In this episode of Honest HR, host Amber Clayton and SHRM Knowledge Center Advisors Robyn Hopper and Rue Dooley continue with Part 2 of their two-part mini-series of listener-submitted stories of bad bosses, give more advice on handling problematic people managers, and close out the session with a set of redeeming stories of outstanding bosses who were there for their employees in amazing ways.
In this episode of Honest HR, host Amber Clayton and SHRM Knowledge Center Advisors Robyn Hopper and Rue Dooley continue with Part 2 of their two-part mini-series of listener-submitted stories of bad bosses, give more advice on handling problematic people managers, and close out the session with a set of redeeming stories of outstanding bosses who were there for their employees in amazing ways.
Earn 1.25 SHRM PDCs for listening to both parts of this two (2) part mini-series on Stories About Bad Bosses; details on claiming your credit are provided in-episode.
Monique Akanbi:
Welcome to Honest HR, the podcast for HR professionals, people managers, and team leads intent on growing our companies for the better.
Amber Clayton:
We bring you honest, forward-thinking conversations and relatable stories from the workplace that challenge the way it's always been done. Because after all, you have to push back to move forward.
Wendy Fong:
Honest HR is a podcast from SHRM, the Society for Human Resource Management. And by listening, you're helping create better workplaces and a better world. I'm Wendy Fong.
Amber Clayton:
I'm Amber Clayton.
Monique Akanbi:
And I'm Monique Akanbi. Now, let's get honest.
Wendy Fong:
Let's get honest.
Amber Clayton:
Let's get honest. Today you'll be hearing part two of our two-part miniseries on Bad Bosses. This two part miniseries is approved to provide 1.25 PDCs towards SHRM-CP and SHRM-SCP recertification if you listen to both parts. We'll be sharing the activity ID you'll use to claim your credit at the end of the episode. With that bit of housekeeping out of the way, let's get back to it with Rue and Robyn for more stories of really bad bosses. All right, we'll move on here. Let's go to the next one, Rue.
Rue Dooley:
Next one. Let's see. I had a supervisor one time who didn't like a person on my team. She had the habit of taking off her shoes while at her desk. Okay. My boss would walk by and see this and it would bother him to the point of him bringing it up to me all the time. She was a good employee, yet he wanted me to fire her just because she would slip her shoes off while at her desk. And hardly anyone could tell, if you weren't looking. Now, are you sure? The same manager also wanted me to fire a man on my team who was with the company for 20 plus years. Oh, that guy sounds familiar. And was one of the best on my team who was going through chemo, and still working because he wasn't always there. The man obviously was going through a lot and still trying to work, and he was on an intermittent FMLA leave, so he had job protection.
This manager, even though in HR, still wanted me to fire this great employee, just because he wasn't there when he happened to need him one time. Oh, man. The manager and I went head-to-head over it when I refused. And once I went to HR, the HR director had to go and talk to my boss, and the conversation died. Until my boss told me to track his hours very closely and let him know once he was going to exceed his job protection time. Thankfully, my boss got fixated on someone else and I was able to keep this great employee on my team and support him while going through chemo. That was a lot, and a lot of he's, I'm not sure I followed it, but if I did, yeah, it sounds sad. It sounds like there was a guy with chemo who's an excellent employee who they had a target on, and that by itself is troubling and it's a violation of law.
Amber Clayton:
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Robyn Hopper:
Being penalized for.
Amber Clayton:
Yeah. So the first part about this, slipping her shoes off, I'm going to say I'm guilty as charged. I do slip my shoes off, occasionally. But certainly if there is a safety hazard, of course you want to talk to them. I mean, how often do we drop things on the floor like paperclips or push pins, whatever it might be. And there could be that. But if this person said they weren't really, it wasn't noticeable, it was behind their desk, it seems to me that there was probably a bigger issue maybe than just the shoes. But if there was an odor, I mean, that could be problematic. I would be, if that was something. But yeah.
Rue Dooley:
And since sensitivity is a thing, some people are probably more sensitive than others. So some people may not have noticed at all, and to other people, they may be on the brink of sickness.
Amber Clayton:
For this particular one, I would not have... The way I would approach this manager or this boss, I would say to this individual that we would just ask that everybody wear shoes. But that's again, if others are doing it and she's doing it, and he wants to fire her, maybe again it's because of something else that's related to her. I think we just need more details on it. But definitely I think it's something that is part of that dress code, wearing shoes. And again, you don't want to be not wearing shoes if there could potentially be any kind of safety hazards. But I think I'd have to dig a little more deep with this manager to understand why it was so bothersome that he wanted this person fired.
Robyn Hopper:
And are they being nitpicky over, who knows what?
Amber Clayton:
Maybe they have a feet aversion.
Robyn Hopper:
Maybe.
Rue Dooley:
Don't look. Why are you looking? So I think it is that the manager has sort of a need to focus on-
Amber Clayton:
Like a fixation, yeah.
Rue Dooley:
... somebody, whoever it is, for whatever reason, and needs... Well, I'll just speak plainly. That seems like one of those bad bosses that is in constant need of terminating someone. They exist. And I think that's one of those scenarios.
Robyn Hopper:
Sure. I think we've all-
Amber Clayton:
It's a power thing.
Robyn Hopper:
... had that, yeah. It's a whole power thing and the manipulation of certain things. But also it sounds like they don't quite either know or want to know. Let's put it that way. Going to the second part of the story with the gentleman going through chemo, the parts of FMLA. And also, let's have a little bit of empathy and some sympathy here and there regarding what's going on with that. I know that we get calls, I have gotten calls from members in regarding to, "Hey, this person's ill, I just want to try to help them out." I mean, that's great. But it sounds, in this case where they just don't, in big giant capital letters.
Amber Clayton:
Or they think that the person's abusing it, abusing the leave.
Robyn Hopper:
Right, exactly.
Amber Clayton:
Yeah. I think educating the boss or the manager on FMLA, on ADA, because it could be covered under ADA.
Robyn Hopper:
Absolutely, it's cancer.
Amber Clayton:
The fact that it could be considered retaliation for implementing his rights, or her rights to, I think it was a gentleman, yeah, the man of taking FMLA. So I think the legal part of it, I would be advising that manager of the legal part. But then also, like you said, Robyn, the empathy part of it. Gosh, what if he had cancer, would he want to be treated the same way? I mean, it's a shame, but FMLA is one of our top topics in the knowledge center, and we do get a lot of questions around abuse of FMLA. And I think that, more often than not, we find that managers think that employees are abusing FMLA. And some of them are. So, it doesn't sound like that's the case here, and that the person is trying to work to the best of their ability while they're going through this. But it sounds like that boss needs a sit down education training on FMLA, ADA, and job protection, retaliation, all that good stuff. Yeah.
Robyn Hopper:
Wow. You name it, I think it's going to be in there for this one for sure. Lots of training.
Amber Clayton:
Yes, yes. Well, I'm going to bring up one actually, and let me see here. This one actually came through a friend of mine, and I thought it was really interesting. She had worked for a hospital many, many years ago, and she was pregnant. I think it was her first child. And the HR person actually said to her when she went to take leave, the person said, "Oh, well, next time, we're not going to hire someone of childbearing age."
Robyn Hopper:
Oh, wow.
Rue Dooley:
Oh, geez.
Amber Clayton:
Yeah.
Robyn Hopper:
I mean, that was a thing back in the... I mean, I remember, my mom even.
Amber Clayton:
It was more than 20 years ago.
Robyn Hopper:
Well, I was going to say, I remember my mom stating that when she went for her teaching job right out of college, the same thing. And we're talking the end of the sixties, early seventies. And she would have to hide her ring regarding being married, and she would have to not state certain things. But we're talking about a lot of years ago. But these things still happen, unfortunately, and we do hear of these kinds of things happening. So that's unfortunate.
Amber Clayton:
Yeah.
Rue Dooley:
That's terrible. Help me out, guys, you're smarter than I am. Pregnancy Discrimination Act, right?
Amber Clayton:
Yes.
Rue Dooley:
It was in my lifetime, but you were probably children. So it's probably late seventies. Am I right or wrong?
Amber Clayton:
You know, I don't remember the exact date of the PDA.
Robyn Hopper:
I don't remember the year on that one. Yeah, I don't remember that either.
Rue Dooley:
I'm thinking, I mean, it was in my lifetime. But it was a really long time ago is the point. And how is it that somebody could, in modern times, utter that? How do you not-
Robyn Hopper:
Well...
Amber Clayton:
Yeah. And I think like Robyn said, I mean, this is a long time ago, and again, things were different. And I think, again, there are bosses that are going to still say those things and say, well, I was just joking, or I didn't mean that. But they really did.
Robyn Hopper:
I had a boss when I was pregnant with my first child, and we're talking 24 plus years ago. So yes, I'm dating myself. But who, when I was pregnant, he said to me, and it's important that you know the director was a male, that he hoped that I had a boy because then he could be a director or a vice president of HR. And I looked at him like, "I'm sorry, what?" Like it actually came out of his mouth. Yeah.
Amber Clayton:
Wow.
Rue Dooley:
Yeah. Yeah. No other gender, just a boy.
Robyn Hopper:
No, uh-huh, had to be a male. And I was like, "Oh." And I was having a boy, but I was like, "I'm sorry, what?" And then I just got up and left. I couldn't even think about it. But it's the same situation. It's like, wait a minute, I don't understand what's happening here.
Amber Clayton:
And did you tell your son that he was supposed to be an HR director?
Robyn Hopper:
Even though he is in IT?
Amber Clayton:
Exactly. That's funny.
Robyn Hopper:
No, no. Didn't go there with that. But yeah, I mean, I think it just happens. And it's not like it was that long ago.
Rue Dooley:
Yeah. So I quickly looked up Pregnancy Discrimination Act.
Amber Clayton:
Was it '80?
Rue Dooley:
Yeah.
Robyn Hopper:
Oh, so old.
Rue Dooley:
So that's ancient history now. But to your point though, there are bosses, it doesn't matter what the legislation, there's so much that we still have to get passed. We keep passing laws, and there's still so much. And that's what creates bad boss scenarios. And that's such a good opportunity for HR to do some relationship management, some networking, and some finessing and some coaching, counseling, and invite some training.
Robyn Hopper:
Training.
Rue Dooley:
And some retraining. Because a lot of executives have been trained, over and over in different ways, and they need reminders as they go. And unfortunately, it's lonely at the top. So often there are a lot of 'yes' people surrounding you and you can do no wrong. But there have to be checks and balances. And I think HR is in a really good place to provide some checks and balances for leadership of organizations. To create cultures of inclusion and harmony and synergy. Wow, that was a mouthful.
Amber Clayton:
I feel like we need to end the show on that one. That was good, Rue. So it's funny that we're talking about, well, not funny, but we're talking about pregnancy. We've been talking about leave. It seems like there's kind of a theme with some of these stories that come across. And I'll just read this next one here. My ex-wife was pregnant with our second daughter. It was a particularly busy time as we were developing bonus pools for the bank, lots of long hours and late nights. On what was a very busy and intense day, my ex went into labor. I let my boss know I'd be leaving within the hour to meet my ex at the hospital. And I guess this is the script that they gave us.
"You can't leave. We have too many things going on, and a huge deliverable due at the end of the week."
"Huh? My wife's in labor."
"She's receiving medical care. Labor takes hours, meet her after we finish up the day. You won't miss anything."
"Huh? My wife is in labor."
"I understand that, but we need you here."
"My wife is in labor."
"If you leave, it's going to impact your bonus."
"If I don't, it will impact my family." And I went to my office and wrote an email to our CHRO and SVP of benefits stating that my wife is in labor. I attached a note from her OB-GYN, and told them after filling out the paperwork a month earlier that I'm invoking FMLA. I also documented a conversation with my boss. And I returned to the office after two weeks. And over the next two months, I searched for a new job, was given an offer, and resigned with no notice.
The boss, "You have to give us at least two weeks notice."
"No, I don't. It might be customary, but I didn't sign any agreement to give two weeks notice."
"I need you here. What will it take?"
"There ain't enough money in the world."
The manager was fired two months later. Now, we don't know why the manager was fired, but I mean, just based on this story, I think we can guess why.
Robyn Hopper:
Well, I hope the CHRO and the SVP stepped in on this one. To understand that, here's the thing though, is there are people who are promoted to be managers and supervisors and so on, who might be great at their job, but that does not make them good leaders. And even with training and all sorts of stuff, it still doesn't mean that they're going to be good leaders. So is that where this is coming from? We don't know the whole story, but obviously there's an issue here. And going back to the training piece of it and the regulations, FMLA, so on and so forth there, there's a lot going on here. Wow.
Amber Clayton:
A lack of empathy.
Robyn Hopper:
That poor guy.
Amber Clayton:
Yeah, that would definitely be a job that I'd have to leave. I mean, that's just...
Robyn Hopper:
I'm with you.
Rue Dooley:
Yeah. Because you got to face that person again. Now, for my purposes, maybe not, because she was fired a couple of months later. So it may be that she wasn't going to last long anyway. And sometimes you got to go through hard times and endure, and it gets better. But he could have, sounds like he was in HR too, so he could have educated his boss, which he did. I think he did a great job. I don't even understand what's going on here. This is exactly... And I told you at the top of the conversation that we all are having, about my experience with my child being born, totally opposite from this.
It was just easy. It was like my wife's water just broke. Okay, you don't need anything. Hang up the phone, go to the hospital, be with your wife. So we rushed off, and that was it. You guys heard from us when we got around to it. I don't even remember when that was. And we got our FMLA paperwork in, I remember having to do that. And it took some leaning on my doctor's office, but it had nothing to do with SHRM. So this guy had a bad experience with what was clearly a bad boss, and I think he could have helped her potentially. I think he began, but then he was out with his new baby.
Amber Clayton:
For a couple of weeks.
Robyn Hopper:
Yeah, for sure. For sure.
Amber Clayton:
So Rue, we've got one more bad boss story to share. I'm going to let you go ahead and read that one.
Rue Dooley:
Okay. I was a teller. The branch manager wanted us to work at 8:00, the assistant wanted us there at 7:30. My dog escaped one morning, and getting her back in took up time. I showed up at 7:45. Okay, still before eight, right? The door was locked. She wouldn't let me in, left me standing outside for 30 minutes. Now I'm late, because you left me outside for a half hour. I expressed my displeasure and said, "I wasn't even late." She tried to send me home, "Go home." I said to her, "So you are going to send your fastest teller home, on a payroll Friday?" That's a busy day. Then I walked away and got ready to work. She called the regional manager. I explained my side, and he agreed with me. Then a few weeks later, I was processing a commercial deposit from the night drop, the cash was a hundred dollars less than the deposit ticket. She said to process as is and debit them for the difference.
Amber Clayton:
Of course, she did.
Rue Dooley:
When they came in to pick up their bag and questioned the transaction later that day, she acted like she had no memory. I messed up and didn't get her to initial the ticket. But I had them pull the camera to show us working on the deposit together. I kept working there for three years, but she was fired within six months. That story sounds like the one we...
Amber Clayton:
I was just going to say, I think three or four of the stories that we talked about today, the bosses were fired. I think you said, Robyn, it catches up with you. But with this one that's kind of interesting. I'm thinking, gosh, what if they didn't have that camera to pull up? And would this person have lost their job as a result of messing up? And I guess this person was saved, saved just by having those cameras there.
Robyn Hopper:
That is where documentation comes in too, because I don't know about you guys, and I'm sure you have heard of plenty of stories where HR managers, directors, whomever, are like, wait a minute, but I'm recommending this and they're not taking my suggestions, or whatever, and it's documentation. Especially when it's something, here, can you sign that this is okay for me to do? Because I mean, I certainly never want anything coming back to me, biting me in the butt. So yeah, good thing that they had the video, but those don't have audio so it doesn't give you everything.
Amber Clayton:
True. But if they're next to each other and they're working on it, you know that the person was aware.
Robyn Hopper:
Exactly, exactly. Wow.
Rue Dooley:
And good for her for pushing back. I would've lost my job if I were that teller, because I'm not the sort that pushes back. So she would lose her memory, I would've done as I was told, because I do as I'm told, and she would've said, oh, I don't remember. And I'd have gotten in trouble. And they would've said, hey, you got to go, your draw's a hundred bucks short or whatever. And I'd go, oh, well, those are the blues. I won't let that happen again at my next place of employment. And I'm sure a lot of people have lost their jobs for reasons just like that, I'm sure.
Amber Clayton:
Yeah. If I were their employee though, I'm not saying this was wrong of this person to say, "So you're going to send the fastest teller home, on payroll Friday?" But that may come across as a little condescending to the manager, which is only going to make the matter worse. And then now you've got this situation where there's the deposit, and potentially you could have lost your job. So I think in my opinion, the better way to have handled it would've been to ask why. Why did you lock the door? Why did you lock me out? I was in on time. Can you please explain this to me?
And just have a conversation with the person, versus being a little snarky, as you said. I think that could have gone a little bit further than the snarkiness. And again, not saying the person's wrong, I probably would've done the same thing because knowing my mouth, I have no filter. But I think maybe just trying to understand the reasoning behind it, and whether or not there was history with this person. I mean, is this person somebody that they haven't gotten along in the past with? Has something else happened or is this the first time it's happened? It seems like there may be more to the story, but yeah, that would be my thing.
Robyn Hopper:
Did you hear that there's a running theme with all of these, and it all goes back to communication.
Amber Clayton:
Oh yeah, absolutely.
Robyn Hopper:
I mean, huge running theme, and that's always what comes up. It's that conversation piece of things in the underlining giant umbrella of it all.
Amber Clayton:
Oh, and empathy too. I mean, the lack of empathy of the managers.
Robyn Hopper:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. I would say for sure that comes in too.
Amber Clayton:
What do you think, Rue? Any words of wisdom for this particular story?
Rue Dooley:
She was a wise guy and she was looking for trouble.
Amber Clayton:
Yeah, you think so? And if you're listening, we're not trying to say anything bad. I mean, believe me, your story is a little, yeah, confidential and a little crazy. I mean, the boss locking you out, it just does not make sense.
Robyn Hopper:
That's nuts.
Rue Dooley:
Yeah. I mean-
Robyn Hopper:
Who does that?
Rue Dooley:
Yeah. So you're going to send your best teller, your fastest teller home. That may be true, and that may also be the relationship that they have. I'm not going to read into that. Who knows those dynamics? I was never a bank teller, so I don't know how that typically works. If they said, so you're going to send your fastest burger flipper home during the construction working lunch hour, your busiest time? Yes. That is feedback that I would've given my boss when I used to work at McDonald's flipping burgers. Yes. And that is the way we talked to each other, and that was commonplace in those days in fast food.
But I don't know if that's true in a bank also. And culture matters. This is a theme, talking about common threads that I hear recurring as well is the absence of, or the opportunity to create certain cultures, and relationship management and building teams and building morale. I think good leaders, good bosses, manage to do that either just by what seems like their personality by nature, they seem anyway to do it automatically. Or whether they really work hard at it or whether it's a combination. In this scenario, I can see where there's an absence of the manager working hard. She's not trying.
Amber Clayton:
Yeah, absolutely. Well, we're going to go ahead and we're going to wrap up the end of our podcast with some good bosses stories, just a few of them. And actually, what I'm going to do is I'm going to read one to you, but then I want you both, if you have a good boss story, and not me, I appreciate it, but don't say me.
Robyn Hopper:
Oh, darn it.
Amber Clayton:
But this person wrote in. I had a boss and my director who, when my father passed away, when I called them, they both said to go do whatever I needed to do and go be with my family in Illinois. I was working and living in a different state. And for the funeral, they were super supportive. They sent all sorts of food and drinks to my mom to support her during the funeral. And for weeks afterwards, it was a lot of food and flowers, cards, et cetera. And they would both call and check on me.
They didn't force me to return after three days of work, they said to take as long as I wanted. And when I returned a week later, they would check in on me, and if I was having a really bad day, would send me home and check in on me the next day. I've never had such a supportive management team since then. They didn't just say the words, they acted on it and meant what they told me to do. They covered me at work and home, and I was able to focus on my family during this incredibly difficult time.
I think that's great. And I'll tell you, I felt the same way. I lost my father last year and I had to go to Texas, and I was just so grateful for the support and the time that I could take off to deal with everything that was going on, and to move all of the stuff out of his apartment and everything like that. I mean, I think I'd gotten flowers and I got a card, and I knew people were checking in on me, and I was just really grateful. I don't know that I would've had that had I been at a couple of my other last positions. And oddly, I actually used to work for a hospice. And I can't honestly say whether or not that would've been the case. I would hope so, I would think so, but I just don't know. I don't know. There was always something a little wonky working in healthcare and everything. I mean, I had a good boss in that way.
Robyn Hopper:
I have a similar story to the good boss and also to Amber's story. My dad had a heart attack, it was all of a sudden. And my parents were actually out of town when this happened, so that makes it even harder. And it's just my sister and I, and neither one of us live near them. So we did find out, it was on a weekend. I went down there. I had planned on using my leave that I had saved up for another purpose. But when I got back, the CEO came and spoke to me and he said, "Look, I understand what happened and I know that you had to be gone for a week. Don't worry about your other leave, we're going to pay you for your time."
Amber Clayton:
Oh, nice.
Robyn Hopper:
And just that still brings chills because it was one of those things where it was unexpected. And yes, he came through and he's doing great, wonderful, and all that kind of stuff now. But this was only seven years ago, and it still hits home, or maybe just a little longer. But I try not to count those times. But it was a lot. And knowing that they were supportive of what I needed to do and needed to be out of town was just extremely appreciative. So since I can't use stories from SHRM, I'll use that one.
Amber Clayton:
Thank you.
Robyn Hopper:
But yeah, so I'm kind of in that same boat with you, Amber, and the actual good boss story that you had read. So yeah, that's mine.
Amber Clayton:
Great. Thanks, Robyn. Rue, did you think of something?
Robyn Hopper:
What do you have Rue?
Rue Dooley:
Okay. I have something to offer. I think I, going through my brain, I had a lot of different jobs in my life and lot of bad bosses, lots of bad ones, and I had some regular ones. Nothing outstanding. Just I think of Mr. Green, who hired me when I was 16 to work in an electrical supply warehouse. And as fate would have it, the bus was late my first day of work, 7:30 in the morning. And the buses only came in those days every 30 minutes. And Mr. Green stood out at the front and he looked at me, and I was running to work in my boots, because you had to wear steel toes. And he stood, he was facts, he was upset. And I got to this, I'm sweating, it's summertime, and he says, "You're late." I think I was maybe four minutes late or something like that. And he goes, "This is your first day of work." I was 16. And he goes, "If you're late again, you're fired." Now, you might say, I had a bad boss. Guess what? I was never late again.
Amber Clayton:
He taught you a good lesson, huh?
Rue Dooley:
I think he was a good boss. Yeah. So fast-forward a million years later, and I'm working as a staff accountant, I'm doing all the stuff you all know how to do, you all do it, just the regular old bookkeeping stuff, AP, AR, GLL, payroll. And I'm working for this small company, and the boss, he has lots of room for improvement in a lot of areas. He just does. And so you might think he's a bad boss. And you talk about profanity in the workplace, this guy was from Detroit, and he couldn't talk without being racy. And you might say bad boss. Well, the company was growing, they did a good job of what the mission of the organization was. And as they grew, they gave me more and more and more responsibility, I worked harder and harder and harder. You might say it's a bad boss. But then legal counsel coached the CEO and owner and founder of this consulting firm that I worked for, and said, "Hey, you need an HR person."
Amber Clayton:
Was that you, Rue?
Robyn Hopper:
Nice.
Rue Dooley:
He said, "Who should I get?" He said, "Somebody you trust, somebody who's like this kid that you have calling me all the time about these issues. How about him?" I was that kid, and so I was in my twenties. And you might say bad boss. He calls me into his office, he says, "Rue, company's growing. We need an HR person. We got all these new rules and laws and all that kind of stuff, and we anticipate even further growth rapidly. So we need somebody smart, nimble." And back then you worked 14 hours a day, that was just the way life was. And I thought I was being demoted, because I didn't know what HR was. He said, "Listen, you're a tough negotiator. I'll give you a $5,000 signing bonus. How about that?" And he sat back and I said, "No, I don't want it. Sounds like you're demoting me or you're trying to get rid of me."
He said, "Ha, ha, ha, ha. You are an amazing negotiator. Oh man, okay. I tell you what, you don't know anything about HR, so I'm going to send you to go get your certification and I'll pay for it. And if you get it within the first year," and back then they only did it twice a year, "and if you get it within the first year, I'll give you another $5,000." I said, "It's starting to sound good, but no, I'm an accountant, it's what I do." He said, "I'll tell you what, I'm going to give you a $20,000 raise in pay, $5,000 signing bonus, $5,000 for passing this exam that I am going to pay for. And you know what? I'll throw in the annual conference of your association." It was SHRM.
Amber Clayton:
I thought he was going to throw in his firstborn. He's pretty much given you everything.
Robyn Hopper:
It sounds like it, yeah. And the kitchen sink too.
Amber Clayton:
Yeah, exactly.
Rue Dooley:
Well, so here's the thing. I was grossly underpaid as an accountant, so he was only making good on what he should have been doing for the decade I worked for him. And so you could say bad boss. But guess what? I've been in HR ever since, so I have to give even the bad bosses a little bit of credit when they do the right thing the right way. This guy made wrong right, and I got to call him today a good boss. That's my good boss story.
Amber Clayton:
Awesome.
Robyn Hopper:
That's a good one.
Amber Clayton:
Yeah. Thank you very much. We've only touched the surface with some of these stories that we've had today. I mean, we can go on and on about the bosses who harass employees, the bosses too nice, the boss who takes credit, and the ones that might be silent, they don't take any action at all, or they're just downright bullying, which we've heard some of those already. We can go on and on, but we're not going to be able to do that today, we're going to have to leave that for another time. And before we go though, just any last minute advice for HR professionals who are dealing with bosses that have these bad behaviors. Rue, and it's got to be short.
Rue Dooley:
Yes. Hang in there. That's number one.
Amber Clayton:
Oh, a hundred percent.
Robyn Hopper:
Yeah. I'd agree with that.
Rue Dooley:
From a lot of the stories that we read, you see what ended up happening to bad bosses, right? And don't be one of them.
Robyn Hopper:
I would say documentation, that's one of my things that I go to. Training tends to work in some ways. Sometimes that can backfire, just like with anything else. But the empathy and sympathy card that we were talking about, I think it goes a long way as well. And it's just, really just trying. It's not the washing your hands of everything and saying, well, it'll work itself out. That's not going to happen. So it's just really trying as best as you can. There are going to be organizations that it's just not going to work, and you know that, and it's then time for you to get out of there. But in other cases, like it was stated, like Amber said, and in the majority of these stories, that the bad bosses were gone within a very short period of time. So does that always happen? No. But can it? Of course.
Amber Clayton:
And I would say too, think about yourself. I know this is going to sound selfish, but I've been in that position before where I've said, you know what, I don't want to leave, I have these great employees and I feel like I'm going to be leaving them with this terrible workplace and everything like that. But sometimes you've got to make decisions for yourself. And that's, again, I don't want to be selfish about it, but truly, you're the person who has your own back. And if it's a bad situation and it's not getting any better and there's no improvement, then sometimes you have to leave.
Robyn Hopper:
I would agree.
Amber Clayton:
And those are grownups too, they can leave too. I know it's hard, it's not an easy thing, but you got to do what you have to do for yourself and your family.
Robyn Hopper:
Absolutely, absolutely. I agree. Well said.
Amber Clayton:
Thank you. Now with that, we've actually come to the end of our show. For our listeners who are members of SHRM, you can find resources on this topic at shrm.org. We have a toolkit called Managing Difficult Employees and Disruptive Behaviors. You can also contact Robyn and Rue and our other advisors at SHRMs Knowledge Center at S-H-R-M.org, shrm.org/hrhelp. Thank you again, Rue and Robyn, for taking part in this episode.
Robyn Hopper:
Thanks for having us. It was fun.
Rue Dooley:
Absolutely. Thanks for having us. Yeah.
Amber Clayton:
As we've mentioned, this two part miniseries on Bad Bosses is approved to provide 1.25 PDCs towards SHRM-CP, and SHRM-SCP recertification. After you've listened to both parts, you'll then be eligible to enter this activity ID into your SHRM certification portal, 2-4-S-F-E-U-9. Once again, that activity ID is 2-4-S-F-E-U-9. Please note that this code will expire January 31st, 2025. And if you haven't already, please subscribe so you'll never miss an episode. And be sure to rate and review the show wherever you listen to podcast. Feel free to reach out to me, you can find me on LinkedIn or X. And if you'd like to learn more about the Honest HR Podcast, about myself or the other hosts, or just get additional information and resources on what was discussed in today's episode, head over to shrm.org/honesthr. And to learn more about other SHRM podcasts, check out shrm.org/podcasts. Thanks again for joining us on Honest HR.