Rebel Podcast: Life and Work on Your Terms

Episode 42: Gurpreet Kaur Mann, HR Superheroes, Part 2 Why Policies SUCK

May 04, 2021 Kyle Roed / Gurpreet Mann Season 1 Episode 42
Rebel Podcast: Life and Work on Your Terms
Episode 42: Gurpreet Kaur Mann, HR Superheroes, Part 2 Why Policies SUCK
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Join Kyle for part 2 of his conversation with the HR Superhero, Gurpreet Kaur Mann.  Gurpreet and Kyle dive into the real-world HR challenges, and talk about transitioning from an operations role into HR.

About Gurpreet:
I Help SMBs Attract & Retain The RIGHT TALENT To Scale Their Business + Increase
Their Revenues & Profits. As a Career Strategies Coach, I Help Career Professionals Get Hired In 30 Days + Build Their Personal Brand To Make More Money In Their Career

As an HR Professional, I love the diversity and the energy that comes with being a True HR Generalist.

I have been working in HR for 14+ years now. I have worked with all sizes of Organizations from Large to Small.

And I have seen it all!

I have seen HR done right.
I have seen HR done wrong

This is why I know what works, and what doesn’t. Hence why my client's nicknamed me “HR Superhero”.

My approach to managing people goes much deeper than just policies and procedures. I bring a strategic and holistic focus that aims to bring out the best in your people and align them with your business goals.

I am Forward-thinker, a doer and an innovator, think of me as a results-driven HR Superhero who gets Results!

Gurpreet Kaur’s Profile

linkedin.com/in/manngurpreet

Website

Twitter


Rebel HR is a podcast for HR professionals and leaders of people who are ready to make some disruption in the world of work.

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Kyle Roed:

Roll HR listeners. If you didn't catch the first part of the discussion with Gurpreet man, please go back and listen to last week's podcast episode. This is part two, of Gurpreet mon the HR superhero. This is the rebel HR podcast. If you're a professional looking for innovative, thought provoking information in the world of human resources, this is the right podcast for you.

Gurpreet Mann:

In, I've worked in so many various companies, the one thing that drove me to do become and run my own HR consulting company was this the fact that never valued, no matter how much I produced, no matter how much he did, it was never actually I had one actually, there was only one company where I would say was recognized and valued properly. But pay was no pay was I was never valued. I was in the management team were male managers. For different managers, I was doing only HR manager, but if I'm part of the management team for facility was production manager, material manager, so they were all aligned with making 85k. I'm making 65k my responsibilities. And I'm only one person where they had a team, from supervisors to team leaders, but an HR it for that facility, it was just me. And we are normally you know, when company looks at cutting costs, I can be wrong, but my experience is always HR to go first. That's where they lean it out. And it's like, great, I get it. But I'm how much can one person deal with the amount of paperwork in a drawer because we're also responsible for documentations paperwork, having proper paperwork, doing paperwork, doing hiring. So I did everything hiring, when there's hiring needs, employee relations, management meetings, champion the culture and you name it, right. magic going on vacation. Oh, my God, I knew I couldn't take proper time off. Because I knew if I take even a day off, I'm coming back to like, workload, huge workload, no one to step in to do your job because it's a job, confidential information, or anyone can just cover you, right. But that's one of the factors that really motivated me. And I did take two years off, which I was telling you prior to us recording this podcast was that there was eventually a point in my career in 2013, where I was like, I had enough like, I'm done, like, I'm done being not properly valued. For what I like for the work I do as a jar, probably not being recognized, probably not getting paid properly for the amount of work that I have done. And then and then every company like I've seen this, where HR doesn't properly get valued, yes, things have changed now, but I'm talking back then. And then I did mentally, I needed a break, I was mentally exhausted from HR, and then managers want their employees to perform better or do better. But then they didn't realize that they're projecting their behavior onto them. They didn't want to change. It was just so much like got to me to the point was like, I need to. And I took a break for two years. And they came back. Yeah. Right. And so I think that we are all I can be wrong, but I feel like a lot of times he was the last people to actually get recognized. What's your take?

Kyle Roed:

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think I think that's a I think it's a fair point. In general, I think that I've been very fortunate that in my organizations, HR has been considered a critical business support function more of a more of a business enabler, as opposed to, you know, just a back office administrative function. And so, you know, so I would say my career has been, you know, relatively blessed in that regard, where I have, I have always had that, you know, quote, seat at the table, just just by product of the organizations that I've worked for. And so, I'm very fortunate in that in that aspect, but I would say that one general theme that I see with HR with with some of my various team colleagues, some peers that are in the industry that are just wonderful people, they're not wonderful self advocates. And, and I think that's one of the things where HR, a lot of times we are advocating for, for, you know, our employees or advocating for a manager that needs our support. To get something, you know, something done, but a lot of times we forget, we also need to be focused on our on ourselves and on our own function and, and, you know, celebrate some of our wins, which is where I think, you know, that's one of the wonderful things about starting this podcast and starting to build out a network beyond just my local communities. You know, there, there's so many wonderful people and wonderful things out there, that the, the kind of the HR tribe has been my go to, to, to, you know, connect with and feel valued. And, but ultimately, I do, I do think it comes down to the right organization, the right management structure, and in those organizations where it's not, maybe you don't have that seat at the table yet, but you're close about having the, you know, leveraging your emotional intelligence to go and advocate for yourself to be included in that meeting, where they're discussing, you know, executive compensation, and bringing up something along the lines of pay equity by gender, you know, or, or, you know, asking, asking a specific question in a management meeting about talent selection processes that you feel like, don't make sense, you know, or overly bureaucratic processes that we need to creatively destruct and rebuild, so that they, so we don't have these silly termination protocols, and we don't have the risk of somebody, you know, being surprised when they get let go, you know, things like that. I mean, I just think there's so many areas of the business that we can impact and yeah, it's really hard. It's really hard if we can't advocate for ourselves to impact those things. And, and, and I think the other really big challenges, if you're an HR, and you make an impact in less than six months, you're an exceptional person. I mean, it Yeah. I mean, you try it. Yeah. I mean, you're, you're working through others, you typically we have small teams, so it's like you're doing everything through other people. So if, if you are making a change your influencer Good job,

Gurpreet Mann:

that's what I mean, her recognition is that we're always depending on the company, right? I'm not talking about I'm like, big guys, like de loi, or Amazon and stuff, these guys are at, like Canadian Tire in Canada. Like, I'm not talking about the big fortune 500 companies who have the proper channels and proper functions of HR into specialists, I'm talking about like the smaller companies like manufacturing companies, you know, the lienau, like, I've worked in manufacturing, to know that like, no, like, any judge like lean, and, and you doing so much by yourself. And now going back to getting the seat on the table, I have, you know, as much as I'm painting a different, like I was painting a different picture of not being valued. I can't say I wasn't valued, because I've always had a seat on the table. As right from the beginning of my career, HR assistant, I end up getting invited to the table. And I think the reason I was always invited to the seat of the table was because I'm not a traditional HR, I don't come from that background, I have a business degree in IT management, which made me you know, the degree that I have is all about how to utilize it in the business world to make it more efficient. So because my entire dw is all about being efficient, and creating processes, automation and all that stuff. I was able to do that in all my roles was I brought that to the table and analyze everything that I kind of just naturally was invited even as an assistant that was a big thing to assistant who wants someone's assistant when I was invited and the director gave me one big compliment she goes on you like obviously a few months into it and she goes after recognize your for something. First you take initiative you don't wait for someone to come and tell you what to do you actually know everything and then you go tell people what to do and hiring managers. She was by the way speaking of managers, you actually know more about the production employees than the production manager or the supervisor from their sub skills and all that stuff. And so she gave me the biggest compliment that just made me keep going at what I'm doing one thing I've learned over the years and I'm maybe mostly more when I became entrepreneur is that one thing I do see a lot of majority of HR people lacking is data like not not using numbers to speak the business language in the end of the day. It's all one numbers right? For gonna go and have a seat at the table. We can go and say what the law Is is where the policy says this? No, that stuff doesn't matter. Because at the end of the day, the businesses in the business to make money. Now, how do you flip a turnover? You can go to a meeting and say, turn our spot. Okay, why is it bad? And then it's like, I don't know, but people are leaving. It's bad, right? You can go to a meeting and say turnovers, but you got to go into meaning and say, Hey, listen. And by the way, I learned a lot of stuff when I became an entrepreneur, how to use numbers, how to use the numbers to quantify cost. So let's say like a turnover of one client of mine didn't even you know, the constant turnover. It's amazing. I mean, people don't realize that I've turned over it. No, no, no, we're great. companies. Great. I'm like, okay, run some numbers quickly. And you're like, No, no, this is how many people are leaving you every month. And this is how many hiring you're doing. All your hires are just replacement. I go, by the way, last year, every month, you've lost this many employees, and there's so many new hires, you're hiring, but there were just new hires to replace somebody, your cost is x here, I'll calculate it for you, I actually calculated every employee that left the organization. And I calculate the cost because this is how much it costs you to lose all these, all these employees. The research suggests is about 150 percent, this is back in 2016 17. So the cost is actually a bit higher now. But 150 percent 150 percent of the person's ending salary. So let's take this person salary. Now two, times about 150. This is how much it costs us or broke down the cost. And I showed them numbers is 1,000,001 point something million, the owners face was just like, what am I get, and you thought you didn't have turnover? ago, but let's break it down to numbers. When you start bringing down to numbers, it's the best way to get a buy in is when you start talking numbers and figures hit you know, this this many people left, this is your turnover. But each person leaves your organization, this is how much it's costing you. And this is how much your cost is. But we can save all this cost by implementing here's some suggestions, boom, boom, boom, like, or like I've done various different implementations when it comes to turnover. But there's so many strategies to tackle a turnover. But if you want the seat on the table, you got to start talking business, you got to start talking numbers. And I think a lot of HR can do this. What is the return on investment on each employee? How many HR people actually can sit there and calculate ROI on each employee in the company? I don't know that many people, right.

Kyle Roed:

Yeah, and I missed I think it's such a such a critical point that, you know, the the language of business is money. And, and money is communicated through financial statements. So you better have a good handle on some of these terms. You don't need to be a cost accountant. But you do need to understand the principles. And you know, one of the things that served me well was actually going to business school, and being an operations before I got an HR role. So you know, I kind of learned what it's actually like to lead a team of 50 plus people, and try to hold the operation gather with bubblegum and scotch tape and hope it doesn't fall apart. Like, you know, you don't really get the feeling for what that's like until you're actually in the trenches doing it. But But you also learn how you learn how to interpret financial data and turn that into some something that you can then take an action off of. And a lot of times, it's interesting, I would say, I don't know what your experience is. But my experience is, a lot of times intuitively, we kind of know the right thing to do. Yeah, but that's not how everybody else's brain works. So sometimes we have to bring everybody else along for the ride. Because we're, you know, our gut is telling us to go this way. And they need the data to prove that we need to go this way. And then there are times where my intuition has been wrong. And I've assumed one thing and then you pull the data and you're like, oh, wow, if I root cause now analyze turnover reasons. I'm looking in the wrong in the wrong area, I need to go over here and modify this program and something's broken and, you know, comp and benefits or whatever. Right. So, yeah, I mean, you've got to, you've got to figure that out. And if you if you're early in your career, and you're trying to figure out how to get, you know, some credibility, you know, go go learn how to read a financial statement or make friends with an accountant, you know, they, they typically, they love, you know, sharing. I think they're kind of similar to HR sometimes where they do really, really critical work. Very underappreciated. So go make friends was an accountant and you know, usually you can be a good dynamic duo.

Gurpreet Mann:

I would, I would go step further. I would. Finance is great numbers to hire But even finance people can calculate the cost of each employee leaving the organization. Because, again, finance is more of revenues coming in minus expenses, right. So I would say take a step further, and take data analysis courses, because in the end, it's all about analyzing data. And then you got to convert that into cost. So, and I have this because of my degree, um, I able to analyze data and analytical I think the most important skill that it doesn't matter if you're a jar, I think everyone should had have analytical skills. And I think I've seen this over the years. And now we're just going to talk about HR, I think that's where I in my 15 plus years of HR career, I've worked with so many different HR people. And one of the things I've noticed was that typically speaking, HR lacks analytical skills, data analyticals. Some don't even know the laws impacting them, for whatever city or country you work in, I've seen tech it not being properly used. Um, so and I had all these skills because of my degree, thank God. I got for my degree background. Yeah, I have an IT management degree. And, but I would say, from my career, here's what I've seen, where, typically where I've seen HR fall short on is, and I'm just using some examples from what I've seen is and where my relationships with people were so different compared to other Angel people it was, and I'm gonna give it one perfect example, I was going to cover this person's mot leave, so I had like two or three weeks with her. She did not her another director of operations were just butting heads, like there's no tomorrow. So she obviously didn't get along with him. He didn't like they didn't get along. And I was the one that's going to place her and I was like, he doesn't like a job. He's not gonna like me, right. But then what I noticed was the little bit I started paying attention that a bit, I noticed why the the the friction was there. And then what I love what the director that though I give him full credit, he sat me down and said, you're going to be replacing, or we're going to be working together for 18, whatever odd months. I don't want you to see me as well how my relationship with her is, my relation with you is going to be different. My relationship with her is different. So I love the fact that he sat down and have this open candid conversation with me when I started working with him. So she left on motley, when I started working with them. What I realized was the reason there was a friction between them too, was that she never saw her role as a consultant. She saw more of it like policing, policing, right? No, we can't do this. Because this is our policy. No, we can do this. Like, no, no, no, no. But our job isn't to say no, our job is to say, Okay, let's discuss this. So look at the pros and cons of each situation. You want to do this user pros. Here's the con and here's what the law says. So that's where the pros and cons comes in. Right? If you're going to go this way, then this is what's going to happen. If you go this way. This is what's going to happen as an expert in a draw. Here's my best advice to you. But I in the end of the day, you are the decision maker, whatever decision you make you we support you right. So I never did that. I didn't go into any of the meetings. I never said policy says it. I hate policies. I don't

Kyle Roed:

think I'm worth Yeah,

Gurpreet Mann:

the most ridiculous document. I don't know

Kyle Roed:

if it's because we're from ops or what but it's like, I think that's what it is. Right? Like, policies suck.

Gurpreet Mann:

I get we I get it like rules and all that stuff. But why do and I worked in manufacturing a union? Okay, so that's all right. But my union Handbook, that's why I called it Bible Bible. Right. But I've also worked in non union too, when you maybe that's what it is. I worked in Union I work in non union to know, hey, listen, the best solution is always to be human. Look at the situations and analyze them and look at the pros and cons of decision making. If you take this decision, here's the pros and cons. If we take this decision, here's the pros and cons. Right. And I had a great relationship with that director of ops. We were like partners and running the facility. He wants to keep me when she was coming back from that leave. He's like, I don't want her. Her. And also I'm not awkward at all. We were able to turn this facility around I was in making company money having a strong A leadership team that works well together is also we were called the Dream Team me him to other managers, right? We turn the facilities around. And that's it. That to me is the most crucial part of HR is we are the experts in people management, we are managing, we are managing the number one asset of the business, people, talent. Without talent, companies can cripple company can make money without people, right? comp businesses are only good as the talent they have. And we are considered the experts, you got to see yourself as an expert of managing people. Now managing people is not about policies. I don't care like you write like constancy. But the policies is I never any. I never set the policies that x I said, No. Okay, let's have a discussion. Let me see. Let's put our heads together and solutions and all that stuff. You know why one thing I realized about policies, one of the policies, I actually do hate. And this is only because of my own personal experience when my dad died. And I'm self employed, so I don't have policies. So I could take whatever time I needed, but made me think I'm like, if I was an employee, I would only get maybe five days at river meant. And if I want to take additional time off, I have to go on Pete. Yeah. And then you have to strain. And yeah, like if I want to go short term, Lee, but whatever, you have to produce all these notes and all that stuff on like, the most ridiculous policy, I've always found even meant, or someone wants to take a day off. You know, I'm an I'm Indian. And but many cultures have work. You're close to, like, we consider everyone family. Like it's not second cousin. Third, because it's just family. Right. I remember reading policies. When I first got to Adrian, when it came to bereavement, and I was looking at it. If your uncle dies, you only get one day I'm like, but my uncle's my family, like my dad, or like, you know, I mean, that's when I was like, Oh, this policy to me doesn't make sense. Because how you are now classifying relationships. What if I'm cool, like if my friend died now when you get a date, but that's my friend, it could be like, the relationship you have. So that's what I think that's where I started to, like, our policies don't make sense. We got to treat people with as human and policies to me, I, I understand why we need them. It's like a rule guide. But your first instinct shouldn't be when someone comes to talk to you is, but our policies is and I see a lot of Yeah. My career I've seen. This is where I've seen work some downfall of HR can happen is if your first edition, first instinct is just to say policy, you're not going to build any relationship successfully. Any manager is to say, but our policies is this or with employees. Second thing I've seen in my career is why some people are not successful in HR roles is you can sit at a desk and then dictate to people what the change is going to be that's impacting that you have to learn to get out of and I get it, we can do this epidemic. But you should be building relationships. Even on frontline employees. Any company I worked for every employee knew me. Because I made that time and effort to get out on the floor. If it's manufacturing, put my safety shoes on have hard hat on, if required, and I was on the floor, talking to employees getting to know them getting their job or getting to know their job showing my face every single day. People knew me. And that was one of the things every employee recognized me for is like we actually see you were previous teachers, we never resolve them. Unless there was a problem, then we saw them. And then then then that's the image you get right of a dries like all users coming to see us

Kyle Roed:

in trouble comes the Grim Reaper.

Gurpreet Mann:

Right. But I hear that, but with me, obviously, Guinea might seem like that, but when they keep seeing me every day, 234 hours on the floor talking and getting to know whatever, talking to people looking at their jobs and understanding the process and all that stuff. The more I spend time on the floor, the more people realize, Oh, cool. She's just there. Right? Like, it wasn't

Kyle Roed:

I think it's such a Yeah, it's such a great point it you know, to to go back on, you know, policies in general. So, I, I hate policies and I mean, this is gonna sound maybe a little bit you know, controversial but you know, policies and regulations are there because somebody did something bad. Right there, they're totally reactive approach to managing human behavior. Yeah. And while there needs to be some sort of guardrails in place, and like, you can't, it can't be a free for all, you know, there's a word for that. It's called anarchy. You can't, you can't have that. But it needs to be more focused on process, you know, the, the process of how you manage others shouldn't be going immediately to a policy manual to determine your approach, the process should be built around the human experience and the employee experience and what the business objectives are, as opposed to what does the policy say? I mean, I can't tell you how many policies have just been the stupidest things, and I've had to execute them, because they're the policy, you know, and it's just like, and I mean, I've had to terminate people, because of a stupid attendance policy. But because of the policy and the requirement to be consistent, and an extremely large manufacturing setting. I didn't have any choice, you know, and guess what we did, then we would change the policy next year, because we realized it was stupid, and we fired good people, you know, and it's like, those kinds of those things. Like, they leave a mark, right? Like,

Gurpreet Mann:

that's where you just sucks. That's where you step in, and say, No, see, that's what I've done. I don't look at policies, I look at the individual. And, and, okay, why did you miss work? What's going on? Like, have those like, don't be afraid to talk and you learn something about a person, especially if someone has good intentions, it's not their nature to be missing work? And if they are, there's something wrong. There's something up, right. And that's the human nature. So if, let's say, you have those compensation, our employee is struggling one time an employee was struggling with something. And I said, Okay, so here's what I want you to do. We have an employee assistance program. Speaking employee assistance program, one of the things that's never properly implemented, people don't even know they have a. And, you know, talking to employees and saying, You, here's what you can do. Here's the help. Take it, use it. That's when I realized how many employees didn't even know that. That part of the benefits package is employee assistance program, just having a conversation. I've never, I'm not I'm not lying. When I say this, I've never went employee approaches me. My first instance isn't policy. My first instance is Let's have a talk and see what's going on with this employee. And the human aspect, right? Like, we're we are human beings, we can have so many different things going on in our lives. Now we're going to punish somebody because maybe they're going through a financial crisis. Maybe they they're going through a mental health. Right? And no, I my policy isn't, no, I don't care what the company policy says. And I will be damned if I let a hiring manager terminate an employee, because the company policy, I've stepped in a lot places, even as an HR assistant, I stopped it, I stepped up to our manager, who new hires were hired. praise them love done, lead, Julie, like next week, like I want to terminate for them. And I was like, Why are they're not performing? I go, Okay, let's talk about it. No, but they're not performing like that. Talk to me. Like, what do you mean, like last week, they were performing gray. So what happened? And what? So walk me through? What What happened? What action did you take? And then we used to give them a kit that they fill out, go show me that? And he's like, No, I don't have it. I'm like, Well, to be candid with them. So he didn't like the fact that I'm saying no to him, obviously. Then he went to my boss. And he's like, no, she's right. Like, give us the papers, right? Like, what's your reasoning behind terminating someone like four employees that you praised last week analysis, you want to terminate them because they're not doing something you told them to do? Or what are the cases right? Then he went to his boss. And she's like, no, she's right. You can just terminate she is right. So obviously, he didn't like me after that. Because an assistant stepped up to another manager, right? But that's the thing we you have to do like you have to there are times where people are reactive managers are not perfectly that there will be situations they're going to just react but our job isn't to be like, Okay, let's do this. Because a manager wants to do it's like No, okay, walk me through what's going on. There's all I feel like the communication or talking is the most underutilized tool that no one does. And it's one of the most simplest tools to use. And it's cost saving. It can save organizations so much money requirements are Cost replacing employees the cost. And if you have a good employee, you know, you can tell which one's a good employee and which ones not. It's not that hard to recognize Good, good versus a toxic, like, toxic. I say, go. Like tomorrow today, let's leave like, I believe one toxic employee can ruin everything for every employee. And that's where like that is where one area where I was like, No, no, no, the faster you remove as a toxic employee, the better it's going to be for the organization. But overall, no my policy I've never ever, ever, ever terminated somebody just because the company policy said it. No, because each situation is different. Policies are great to have no problem framework. But that's not that is not there for you to just say, policy says, so I'm going to write you up policy say this, I'm going to terminate you I've never done No, no, no.

Kyle Roed:

Yeah, well, I I wish I could agree with you. But I can't I have I have terminated people purely because of, you know, a specific policy violation. And you know, and I think that, oh, but you knew where I'm at in my career, now.

Gurpreet Mann:

You're in us. Yeah, I'm in the US. So I should highlight something in Canada, it's employee friendly, courts are also employee friendly. So terminating employee also means they're gonna go sue you. And you might be on the hook to pay them a lot of money. So let me also disclaimer that in Canada, we are employee friendly, the courts always gonna 90% of the time 99% of time courts will always side with the employee. So that's, that's the other mindset that I have is, that's where I am not like, you can't be black and white, because you write black and white decision, they will go to the courts and follow suit against you for service sovereigns and all that stuff, you end up spending a lot of money on on lawyers and all that stuff. And in the end of the day, you might be liable to pay, because our courts are us. Yes, you guys a little bit different. Except for help. Yeah,

Kyle Roed:

and I think, great, you know, great, you know, you made this point earlier, you need to be, you need to understand the regulations in your local jurisdiction in order to make, you know, make effective decisions and be a good HR partner. I would say the US is interesting, there's the most employment is at will, so people can leave an employer for any reason employers can technically terminate for almost any reason, as long as it's not discriminatory. Where the kind of the fear in the HR world in the US comes from is people who claim discrimination because you didn't fire somebody, and you fired them. And so that is why, you know, that's why following the policies critical in the US, yeah, we have, you know, our locations in the EU and China and, and the UK, very, you know, drastically different. You have to be have to be mindful of those local laws. Yeah, you're gonna get in hot water. Yeah, right ROI, you know, multimillion dollar lawsuit the numbers

Gurpreet Mann:

gonna ask for. And in us, I know, California, is very similar to Canada. And like us, it's employee friendly. Even even in Canada, it is out well, like you could any employer can terminate anybody, but you have to fill the legal requirements. And so under common law, and this is where I highly recommend, this is why I highly recommend HR to, you know, take law courses around employment law. I have, I took it through a really well known law school here. And they had no they actually it was when I took it is fairly new program that was created in partnership with the HR Association here in Toronto. It's called the federal law certificate. And it really, really benefited me and I highly recommended to every HR professional out there that you know, educate yourself on employment laws at 10 Employment Lawyers, webinars, a lot of them do them for free, because there's so many decision that goes into the court. So in here in Canada, you know, and I think us same thing, but here I'm just going to talk on Canada because I don't really know too much about us like stuff for California. I do. But other than that, I don't really know. But here in Canada, like in Ontario is freshly apart also across Canada, but I'm just gonna talk Ontario for an example like if you can, you can terminate anyone can terminate anybody, right? any employer can terminate any employee. But the thing is, you have there is a legal requirement, minimum requirement under the Employment Standards Act. That's one governing party. But then there is case laws, common law, and common law looks at the age of the employee, the likelihood of them securing that same role at the same pay. Now, if we're taking that into consideration, depending on the age and how likelihood they are at the company is liable to pay that piece. That's where the cost drives comes in. It's not what the Employment Standards Act, which is very bare, minimal. But this component is where you get in trouble. And a lot of companies get in trouble with this one, because they don't know. They don't know. They don't know. They end up just doing the bare minimum. It's like, No, no, no. And I'm not gonna sit there and act like I knew this piece either. I know until I did the law certificate, which was taught by lawyers. And then I really got fascinated with law. So the amount of law I know in employment, I should be a lawyer all the time, like, but it makes you a good HR professional, to anybody that wants have a competitive advantage in the age, I feel, I think you should know the law inside out. And that's why having those strategic partnerships for lawyers, attending employment law, webinars is important. Managing terminating somebody in the academic, you're liable. I have a client right now that's looking at Amazon and termination, but they're looking at certain situations. And they may have to let somebody go and one employees been around with the company for 30 plus years ago. Now, I just want to say one thing, you letting this and blowing go making any changes in their employment status, you're on the hook for X amount, because once the age he's 70. And then we have another thing in Canada in Ontario that you don't have to retire at 65. So this employee's been with the company for some 30 plus odd years. Percy's 30, a 70. Sorry, not 30 wishes 30 he's somebody who is gonna employ hire him.

Kyle Roed:

I go, you are

Gurpreet Mann:

kind of like in this very sticky situation. Because if you make any changes to his employment contract, his contract and his employment status, it's considered constructive dismissal. A lot of companies actually don't know this is when you start making changes into an employee's job job description, it can be seen as constructive dismissal. Right? Everything is fine and dandy until the employer goes, you terminate the employee. And then that's when the sour relationship happens. I call it going sour. And I always say this to my clients, Listen, my job is to educate you and tell you and give you a clear picture. On my thing, this is gonna happen. I'm just saying everything is fine and dandy, until you terminate the employee. And then yes, when you terminate the relationship goes sour. It's human nature. And everybody should be looking at the best interest. And yes, they're going to go get an employer, lawyer, and then you on the hook for x, y, and Zed. So that's determined. That's why I never my policies never been to push termination. I'm not somebody that ex employees, I've never been that. And then more. So once I got my law education. More, so is that definitely when, like was last thing on my radar is like, No, no, no, you got to figure x, y, and Zed. And that's why I say like you to be a good HR. My best advice to younger HR professionals or, or senior or anybody, I always say, Listen, I know people go after designations and all that stuff. Great. No problem. I'll go but one thing that has benefited me I don't have a designation. But I would say the one thing that would benefit any HR is couple of things, one, know the law. And if you can go get those education from lawyers or if you're, if there's like, I'm fortunate that you know, here we have that edraw law certificate program taught by law school, a really great law school, by the way, and it's taught by lawyers. I've benefited a lot. And I tell this opening to people, HR professionals, like you can do your job properly. If you don't know the ins and outs of law, and laws changes all the time to stay up to date with the law. I'm always up to date with the law and especially in this epidemic. One day you will open I say stay at home. locked out right? So the laws are like right now the laws are ridiculously changing. And if you drop that ball as an HR professional, you're in trouble.

Kyle Roed:

Right? Yeah, so I'm gonna take I'm going to take just a moment legal disclaimer. I am not a lawyer. This is not constitute legal advice. Gurpreet not a lawyer, but she's great. So, great, great point well made. It sounds very similar to the UK law and i just i I agree. Just make sure you have a good employment attorney in whatever jurisdiction that you're that you operate in. And and yeah, accountants need friends and soda lawyers. So you know,

Gurpreet Mann:

it's great people

Kyle Roed:

makes it make some partnerships, leverage that empathetic emotional intelligence to go network with some, some of those folks. All right. Well, we are. We are running out of time. We're a little bit over time. So I really want to thank you again for for doing this for round two. And I want to shift gears and run through the rebel HR flash round. So three questions rapid fire. Question number one, what are you reading right now?

Gurpreet Mann:

power shift by daymond. JOHN.

Kyle Roed:

That was easy.

Gurpreet Mann:

I just started reading it.

Kyle Roed:

What's that about?

Gurpreet Mann:

It's about your mindset, shifting power, how to leverage. So I just started reading. So so far, what I've read is, it's basically having power in every situation in decision making, how to switch things into gear to get to be in your favor, where the individual make a decision in your favor kind of thing. So it's all about leveraging power, but your mindset. I just started reading I love his books, by the way. daymond john? Is his people shark. He's on Shark Tank. If nobody knows you're talking about it's the individual. on Shark Tank, and he goes by the people people's shark. A lot of that guy. Follow him. Yeah.

Kyle Roed:

Started Didn't you start? fubu? Yes, yes,

Gurpreet Mann:

he's the founder of fubu. Um, I'm an entrepreneur. So I do tend to follow a lot of entrepreneurs stuff and and that's the other best advice I can give other HR people is learn from other entrepreneurs business.

Kyle Roed:

Alright, perfect. perfect segue. Question number two, Who should we be listening to? You? Oh, you mean me? Like Me? Me. Okay. Cool. Thanks. Thanks for the shout out. I thought you meant like you like your inner you. Okay.

Gurpreet Mann:

That is a joke. Nope. Your podcast, Rubble, Ah, right. Who should be you listening to Yes, exactly what you say and are you on your power, you should be listening to you. And I'm, I always do this practice to tune the noise out. There's just too much noise out there. A lot of times we get, or decisions or things we want to do can easily get persuaded by what's happening out there. And I think I was also getting into that mode a few years ago. And then I was like, Oh, I need to tune people out. So you need to listen to you, your inner voice, your inner soul. All the answers are usually in you, if you tune out the noise. So yes, you got it.

Kyle Roed:

Perfect. Alright, last question. How can our listeners connect with you?

Gurpreet Mann:

LinkedIn? LinkedIn is the best bet. And funny thing we're talking about this before the podcast started my passion for LinkedIn, I love LinkedIn. Best way to reach out to me is LinkedIn, I will probably reply faster in the DMS and if anybody who sends me emails and probably worse than my emails, but if you DM me on LinkedIn yet, you'll get a response within less than 24 hours. So LinkedIn is the best way to reach me.

Kyle Roed:

Perfect, and we'll have that we'll have your profile in the show notes. So anybody can click right in there and, and, and friend great content that you share out there. Gurpreet really enjoy that you do a live show. Yeah, as well. Weekly. Yeah,

Gurpreet Mann:

it's with, you've been on it. It's with a fellow colleague, Gil, and we started it actually, in the pandemic, when the epidemic first hit us was to help businesses, especially the smaller guys, to navigate through the epidemic we were we started up doing it five days a week. And then eventually we brought it down to when the epidemic kind of settle we brought it down to once a week and what we do is we cover various HR and employee experience topics and we also have guest speakers, which Kyle has been on a couple of weeks ago right you were on our segment two three weeks ago. No, you weren't you're that's my LinkedIn.

Kyle Roed:

Well, we've loved having you on the on the podcast and the contents great, just really, I think really great advice for anybody who's considering HR or maybe is in HR and and maybe having some struggles with certain aspects of it some really great content that you've shared here and really appreciate you sharing your experience and your and your perspective. So thank you so much. Gurpreet and have a great rest of your day.

Gurpreet Mann:

You too. Thank you for having me.

Kyle Roed:

All right. That does it for the rebel HR podcast. Big Data to our guests. Follow us on Facebook at rebel HR podcast, Witter at rebel HR guy, or see our website at rebel human resources.com views and opinions expressed by podcast was the opposite you're not necessarily an employee this podcast

Jude Roed:

baby

(Cont.) Episode 42: Gurpreet Kaur Mann, HR Superheroes, Part 2 Why Policies SUCK