Pete Wright:
Some of the worst HR decisions start with a sentence that sounds completely reasonable. “We’re in an at-will state.” “She never said the words ‘reasonable accommodation.'” “He didn’t mention paid leave.” “Nobody wants to make trouble here.” Each of those might have a certain kind of internal logic to it. Each of them has also landed an employer in front of some sort of regulator. I’m Pete Wright, and today Terry Cook and Tom Jones from AIM HR Solutions are on the other side of the phone when the reasonable-sounding thing turns out to be the expensive thing. Today, 10 of the most common HR myths: terminations, paid leave, complaints, accommodations, discipline, handbooks, what’s actually true, and what to do instead.

Let’s get into it.

Tom, Terry, welcome back. This oughta be good.

Tom Jones:
Thank you, Pete. I apologize for the background noise.

Terry Cook:
Always.

Tom Jones:
I can’t help it.

Terry Cook:
That’s okay.

Pete Wright:
Hey, you never know when the jackhammering’s gonna begin, am I right?

Tom Jones:
Exactly right.

Pete Wright:
I mean, we’ve all been there, Tom.

Terry Cook:
It’s probably appropriate for the topic, Pete.

Pete Wright:
Yeah, for sure.

Terry Cook:
It’s all good.

Pete Wright:
Let’s dig into termination, and Terry, we’ll have you kick this off. If I want to terminate someone, and let’s just say you don’t know me, and I haven’t done the documentation yet, and you’re totally surprised by that, can’t I just call it a layoff? Just a single-person layoff?

Terry Cook:
Pete, I can’t tell you how many times we hear this on the HR helpline. Yeah, no, it’s not the best idea. When you call something a layoff, especially, as you mentioned, Pete, a single-person layoff, which is even worse, that actually will stop you as the hiring manager of the company from being able to hire that replacement. So if somebody comes to you and says, “I want to do a layoff,” and then they say, “But I’m gonna go ahead and hire the next person in a week or two. I just don’t like Pete anymore,” that’s a problem because… yeah, I know it’s a surprise.

Pete Wright:
Oh, my goodness.

Terry Cook:
And everybody likes Pete. But anyway, no, it does impact your ability to hire the replacement.

And you can’t just say, I’ll say Pete was a receptionist, and I’m gonna call Terry the phone answerer, so I’m gonna be able to hire Terry. No, it’s the same job.

Pete Wright:
Yeah.

Terry Cook:
So it really makes it difficult. There are legitimate layoffs. I can’t say that there couldn’t be an elimination of a position or a single layoff per se, especially in smaller organizations. But if you’re doing it in lieu of doing the right thing and doing documentation, and instead just avoiding conflict, that’s the problem it can be when you use a layoff versus a termination.

Pete Wright:
But we have a small company, and we’re laying off 20 percent of the organization.

Terry Cook:
Mm-hmm.

Pete Wright:
Doesn’t that get us around it?

Terry Cook:
If you don’t need the position, Pete, you’ll be okay.

Pete Wright:
There are only five of us. We don’t do phones anymore, Terry.

Terry Cook:
I have had people say that, that they don’t do phones, but they do.

Pete Wright:
We just… yeah. Yeah.

Terry Cook:
But in all honesty, there are people that will call and say, “I just have an elimination of position. It’s a small company.”

Pete Wright:
Right.

Terry Cook:
It truly is a layoff. That’s a layoff.

Pete Wright:
Yeah, that’s fair.

Terry Cook:
It doesn’t say that you can’t do a layoff; that’s a real layoff. But if you’re trying to terminate Pete, and you don’t feel like having a conflict with Pete, and you need Pete’s position, so you want to be able to hire Pete’s position next week, that would be the issue. You can’t just change the title slightly and still call it a layoff. Tom, it looks like you had something to add to that.

Tom Jones:
No, I absolutely agree. The one thing I will say: the anti-discrimination agency in Massachusetts, the head of it, I’ve heard him speak, and he’ll say a layoff of one is often troubling, because it raises [unclear]. Your point’s right, Pete. A small company, five people, you lose a contract, you had to move your space, no problem. But without documentation, if you had a company of 20, 30, 40, and you push that person out and there’s no documentation whatsoever, you’re inviting at least an inquiry to the anti-discrimination agency, human rights organization, whatever you might call it in your state. There’s no guarantee it’ll happen, but it’s a greater risk of doing it.

Terry Cook:
And it doesn’t mean you can never fill the position either, Pete. There could be legitimate reasons. Maybe you really did need to eliminate a position, and then four months down the road you have a huge contract, like Tom mentioned, come in, and you’re able to go ahead and hire again. But if you’re doing a layoff today and you want to hire somebody to replace Pete tomorrow or next week, as Tom said, that would be more questionable if it ever came to light against the company.

Pete Wright:
But wait a minute, I says to you…

Terry Cook:
Mm-hmm.

Pete Wright:
I says, we’re in an at-will state. That means I can do whatever I want, anytime I want, with our staff, right, Tom? Please?

Tom Jones:
There are 49 states in this country that are at-will. There’s one state that has legal protections, and it’s Montana. It’s an unusual state, but they put a law in place saying that you can’t terminate without just cause.

Pete Wright:
[unintelligible]

Tom Jones:
So the reality is, in many other states, the courts or the anti-discrimination agency or whoever is the relevant agency has developed jurisprudence to say, here’s where you can take action, here’s where you’re gonna run into trouble. And often running into trouble means you’ve fired someone who’s in a protected class. And many, many people are in protected classes: people who are 40, by sex, by age, by national origin, by race. Many states have a longer protected list than that. So that’s always a concern.

Other legal protections: is that person a whistleblower? They filed a claim under OSHA, under something else; they’re legally protected. Is it a retaliation issue? Did I speak up and report Terry was not paying me properly, and I’m gonna get fired for that? That looks like illegal activity, and if I’m terminated, it’s retaliation. So it’s always going to create some risk.

Terry Cook:
Yeah, I think I oversimplify a little bit, because Tom’s answer is much more detailed and correct, but I usually would say to people, at-will has a lot of other laws that go ahead of it. So the at-will piece does exist. It’s not that it doesn’t exist, but there are many other reasons that a person can say a termination happened versus it just being at-will. So I think that’s really the short answer to that. It’s not okay on a singular level, typically, unless somebody doesn’t challenge it.

Pete Wright:
Sure, sure. Well, it does lead us into another one of these myths, and we’re transitioning to pay right now. I almost can’t believe the language here. I’ve literally heard this language on the job. I know I’m not alone when I read this. “If an employee gives two weeks’ notice, we can terminate them right away and not pay them for two weeks,” right, Terry?

Terry Cook:
So that’s another tricky one, Pete. I always say it depends on your handbook. If anywhere in your handbook you say that you want somebody to give a two-week notice, and they give you the two-week notice… So I give you my two-week notice, Pete, and then you say, “You know what, Terry, I don’t need it.” If the handbook told me to do it, then you owe me the two weeks’ pay, because the handbook asked me to give my two-week notice and I gave it to you. So in that instance, you could terminate me right away if you said, “I don’t want you to stay around, Terry, for two weeks,” but you would still have to pay me for the two weeks.

Pete Wright:
I love it. So I’m the manager, and you come in to talk to me, and I think that you’re going to say, “I’m giving you my two-week notice.” It’s a race, then, for me to terminate you before you say it.

Terry Cook:
Yeah.

Pete Wright:
Is that what I’m hearing?

Terry Cook:
No, and honestly, yeah, it is always tricky. I know in many states, Massachusetts included, most companies don’t want a termination; they’d rather the resignation, because if somebody tries to apply for unemployment and a person’s listed as a resignation, then the person’s fighting that claim harder, whereas if it’s a termination, the company’s fighting that claim harder. So the good news is, if I were to give my notice and you said, “Terry, thank you so much for giving me your notice. I don’t need it. Today can be your last day. However, I will go ahead and pay you for two weeks, so your official last day with the company will be your two-week notice,” then that stays a resignation, because you made sure you paid me anyway.

But if you turn that around and said, like you said, Pete, you’re racing, you’re like, “Oh my god, it looks like Terry’s gonna give her notice right now, I’m gonna just terminate her quick,” then it turns into the termination.

Tom Jones:
There’s another factor here too, at least in some states.

Terry Cook:
Good.

Tom Jones:
Massachusetts has an incredible hammer if you don’t pay people their final paycheck on time, which is triple damages.

Pete Wright:
I remember that. We’ve talked about that on the show before, Tom.

Tom Jones:
We have, yeah. It’s a real hammer. There’s no question about it. Companies can get walloped with that if for some reason they fire them and say, “We’re not going to pay you till two weeks,” or it’s a later day. Not even two weeks. A later day, you’re in trouble.

Terry Cook:
Yeah, it’s amazing.

Pete Wright:
Okay. If someone comes to you in HR with a complaint about harassment or discrimination, and they say, “I don’t want anything done,” HR doesn’t have to respond, right? They’re off the hook, Tom.

Tom Jones:
Well, naturally you know the answer to that one. They have to. They have to.

Pete Wright:
I just want you to use some big legal words and tell me again, Tom.

Terry Cook:
Yeah.

Tom Jones:
I mean, the company clearly has a duty to investigate.

Terry Cook:
Absolutely.

Tom Jones:
No doubt in its handbook somewhere it says the policy: if you come forward, we will investigate, we will make a good faith effort to determine what happened, whatever it might be. And if the HR person then says, “I’m not going to do that,” when you come forward, they’ve completely violated policy. You’ve left this person out on a branch. And the truth is, we’ve learned over the years, when someone comes forward to speak up, they want you to act. They don’t want you to let it go.

Pete Wright:
Yeah.

Tom Jones:
They want you to act on it. They may not want to be directly involved in it, that’s true, but they want the company to do something about it, because they acknowledge that otherwise they’d say nothing.

Pete Wright:
Right.

Tom Jones:
They’d let it go and quit, and just say this place is a dump to work in. But the law is going to require it, under federal and state law, usually in your home state. The policy you have requires it. There are all the other issues: workplace harmony, trust. If you want to hold yourself out as this employee-friendly company, and your employee comes forward with a key issue and you do nothing, the message will get out pretty quickly to people.

Pete Wright:
Yeah.

Tom Jones:
So yeah, investigations are disruptive, no question about it. They can involve people that didn’t think they were going to be involved, and they’d be angry about that, but the company has to do it if it wants to continue to thrive as an organization.

Terry Cook:
And to throw a little wrench in this, Pete, we often hear that an employee might go to their manager and say, “I don’t want you to bring this up to anybody.” And then the manager thinks, “Oh, I don’t have to do anything, because they told me no.”

Pete Wright:
Yeah.

Terry Cook:
And then HR finds out from the employee, “Oh, well, I told my manager Tom about this two months ago, and I did tell him not to say anything, but I did tell him.” Well, that can still be a big can of worms, because when a manager knows, the company knows. So regardless of whether HR actually knew, HR is left kind of doing catch-up work, trying to hurry up and do the investigation, and all they can do as a defense down the road, if it comes up, is to say they weren’t made aware of it until September 8th, and so HR did the investigation on September 8th.

Pete Wright:
All right.

Terry Cook:
But I do agree with Tom that usually people want to be heard, and I think sometimes the reason they don’t want you to do anything is because they get nervous about how much their name is going to be thrown into this all over the company. So you can have a conversation and say, “We’ll keep the confidentiality as much as we can, to the degree that we can, in the investigation, and we’ll make sure people know we don’t allow retaliation.” So there are ways that HR or a manager can certainly comfort that employee. But I would say to any of the managers that might be listening, if you hear this, just bring it right to HR, so that human resources can take action.

Pete Wright:
Yeah, you are neither a licensed therapist for your employees or a priest taking confession, please.

Terry Cook:
Yeah.

Tom Jones:
That’s true.

Pete Wright:
There are other obligations.

Terry Cook:
Yeah, absolutely.

Pete Wright:
I’ve got some more, and this is going into an old favorite category around these parts. We’re talking about PFML and leaves. This is actually really good. “If the employee doesn’t mention PFML, HR doesn’t have to consider it.” That’s the myth. I’m not saying that that’s true.

Tom Jones:
You can present it that way, sure.

Terry Cook:
That’s not your fact.

Pete Wright:
Please, no, no facts.

Terry Cook:
Yeah, please.

Pete Wright:
Yeah. All right, Terry, right?

Terry Cook:
Okay. Yeah.

Pete Wright:
As long as… this is the hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil theory.

Terry Cook:
Yeah, that would be ideal. Under the federal FMLA, the company does have to let people know that they’re eligible for leave. In Massachusetts… I know not everybody who listens here is from Massachusetts, but they should check their state as well. In Massachusetts, we tend to tell people that if it’s not written in regulation specifically for PFML that you have to do something, we check back on the federal. So we would naturally let people know they need to do this, because it’s under the federal obligations. That all being said, there has been discussion recently about a requirement being thrown in to make sure companies are letting people know officially that they’re eligible for PFML. Tom, I don’t know if you have anything else you want to add there.

Tom Jones:
Yeah, you have to let people know at work. You have to post it in the workplace. The state law makes a pretty good effort to say to employers, you can’t willfully keep people in the dark. You really need to make it clear to them what options they may have.

Terry Cook:
Yeah, and I think when people post things, they think that’s all they have to do.

Tom Jones:
Right.

Terry Cook:
And I think it’s different. Yes, it’s great you did your posting, you did your annual notice, you did everything you’re supposed to do. However, if somebody comes to you and says, “I’m gonna be out for surgery two months from now,” the HR person really should be telling that person, or the manager should be telling that person to see HR, to talk about the paid family leave.

Pete Wright:
As an employer, Tom, I absolutely have the right to tell someone they cannot take Massachusetts paid family leave, right?

Tom Jones:
Oh, Pete, you’re so wrong again.

Pete Wright:
I asked that in an effort to just make you start screaming.

Tom Jones:
You’re so wrong again, Pete.

Pete Wright:
Can we get to that point?

Tom Jones:
How do you do it? No, the reality is, for many people in the old days under FMLA, there was a paperwork provision that said the company had to get shown evidence of the reason for the leave, and many, many HR people used to have that practice. They would say, “Oh, I have to get that information.” Under PFML, and different states have very similar laws to PFML, the paid family and medical leave, the same thing does not happen. The state effectively becomes the insurer, or a private carrier, but they are the ones who make the decision as to whether or not you’re eligible for leave. So a company could say, file your claim; the person files their claim. The company says, “Well, we’re a little suspicious. We think this claim may not be true.” Give that information over to the state and/or to the private carrier. That’s the best you can do. You can’t really get a little bit more.

Pete Wright:
Which is not terrible news from an HR perspective, right? I get to say, “Take this to Massachusetts.”

Terry Cook:
Mm-hmm.

Pete Wright:
I don’t have any authority or agency in this conversation. I just pass through.

Tom Jones:
Yes.

Pete Wright:
And sometimes that’s great.

Tom Jones:
And I think it is, and I think a lot of helpline calls will reflect that, but people get a little frustrated because they say, “We know the person is abusing it, we know the person is…” They say, “Send the information along and see if you can convince the state or your private carrier that it’s not true.”

Pete Wright:
So this leads into the next question, which I think is potentially more complicated. If an employee starts to take every Friday and Monday off while out on intermittent paid family leave, I can terminate them, right, Terry?

Terry Cook:
No. No, you cannot, Pete.

Pete Wright:
Blast.

Terry Cook:
I know. I keep giving you bad news. Yeah, bad news. No, it’s one of those things, like Tom already mentioned. If you really feel like somebody is abusing their medical leave, or their doctor’s note… I shouldn’t say the doctor’s note, you don’t see the doctor’s note, but the indication from the state that says intermittent leave. Let’s say the person’s only supposed to take three days off total a month, potentially, and they’re taking eight, ’cause they’re taking every Friday and Monday off. There could be some discussion there that the doctor’s note to the state, and the state’s communication to the employer, don’t match the actual things that are happening.

So that could come into it. And as Tom said, if you really feel like somebody’s abusing it… I’ve had people call the helpline before and talk about the fact that somebody’s supposed to be out and they see them on a Caribbean beach someplace on social media, because social media is everywhere. There are ways, at least in our state in Massachusetts, and of course other states, I’m sure, the same, where you can report it. There’s either a fraud helpline number, or what we have in Massachusetts, an Ombudsman that will actually look into any questions that come in, that we’ve used for our member companies quite a bit, and it’s gone really well. So I would say, to your initial question of Fridays and Mondays and it’s an automatic termination? No. But I think there are steps, as Tom mentioned, that you could take to look into it.

Tom Jones:
We should have created an answer for [unclear], yes. We should have.

Terry Cook:
Yeah, let’s see.

Pete Wright:
I’m not…

Terry Cook:
What can we say yes to, Pete?

Pete Wright:
Yeah, I’m not hopeful right now. I’m not hopeful.

Terry Cook:
You’re not feeling it.

Pete Wright:
I’ve got a couple more.

Terry Cook:
No, I know.

Pete Wright:
This one, we’re moving into the category of ADA and medical.

Terry Cook:
Okay.

Pete Wright:
“If an employee doesn’t actually say the words ‘reasonable accommodation,’ HR doesn’t have to do anything.” Tom?

Tom Jones:
You know the answer, Pete. Well, we could say yes: HR has to do something.

Terry Cook:
It’s not a good one for ya. There you go.

Pete Wright:
Yes, okay, good, yeah.

Terry Cook:
Yes, yes.

Tom Jones:
I mean, it can be tricky, because someone may present not having a disability and may obviously not appear to. Someone may come in a wheelchair and there’s no question about it, an obvious disability. Other people may not. You may want to sit down with that person, and the law requires an interactive dialogue, a discussion between you, as the representative of the company, and that employee, to say, “Gee, we’ve noticed that you’re having more difficulty getting into work on time. We’ve noticed that you’re leaving early at the end of the day. We’ve noticed you’re having more trouble with dexterity in your fingers,” whatever it might be, “and we’d like to talk to you about it.” Sit down and have a conversation and open that door, as opposed to going back to the at-will state and saying, “Well, you’re not able to do this. See you later. Goodbye.”

So you want to make absolutely sure you’re taking that extra time to find out what may be happening with that person, what may not be happening with that person, but at least have that conversation. And it helps a great deal in terms of documentation. Say we met with Pete Wright on September 8th, we talked about this issue, he said no problem at all, he’d get back to us if there were difficulties down the road. Or he explained that, due to circumstances in his life, he’s no longer able to do the job the way he could, so we’re looking at the idea of a reasonable accommodation. And also, you don’t have to magically say “reasonable accommodation” under the law. It could be some other words. “I’m struggling.” “I’m having trouble.” Whatever it might be, something that opens the door for you to say there’s a concern with this employee. You really want to explore that opportunity. Take that opportunity to explore with the employee.

Terry Cook:
And Tom, I guess just to change it up a little bit, and we’ve both heard this, I think, on occasion, either through training or roundtables or what have you: somebody never says anything, they’re actually doing a decent job, and then all of a sudden they file a complaint. After they’re terminated for what would look like legitimate reasons, when nothing’s ever come to light, after they’re terminated they say, “Oh, well, I had this medical issue going on.” Could you share what you would tell people in those scenarios?

Tom Jones:
Well, I’d want to go back and say you’re documenting conversations with all your employees, so that you can say, “Look, we have a pattern and practice of documentation of conversations. The employee never came to us. We had an open-door policy. These other six employees came to us with these issues.” And try and build a case to say that’s an outlier. That behavior by that employee was unusual for our company, and therefore we’re as shocked as you are that this occurred. We’re now going to try and put that information together to defend it.

Pete Wright:
There’s sort of an implication that I’m hearing from both of you that there is a reasonable expectation of HR being proactive, and continuing to be proactive in conversations with managers about what they’re observing of their teams, so that as an HR person you can step in and start having those conversations before they become issues. And I can hear somebody right now saying, “My HR team is strapped. We’re struggling to stay on top of everything. How can I be expected to be reasonably proactive in this kind of scenario, which requires so much nuance and sensitivity?”

Tom Jones:
You’re right. Your point’s right. It’s a hard one, because it’s easy sometimes to just say, “I can’t deal with all this right now.” But the job of HR is really that. We’ve had countless situations where HR didn’t get involved and they should have, or the manager didn’t pass the information along, or the employee just quit because they felt they couldn’t handle it anymore, and it comes back as litigation. In most states in the country, there’s a very active bar that will go out looking for cases like this and try and bring them forward. You see the ads everywhere. And are there always cases? No, it may only be a nuisance factor for the employer. But it’s money.

Terry Cook:
Yeah, it is money.

Tom Jones:
It’s money, it’s the reputation.

Terry Cook:
And I would say that…

Tom Jones:
Reputation.

Terry Cook:
And I would also add that what Tom’s saying is correct. HR is definitely busy all the time, and there might not be enough HR personnel for each company, depending on the number of people. That’s where I would say, educate your managers appropriately so that they know how to respond, so that they are another arm of HR in that aspect, so that they know the information’s gonna get to HR. But really educating them on how to at least start the conversation, or at least refer the conversation, so that things don’t get missed and you don’t find out two months down the line.

Pete Wright:
We are getting toward the end of our time, and I’ve got one more category, two more questions for you, and I already know where this is going.

Terry Cook:
Okay.

Tom Jones:
Trying to rewind it together, yes.

Pete Wright:
Yeah, we’re in the area of discipline. So, Tom, for you. “An employee posts negative comments about their company and their manager on social media. The company can discipline them for anything they post,” right?

Tom Jones:
Well, then I’m helping you out here.

Pete Wright:
I mean anything. Carte blanche.

Tom Jones:
It depends. I’ll go back to Terry’s answer earlier.

Pete Wright:
All right.

Tom Jones:
It depends. The truth is, if it’s a slanderous attack on a coworker or manager, or HR or something like that, that’s one thing. And occasionally you see that. People are just angry, and they put things up there and say, “Pete, my manager, doesn’t treat people fairly at all. He cuts deals with certain employees and steals from the company.” That’s one thing.

If we’re talking about health and safety, working conditions, organizing a union, all those things are protected activity. And in fact, the National Labor Relations Board in 2012, I believe it was, came out with a model social media policy, which we all still use. They’re still trying to dance that fine line of making sure that people can talk about things that are appropriate, like “Pete’s playing favorites on wages and overtime,” and things like that. “Terry always gets overtime and I don’t.” That’s one thing. That’s a valid critique. That’s the type of thing that’s really important. What are these posts about? So our busy HR person now has to check occasionally online.

Terry Cook:
Or they’ll at least hear about it from other employees.

Tom Jones:
Or they hear about it, yeah.

Pete Wright:
Yeah, for sure.

Tom Jones:
They have to go check it out and see if that’s true or not.

Terry Cook:
Mm-hmm.

Tom Jones:
But arbitrarily firing someone based on it is risky, risky ground.

Pete Wright:
Okay. The last question, for you, Terry, comes straight from the Tony Soprano book of leadership.

Terry Cook:
Okay.

Pete Wright:
“It’s safer for me not to have an employee handbook at all, right? Because then there’s nothing for employees to hold against me.”

Terry Cook:
There you go. I like the thought process. It doesn’t work, but it’s a nice thought. No, really what the handbook does is define your expectations for the employees. So if you’re in an employment hearing, or, God forbid, an actual discrimination or legal lawsuit, you want to be able to show whoever’s asking you that you were very clear on what you expected of your employees, and how you do that is through your handbook and through policies. Otherwise you’re gonna get the arguments back: “Well, I never knew that. Why would I know that I couldn’t smack Tom at work? It’s not in a handbook.”

Pete Wright:
It wasn’t in the handbook.

Terry Cook:
That wasn’t in a handbook.

Tom Jones:
That’s right.

Terry Cook:
It’s a joke, and it’s not. But there are people… I remember where we’d say treat with respect, no violence. I went to an unemployment hearing once where somebody literally punched one of my managers at work, and they said, “Well, I don’t see anything in your handbook that says that you can’t punch people.”

Tom Jones:
I’ve heard the same thing about a coworker, in a situation where somebody spit at another employee.

Terry Cook:
Oh, geez, yeah.

Tom Jones:
And the investigator at unemployment said, “Do you have a policy prohibiting spitting on coworkers?”

Pete Wright:
Spit was not fully documented. No.

Terry Cook:
Yeah. Well, and clearly you’re not gonna get that detailed in your policies.

Pete Wright:
No.

Terry Cook:
But I guess the overlying response here is that if you don’t tell an employee what your expectations are, it’s hard for you to argue that they knew what your expectations are. So that’s the reason the handbook helps. Now, do I think you need a 200-page handbook that talks about spitting and punching and things that are very detailed? No, I don’t think that, because then the argument will be that the employee shouldn’t have been expected to understand 200 pages. But I do think some general guidelines help the company defend themselves and help the employee understand what they need to do.

Tom Jones:
If you have a non-English-speaking workforce, you want to make sure that it’s translated into a language that people can understand as well.

Pete Wright:
Yeah, another reason to investigate some of the new AI technologies, an LLM that can serve as an agent for your handbook.

Terry Cook:
Yeah.

Pete Wright:
You can just ask it, “Can I spit on people at work?”

Terry Cook:
Mm-hmm.

Pete Wright:
And it’ll tell you, which is really…

Terry Cook:
Yeah. It’ll tell you, not a good idea.

Pete Wright:
Really important. That’s all of our questions, folks. That brings us toward the end of our lunch hour webinar here, and we do have a couple of things to talk about. First, next month, make sure you come hang out with us again, second Tuesday. Next month, we’re going to be talking to Shiva Karimi about immigration issues. Shiva is awesome. Terry and I have had a pre-conversation with her already. She brings a lot to the conversation.

Terry Cook:
Fantastic.

Pete Wright:
Yes.

Terry Cook:
She does.

Pete Wright:
It’s gonna be great. And for you, Terry, a question: what can you tell me about the HR roundtables in Western Mass?

Terry Cook:
Oh, if you’re in Western Mass, we would love to see you. We are going to be out in the western part of the state, in the Berkshires, on September 23rd in the morning at 9:00 a.m., and we’ll be in the Berkshires for an hour and a half talking about common HR questions and issues. And then we’re going to be over in Palmer, Massachusetts, in the western part of the state, at 1:30 to talk about AI. It’s about an hour and a half. We welcome anybody that can attend those sessions. Just reach out to us at AIM HR. We’d love to see you there. I think it’s gonna be a great group at both time slots. We still have some space open at both right now, so we’d love to see ya.

Pete Wright:
Excellent, excellent. And we’ll put links as appropriate in the show notes for this episode. Don’t forget, you can find the show notes for the episode at aimhrsolutions.com. One week from today, this very conversation goes into our Human Solutions podcast feed, which you can access everywhere you get your podcasts: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts. Wherever you get your podcasts, we are there, so you can listen to this again and again and again, as many times as your heart desires. It’s not documented in the handbook. We would love to have you there.

Thank you for your time and your attention, and we will see you right here next month on Human Solutions, simplifying HR for people who love HR.