strategy and that it's co shared amongst the executives. 00:03:53:04 - 00:03:56:05 Mindy That's what a true seat at the table looks like for me. 00:03:56:07 - 00:03:57:06 Shaniqua Co-shared. 00:03:57:06 - 00:04:04:17 Stephanie I know I like that. I'm curious if that's happening. How does that make it different than when it's not. 00:04:07:09 - 00:04:07:16 Mindy Right. Because when it's - 00:04:07:16 - 00:04:10:14 Stephanie Sorry, I, I'm just very like - 00:04:10:16 - 00:04:12:18 Shaniqua All right. Becky. Stephanie. 00:04:12:19 - 00:04:43:11 Mindy No, it's a fantastic question because I think that's the way we see chief people. officers, head of people whatever you want that title to be, there's a thousand flavors of title are getting frustrated or burned out because they're sitting there with the executives, but they don't actually feel like they are equipped or empowered to have a voice, or they're just a talking head that everyone goes off and does what they want to do anyways, or they share what should be done. 00:04:43:11 - 00:05:12:11 Mindy They advise very well. And then at the end of the day, they're just asked to go and execute on something very different, which is less than and is often not strategic focused work. It's tactical items. It's it's keeping them in the box on the island of HR and often I find that the HR, tech stack, everything people related is on the island and it's divorced from the rest of the business. 00:05:12:13 - 00:05:40:09 Mindy And so and then executives are speaking about the need for agility, the need for alignment, the need for connection. And at the heart of that, as you peel the the layers down, often these are people, people issues, people questions. And it's because over time, as they've grown, that they've lost the connection of that strategic business. Like where are we heading in and where are the people? 00:05:40:11 - 00:05:58:12 Stephanie You mentioned something. And this is sort of a question for both of y'all in terms of I just want an opinion on this, because at the beginning you were like, you know, chief people, chief and those chief of that, that whatever the flavor and and I'm curious because I see chief, chief culture officer, chief people officer, chief, those chief that does that diminish or does that enhance HR? 00:05:58:12 - 00:06:15:09 Stephanie Because to me, as a marketing person, it feels like a way of marketing yourself out of a business problem without actually solving the problem. It's like we really care about people. So we're going to have a chief people officer, but you're still HR and we need you to be HR, and we're going to still like delegate down to you and not actually bring you into that chief space. 00:06:15:11 - 00:06:21:00 Stephanie So I'm just curious if y'all have any feedback on that, because all of those titles, I wonder what they mean often. 00:06:21:03 - 00:06:23:08 Shaniqua Do you want to go first? I. 00:06:23:10 - 00:06:34:22 Mindy I really don't care what the title is. At the end of the day, it's about the essential functions of the job. What is it that I'm focused on and what am I? What are the outcomes that I am driving? 00:06:34:22 - 00:06:51:04 Stephanie But are the titles a distraction? Because if you're an employee and you're looking at the chief people officer, do they care about it? The HR person may not, you know, like you've got your job to do and you know that. But that this is my point is like leadership is creating these roles because they’re trying to send a message. 00:06:51:06 - 00:07:07:07 Stephanie That's why those titles are existing because they're trying they're trying to be clever and creative in the way they send a message instead of just actually addressing the issue. The human resources needs to have a leadership voice and be present in that same capacity. And it doesn't matter like how you dress them up with a cool title. 00:07:07:09 - 00:07:12:00 Mindy Like what I'm hearing you say is like, we're keeping them in a box with some fancy wrapping paper. 00:07:12:02 - 00:07:14:16 Shaniqua Feels like this. 00:07:14:17 - 00:07:27:07 Stephanie Is my perception off base or not, because that's how it feels to me quite frequently. And I talk to I consult with a lot of HR people, you know, and they feel the same way, like it's the title doesn't matter, but who is that title for? 00:07:27:13 - 00:07:53:02 Shaniqua But I think it's like, confusing, right, to the employee. Does the employee know what and understand what the titles are? And I think for us, being in the industry and you being very close in have worked cross-functionally you know who it is, but I've worked with candidates or brought on new hires into organizations that use business partner or, people partner or what have you. 00:07:53:02 - 00:08:10:21 Shaniqua And they don't know that that's their dedicated HR manager or, department head. So making sure that the employees of the organization is aware of the title, I think that's like the most important part. In addition to like what is the function? You know, go ahead. 00:08:10:23 - 00:08:42:08 Mindy And I think we're we're needing to even rethink HR and the focus of HR and how we work. And, and what are the roles in the organization and what are we focused on doing? Because at the end of the day, you could have a title. and it doesn't really matter what that title is, but if we're driving specific outcomes, if we co share that strategy, we then get clear on who owns what, who is driving what, who's responsible for what, and then that starts and should be woven into 00:08:42:10 - 00:09:16:04 Mindy How are we setting clear expectations? How are we holding each other responsible, which then as we team and as we come together as a company, then we start to understand the roles that we're all playing. And then how do we work together to achieve these shared outcomes. And so, as we if we get really good at defining those things, I think the problem is historically, when talking about the HR island, a lot of people don't like it that I say that HR island, it just feels like and there's not a bridge from HR Island to the business. 00:09:16:05 - 00:09:41:05 Mindy So it's about kind of the kitchen sink and everything that no one wants to do. Yeah. And it's very tactical, very compliant, very governance if, if that. And, and and that is where they're stuck and that's where people will see and and the titles have all they've tried to. But a title isn't a bridge. Right. And the title isn't going to fix it. 00:09:41:05 - 00:10:16:11 Stephanie No it's not. And then that's kind of that's kind of my consideration. There is, it feels like about a decade, maybe a little bit longer ago, but not, you know, that's when you started seeing all these kind of fresh new titles come up and there's no longer an HR director or a head of HR or whatever. Now you have your people culture, person or whatever these things are, and it's like they're trying to answer to what you just said, like HR is this kitchen sink, and it includes all of this regulatory tactical stuff, but it also includes all of this very like culture driven people driven and and and toxic environments, which is often what 00:10:16:11 - 00:10:34:04 Stephanie I deal with. HR, you know, is generally at the directive of their leadership. And I you know, I - I made a statement on, on one of my recent roles. If you don't trust your HR company, well, you don't trust your company leaders because that's not it's not like, oh, I just don't trust HR. It's like, well, you don't trust your company. 00:10:34:04 - 00:10:41:10 Stephanie I mean, like, that's not they're not divorced from each other. H.R. Might be on an island, but it's an island that has a leadership overlord controlling. 00:10:41:15 - 00:10:45:02 Shaniqua That's like representing the leadership capacity. 00:10:45:03 - 00:11:17:04 Mindy Right. And and culture. I mean, that's like a whole nother I think it's own it should be co shared, the culture shared. But if you're a HR leader isn't actually directing things if they're not co sharing and driving things if they're seated at the table, also they're they're actually have control of the wheel. And if they don't even get to touch the wheel, even if they're sitting with the executive and they report into the CEO, if you're not actually driving anything, you're just you're being driven. 00:11:17:19 - 00:11:19:05 Stephanie Oh, absolutely. 00:11:19:07 - 00:12:04:03 Shaniqua So there's a you mentioned earlier about your career helping you know supporting HR functions that may be novice or they may not have the resources for it. I'm curious like how can if you're speaking directly to them or working directly to them like how would you, advise them to like, you know, for them to overcome the challenges of like, more of the bureaucracy, like navigate, you know, the internal politics or actually getting a seat at the table, for like the short term focus and then being able to position oneself in that strategic role. 00:12:04:05 - 00:12:33:12 Mindy awesome question. Because this is often where I start and it's around key stakeholder management. it's about understanding who are at that table. Who are these humans? What do they care about? Where are their pain points? How? What motivates them? How do they best communicate? And and once you start to really understand where are the common themes, then where are the common shared pain points? 00:12:33:12 - 00:12:59:16 Mindy I also need to understand the business and have business acumen. I need to understand from a financial perspective with the CFO, you know, how are they looking at this? and where are we at? and where is that future desired state and where am I at today? And so once you add that key stakeholder management, as you obtain that information, you're also developing relationships because you're also hearing them. 00:12:59:16 - 00:13:27:01 Mindy You're caring about them and you're understanding how each individual player together hopefully, or is not working together to achieve the the business outcomes. And that's is where the acumen is. And then we start to see barriers to success, and then we start to understand what are those shared pain points and start to speak to them, because often they're the elephant in the room. 00:13:27:03 - 00:13:42:15 Mindy Often that team is not talking about, especially in a more, in a startup where people are operating super quick and moving super fast, they think they're aligned, but they're often starting to operate in silos as they're growing. 00:13:42:15 - 00:13:49:12 Stephanie I call this brand shadow, where things become unseen and then kind of fall into the shadows, and then they sneak up on you. 00:13:49:13 - 00:14:15:16 Mindy Yes. And and that is about being able to be the light bulb that starts to shine a light on the shadow that starts to bring people back to having a shared conversation. And I think that is one of the ways in which I have seen HR leaders actually start to truly be seen as an advisor and a strategic partner, and they're where the conversation starts to shift. 00:14:15:16 - 00:14:21:07 Mindy They start to be coming to them to seek guidance. Okay, this is what we're think. What do you. 00:14:21:07 - 00:14:22:16 Shaniqua Think? Right? 00:14:22:18 - 00:14:41:23 Stephanie I'm curious in terms of like where we're at now, who from your perspective, what is the most resistance to having HR have a seat at this. And where is that resistance coming from? Like is it consistently like the CEO or is it just something that's not thought about that isn't seen and seen as important or like like what's the issue? 00:14:41:23 - 00:14:48:06 Stephanie Why isn't HR automatically at the table? They’re so critical to the to the operation of the organization. 00:14:48:06 - 00:14:49:03 Mindy I like to think so. 00:14:49:07 - 00:15:09:08 Stephanie I mean I mean, you're not you're not going to get paid if they're there, okay. You're simply not going to get paid. So it benefits I mean, at their very core, you know, HR is the function is a primary function in the operate. So why I'm just curious. You have an opinion of it over the years and what you've seen where where are the obstacles that hit the hardest. 00:15:09:09 - 00:15:13:22 Stephanie Is it just ignorance. Is it resistance? 00:15:14:00 - 00:15:17:18 Mindy and is it H.R. is like that. You know, it depends. 00:15:17:20 - 00:15:20:12 Shaniqua You know? Hey, that's terrifying. 00:15:20:12 - 00:15:22:19 Mindy I know. Right? It's such an HR response. 00:15:22:21 - 00:15:27:03 Stephanie But you get two answers. Which one? I. 00:15:27:05 - 00:15:56:15 Mindy I know, but I feel that often like if we're to look at generically, and I think it probably depends on the industry too. Yeah. I agree, and I have a tech background, so it just always like to preface that. But in my experience, it's often that it could be CEOs that are being advised by, a board that has unfortunately only worked with an old school HR where it really is about compliance and the tactical. 00:15:56:15 - 00:16:15:10 Mindy And so they just haven't seen an HR person show up in a different way, or they haven't allowed an HR person to show up in a different way. And they don't know what they don't know. They don't realize what they're missing by not allowing the person to come outside of the box and actually have a true voice. 00:16:15:12 - 00:16:21:20 Stephanie So it sounds a little like it's just the way it's always been, and that HR has evolved and corporate or. 00:16:21:20 - 00:16:22:18 Mindy Trying to evolve. 00:16:22:18 - 00:16:43:13 Stephanie Well, I you know, the HR is trying to evolve. But I talked to so many people who I mean, the message that I hear from today versus 20 years ago is like night and day difference, totally different capacity almost in terms of their perspective and focus. And so I do think HR people like don't want to be seen as the police. 00:16:43:13 - 00:17:11:09 Stephanie They don't want to be seen as the enforcers. They know, even though that's part of their role in terms of enforcement and and regulatory. And I think that that's valuable. You know, it's like looking at compliance. For example, I come I worked in financial services and compliance is like a really valuable resource. Right. That can get a real bad reputation when you don't understand how much they're saving you right, from lawsuits or, you know, like regulatory fines or things of that nature. 00:17:11:14 - 00:17:24:12 Stephanie So, you know, I feel like HR gets caught into that mix quite easily. But what is this is so how do we move? How does public companies move forward. Like how do you how do you open that awareness or illuminate. 00:17:24:14 - 00:17:44:10 Mindy And I think it's starting to I think it's also those steps are starting to show up differently. And baby stepping into that to build the trust to start to show, to start to show up differently in the conversation. And a lot of that is through understanding, you know, risk management and change management. 00:17:44:12 - 00:17:44:19 Stephanie Yeah. 00:17:45:01 - 00:18:22:05 Mindy And and that key stakeholder mapping kind of goes into all of that and that. Yes. We and how do you balance the needs of the business as well as the human? I think that's where I came from, a background in social work, and I learned the business and starting out my career at Microsoft, it really helped me to kind of understand and, you know, how can we use data as signals to kind of be able to start to also see, you know, where do we start to lose balance between the business and, and the people, and where do we have the opportunity to really understand, ask why five times to truly understand the problems and 00:18:22:05 - 00:18:56:01 Mindy don't just take what is presented because often the employee may present something, but they may not be using the right words because they don't know how to truly describe the situation that's happening. And if we just take a moment to pause and be with that human and and care, there may be something underlying that's deeper that we actually can impact and, and be able to keep and be able to shift the dynamics of what's ever happening for that employee and, and, and equip the business and the employee to, to thrive. 00:18:56:03 - 00:19:25:12 Mindy I think we often miss missed that. Or if we don't know about you know, how do we hold risk? How you know, how do we how do we balance that? and I think that's all through project management, change management and the things that, you know, we talked about before. and I think what's exciting is that AI and technology is going to start to help us, give the room for HR also, because just the bandwidth of an HR person is so limited. 00:19:25:13 - 00:19:25:20 Mindy It's such. 00:19:25:20 - 00:19:30:18 Stephanie A great point about AI and technology being able to supplement and augment sort of. 00:19:30:22 - 00:19:31:10 Mindy You know. 00:19:31:13 - 00:19:37:11 Stephanie Augment some of those services in a particular way that lets you all expand more on that human side. 00:19:37:11 - 00:19:39:04 Shaniqua Yeah. This is why. 00:19:39:04 - 00:19:42:04 Mindy I'm excited about AI and and embracing it. 00:19:42:05 - 00:19:46:05 Stephanie I love talking to people who are excited about AI. Okay? It's like my favorite, don't be scared to be scared. 00:19:46:08 - 00:20:16:04 Shaniqua AI it's always it's like automating automation. Yeah. You know, in a way that you personally don't have to automate the automation itself. You know, Mindy, we all know that in, in like business today, data is everything. We like to make decisions just solely with data. And that helps drive the next annual fiscal year. But when we're coming like HR and what you have shared about your work is that you want it to be human centric. 00:20:16:05 - 00:20:26:12 Shaniqua And how do how can HR actually use data to then help drive more human centric decision making? 00:20:26:14 - 00:20:28:11 Mindy you said you have such good questions. 00:20:28:13 - 00:20:28:23 Shaniqua I. 00:20:29:01 - 00:20:30:13 Stephanie I, I love that question. 00:20:30:14 - 00:20:53:18 Mindy I also like to take a step back there because the, the human centered and data is so important because I think that balances out. I think you can look at data all day long, and you could have two different people look at the same data, and they may have different take aways. They may be wanting to spin an agenda or spin, and we don't even know it because we have bias, right? 00:20:54:00 - 00:21:20:16 Mindy And we may be like taking some aspects of that data. And if we're not going back and understand the context, if we're not actually taking that and being inquisitive and curious to understand well what led to this number, like, how am I going back to my employees and having a discussion first before jumping into assumption? How am I actually making sure that I truly understand what's going on here? 00:21:20:20 - 00:21:45:03 Mindy I think when we use data as a signal to generate a greater conversation, to be curious, I think that's when it becomes powerful. And as we can have that back, going to back to Microsoft, which is before people analytics was even a thing. I think that's where it helps, where it's not just an HR person saying, well, I think this or I feel this in my gut, right? 00:21:45:04 - 00:22:05:15 Mindy It's being able to validate with the data, in addition to the additional talking points that you have gathered or themes that you've gathered from the employee population in order to build a business case for it towards whatever decision you're looking to get buy in to make. 00:22:05:17 - 00:22:29:19 Shaniqua I, I resonate with that and I like to when I work with my clients, I like to use the data and ensure that the core values is at the center of like our conversations, like the core values is driving my inquisitiveness of like what's, what is this story? You know, we have like if our pass rate is 10%, then let's where are we posting the roles? 00:22:29:21 - 00:22:50:02 Shaniqua Who are we targeting? you know, what questions are we asking? Are these questions aligned with what we're truly valuing? You know, so leading with more curiosity. Seek before you start to like, dive into the data and call it God. You want to understand how it happens. That's that's I like that. Yeah. 00:22:50:03 - 00:23:08:09 Stephanie The other thing that popped into my hand when you were talking and you were like, you know, you want to use the data to support your perspective. That's kind of what you're saying. and I felt like you soft sold it a little bit, because it's like, you know, you can't just like, you know, bring, you know, what's in how you feel or what's in your gut and all of that. 00:23:08:09 - 00:23:41:23 Stephanie But you know, you're an HR person, your expertise as an observer, observing your environment, understanding the patterns of your environment, an intuition as as we have talked about, is a very powerful tool that we often diminish and don't use enough in business. But what you were describing was really aligned towards backing up your intuition, backing up what you know from expertise because you're an expert in observing populations in business. 00:23:42:01 - 00:24:00:14 Stephanie And I just I feel like that needs to be elevated, that HR people have this expertise. They are not they just don't feel like things need to be different. Okay? Like they know for a reason. And so I just wanted to just comment on that because I do feel like it got soft sold. And I think that we're conditioned to do that. 00:24:00:16 - 00:24:16:10 Stephanie We're conditioned to diminish that very valuable thing that we bring to the table, which is the expertise that we have gained through years of experience, years of knowledge and education and and all of these other things that go into building that intuition. It's not just magic. 00:24:16:12 - 00:24:42:04 Mindy Yes, I think that's so true. And I think that's also like if, you know, coming from a social work background, there's so much about how we as humans communicate and how we do life together and how we we and there's so much and what's not said and that you can't put a data point on around the tone of voice or how someone's carrying themselves or walking, or how they're moving. 00:24:42:09 - 00:24:44:11 Mindy How what are they not saying? 00:24:44:12 - 00:25:03:12 Stephanie It's interesting in, in the customer experience employee experience world, right. They talk about leading and lagging indicators. Right. So if you're looking at data, if you're looking at a NPS score, you know what. That's a lagging indicator. Meaning whatever has happened is already occurred. And if the customer scoring you a three or a two or whatever, they're already angry. 00:25:03:12 - 00:25:04:10 Stephanie You've already screwed up. 00:25:04:10 - 00:25:05:02 Shaniqua Yes. 00:25:05:04 - 00:25:17:17 Stephanie Right. And so that leading indicator is looking ahead. Yeah. It's having the ability to interpret what's happening and be able to get ahead of it. Yeah. To actually solve that problem before it becomes one. Right? 00:25:17:17 - 00:25:18:14 Mindy Right. Oh my. 00:25:18:14 - 00:25:22:11 Stephanie Gosh. Employees and customers in the same way. Like it's it's an experience. 00:25:22:11 - 00:25:24:13 Shaniqua The cost savings. Yeah. The true cost. 00:25:24:13 - 00:25:43:17 Stephanie Is a massive cost. It's way cheaper. It may cost more upfront, which is you know, we always step over dollars to pick up dimes, right. Because they're so shiny. But, at the end of the day, if you take the time to solve the problem before it becomes a problem as opposed to spending an enormous amount of money to manage an existing problem. 00:25:43:17 - 00:25:50:06 Stephanie Yeah. Epically. Forever. it's like. Right. It's it's it is. It's not sustainable. 00:25:50:07 - 00:26:11:02 Mindy Right. And what I love even about like, agile, the agile mindset, not not just focused on the tools of Kanban and Scrum, which are great. But if you go back to why that was created years ago, it was really about people and teaming. Yes. And it talked about how team health was a leading indicator to, productivity. 00:26:11:04 - 00:26:29:20 Mindy And so that team health was so important. So often managers are like, what is this one thing that I can do is start your meetings, just eat. And especially culturally because, you know, sometimes we're bad at naming our emotions. So even just saying, are you red? Are you yellow, are you green? How are you coming into this meeting? 00:26:29:21 - 00:26:42:03 Mindy And then you can start to have an indicator over time. And then that's your team health check. And I bet you if you start to see a lot of reds and you as a manager are not following up on that, you're going to see a dip in productivity. 00:26:42:05 - 00:26:59:05 Stephanie Well, yeah, that's so on point. And that's a great actual just like actionable thing. Yeah. Just actionable thing. I immediately thought of like think because I'm like, I'm a little like, how'd you get to job? Like, you don't even have to own it. You can just drop like your color in the hat. And the manager at the end, just, like, makes a little pile of like red, yellow, green. 00:26:59:05 - 00:27:02:19 Shaniqua Guys, I'm looking really yellow today. What can you start. 00:27:02:19 - 00:27:26:23 Mindy There, though? Right. Like, if you haven't built trust on that. Yeah, it's a way that's a great way from an anonymous standpoint. Yeah. With the goal of hoping as we start to learn what it looks like to actually be transparent and authentic, and how can we have conversations together then being able to see, like, how can we move from the hat to being able to share with my own voice what my color is? 00:27:27:01 - 00:27:53:07 Shaniqua That's like truly a leader fostering a safe environment. I think oftentimes because business moves at lightning speed, we expect trust to be day one, we expect, you know, you to share your career aspirations in the first 1 to 1, but to actually be a servant leader and to be proactive is to really take that time to get to know and show that you are credible, that you are listening. 00:27:53:09 - 00:27:57:00 Shaniqua that is those are some gems. There. I appreciate. 00:27:57:00 - 00:28:23:04 Mindy You. Just some of these little gems are ways that HR leaders can once again have a seat at the table by suggesting some of these things. And try it out with managers that are maybe more open to trying this. I think also why I love the hat is because this having a manager title, if you haven't built the trust, it naturally will start to create groupthink because you already there's a level of power. 00:28:23:04 - 00:28:23:12 Stephanie Yeah. 00:28:23:15 - 00:28:30:02 Mindy And so being mindful of the the power in the room is is really important. 00:28:30:03 - 00:28:33:23 Stephanie I that's a very, very good point actually. 00:28:34:01 - 00:28:35:13 Shaniqua Do we have time for one more question. 00:28:35:13 - 00:28:37:01 Stephanie Absolutely. and on. 00:28:37:03 - 00:28:54:22 Shaniqua So this table. Yes. Right here. We want them to have a seat at it. Yes. But who's at the table and those at the table. What can they do to ensure that H.R has enough room, an actual chair, to sit at that table? 00:28:55:00 - 00:29:21:07 Mindy Okay. I love this because I like it when I'm just thinking about the table. You may immediately think about that executive table, and with the executive room, with all your C-level individuals. But I think that companies are the way we're starting to talk about how do we co share there may be people that aren't actually physically at the table, but that HR gets the immense opportunity. 00:29:21:07 - 00:29:46:18 Mindy And our leaders, it's about our employees because they're a key stakeholder in this too. But also the board is as well. And so how are we thinking about them? And so how is HR not just thinking about the executive team, but do they have a seat at the table with that board? I know smaller companies. Anybody in industry may not have a board, but maybe your investors, you know, what is that relationship like? 00:29:46:18 - 00:30:10:06 Mindy Are they being able to present to them or are they hearing from them? Do they even have access to speak to them? And and it's also too you know about the employees and how are the employees showing up? in that conversation, I think that people think that answer to that question is easy because you could just say, oh, it's with the CEO, the CFO, the COO, chief of staff. 00:30:10:08 - 00:30:20:08 Mindy but I think if we challenge ourselves to go beyond just the actual physical table, you know, that becomes so much more dynamic. 00:30:20:10 - 00:30:28:16 Shaniqua I never thought about the board or the investors, but that makes so much sense because essentially the CEO executives that that's that's their boss. 00:30:28:16 - 00:30:29:14 Stephanie Exactly. 00:30:29:16 - 00:30:32:03 Shaniqua So do you have access to their boss? 00:30:32:03 - 00:30:35:10 Stephanie Yeah. Leadership is driving culture wherever that leadership starts. 00:30:35:13 - 00:30:36:02 Mindy Or. 00:30:36:04 - 00:31:04:13 Stephanie Wherever it starts. And if that's at the board, that's at the board. And there should be accountability all the way to that level for the value systems of those organizations. And HR having a seat, being able to help those value systems become more aligned, because it's really functionally where I think HR can have a huge impact and understanding the company value and the employee value, they're the ones that see both sides of that with the most clarity I believe in. 00:31:04:15 - 00:31:06:09 Stephanie So that matters. 00:31:06:09 - 00:31:17:10 Shaniqua Yeah. does Mindy, what would you like? What would be like maybe your takeaway that you would want to share with our audience about HR and a seat at the table? 00:31:17:19 - 00:31:45:20 Mindy I want to say that it is possible, like is what is one thing. And I think a lot of HR leaders that I’ve been talking to you have lost hope. and I think there's actually so much hope. And it's about really thinking about, from a mindset perspective, really checking in with yourself first and really thinking about, you know, how am I perceiving me in my role and, and where where do I feel that I am empowered or not? 00:31:45:22 - 00:32:09:10 Mindy And we got to reconnect with ourselves first. And if we aren't confident in that, if we aren't, if we don't have the value of our own self, we have to find that first. And then once we find that, what is that one thing that you could start doing? What is that first step? It can often become overwhelming. So I always think this break it down was just that one. 00:32:09:10 - 00:32:20:15 Mindy Next thing that you can control, that you can start to drive and start to shift the conversation to be able to actually have a voice and a seat. 00:32:20:17 - 00:32:26:10 Stephanie I love that, you know, my company is Tapas and it has nothing to do with food, except we know that tapas is just - So 00:32:26:12 - 00:32:28:15 Mindy I say I'm getting hungry here. 00:32:28:15 - 00:32:44:06 Stephanie I say always like we take things in tiny bites. I love that, right? Because we do, we don't. We take we bite off what we can chew and that's it. And then we swallow and then we move on and take another bite. And so I love that. But you talk about just start where you can and especially starting within, 00:32:44:08 - 00:32:45:02 Mindy It has to start. 00:32:45:02 - 00:32:49:02 Stephanie You have to start at home. Yeah. Like within yourself. That's beautiful. 00:32:49:04 - 00:33:14:06 Shaniqua Thanks. Well Mindy thank you so much. It's very insightful, really reiterating what Stephanie said, starting within and then moving into what you can control. That's wonderful. And I'm sure our audience will appreciate it. And they will be, like motivated and inspired as you inspire me. So thank you so much for joining us. And again, it's been a lot of fun and I feel empowered in HR. 00:33:14:06 - 00:33:15:19 Shaniqua Will have a seat at the table. 00:33:15:21 - 00:33:25:21 Mindy Such a joy. Thank you so much for having me here. I couldn't even thought of, my first podcast in person that now the bar is set so high is awesome. 00:33:25:21 - 00:33:27:10 Shaniqua Thank you. Oh. 00:33:27:11 - 00:33:34:00 Stephanie You are so welcome. Oh my God. Thanks everybody for joining us. And, come back soon. 00:33:34:02 - 00:33:36:03 Shaniqua Peace in y'all. 00:33:36:03 - 00:33:46:13 Shaniqua Thanks for listening to our show. Show us your support by following us on your favorite podcast platform Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen. 00:33:46:15 - 00:33:58:22 Stephanie You can also find us on Castos at From Illumination To Innovation dot Castos dot com. If you love our show, share it with your friends and coworkers too. Let's all work together to help businesses 00:33:58:22 - 00:34:04:06 S&S vibrate higher.