Where Workplace Risk Begins: Preparing Managers for the First Response

The conversations that matter most rarely feel important at the time.

A routine question, concern, or conversation can quickly become more consequential, and what a manager says, does, or fails to recognize can shape what happens next. That’s why manager readiness is just as important as the formal processes that follow.

In this conversation, Lauren Lipari, Senior HR Business Partner at Spotify, Laura Crothers, Founder & CEO of Crothers Consulting, and Katherin Nukk-Freeman, Co-Founder and President of SHIFT, explore how organizations can better prepare managers to recognize risk, respond appropriately, and know when to involve HR.

 

Panelists

Lauren Lipari
Senior HR Business Partner, Spotify

Lauren is a Senior HR Business Partner at Spotify, where she works with technology leaders to build strong teams, develop leaders, and make decisions about how their organizations are set up. She helps leaders navigate growth and change while keeping both business goals and people in mind.

Before joining Spotify, Lauren held HR leadership roles at American Express, working across a large global organization. Throughout her career, she has focused on building strong leadership teams, working through complex organizational challenges, and helping leaders make thoughtful decisions about their people and businesses.

Laura Crothers
Founder & CEO, Crothers Consulting

Laura Crothers is a highly regarded speaker, author, and expert in leadership and HR. As Founder and CEO of Crothers Consulting, she has grown the firm over the past 16 years into a team of 24.

Her leadership was shaped in senior roles at Standard & Poor’s, CIT, Merrill Lynch, ADP, and EverBank, where she guided employee and company growth through numerous mergers and acquisitions. Known for pragmatic, innovative solutions, Laura builds genuine connections through a straightforward, approachable style.

At Standard & Poor’s, she led HR Mergers and Acquisitions, specializing in complex HR diligence and integration strategy. As Chief People Officer at USXL, she scaled the HR function for the startup as it grew to $1 billion in assets and from 8 to 250 employees within five years.

Laura was recently named a Woman of Influence by ROI-NJ and a Leading Woman in Business by NJBIZ, recognized among the Top 25 Leading Women Entrepreneurs, and honored in both 2024 and 2025 as the Most Innovative Leadership Training & HR Solutions Company in the Northeast USA.

She serves on the board of directors of ACG-NJ and is active in numerous community organizations. Laura also chairs the New Jersey chapter of the Women Presidents’ Organization (WPO), a roundtable for CEOs of multimillion-dollar businesses.

Outside of work, Laura enjoys traveling, entertaining, and skiing with her two sons and friends.

Katherin Nukk-Freeman
Co-Founder & President, SHIFT HR Compliance Training

As a practicing employment law attorney for over 30 years, Katherin has grown her highly successful Employment Law firm, Nukk-Freeman & Cerra, P.C., by focusing her practice on working with clients to proactively address and effectively manage workplace issues, including harassment and discrimination complaints and unconscious bias awareness. Katherin strives to avoid costly litigation and create more inclusive teams through high-quality training that helps employees be more mindful of their actions and decisions in the workplace.

In 2014, leveraging her years of experience as a trusted advisor to corporate leaders and organizations, Katherin co-founded SHIFT to provide innovative, engaging, and impactful online training services for employers of all sizes, from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies.

Katherin is the Co-Founder and President of SHIFT HR Compliance Training and a passionate advocate for building better workplaces. As a dynamic employment law advisor, training instructor, and industry thought leader, Katherin partners with clients to develop and implement learning journeys that educate and evolve workplace culture, incorporate strategies to manage risk, comply with the law, foster an inclusive workplace, and create a better workplace for all.

 

Webinar Transcript

Karen:

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the webinar. We’re excited to have you here today. Please let us know in the chat where you are chiming in from.

We’d love to see where we have everyone across the country, where you’re all dialing in. So my name is Karen Byington. I am the director of content development at SHIFT HR. We are a compliance training company That offers high quality e-learning in the area of compliance and culture.

And we’re really happy that you’re joining us here today. And I can see already we have San Diego and Northern Virginia and Milwaukee and Florida. So welcome to all of you who are here. We have a really great panel, and I think you’re going to leave with some great insights about what you can do to ensure that you have managers that are prepared to handle all the workplace issues that present themselves every day.

And so, before we get started, I just want to run through a few really quick logistics. So, many of you are attending for SHRM or HRCI credit, and so about halfway through the program Kristen is going to be putting in the chat a code that we want you to write down to be able to receive your credit And please use that chat feature for any questions or comments you have along the way, and we are going to do our best to respond to your questions as they come up. Anything we don’t get a chance to respond to, we will follow up with you after the webinar. And after the webinar, if there’s any additional information that you would like about anything that we’ve discussed today, we’re going to follow up with some information about how to reach out to us, as well as a link to a recording of the webinar, in case you want to review it or share it with anyone you know And we encourage you to follow us on LinkedIn, and this will allow you to stay informed of future webinars Resources, updates regarding HR compliance and workplace culture, and Kristen is going to drop a link in the chat in case you want to follow us.

And lastly, we very much appreciate, at the end of the webinar, we post a link to a survey, and your feedback really does help us keep providing you with Great content that helps you empower your workforce and build stronger workplaces. So We appreciate the one minute it takes to fill out the survey. And so, yeah, yeah.

Katherin:

Karen, can I just add selfishly, and not only would I love everybody on the call to follow SHIFT HR compliance training, but I also have a separate LinkedIn where I post a number of articles and, you know, thought leadership pieces for HR leaders like for everybody on the call. So if you’re interested, follow me on LinkedIn too, and I would Absolutely welcome that

Karen:

So thank you, Katherin. And as I mentioned, we have a really amazing panel here today with deep expertise in the area of employment law and HR. And so I thought I would ask each of them to introduce themselves. And Katherin, we’ll start off with you.

If you want to give a little bit of background.

Katherin:

Thanks, Karen. Yes, so welcome everybody to the call. I am so excited to have our two panelists on with us today. Karen is going to have to move us along because I think we’re going to have some deep conversations with, of course, any commentary from you all in the audience But by way of background, for those of you who haven’t been on these calls before, I’m Katherin McFreeman.

I am the co-founder of SHIFT HR compliance training, where we build interactive and highly relevant training to impact change within organizations I also have more than… more than three decades of experience as an employment lawyer, and I co-founded what is now the largest woman-owned employment law firm on the East Coast, with offices in New York City, New Jersey, and we also have offices in San Diego and San Francisco. I get to bring a really interesting dual perspective to all the trainings that I work with SHIFT to build that from HR compliance, employment law, legal perspective, as well as that from an HR leader talent development perspective from my years of Working with HR leaders as well. So, we like to say at SHIFT that we are the only HR compliance training company that’s co-founded and run by employment lawyers, as well as having our content built by employment lawyers. So, with that said, I’d love to turn it over to our two guests to introduce themselves.

And why don’t we start with you as the first panelist outside of SHIFT, Lauren Lapari.

Lauren:

Absolutely. Hi, everybody. I’m Lauren LaPerry. I’m an HR business partner at Spotify, where I’ve spent the last four plus years partnering with a team called the Personalization Mission.

And so it’s a very R&D and tech heavy team here at Spotify where We build our recommendation engine and work with a lot of kind of machine learning and AI. And so it’s really on the cutting edge from that perspective. Before Spotify, I was at American Express, also in an HR business partner role. I spent most of my career sitting close to the business, working with leaders through all the messy stuff that I know we’ll talk a lot about today growth, reorgs, tough calls about people and talent, and really trying to make sure that those managers are set up to handle those moments well.

And I know that’s exactly, again, as we’re going to discuss more today in this hour. I also wanted to share, maybe on a personal front. You may have noticed my background, and so I am kind of holding on to the last bits of summer, and I’ve purposely put a summer beach photo behind me. I’m based here in New Jersey, and it’s starting to feel a little cooler, so I have my favorite beach here behind me in Cape May, New Jersey, and so I hope all of you are maybe beach people are enjoying the beach year-round, but I’ve included it intentionally here to do that for myself.

And so, I’m excited for the next hour together, and looking forward to it.

Katherin:

Love it. Thanks, Lauren.

Lauren:

Aw, thank you.

Karen:

Thanks, Lauren. And Laura, last but not least, please let us know a little bit about

Laura:

Yeah, and so Lauren, I love that you put that photo there. It’s great to still be thinking summer for a little while. So I am Laura Crothers and I spent the first half of my career as an HR leader, really a business partner on Wall Street and financial services firms like Lehman and Merrill and Standard & Poor, CIT And focused a lot on being that business partner and on mergers and acquisitions was a specialty Then, about 16 years ago, I started Crothers Consulting As a work-life balance tool at that point, and it was designed to help companies develop leaders, build strong teams, and really drive strategic advantage through high value HR projects like M&A and org design for fractional HR leadership, and we’ve also have a training academies and executive coaching So, it’s been quite the unexpected ride from starting as a single shingle to now we’ve got a team of 25 people, and they are all high-level HR leaders, kind of Like what you’re seeing here on this call, and we work across the US with high growth clients to help them build scalable, not only HR solutions, but specifically leadership and people management skills So I think that aligns very nicely with what we’re talking about today, and we partner with Nukk Freeman often, and they are just amazing, so, so glad to be a part of this, and for you, Katherin And Karen for inviting me to partake today. So I’m excited to get started.

Katherin:

Welcome, welcome.

Karen:

We are so excited to have all of you. And as I promised, all of you out there listening, that we have deep expertise here today, and I think that this was just demonstrated by who we have here on the panel. So as you all know and you’re listening, most workplace issues don’t begin in HR. They begin With Managers first response when employees come to them.

An employee raises a concern, mentions a health condition, asks for time away, questions pay or reacts to feedback, or they even report conduct that doesn’t feel right. And the manager has only a few seconds to decide what they’re going to say and then what they’re going to do next. And so while many organizations may mandate that they have at least some level of training, the question is whether their managers are really prepared to recognize the issues and apply the right skills when they’re needed. And so today, we’re going to talk about some of the situations where managers deal with every day and the skills that they really need to help them handle it well.

So we’re going to look at where managers tend to get tripped up and what organizations can do to help the managers be better prepared. And so we’re really fortunate to get to spend the hour with these three seasoned HR and legal experts to get their perspective on the importance of this really important topic of manager preparedness. And so let’s start off the conversation talking about risk and why it is so important that HR leaders Make sure That they are really prepared for the situations and that their managers are, you know, they’re not just checking the box with annual training, but that they have managers that are really prepared. And so, Katherin, I’d love for you to weigh in from a legal perspective.

And then Lauren and Laura, if you want to jump in and talk about How you’ve seen organizations connect that manager training to risk

Katherin:

Absolutely. I just want to back up for one second and address what Laura mentioned, and I think this is where there’s definite overlap between the three of us as speakers. The passion that everybody has for helping organizations like those on the call build high-performing teams of managers and employees. And really, when I think about it, that’s the overriding goal of every course that we build at SHIFT.

Like, how can we help an organization build a high-performing team? In the case of managers, which we’re talking about today How can we set managers up for success so that they are acting like high performing team members and they cultivate that high performance along the organization? And there’s so many ways you can do that. One of them is, of course, teaching managers what their responsibilities are to comply with the law, because The bottom line is managers are… they’re the first responders, oftentimes.

They’re the ones who see things that happened first within the organization, and they either make the right decision and involve HR when necessary, or perhaps if they’re not trained well and they don’t have the knowledge as to what they should be doing They don’t involve human resources. And so then things can go awry. So, you know, I’m sure many of you like this quote like I do, especially as it relates to setting our team members up for success. We can’t expect that our team members are going to rise to the occasion They really are going to fall to the level of their preparation.

So, our goal is make sure your managers who are first responders handling all sorts of employee and employment-related issues, make sure that they’re well prepared So that they can fall to the level of their preparation, which is at a really high level. Otherwise, what you do is you run the risk that if they’re not prepared, if they’re not knowledgeable, if they don’t have the judgment from the training and the exercising of that judgment in various scenarios You run the risk that they could make decisions, say things, take actions, or not take actions that instead put your organization in a difficult spot down the road if an employee were to file some type of complaint or a lawsuit. And then you also run the risk if they don’t get you as human resources the information in a timely way that things can get out of control and small problems turn into big problems, which from a legal perspective, we’d always rather deal with small problems than big problems. So, again, training is really about helping your managers, setting them up for success, helping them recognize What they should and shouldn’t do and help them prepare for and practice responding to the situations they’re going to see time and time again throughout the course of their career.

Lauren:

Yeah, and maybe, Katherin, let me build on that, because I loved what you said, and I… you absolutely should train employees and managers on the rules. Managers especially. But I think there’s even one more layer that we at Spotify talk a lot about, and it’s human judgment, and I think, kind of, where we’re going in this kind of world, that becomes that much more important in the equation. And so it’s kind of the training and the policies give managers that knowledge and that guardrail, Katherin, that you were talking about, but that human judgment then helps them apply it when the kind of situation comes to you.

And so that’s how I kind of think about that piece, and I think we… I think we got there. That’s perfect.

Katherin:

Absolutely. I completely agree with you.

Laura:

Yeah, yeah, and to build on that would be just the psychological safety around it all so that they’re hearing the right things and they’re knowing what to do with them in those scenarios. So So many thoughts here

Karen:

Yeah, do you think the bigger risk is that the employee, the managers themselves, that they don’t know enough or that they might be acting too quickly because they think they know what to do and they don’t actually have the right skills to respond.

Laura:

A little of both, right?

Lauren:

Yeah, I think that’s right. I think my gut instinct was actually acting too quickly, because they think they need to solve it. I think managers have the best of intentions, but you actually, at least I don’t expect managers to know every HR rule and policy, and so I really expect them to listen, be curious, kind of understand, frankly, the limits of their expertise, and then know kind of when to bring things to HR. And so I think I’d lean absolutely a balance, but I think I’d lean towards, I have more concern over acting too quickly

Laura:

I would agree with that, and I think you’re right that, you know, we take for granted, we as HR leaders on the call, we are steeped in the knowledge of all of this. We take regular classes and certifications, and we know this inside and out. Managers have their own job and their own set of job duties that they’re focused on. So, they’re just dabbling in what we do on a daily, weekly, monthly basis, and so we really need to bring them up to speed.

And as much as we’d like to think that our policies might be intuitive. Like, take, for example, the whole confidentiality promise. That’s not intuitive. If you’re a manager and you have an employee come to you and say, I’d like to keep this confidential, and I want to share something with you, but I don’t want others to know about it Your intuition may say, oh, I have to respect that this person is asking something of me, but your policy likely says the complete opposite.

So that’s why we do need to educate them, because their intuition may be completely inconsistent with Yep. what’s required

Katherin:

Yeah, absolutely.

Karen:

So Laura, along that vein, when you think about situations that managers deal with every day, where do you see them getting into the most trouble when they haven’t been properly prepared?

Laura:

Yeah, so it’s actually… I think what Katherin just raised, funny enough, I do think it’s when someone comes to them and they say, I just need to share this with you, you’re my friend I think it’s that friend, right? Where managers feel like they’ve built really strong relationships with their employees, they’re friends with them, and so somebody tells them something as a friend, and they need to keep it confidential, and they don’t tell HR Or know what are the appropriate questions to ask about it You know, so I do think that one is the biggest one that we end up seeing and then the retaliation One would be the second one. I think those two are the things we see where they… they don’t recognize that what they’re doing could be retaliation from some kind of complaint that was raised Right?

And they don’t understand what that means. So those are the two biggest ones that we get calls on

Lauren:

Yeah, I would agree. And I think if I take your first one and double click, it’s often when The manager, the conversation from between the manager and the employee changes, and it’s not recognized, and so maybe an example is the employee goes to the manager about something performance-related, they’re talking about kind of the impact they’re having on their team, and there’s something then that’s referenced about a complaint that was made. And so all of a sudden, it shifts from kind of standard manager-employee conversations about impact and talking about the work, but then it shifts, and the tone shifts. And so knowing the… arming the managers to understand the SHIFT of that conversation And recognizing it, and then kind of taking action, I think is super critical there

Karen:

I think that’s That’s what I was thinking about. Yeah, through this is there are there situations that managers are just not realizing that there’s a risk there? They’re not realizing, like you said, Lauren, that there is a SHIFT in the conversation and now all of a sudden This conversation takes on new meaning and new importance

Katherin:

I think another area that ties into that is when a manager… I don’t think most managers understand the standard that they’re responsible for stopping inappropriate behavior, like harassment or discrimination, if they… if they, in fact, know or should have known about something occurring. So oftentimes, I’ll hear about managers hear about what they refer to as hearsay. Oh, someone said this was happening, but I didn’t see it.

And then they think they don’t have an obligation to act because again, they haven’t been educated or trained on the standard, which is If you know or should have known that conduct was going on, you as the agent of the company, the manager, you have a duty to act, whether it’s getting human resources involved, most likely or otherwise. So I think not knowing some of those standards that relate to their distinct responsibilities under harassment discrimination laws, for example

Karen:

Lauren, when a manager does get one of these situations wrong, what does that usually look like? What are the common mistakes that you’re seeing in those first conversations?

Lauren:

Yeah, it’s a great question. So I’ll share maybe a couple thoughts, but would love others to kind of build as well. So I think To answer your question directly, I think the intent of the managers is always really good. But when they move too quickly to try to fix or solve, then they start to get into trouble.

And so maybe they’re asking too many questions, or maybe they’re minimizing because they want to reassure the employee Maybe they promise confidentiality, maybe to your point, Katherin, maybe they get defensive depending on kind of what the scenario is. And so I think it’s that kind of moving too quickly to solve is the trip up in that. And it’s, again, not Bad-intentioned. I think managers often genuinely want to help.

They want to do the right thing, but good intent doesn’t always kind of indicate good outcomes. And so really being able to, again, use that human judgment slow down, ask a good question, stay curious to kind of understand what really is the issue would be my… would be my two cents there.

Karen:

I think that’s

Katherin:

Yeah. And acting too quickly without looping in human resources. Like, I think one of the things our training does, for example, is it prompts regularly the manager to loop in human resources for backup. For example, if somebody raises a complaint of inappropriate behavior, whether it’s harassment or discrimination or otherwise, I mean, sometimes if managers haven’t gone through the appropriate manager’s training, they may start to do their own informal investigation to try to figure out what’s going on and if they need to step in As opposed to immediately getting the issue to human resources to determine what’s the appropriate way to handle this.

Or, for example, if an employee comes to a manager and makes what seems like a pretty easy reasonable accommodation request, the manager might, off the bat, just say, oh, oh, I’m sure we can do that. That’s completely, you know, that’s easy, we can get that done, as opposed to, again, going to human resources first, just to make sure that’s something that the company can do without establishing precedent. So, kind of committing to a course of action without looping in human resources first could just make the situation really messy. They might end up having to backtrack, and then, you know, then there’s a communication issue, and then be a disgruntled employee.

So, by just being more proactive and getting human resources involved initially helps you handle things in a really clean and streamlined way, most oftentimes.

Karen:

That’s so important. And Lauren, you brought up a point that we tend to emphasize in our SHIFT training courses because we find it really impactful that there is such a difference between intent and impact. And so we understand and we recognize that almost everyone taking our training, whether they’re an employee or a supervisor They come to it with good intent, and their behavior comes from a place of good intent. But the impact is what we need to teach them is that even though they may have intended one outcome you know the impact can be very different, and whether it’s around harassment, discrimination and what they were intending and what they meant, or when it’s a supervisor that their intention is to, you know, say the right thing and comfort their employee.

And like you said, Katherin, like, promise an accommodation that seems like, oh, why wouldn’t we do that But the impact can be more complicated as it gets moved down to HR when they didn’t handle it appropriately. And so, Katherin, that brings me to the next, you know piece I wanted to go down is, what does happen downstream if that first response misses the mark? What does HR End up inheriting as far as issue?

Katherin:

Well, it really depends on the fact situation, but oftentimes it’s a mess. So if the manager did not get HR involved right away, and then they started along a certain course. You could run the risk that you’ve got an employee who’s now unhappy and disgruntled, and what we see time and time again, unhappy, disgruntled employees, they’re much more likely to file complaints against the company, whether they’re going to the EEOC, whether they’re, you know, going to file a legal complaint with a court. It’s people who are disgruntled and feel like they’re not getting the type of response that they deserve oftentimes take action.

So, by getting human resources involved immediately, then you can assure the employee that the company takes whatever issue they’re raising to their attention seriously, will handle it in a professional way consistent with the policies and that HR, because they’ve seen these situations time and time again, will be able to use informed judgment that perhaps a manager who only sees this type of situation every now and then isn’t able to use. So you can really avoid either legal problems bigger legal problems if you get human resources involved. And then there’s also the whole morale issue, because anytime somebody in the workplace is complaining about another employee. other employees are oftentimes talking about it, and then that impacts morale and productivity and just the workspace, and it’s very cumulative. Right?

And ultimately culture Yeah, even when there’s not a legal issue, it can really have an impact on culture.

Lauren:

Yeah, absolutely. And I will, and maybe I’ll add to, I think that’s actually why one of the reasons why relationships matter so much for HR, because we don’t want HR only to appear when something has gone wrong or off the rails But we need to build relationships and credibility from the get-go, so when there is an issue, we’re kind of thought of as like the port of call to talk through something or bounce an idea off of somebody, and it’s not when things are, like, way off the rails that we really want to get involved. And so that Trust building that early is so, so important as well, and so that will also increase the likelihood that managers will come to HR.

Katherin:

That’s such a great point, Lauren, because I can tell you, being a legal professional who has dealt with many different organizations, you can tell there are some where HR is actually It’s on the quote-unquote, on the company side, and then you can tell there’s HR, which is truly a resource for everybody, and HR, which is building trust within the workplace. So that, to your point, employees will come, will access their contacts in Human Resources because they know they’re there to help. They know they’re there to make the work environment better for everybody. So, and I… you’re absolutely right, trust is really the cornerstone of that.

Karen:

Yeah, so this goes back, Lauren, when we talk about manager readiness, what do you think is the difference between knowing the rules and how much about manager readiness is really the importance of having the skills to handle the conversation well?

Lauren:

Yeah, that’s a good question. And I almost would think back to something I mentioned earlier in the hour. So I almost view the rules or the training as kind of the guardrails, but then it’s those skills and human judgment kind of components that actually help you navigate the conversation real time. And so again, I don’t think we need managers to become kind of mini HR experts.

I think, actually, they need to be comfortable saying, I don’t know, let me get you the right support, or kind of whatever the situation may be And I also would say, kind of related to that, if it is escalated to HR, it doesn’t mean kind of handing the employee off to HR. Often, managers continue to own the relationships with their employees, and so HR is bringing the expertise to that conversation, and so it’s often a kind of group kind of discussion as we think about kind of the right path forward together. So again, I think the goal isn’t really to give managers, like, a script or a rule book, and it really is around kind of bringing that judgment to help navigate the different skills on the foundation of kind of those rules and trainings and kind of legal requirements that we expect them to know.

Katherin:

And I think that’s reassuring to managers to know that it’s not like they’re just handing off the employee and then they won’t have anything to do with that issue that was raised to their attention. But HR can kind of guide them as to how to appropriately Totally. Keep in contact with the employee and or follow up, and so they feel like a real human, and they’ve got a real relationship with this employee.

Lauren:

Yes, absolutely. And then I think that it builds on each other. So if something else were to happen, then there’s kind of that relationship already that can kind of then bring those conversations forward again.

Laura:

and de-escalate, like I find when that relationship has happened and HR is involved, sometimes that heated emotion, that’s the first place an employee sometimes goes HR can de-escalate it before it gets out there and it starts to erode, you know, culture or trust or all these other things that we talked about

Katherin:

That’s a great point, Laura. And as competent and skilled as managers may be in so many parts of their job, human resources leaders, they’re trained on de-escalation, right? Like that’s a skill set And we can’t just take for granted that everybody’s good at de-escalating an issue, right? But the vast majority of HR leaders are good at that because they’ve studied it and practiced it.

And so, to get HR involved again early, you can help de-escalate early on, again, before things get blown out of, you know, control

Karen:

So, Laura, when you’re advising HR leaders about where to focus their manager development efforts, what are the skills that are at the top of your list?

Laura:

For us, we have this manager’s toolkit that we roll out and I would say I think about like maybe three things, the top of my list would be creating psychological safety so that you hear concerns early with your people, helping managers know what that is and how they need to embrace that in their organization. Two would be kind of that effective listening so that they can start to listen for these things. And even as Lauren said, even listen At that level three for the tonality and some of the changes And then it would be that feedback and difficult conversation. So managers can learn how to clearly, respectfully deliver feedback and have a difficult conversation Sometimes managing not only the employees’ emotions, but managing their own emotions and having a real framework to have those difficult conversations.

So, I think of all the eight different things in our toolkit. I think those Three are the are the most important

Katherin:

And it’s interesting, you mentioned psychological safety first. There are a number of studies that show not only does that help avoid issues in the workplace because employees bring them early to human resources, but the most creative productive workplaces are places where there is a high level of psychological safety, because employees feel free to bring their ideas forward and bring forward some of their differing opinions, which oftentimes end up being helpful through like positive workplace, like, discourse. So, it’s so important from so many different levels.

Karen:

Yeah, I And which of these do you think that managers struggle with the most? Lauren, if you had any others to add, please feel free to add.

Lauren:

No, absolutely. I’ll add, and then I’ll answer your question. So I think I would, I probably have said this many times in the last 32 minutes, but human judgment, too, is top of my list, and it’s a muscle. I don’t think it’s something you build over time.

It’s not something you kind of magically have one day, and it’s absolutely something you kind of build through repetition and kind of doing the work And I think the other thing which many of the other speakers mentioned as well is kind of resisting that instinct to immediately look to fix the problem. And so if that’s something, kind of, I’d also instill in managers, we don’t need you… all the managers to fix things immediately. We need to kind of slow down, understand the context, listen. To Laura’s point, have the empathy, have that kind of emotional regulation.

So I think… I think we’ve got a good list going.

Katherin:

I love what Lauren’s saying about human judgment, because I’m reading so much, as I’m sure we all are, about AI and what jobs is AI going to eliminate, but human resources, we really do need human judgment, and so It’s true. I don’t see AI taking any of our roles away for a very, very long time. So because you’re exactly right. And the human judgment, again, Karen and I talk about this often, but we love to build it into SHIFT courses to help build that judgment by allowing managers to practice how they would handle certain situations and get coached on how they would handle them, because you have to, to Lauren’s point, you have to use that muscle.

You have to develop that judgment and correct that judgment and make sure it’s, you know, you’re using the best possible judgment

Karen:

Isabelle on our chat agrees. She said we need to keep the human and human resources. And she got a lot of likes on that comment. Yeah, exactly.

Exactly. Yeah, yeah We have another comment came in, a question from Zoe, and she said, what do managers do who don’t have trusted HR partners to go to? How should they navigate?

Katherin:

This is a tough one Oh, so the manager doesn’t have a trusted HR partner That’s… that I mean, that’s a tough situation

Lauren:

That is tough. I would love to understand more. I don’t know if we can come off the line or I’d love to hear more, but I’d love to understand if the person, if they don’t exist, if the relationship with HR is broken. So some more context Though it would be super helpful, and I’m happy to help navigate that with you.

Karen:

Yeah, and if we can’t do it now on the webinar, any one of us would be happy to work with Lauren and with Zoe and kind of take it offline because yeah, that’s unfortunately, that’s probably not a problem we can solve in a minute. We need to really dig in and give you some good ideas, Zoe. Yeah, maybe Yeah, and I think Oh, go ahead.

Laura:

Oh, I was gonna say, I’ll just do a little pitch at Crothers Consulting. Sometimes our clients are small and they don’t have HR and that’s where fractional HR leadership comes in that they, you know, engage us sometimes you know, once a month we go in for strategic planning, but they’ve got the number if they have a messy situation that they need to call.

Katherin:

Yeah, that’s really true. And we’ve worked with Laura’s team very often, and their judgment is impeccable. So you do really need that and the access and the trust

Karen:

All right, so now we’ve spent the first half and we’ve talked a lot about where managers can get into trouble and the skills that they need to navigate situations well. So I thought it might be helpful to bring some of this to life. So I’m going to throw out a few situations that probably sound pretty familiar to anyone who works in HR And none of them will start out sounding like a major workplace issue. They’re just conversations that a manager could easily find themselves having in on any given day.

And so for each one, I thought I would love to hear from our panelists what might an unprepared manager say in this situation versus what would a better response look like? And then we can talk a little bit about after each one. How important it is to make sure that they get that response rate when the consequences, if they don’t. So I will, if that’s all right with you, throw out a first situation and I’ll send it your way, Katherin

Katherin:

Okay.

Karen:

So, we have an employee, and they’re talking to their manager, and they say, I don’t really know if this is something that I should report, but one of my coworkers keeps making comments about me that are making me uncomfortable, and I really don’t want to make a big deal out of it So, pretty common conversation. Where could a manager go wrong, and what could a stronger response sound like?

Katherin:

Well, part of it’s going to depend on the nature of the comment, or the comments related to that person’s race or sex or pregnancy, or some other protected characteristic Because that will definitely inform how the manager should appropriately handle the situation. So, there’s probably a way where the manager can figure that out But a manager who, for example, starts to defend the conduct of the person who was making those comments and say something like, I’m sure they didn’t mean anything by it, you know, give them a pass If those comments really did tie into one of those protected categories, that could be a big problem. It could also be a problem if the manager says You know what? Why don’t you… you’ve got a relationship with that colleague, why don’t you just tell them to stop?

You know, stick up for yourself, tell them to stop. Again, if those comments related to race, sex, etc, or that person was in a perhaps higher level person, higher level position than the employee who’s report to you That could be a problem. Also, another problem we talked about earlier was that the manager were to say to the report employee, don’t worry, it seems like you feel uncomfortable about this, I will not tell Annie about anybody about this, this will be between you and me. And then the biggest problem would be the manager not looping in human resources at all, because again, they need to get that human judgment from HR if this isn’t a situation that they’ve handled regularly or been trained on regularly in the past.

Lauren:

Yeah, I think that’s exactly right. And actually, I’ll build off of something you said earlier, Katherin. I think it’s all about that psychological safety. And so you want to make sure that the employee feels safe with you as the manager to talk about kind of what they’re experiencing.

And so Thank them for telling you, don’t minimize what they’re saying. Maybe Katherin, to your point, don’t immediately label it. Like, we don’t know if it’s legal or not, like, don’t label it and don’t draw conclusions. To your point, Katherin, don’t kind of, commit to confidentiality, that’s… that’s not realistic.

And then have them not… don’t have them resolve it either. And so really being that kind of, like, listening ear, and taking it seriously without prematurely, reaching a conclusion, I think is a good kind of first step there.

Karen:

Yeah, awesome. So what kind of training would this manager would be useful for a manager in this situation to have had to make sure that they’re responding appropriately? What are some of the skills that would be great for them to have built up?

Laura:

You know, I would say that effective listening, right, and even knowing what kinds of questions to ask, where they learn in maybe a coaching class, like what are the questions that they want to ask So they can learn more from a curiosity standpoint, not from a, I want to solve it standpoint You know, those would be some of the skills And then knowing that how to do that listening, as you were saying, Lauren, from a SHIFT or a change or see what that emotional reaction is, how do you read for different emotions in someone They might be minimizing it to you, but are you seeing, you know, more like tears rise in their eyes? Are you seeing them start to fidget with their hands? Like, are they really uncomfortable about it, even though their words are saying, it’s not really a big deal But there’s some reason they’re sharing it with you. So being able to read a little bit more about body language and things like that.

Katherin:

And I love what you’re saying about the listening and reading a little bit more because that really gets to the EQ development of the managers, which I think is essential. And, you know, I’ve studied empathy before. I’m sure many of you have But not sure if you’re familiar with this statistic that only 10% of the population is born naturally empathetic, and the rest of us either learn it and develop it over the course of the years, either through our parents, through our teachers, through our Workplaces, or we don’t. But the good news is, is it is just like, as Lauren pointed out, judgment is a muscle, empathy and EQ can also develop and grow.

And so, that’s one of the reasons why we build empathy into SHIFT’s courses, because we don’t want people just to know what the law is to comply with or what the policies are, but practice your empathy muscle and continue to grow that, because as managers, that’s what’s going to separate managers from AI, right? I mean, even though AI is trying to become more empathetic, human empathy is greater than robotic empathy right now.

Lauren:

Yeah, and I think that’s actually a really great thing to instill in managers, especially those that are globally kind of leading global teams, and many times through Zoom or Google Chat, or kind of engaging with kind of their day-to-day workforce via computer. Like, we’re all talking today. It’s much easier to kind of get that… drive that relationship, and get those kind of cues if you’re in person If you’re behind a screen, it’s challenging. And so really being able to kind of lean into those trainings, like you were talking about, Katherin, is a really important tool.

Katherin:

Yeah, and you raise another good point because it’s easier to establish that rapport and trust and psychological safety when you are in person with one another day in and day out. But we as managers and leaders and HR professionals need to be that much more intentional about building that trust when we’re on screens, and we’re not living day-to-day working with our colleagues. So it needs to be built into the fabric of our organization more intentionally

Karen:

Yeah, that’s a great point. Okay, let’s go to scenario number two. So Lauren, I’ll direct this to you to start. So a manager is speaking with an employee about repeated absences, but during the conversation, the employee says, I know I’ve missed a lot of work lately.

I’ve been dealing with some health issues and I’m trying to get it under control So here, the manager might be thinking they just have a straightforward attendance conversation. What would an unprepared manager, what might they say? And then versus a manager who’s been trained and is prepared to handle these situations, how would they handle it?

Lauren:

Yeah, yeah. And this is a great example of what we talked about earlier, where you need to recognize that a kind of maybe everyday conversation suddenly shifts and becomes something that needs kind of handling. And so I would Instruct the manager not to probe for unnecessary medical details. I think maybe an instinct is to say, oh, are you okay?

Like, tell me what’s going on. I want to kind of be there for you as a resource. We should not be asking managers to kind of probe in that way I also wouldn’t… I would advise the manager not to kind of make an immediate judgment on the attendance.

Oh, it’s okay, don’t worry about it, like, it’s okay up to now, but let’s figure out that, like, I would just listen, acknowledge what the employee shared, absolutely take a pause and include to what everybody has said earlier on this call HR and local expertise It might be worth noting in this example in particular that there are, especially for global organizations, there’s kind of processes and requirements that are local to different geographies. And so making sure that that is taken into account as you kind of navigate this experience. And so I think it’s… this example is one where the skill that we’re kind of building for managers isn’t actually knowing the answer, it’s just recognizing that the conversation has changed and to bring in the appropriate expertise

Laura:

Yeah, and you know, I think about one more thing because it literally happened yesterday. I had an issue like this that happened, and the manager just continued with the disciplinary attendance issue, even though the person raised had a health concern I’m dealing with the manager was just so focused on, I’m going to deliver this PIP that they just continued. So that would be another bad management outcome.

Lauren:

Yeah, I think that’s actually a great one. And this one I would definitely bring in HR in these conversations, but the one thing I will also say, and Katherin, I would love your perspective on this one, is there is still then a performance bar that should be held. And so we’re not ex… we’re not… we shouldn’t allow performance to dip. I think it’s a fine line to kind of tread, but we need to kind of manage performance, but also manage kind of what is being raised.

So obviously with HR, if people need accommodations, if people need kind of time away, if they need an unpaid leave, we can work through kind of how that shows up and how that looks, and then how the rest of the team will operate. But while that employee is there and contributing to their team. We expect what we expect from a delivery and performance perspective. So I don’t want to conflate the two, but Katherin would love your perspective on that one, too.

Katherin:

Absolutely, and it’s an important issue because under the ADA, for example, it says an individual must still be able to perform the essential functions of the job to standard with or without an accommodation Exactly. So the key is we as employers may need to provide them with a reasonable accommodation, but they then need to be able to perform the essential functions of the job well. So that’s why it’s so important that you know, I sometimes see managers say, oh, you should really go tell HR about this and request the accommodation, and then the manager doesn’t circle back to HR. Behind the scenes and say, Hey, so-and-so mentioned something.

So, no matter what happens, even if you direct the employee to go to Human Resources to discuss the request for an accommodation. You, as a manager, should still loop in HR directly and say, if the employee doesn’t come to you, please follow up with them, because I think they’re requesting a reasonable accommodation. And HR will know we need to extinguish our responsibility by having that interactive conversation with the employee figuring out whether an accommodation is or is not reasonable, and then you as a manager can still have those expectations that they perform the job Even if they’re given an accommodation to help them perform the job

Karen:

So, really good question and point Yeah, and in the comments, I can see that this is a particularly tricky area for managers is understanding the gray areas of ADA compliance and what’s reasonable and what accommodation request are fair, at what point you’re supposed to raise them. So all of these are coming up in the chat here

Katherin:

And I would just say, because of that, we know that as an employment lawyer, I know that’s one of the stickiest areas that managers have trouble dealing with and even human resources leaders who deal with these situations all the time have a difficult time. We built a course on that, like understanding the disability related issues because Yep. They are nuanced, and they are sticky, and they can lead to bigger problems. So, it’s important that managers and HR both are very conversant in these standards and issues.

Karen:

Yeah, absolutely. And then, of course, we recognize that we’re never going to get all of these managers to become HR and legal experts, and that’s not the intent, but it’s really to help them recognize because like you’ve been saying, Laura and Lauren, they need to see when that conversation changes. And so just making sure That managers can recognize that SHIFT, you know, that change from a friendly conversation to a SHIFT where they’ve brought something up that their ears need to pop up and say, oh, okay, now this is bringing in ADA, or this is bringing in, you know, wage and hour issue that this is more than us just talking casually That they know when to SHIFT gears and involve HR. And that’s got to keep that training and the practice of, okay, here’s a situation.

Oh, I’ve recognized now I need to, you know, to escalate it. So all that’s so important. Laura, I think we have time for one more scenario. So I’m going to direct this one to you to start So, a manager’s giving an employee feedback about missed deadlines and performance concerns, and the employee becomes upset, and they say, I feel like you’ve been treating me differently ever since I complained about my coworker.

So this is another one where a manager could easily become defensive And so do you want to talk a little bit about where this could go wrong? We know if a manager is not trained in handling it well and how you would recommend they handle it.

Laura:

Sure. I mean, obviously it could go wrong by a manager not being able to regulate their emotions and becoming defensive or argumentative or saying, you know, this has absolutely nothing to do with that, you know, this is, you know, you’re complaining as an excuse for your performance, like I find sometimes managers just get heightened when they feel someone is pushing it back at them you know, or that they just ignore the comment, you know, I think This could be a legitimate performance management concern that they have that they need to discuss with the person, but then the manager might also, on the other side, be super afraid of, -oh, is this going to be a retaliation claim And so they… they don’t then address the performance issue carefully. Right? So I think there’s unprepared managers might go one way or the other in this kind of scenario.

You know, where really, I don’t know, I think they’ve got to be staying calm and listening and acknowledging that, you know, I understand you raised a concern And we’re looking into that, and HR has been advised of that Right, so managers A well-prepared manager would want to make sure that they’re bringing HR both into the conversation with the employee. we’ve heard you, and that’s a separate issue. We’re looking into that, but what I need to talk to you about now is your performance

Katherin:

And I think you’re right, bringing in HR right away will help separate those two issues and emphasize to the employee that we’re talking about two separate but important issues. HR is already looking into and handling The issue that you raised previously, and then you’re separating the performance and HR behind the scenes will hopefully work with you as the manager to make sure that there’s objective data supporting your raising of these performance issues With, you know, timestamps and that kind of thing to show that, you know, it is an objective performance issue.

Lauren:

Yeah, and Laura, I actually, I really loved what you said around natural instinct may be to defend yourself. No, that’s absolutely not true, and really encouraging managers not to litigate that allegation is super critical, and so something simple like, I hear what you’re saying, and I want to take it seriously, help me understand more. Like, I would try to diffuse that conversation and not look to kind of react, and maybe your instinctual way.

Karen:

This is all good. What stood out to me in all of these scenarios and all of your feedback is that what’s really important is that we don’t need to train managers to be HR experts, that we don’t need them to know every policy inside out, but they really need to know when to recognize a situation And how to communicate effectively what their next steps are going to be, which is usually bringing in and evolving HR. So I think it’s a common theme that training to be able to get managers prepared is so important. And so, Katherin, I just want to wrap up the discussion today with for those HR leaders that Listening.

How can they recognize the signs that they may have a manager preparedness problem or they may be lacking in the right training and skills in their organization. What questions should they be asking

Katherin:

Well, you know, they will have an indication of whether they need more training if they keep getting issues in the same particular area. So if managers keep You know, if there are issues related to ADA and FMLA requests that get fumbled by managers and then passed on to human resources that HR will likely realize, you know what, our managers, they’re the first responders to these issues, and they’re not getting the requests for an accommodation or leave to us right away, and we need to streamline that and short-circuit it We need managers training on the Americans with Disabilities and with medical leaves, so that we get that information right away. So really take a look at where are the stumbling blocks, and maybe even Ask your managers, you know, get feedback from your managers. What situations do they have the most trouble dealing with?

Is it when an employee raises a complaint about another employee? Is it when an employee Says that they have a condition that requires them to request some type of special treatment or accommodation, but really going to the source and finding out from your managers what do they find most troubling

Karen:

So this has been such a great discussion. I’d love to know if before we wrap up, if each of you have something that you want to leave as your final thoughts or a takeaway for those that are listening today.

Laura:

I mean, so I’ll start manager skills training is just so important. And you’ve got all these great resources through SHIFT. They can learn that way, and then they can learn with in-person training with all of you training them or companies like ours Having those practices and scenarios, like, these things that are the gray, right? Most managers can get the black and white, but there’s so much of HR in the gray.

So training them on that gray And their own skills around some of the things we talked about, handling difficult conversations and feedback and active listening at all three levels

Karen:

I think I think that’s Well, great. So true

Lauren:

Great. Maybe I’ll go. So I think as information becomes easier and easier to access, judgment and human judgment, I know I’m kind of beating this drum, becomes more and more, not less important. And so I think our jobs as HR leaders, jobs of managers to understand the context, build those relationships, build that trust, and apply that kind of judgment is just kind of critical, and doing it in that human way

Katherin:

And I like to beat drums too. So like Lauren, my mantra is really think about and commit to setting up your managers and your entire team for success. Set them up for success And know that they will fall to the lever of their preparation, so make sure that preparation is as it should be. And prepare them so that they can best use their human judgment.

Karen:

So a lot to think about, a lot to think about So Katherin, yeah, so much to think about. Katherin, Lauren, Laura, thank you so much for sharing your perspectives and so much practical insight today. And before we get to the last minute of Q&A, if we’re able to squeeze it in, I just want you to know that if you want some more information about how to get this critical first response right, we’d love for you to join us next Thursday and Friday ’cause we’re going to be talking more about practical ways to equip managers for challenging Workplace situations, and you’ll have an opportunity to preview our new ADA and FMLA courses. So there’s a registration link in the chat.

Feel free to click on that and join us On next Thursday and Friday. Again, also take its one minute to complete the survey that’s gonna pop up as soon as you exit the Zoom, because we would love to get your feedback to be able to keep providing you really thoughtful and empowering content.

Katherin:

Yes, let us know what you want to hear about next because we love to address your needs and interests.

Karen:

Thank you to everybody. So thank you, everyone, for who joined us. We hope we gave you a few useful ideas to take back and think about with your own managers. Thank you again, Laura and Lauren and Katherin.

It’s been a great discussion. Have a great day, everybody.

Laura:

Thanks, everybodyThank you