How to Navigate Complex Employee Relations

In this episode, we explore the complexities of employee relations with HR consultant Ricky Baez.

Topics include:
1. Understanding Employee Relations: The importance of respecting diverse personalities and maintaining a positive work environment.
2. Common Challenges: How differences in opinion and communication impact productivity.
3. Balancing Empathy and Strategy: Essential skills for HR professionals.
4. Navigating Sensitive Topics: Practical advice on handling politics and religion at work.
5. Proactive Leadership: Encouraging civility and respect, especially during election years.

Join us for valuable insights and tips on how to improve employee relations in your organization. Don't forget to subscribe!

Additional Resources:
1. How to Handle Employee Complaints
2. How to Manage Workplace Conflict
3. Ways to Improve Your Employee Relations
4. Communication Styles in the Workplace and How to Manage Them

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👋 FOLLOW PETE NEWSOME ONLINE:
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petenewsome/
Blog Articles: https://www.4cornerresources.com/blog/

👋 FOLLOW RICKY BAEZ ONLINE:
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/efrainrickybaez/
Blog Articles: https://www.baezco.com/baezco-blog

Transcript

Pete Newsome: 0:00

Welcome back everyone. In today's video we're talking about how to navigate complex employee relations with HR consultant Ricky Baez. Ricky, how are you?

Ricky Baez: 0:08

I'm doing good. Pete Ready for this.

Pete Newsome: 0:10

Awesome. Well, let's just start at the top. Ricky, can you give me a brief overview of what employee relations actually means, if you?

Ricky Baez: 0:16

ask 50 people in a room what does HR and employee relations mean? You're going to get 50 different answers right, but at the end of the day, here's what employee relations is. In any organization, in order for a business to be successful, they need employees, and every employee has a heart, they have a spirit, they have a different personality that may or may not mesh with other personalities out there, so you're going to need a professional to be in there and making sure not that you change people's perceptions of each other, but at the very least give an understanding of what it means to be respectful at work, knowing what you can and can do at work and knowing what kind of resources and tools you have to make your life better at work. At the end of the day, that's what employer relations is.

Pete Newsome: 0:58

Thanks, Ricky. Well, talk to me about some common challenges employers face when navigating employer relations and how to best address them.

Ricky Baez: 1:06

Organizations need human beings to succeed and if you have one human being working with another, we are going to have some issues where there's differences of opinion, differences of understanding, differences in communicating and different points of view on established norms, rules and regulations, right. So some of the challenges that we would face is some of these differences that these employees may have could get in the way of productivity. Right, and, at the end of the day, for especially for-profit organizations, that becomes into an issue. So you want to make sure you've got the right people in place from an HR perspective, the right rules and the right people managing those rules, to make sure everybody at work are able to exhibit who they are as an individual but, at the same time, be on the same team when it comes to making sure that the organization attacks X goals, whatever goals they may have for the quarter.

Pete Newsome: 1:55

Now, that's an interesting way to phrase it. You mentioned people being able to exhibit their own personality, but where do you draw the line? Or maybe, how do you balance the need for empathetic understanding with strategic decision making based on the needs of the company?

Ricky Baez: 2:11

And that's the tough part, right. This is the part that I believe machines cannot do. You need human beings to take into account other people's feelings, other people's points of views and the rules and regulations of the organization. And it's a delicate dance, Pete right, Because everybody's different Employee relations from person A can be very different than person B, person C, person D. And what HR professionals and leaders need to be an expert at doing is to make sure, whatever issues are happening in the organization, you fix them or you help solve them in a way that is a perfect balance of the employee gets what he or she wants and the organization still gets to make money with the relationship that the organization has with the employee. That's the difficult part, that delicate dance, and you have to have a really particular set of skills not to sound like that guy from the movie Taken, but you do have to have a particular set of skills to be able to do that successfully.

Pete Newsome: 3:07

Well, a lot of what we see in the country today. Ricky is pretty divisive, we know that, and it's an election year which adds up the intensity even more. We know that. Do you have any advice for companies on how to navigate, let's just say politics, since it's such a prevalent issue right now?

Ricky Baez: 3:22

It's important to set the tone. Part of a leader's job is to set the tone for the organization right, and here's what I mean by that. If the leader can go in front of an organization, like in a town hall, it's just everyday work, that other people can see what he or she does. It is important to let everybody know that, yes, you have the freedom of speech to express who your favorite candidate is, but you have to be able to do it in a way that's respectful. You have to do it in a way that you can get along with other people and, at the end of the day, we have to do it in a way that it does not disrupt business operations. That's the part that's important. It doesn't get in the way of the organization making money and conducting business.

Pete Newsome: 4:04

It is just business, but clearly these days, people want to be heard too. Now you're part of some large HR organizations and associations. How prevalent is this right now? How talked about is it? Or is the workplace pretty much immune from this and it's kind of limited to social media?

Ricky Baez: 4:19

Oh, my God, I wish that was the case. I really wish the big word that's being thrown around right now and Sherm just had a huge conference last month right, the big, big word is civility. Civility, and a couple of months ago I was a host of the Jacksonville Shrimp Conference and I had the opportunity to interview the former kicker for the Jaguars, josh Gobi, and he says something that stuck with me. It really did. He says I don't understand why people feel compelled to be ugly to each other these days, and I thought that was profound because, to me, that hit me, because I'm like you know what.

Ricky Baez: 4:57

We're going through another political cycle. People are at each other's throats and we don't stop to think about why do we think it's okay to do that? Why do we think it's okay to put somebody down? Why do we think it's okay to do all these things? And if we could just take a step back? Right, and here's what I tell all of my leaders If you're having an issue with the office, your goal is to lower the temperature.

Ricky Baez: 5:19

Your goal is not to escalate. Your goal is to take a step back, have everybody take a breather and then have a conversation amicably. Folks remember, human beings are always going to be human beings. They're not always going to be perfect, so some people are going to snap. They're not always going to be perfect, so some people are going to snap. Right, and you just have to be ready for that and be ready to nurture, whatever happens, in a way that the employee knows never to do that again and at the same time, business continues. So lots of patience is what I'm advising people, and de-escalate a situation. Regardless on how you feel about it. You should not escalate a situation any further.

Pete Newsome: 6:01

Well, let's get a little specific if possible, because that's great general advice, but without naming names. Can you provide an example of a particularly complex employee relations issue you've navigated and strategies you could recommend to others?

Ricky Baez: 6:07

So back when I used to work for a Fortune 500 company, christmas time was always the time that I'm like ah, here we go, because it was a call center of 1,400 employees. So obviously you got people who follow Christmas, you get people who don't, you get people who celebrate different things. So as soon as the holiday spirit starts to happen around the call center, a Christmas tree comes up. So here comes the people who don't believe complaining why do we have to see that? What does that have to be seen? What's going on? And then you have the people who have a different faith, right. So, like Jehovah's Witness, how come they can do that and we can't do this? So it's a matter of listening to what they have to say, because as soon as people see something come up that other people are allowed to do, that they are against. They think it's a matter of just sitting down, listening to the employee, listening to their concern, because nine times out of 10, once you listen to what they have to say, that's all they needed. They just wanted to be heard.

Ricky Baez: 7:04

So in the example of Christmas, when somebody complains, how come they get to get a Christmas up and I can't, I'm like nobody's saying you can't have a Christmas tree? Oh, okay, then put a Christmas tree up, right, I had one guy and Pete. This is a hundred percent true, a hundred percent true Ever seen Seinfeld. Of course, somebody wanted to bring a pole and they wanted to celebrate Festivus, right?

Ricky Baez: 7:27

And they did this whole thing. For now I'm not going to lie, he was making fun of the whole thing. He really was right. But other people started complaining because he's saying this is the real Christmas and other people like, no, this is it. So I'm like, look, here's what we need to do.

Ricky Baez: 7:41

This guy has every right to celebrate whatever religious affiliation. Whether you agree with it or not, he can celebrate it. Folks, you can have this discussion, we can have this conversation. What we cannot do is let it get in the way of productivity. What we cannot do is let it get in the way of productivity as soon as it gets in the way of employees producing or, even worse, some other employee who's not involved in this conversation not has to hear this crap people going back and forth for that person for that reason.

Ricky Baez: 8:08

That's when HR steps in and puts a stop to it. Here's what I don't want HR people to do to just stop people from celebrating anything at all, which is a mistake, right, it's a reaction the other way, because then what are you going to have then? Orwell was right back in the book 1984 we're just going to be people, machines in a cubicle, working monday to friday, nine to five. If you want your employees to continue working, if you want your employees to continue showing up to work on monday morning, you've got to give them an environment where they're comfortable to be themselves. So make sure you allow employees to celebrate Christmas, kwanzaa, whatever the case may be, so long as the parameters are in set, where it's done respectfully.

Pete Newsome: 8:48

So, ricky, we've hit the two big ones politics, religion right, covering the basis here. Now there's a third that my mom always said growing up, do not bring up in mixed company, and you know what that is Dog breeds. Don't talk about dog breeds, because everyone will defend their favorite as strongly as anything else. So there we have it Politics, religion, dog breeds, hr challenges for sure. Is there anything else you'd like to share on employee relations before we wrap up? That'll help everyone listen in.

Ricky Baez: 9:17

We talked about the political year and look it's. We have to expect for it to get ugly. So please, if you're a leader out there right now and if you're having a conversation or it's just if you lead other employees, start having the civility conversation now. Be proactive about it. Don't wait until something happens and then have a meeting. Start having these conversations now. You don't necessarily have to address the political factor, but you just have to address how people need to be respectful at work, because there's a really fine line Pete between being animated about something and being insulting about something. So we have to know what that difference is. So my advice is be patient with employees, let them know what a respectful work environment is. Do it proactively and, last but not least, yorkies are the best breed of dogs.

Pete Newsome: 10:04

Well, clearly it's springer Spaniel, Ricky, and I think we can all agree on that. We can't agree on a lot, but I think everyone would agree Springer Spaniel is the best breed. You're with me on that right?

Ricky Baez: 10:14

Nope, Absolutely not no. Yorkies are the best.

Pete Newsome: 10:17

All right. Well, we're going to end the video, say goodbye for now. Thanks for listening. We're going to go fight off camera, but if you have questions, we'd love to hear them and we can answer here. So leave us a comment on employee relations and we'll see you soon. Have a good one, folks.