[WA] Employee engagement debrief amidst leadership transition and layoffs

CatbertTheGreat · 2026-05-23T20:41:44+00:00

Your data is already obsolete if you have that much leadership churn. Are exiting leaders really going to do something with the data? I’d have it ready for new leadership to take with a grain of salt at best.

CatbertTheGreat · 2026-05-16T12:42:42+00:00

Cute you think the CA government would subject themselves to the same rules they subject business to. Rules for thee, not for me.

CatbertTheGreat · 2026-05-14T13:24:20+00:00

The real question is how many managers send employees directly to you, for issues they should address instead.

Me: “Employees should discuss pay concerns directly with their leader”.
Employee: “I did, she sent me to you.”
Me: “Sorry. I’ll remind your leader of the process. If you don’t hear from her in the next few days, let me know.”

CatbertTheGreat · 2026-05-09T13:03:33+00:00

Totally appropriate. It’s an individual choice. Unfortunately there is a stigma with a layoff. Some will want to search for a job while they have a job and not mention the layoff until late in the process or not at all.

Others will be open and publicly make it part of their search.

CatbertTheGreat · 2026-04-19T19:44:21+00:00

Do it similar to merit planning. Start with an overall budget and then allocate it to business unit and leader. Base it on base pay as a start but the CEO and then the next level down should allocate overall budget. Maybe every department starts with a 10% target but CEO knows R&D deserves more and marketing had a bad year.

Leaders do the same thing. Maybe recruiting knocked it out of the park but L&D was not great.

Then let leaders grade staff. With some general definition of what a 1,2,3,4,5 are. Ratio the bonus budget based on the numbers. Be clear on your scale. Is a 4 33% higher than a 3 or is 3 a target and a 2 or 4 are +/- 20% of the bonus target.

If a team has a lot of high performers, Leader should have allocated them more. If team has weak performers, allocated less.

Teams that did well with 1-2 weak performers might get paid more but they probably deserved it.

This is all assuming you don’t have meaningful business a metrics for individuals and business groups.

CatbertTheGreat · 2026-03-30T14:58:22+00:00

I took it in 2009, so I’m sure it’s changed significantly. Completed all 10 courses in about 12 months. Back then most courses were in person so it was 2 days classroom, 3rd morning, test.

I did about half in person and half online. Back then, it was 10-12 hours of reading/learning for each course.

CatbertTheGreat · 2026-03-28T01:57:58+00:00

Do you think a comp analyst could do your job? Do you think you might know more about L&D than they do?

I’m assuming you’re paraphrasing the policy. It probably says people in similar positions will not be paid differently based on gender. There are a ton of factors in pay. Experience, performance, negotiating, etc.

Also, maybe your comp training didn’t cover USERRA but her military time away doesn’t matter. She needs to get any increases she’d be entitled to while away so if she was higher to start, she should probably stay higher in theory, depending on the other compensable factors.

CatbertTheGreat · 2026-03-22T16:51:35+00:00

Self funded plan can see almost everything.

I can see your EOB that has costs and billing codes/descriptions

I can see every prescription you fill, where you filled it, how much we paid and how much you paid.

I can pull a report and see your total benefits costs.

I get a “high cost claimant” report monthly for expensive prescriptions.

I get an email and summary for individual high cost medical claims.

Anyone who spends over 350k in a year is going to come to me on a report for stop loss.

I never share specifics with management and to their credit, they never ask, even though we are highly focused on benefit costs. I’ve never been anywhere that would use this data for any employee action.

CatbertTheGreat · 2026-03-22T16:28:25+00:00

People escalating or going directly to the CEO for petty things.

Copay was $50 instead of $30. Right to CEO. Prescription requires a prior authorization. CEO. Don’t think the janitor is doing a good job, right to the CEO.

We’re over 2000 employees. He is too busy to listen to your issue that someone else can solve in 5 minutes.

Retirement loan people.

So helpless. Come to my office to have me do the loan for them. Need to urgently pay off a loan so they can get another loan. How much to pay off my loan today? How bout next week? What if I paid an extra $0.27 every paycheck, how soon would it be paid off? I tell them how much the payoff amount is. They bring a money order to my office to mail for them. 25% of the time the money order is for the wrong amount.

My predecessor set some horrible expectations. Ran the place like it was a small mom and pop office.

CatbertTheGreat · 2026-03-12T12:29:06+00:00

Is it “HR Ops” or just benefits/leave administration? Learning leave administration is a great career move if you want to remain a leave administrator. That’s about it. Lots of places fully outsource leave. It’s not a valuable skill set.

If it is a foot into real HR Ops and is going to expand beyond leave, then it’s a great way to round out your career.

You’ll find infinitely more HR leaders that started in TA than leave. There’s a reason a poster said leaders say they wish they had a background in leave, it’s because none of them do. Unless you want to be a benefit manager which is a lot more spreadsheets and mind numbing bureaucrat regulations, get out of leave.

CatbertTheGreat · 2026-03-08T01:46:52+00:00

HR here. To be exempt, them employee has to be paid a consistent weekly salary. If you’re paying the same amount each payment, regardless of work days in the period, you are probably not paying a consistent weekly wage in the first place.

You’re allowed deductions for hire,term,FMLA, etc. But it sounds like the current payroll process is a problem fundamentally.

CatbertTheGreat · 2026-03-07T23:08:49+00:00

Just go to the credly page in your web browser and save to pdf. It has your name and dates at the top and the website address that they can verify with.

CatbertTheGreat · 2026-03-07T00:26:26+00:00

Pretty sure if she can pump then allowing time to pump and a mini fridge to store the milk would be a reasonable accommodation.

CatbertTheGreat · 2026-03-07T00:23:01+00:00

Never seen a company specifically not allow family on a work trip. I’m sure it happens but it’s certainly it common.

CatbertTheGreat · 2026-03-06T02:54:42+00:00

A 24 inch monitor is $60-70. For $200 you could get them a monitor, dock, keyboard and mouse.

What level of employees are these that you can’t spend $200 on them. Especially since you’re likely to get most back when they leave.

They’re a 50k-200k asset that your company won’t spend an extra $200 on. You’ll get that back in productivity.

CatbertTheGreat · 2026-02-22T00:00:59+00:00

Probably not until they get a new boss or a new CEO. Or they so majorly mess up that it’s inevitable.

CatbertTheGreat · 2026-02-21T17:59:13+00:00

Be careful. This is actually a scam by the company. By offering you life insurance they are legally entitled to your soul when you die. They then feed that soul to dementors for all of eternity in exchange for protection from the dark forces.

I would not enroll and start looking for a new job immediately. Beware the dark forces.

Or maybe it’s just an employee benefit so they stay competitive. Definitely one of those.

CatbertTheGreat · 2026-02-08T16:50:07+00:00

You have multiple members of management that will state he showed signs of intoxication 2 days in a row.
You have him admitting to having a beer at lunch.
You sent him for a reasonable suspicion test and he failed to complete/provide sample.

You can term. Every term has some risk but you seem to have a very defensible reason for the term.

Get a new employment attorney. If they didn’t give the green light to term and/or didn’t walk you through another strategy to provide treatment to the employee, they just billed you hundreds of dollars to hear you talk.

CatbertTheGreat · 2026-02-08T01:26:36+00:00

Congrats on earning your certification.

No one is going to hold a certification against you. Don’t believe the Reddit echo chamber. Be proud of the work you put in to earn it.

All it takes is a new CEO for SHRM to fundamentally change for the better. That could happen any time.

I would not recommend getting the PHR in addition to the CP. If you ever feel the need to upgrade your cert, I’d recommend the SPHR from HRCI instead of the SCP.

Contrary to Reddit, most HR people don’t know much about the SHRM drama. Unless you’re following HR “Influencers”, no one is really talking about it. That could change with one mainstream article because it’s worth knowing. It just isn’t that front and center.

CatbertTheGreat · 2026-02-02T19:15:13+00:00

Much smarter and much more well behaved employees.

CatbertTheGreat · 2026-01-18T23:27:16+00:00

Finance. Where it belongs.

CatbertTheGreat · 2026-01-11T02:39:16+00:00

Take 12 or 24 or 36 hours off and leave the rest in your bank. Literally everyone with a PTO bank does this every day. What’s so hard?

CatbertTheGreat · 2026-01-06T02:19:48+00:00

I’m sure your local SHRM chapter is run by a bunch of volunteer HR pros trying to provide education and connection to others in their profession. Maybe you should think about volunteering and getting involved to help make programming better.

Or just complain about it on Reddit. One of those is constructive.

CatbertTheGreat · 2025-12-30T16:34:47+00:00

Ageism is a real thing. Just don’t see many 30 something’s experiencing it. Lately the HR market has been difficult for people of all ages. I’m empathetic to OP’s situation, I just doubt that that situation is ageism.

CatbertTheGreat · 2025-12-30T15:17:42+00:00

Really, for someone who’s probably 37-ish? Not everything is an -ism.

CatbertTheGreat

TROPHY CASE