Click here for this episode’s show notes.

This transcript was created using an automated transcription service and may contain errors.

Susan White (00:02)
They all want to be valued, they want to be seen, they want to be heard. And, you know, I know that’s true of all generations.

Welcome to The JoyPowered® Workspace Podcast, where we help HR and business leaders embrace joy in the workplace. I’m Susan White, owner of Susan Tinder White Consulting. And with me is my dear friend, JoDee Curtis, owner of Purple Ink, a large-scale HR firm that I’m a part of as an executive collaborator.

Today, we’re going to talk about Generation Z in the workplace. For a while, Gen Z had other monikers. People knew it as post-millennials or the iGeneration or even the Homelanders, people that were born when the Department of Homeland Security was stood up in the United States. None of those names really took off except for Gen Z.

Pew Research Center uses 1997 as the birth year where Gen Z started and 2012 as a birth year when Gen Z ends. So that’s really the age group that we’re going to be focusing on today. Workday created a white paper entitled, “Engaging the Workforce Across Generations,” that outlined what Phyllis Weiss Haserot’s research found where general qualities — more general qualities of Gen Zers. So some of you out there are Gen Zers. We’re gonna love to hear from you about do these qualities resonate with you? And others out there, you work with Gen Zers, and so we’d love to hear from you about what you’re experiencing.

But here’s what Phyllis Weiss Haserot’s research told us. First of all, Gen Zers tend to be hardworking problem solvers. They’re concerned with privacy and cybersecurity, much more so than previous generations. That they are value conscious. Usually they’re very devoted to and personally involved in social causes. And usually Gen Zers want prompt and frequent feedback. What they fear and what they don’t want, according to Haserot, includes a loss of privacy. They’re very concerned about maintaining their own cybersecurity. They’re concerned about cyber warfare.

They are afraid of and concerned with environmental harm. They’re more likely to advocate for protection against climate change and things that we can do to prevent it. They tend to be concerned about global economic instability and global terrorism and safety concerns. So their mindset tends to be much more global than the generations before them.

So I am always reluctant to talk in generalities about any generation as they are comprised of unique individuals. But I do think that sometimes there are very general themes that if we are a bit more sensitive to those themes, maybe we can help bring out the best in people and bring about JoyPowered® workspaces.

So for today’s episode, JoDee and I wanted to get some Gen Zers’ perspective on Gen Z. We talked to Anna Park, an HR consultant in the Indianapolis area; Kyle Curtis, a piano technician and mover in Missoula, Montana; Liam Hogan, who is about to start his post-college career at a professional services firm in New York City; Mary Gillett, a high school biology teacher in Colorado; and Ben Holdcraft, an engineering student at Dayton University who just started his final internship before college graduation. Let’s take a listen to what they say.

Susan White (03:52)
We’re not going to ask you to speak for the entire population that is Gen Z, but we’re talking to a variety of people just to get their insights of what it is like to be a Gen Zer in the workplace. Would you mind telling us briefly what type of work do you do?

Anna Park (04:05)
So right now I work as a consultant with Purple Ink, which is an HR consulting firm in Indiana. So it’s newer to me to be in consulting and working fully remotely. Previously, I had been doing on-site HR at a nonprofit.

Kyle Curtis (04:22)
Yeah, I’m a piano technician and mover. So I am basically like an independent contractor and I tune and repair and regulate and move pianos basically for the Missoula and surrounding area.

Liam Hogan (04:42)
When I got to college and started doing internships, my first one was at an accounting firm in Indianapolis. And that was just kind of a great experience being in a professional work environment, kind of seeing how things operate and how everybody kind of moves together. And then this past summer, I worked at my current company, Alvarez & Marsal, and I’ll actually be going back there full time.

Mary Gillett (05:05)
I have worked full-time for a non-profit Catholic missionary organization, and currently I’m working as full-time high school biology teacher at a private Christian high school.

Ben Holdcraft (05:17)
So currently I am an intern at a company called Sargent & Lundy, in which we do a lot of consulting work for, power grids and a lot of stuff related to electricity and power. So currently a lot of what I do is working with power grid design, lot of like substation grid engineering, and all sorts of stuff like that, looking at schematics and doing a lot of calculations and a lot of the fun stuff like that.

Susan White (05:52)
And so would you share with our listeners what drives you or motivates you in the workplace?

Anna Park (05:58)
I think it’s very similar to what motivated me in college and even in high school. I just really like learning. I like learning new things, taking on new challenges, and then eventually, of course, being able to, with those new things that I’m learning, then help drive change.

Kyle Curtis (06:16)
I, what I love most about my job is that I run my own business. I build my own schedule and I basically call all the shots. You know, my like early working experience before I really got into this, I always had a really hard time working for a boss or like working for someone else who, you know, told me when my shifts were or told me when I had to get the work done. Really the kind of the biggest thing that fuels me is that I have, like, total control over my life.

Liam Hogan (06:57)
At least for me, I have kind of, like, this internal pressure that I put on myself, where it’s like, I feel like I have to do the work, and so in my mind, I might as well do it really well and kind of just put my best effort in. But I think that kind of internal pressure that I put on myself is very dependent on who I’m working for. I’m working for someone who I really have a lot of respect for and I think they’re really smart and they care about me and they care about the other employees then I think that pressure that I put on myself is going to be a lot stronger in order to produce my highest quality of work. And so I think it’s really a combination of, like, myself, the pressure I put on myself, and those that I’m working for.

Mary Gillett (07:38)
I think for me, I am motivated by connecting with people at my work, whether it’s my coworkers or students. And just having those interpersonal relationships really motivates me. I’d say also being a good teammate to my coworkers and helping improve our courses that we’re teaching and just helping streamline our curriculum. I’d say I’m motivated by helping improve things that will benefit the entire team.

Ben Holdcraft (08:06)
A lot of it is just wanting to do something that helps people. I mean, obviously engineers, the whole point is to design something new, design something that works for people. And so that’s something that I really enjoy doing. I also like a lot of growth and increasing in my skill set. So learning any, any, anything new for me is, is just kind of right up my alley. So.

Susan White (08:41)
So how do you like to be communicated with?

Anna Park (08:44)
Yeah, so I really like to use Microsoft Teams, which is similar to Slack like you mentioned. It helps me be in contact with my team all throughout the day, providing those, like, real time updates. And then we do weekly calls as well. Email’s fine, calls are fine, but I probably like Teams the best.

Kyle Curtis (09:05)
Really the easiest is phone call. We’re talking in real time and they can say, I want my piano tuned, this is broken, I need you to fix it. It sounds like this. Maybe they even play a note and I get to see how it sounds. Then I can say, let me pull up my schedule. I’ve got an opening next Tuesday. Let’s do it. Instead of, you know, I check my email probably two or three times a day. So if we’re making an appointment over email, it can take multiple days to actually get something on the schedule. And then by the time that they say yes to something, I’ve, like, filled up half of those slots that I offered them.

Liam Hogan (09:50)
Yeah, I think anytime you can have an in-person conversation or even something over Zoom or Teams or on the phone, I think it’s a lot easier to just have thoughts flow. My communication style is more of a direct communication style. I could kind of just be told how it is. If someone has a problem with what I’m doing, I like to be told directly. If I’m doing something very well, I like to be told that directly. I’m not sure how common that is among other people in Gen Z, but…At least that’s kind of my preference and communication style.

Mary Gillett (10:21)
Yeah, at work, would say email is my favorite. I appreciate having things in writing because that will help me remember and I can store the email if I need to go back to it. I also appreciate when an email can, like, remove or free up time for me that, you know, otherwise we would have had to meet in person to communicate certain information. Of course, some things are best, like, in person. If it’s conflict, I’d rather resolve that in person and communicate in person, but in terms of, like, disseminating general information or upcoming events or things like that… email is for sure my favorite.

Ben Holdcraft (10:59)
So I personally am pretty simple if, you know, like, a Teams DM or a Teams meeting or a text message or an email, you know, just something kind of quick and easy usually works best for me. I don’t need anything, anything too complicated.

Susan White (11:17)
What annoys you in the workplace? What are the things get under your skin?

Anna Park (11:21)
Oh, I don’t like having to repeat work. So if I’ve ever thought I was done with something and then it comes back and there was, like, an error or having to adjust or recalibrate that, that can annoy me. And then sometimes I think a generational disconnect is, like, with communication, like, I can read people’s tone wrong in emails. And then when I’ve read the tone wrong and they’re not upset or they are upset, vice versa. That can be like frustrating, like, I wish I could just understand what you were trying to say right off the first jump.

Liam Hogan (11:57)
Yeah, I think it’s kind of on that communication wavelength also where, like, if you just have, like, bad communication among the team or like there’s, like, unrealistic deadlines, there’s lack of guidance, anything that really just kind of makes it more difficult to do the work that you’re given. That’s really what bothers me. I like to just, I like people to be like, hey, we need to do this, this and this. Here’s how we’ve done in the past. Look at those, try and figure it out. If you have problems, come ask me. That’s kind of what I like to see.

It really bothers me when they’re just like, you have to do this now. And there’s no guidance around it. It’s kind of just, like, an assignment given and I have to figure it out, even though I’ve never done it before. Um, or I have no feedback on the work that I’m doing. That’s also really annoying to me.

Mary Gillett (12:42)
I would say when expectations aren’t clear for, like, what a particular part of my role is, it’s if, yeah, I have a lot of things outside of just purely teaching that I do in my job and sometimes they’re less clear as to, like, what’s expected of me. That is really frustrating to me. I would say when those types of extra things like late nights where we have to stay for certain events at the school, if those aren’t communicated far and in advance, that’s really annoying to me. What else? I would just say, yeah, unclear expectations is the biggest one. I like to know kind of policies or know the goal, know what are my top priorities, and that way I can focus my energy there and not be doing things that I don’t even know, like, top priority or, like, where to put my limited time, I guess.

Ben Holdcraft (13:41)
For me personally, I’ve come across a lot of things that are outdated. Just sometimes either it’s like communication systems or programs used. In engineering you’ll use a lot of CAD programs and stuff like that. And so sometimes the newest version isn’t always used, which can be frustrating if you’ve been trained to use the newer version, you have to use an older version.

And then sometimes, being younger and being new to the workforce, sometimes your peers who are a lot more experienced don’t always give you the credit of, of, you know, a new idea or something. So, it can be a little frustrating at first, but I think, you know, over time, I’ll gain the experience and I guess kind of gain the respect too.

Susan White (14:36)
What brings you joy at work?

Anna Park (14:39)
I love being on a connected team. So I’m definitely a people person. I think that’s a big part of working in HR is being able to find joy with other people and find joy solving things for other people. So I love my team, being able to get to know them and work with them. And then like I said, I just love solving problems. I love to check, check a box off on a list. That brings me lot of joy.

Kyle Curtis (15:11)
I am sort of, like, a custodian of the music community. You know, a lot of people get these, like, junker pianos off of Craigslist for free and two hours later, it’s actually pretty decent and they, when I walk away, they are that much more inspired to play their pianos or to sign their kids up for piano lessons. And then those kids end up being a part of the music community for the rest of their lives.

Liam Hogan (15:41)
I think just doing something well and being recognized that I’ve done it well. Like, you know, anytime you’re given an assignment to do, like I said before, I like to put my best effort in and do it as well as I can. And I like being recognized for that. It’s not really fun to think you’ve done something really well and you finally submit it in the box and then you just never hear about it. And it’s just like, okay, what did I do that for? Is that ever even being used or looked at? So yeah, I think just, I think just the joy that I get from being recognized for my work and also just being with my coworkers. I think if you have a good team around you, it makes work so much easier to do.

Mary Gillett (16:21)
I would say connecting with my students day to day. I like also being up on my feet. I am glad that my job isn’t one where I sit at a desk all day. I like moving around, I like being creative. I teach a class multiple times to groups of kids over a day or two, I like… one… every class looks a little different depending on what questions the students ask or if I just get a new idea of how to demonstrate the concept. And I really like being creative, quick on my feet, and kind of molding the lesson to the interests of the students that day and the questions they’re asking. So I like being creative and the planning aspect of my job, like looking over next several weeks and seeing like, what units are coming up and how can we be ready for them? How can we make the test better or just, like, kind of looking at the year as a whole and how we teach a certain curriculum. I like that planning aspect too.

Susan White (17:28)
Are there any misconceptions, do you think, about Gen Z in general that you could shine a light on for us?

Anna Park (17:35)
Yeah, I think something that can be a misidentifier maybe is that asking questions means you were not capable or that you’re dumb. I don’t think any generation does it differently than others, but I think with Gen Z, at least I can speak for myself, is that I ask a lot of questions. I really want to understand something before I start working on it. I don’t want to repeat things. I want to know before I’m getting started. And I think sometimes just there can be that miscommunication of, like, is she asking questions because she doesn’t know how to do her job? Or is she asking questions because she’s not smart? Like that kind of stuff. So I think that can be a misconception. Just wanting to understand before moving forward.

And then I think I’ve read a lot of articles that, like, Gen Z asks for a lot when they’re starting a job. Like, they want the best benefits, they want the best pay, they want the best this, the best that. But I think just in general, like, I think everybody that’s starting in their career or even transitioning to a new job, they are gonna try to get the best that’s out there. So I think that’s a misconception too that Gen Z just, like, isn’t willing to, like, settle or compromise. Cause I would hope that all employees feel like they can like negotiate for what’s gonna be the best for them at a new position.

Liam Hogan (18:56)
I think to a degree it could be, but I think a lot of people think that Gen Z, we don’t care about our work. I think a lot of people think, like, they’re just here to clock in and clock out. They don’t actually care what they’re doing. They want to get the paycheck and get out. And I’m sure there’s a small subset of Gen Zers who operate in that fashion, but I think a good amount of us, probably more than most people realize, actually care about what we’re doing. We want to learn and we want to do our best and learn how to operate in a team and get more experience as we go.

Mary Gillett (19:27)
I’m not sure that I can think of any in particular. I guess for me personally, know Gen Z as a whole probably uses a lot of social media. I don’t really use any social media personally. I guess maybe that stereotype isn’t true of anyone, of everyone in Gen Z.

Ben Holdcraft (19:44)
Probably one of the biggest ones is that, you know, we’re lazy and we care a lot about social media and stuff. And I think, you know, that could apply to, to some, but I think a lot of us are, you know, really hard working, really driven. I mean, I think just about anyone I know my age, you know, has a goal in mind. And I think that, in this day and age, it’s easier to, more than ever easier to be able to go and try to achieve that goal. And a lot of the resources that people have access to can really help.

Susan White (20:30)
What can other generations do at work to help you bring your best self to work?

Anna Park (20:36)
Well, for me specifically, I can only speak for myself. I think it really helps when people are willing to kind of break down the barriers of, like, being really like that at work. Like, I’m a very emotive person. I studied communication in school, so I like to communicate with people. I like to be, like, my full self. So I think when…when other generations and people kind of accept that and they break down that barrier of, like, work and life or work and personality or work and life are separate. Like, I think that that makes work more meaningful and more joyful for me when I’m able to, like, really be my full self, my full personality.

Kyle Curtis (21:20)
I don’t know if this was exactly what you were going for, but I really respect Gen Z’s kind of approach towards work. it’s in general, you know, it’s pretty, like, results oriented instead of time and sacrifice oriented. I don’t know, if you, if you show up and you get the job done and you are a good person and you know, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. Or like, I think that’s awesome. I think that’s what jobs should be about.

Liam Hogan (21:55)
Yeah, I think again, it goes back to communication. If you have great communication, it’s going to make everything better. I think another thing is, like, Gen Zers, we kind of want flexibility in what we do. We will do any assignment, we just want to be able to do it on our own time. We don’t like those unrealistic deadlines where it’s like, we need it in an hour if they don’t really need it in an hour. And, like, at least myself, I’m kind of a night owl. So, my timeline might be shifted a little later in the day than most people. So I like to be able to work in…I like to be able to work at, like, 8 p.m. at night, which I know is not super common, but I like to have that flexibility. And I think when I have that flexibility and when my superiors realize that I’m here to get the job done and do it well, and they provide me with that flexibility and that, like, open line of communication, I think that really just brings out, like, my best self at work.

Mary Gillett (22:46)
I don’t know. I mean, I’m pretty young in my career, so I don’t know if I have great advice, but one thing I think would be helpful to me when I work with some people who are quite a bit older than me in the teaching profession at least is, like, openness to new ideas and fresh ways of looking at things. Just at least being a high school teacher, like, I’m a lot closer in age to the high school students than some of my co-teachers are. I think I have a slightly better pulse on, like, what, what … the 14 and 15 year olds and, like, what they enjoy and, you know, what will connect to them. So I think openness to fresh eyes on a project or a way of doing things that, yeah, maybe could be tweaked or improved I think is nice.

Susan White (23:36)
JoDee, I so enjoyed hearing from those Gen Zers. A nice representation from people all over the United States, right?

JoDee Curtis (23:44)
I loved it. I thought it was fascinating to hear their answers. And as you mentioned earlier about, you know, not stereotyping generations, I think it was good to hear their different perspectives on some of the questions.

Susan White (23:57)
Yes. I agree. You know, a few of my takeaways. First of all, I thought that every person we spoke with just seemed so sharp and confident. For their ages, I thought they were all so very confident. And wants — they all want to be valued, they want to be seen, they want to be heard. And, you know, I know that’s true of all generations. People want to get recognized for what they do. the group we spoke with, they tend not to want to have their time wasted, and they’re going to want recognition for their contributions. Except for one interviewee, they all liked being part of teams and how they connected to those teammates really influenced how much joy they were having on the job. So found that fascinating. And of course, you know the one person that wasn’t really interested in working on a team.

JoDee Curtis (24:49)
Yeah. Right! That was my son Kyle, who’s a business owner and has just always been very independent in what he wants and needs. And, you know, I just think that was a good example, too, of people in every generation have different wants and needs like that as well, too.

Susan White (25:14)
So very true. And it’s working so well for him. And he’s so successful that it’s just, it was fun. Other than that, there seemed to be a tendency to everybody wanting to be part of a very cohesive team. Some surprises that I had, first of all, how differently each of them wanted to be communicated with. I could find no norm, at least in the small sample population that we spoke with. Some preferred emails, some prefer phone calls, some want direct in-person communication, and some favor texts.

JoDee Curtis (25:31)
Nice.

Susan White (25:44)
The lesson for me is that we need to get to know each person and ask questions to understand how they best want to be communicated with.

JoDee Curtis (25:51)
I — that was a real eye opener for me too, as I think that generation gets a rap of only wanting to text or be on social media, and well, that one, Mary, the biology teacher even doesn’t even use social media, right? Yeah.

Susan White (26:09)
Exactly. Right.

Yeah, that was very interesting. And I guess another surprise for me was that young workers do feel that their opinions, their insights, their ideas are sometimes not taken seriously, or even dismissed because of their age. I felt this also when I was young, decades ago, I used to think that, you know, people kind of, you know, listened to me, rolled their eyes a little bit, but then they would go on and do what they thought they knew better, you know, I was just this young punk that had this new idea.

Sounds like we haven’t really evolved on that front that young people do feel like they’re not taken as seriously or what they’re suggesting isn’t taken as seriously. Did that surprise you, JoDee? I think we’ve come a long way in 2025 but maybe not so far.

JoDee Curtis (26:53)
Yeah, I agree. I thought that was interesting that that was a topic as well too. You know, probably just an age. I mean, when all of the generations were in their 20s, maybe we all thought that, just like you said, and as being the new kid on the block. Yeah.

Susan White (27:12)
Yes.

JoDee Curtis (27:18)
This generation seems, as you mentioned about their confidence, that they seem more confident in what they want, which is… when I was in my 20s, I think people didn’t always take me seriously, but I wasn’t always sure I took myself seriously either. They feel more confident about the and suggestions.

Susan White (27:37)
That’s a great point. They do. And they expect to be listened to and they expect to be heard. And I think that is a difference. That’s a great point. Yeah, in my 20s, I was amazed anybody paid attention to me, right? I did not have the confidence, nor did I have the competence that I think that current Gen Zers do. So, excellent.

JoDee Curtis (28:00)
Right. Well, now it’s time for a listener question. And this one came from a listener to our prior episode entitled “Working with Bad Bosses.” It dropped in January of 2025, but we are still having a lot of listeners listen to this episode. But their question was, how can you help a bad boss change his or her leadership style if they are not open to feedback or suggestions?

Susan White (28:32)
Yeah, I think that’s a very legitimate question. I think the first thing is I would need to get to the root of why are they not open to other people’s suggestions or to feedback? I do, as I know you do as well, a lot of coaching of executives and people in the workplace. And I do believe in the model that the very first step of any type of giving feedback and coaching someone, they first have to be made aware there is a problem.

Maybe the bad boss that this listener is, maybe the person doesn’t believe there is a problem. If they don’t really believe there’s a problem, you’re never gonna be able to give them the feedback. So I get that. But usually, if there’s a problem, like there’s turnover happening and people are citing the boss, or there’s employee engagement scores very low, there’s usually you can demonstrate through facts, through data, that we have a problem here and it centers on you. That’s step one.

Step two of being able to really affect change and coach someone to get better, they have to believe they own the problem. They have to feel accountable, at least for their role in it. If they don’t, if this bad boss knows there’s an issue, we’re having a lot of turnover, or people are rating them very low, but they feel that they don’t have control over it, hey, they’ve given me very low budget, people are leaving because…I’m not paying them enough. Well, corporate won’t allow me to give increases or whatever it is. If they don’t own it, I’m not sure I’m trying to sit down and get make that person better is going to work because they feel like a victim. When they own it, then I can get, I have to look at step three, which is, is the person motivated to change?

And if they’re not motivated, they know there’s a problem, they know it’s them or they own a piece of it, but they don’t care or there’s no repercussion to them if they don’t fix it. You’re not going to have any luck fixing that bad boss. But usually what I do there is make my attempt to share with them that, know what, you may be the best middle manager at XYZ company. You might feel like your rewards and benefits are good. Understand that that’s probably, that you’re not going to get promoted to anything else. It’s unlikely that they’re going to pick you for C-suite or higher if you don’t fix this issue. So I try to help them understand why we gotta, gotta turn you from a bad boss into a decent boss. And if I can get us there, then listener, I think you have a chance of getting this bad boss on a better course. If we can’t, if you can’t get them to do that, if they are either not convinced there’s a problem, they don’t convince it, they’re not convinced it’s them and there are no motivation to change, I think maybe you have to decide, is this a bad boss that I need to keep working with or not? They may not deserve you.

JoDee Curtis (31:21)
Right.

Susan White (31:21)
I don’t know, JoDee, any other thoughts you might have?

JoDee Curtis (31:24)
Well, because we just talked about Gen Z, it made me think too, I wonder what the listener’s relationship to this person was. I mean, I assume they report to this bad boss. But let’s say they’re a Gen Z and the boss is in an older generation. Maybe they’re not taking that information seriously from the Gen Z.

Susan White (31:39)
Mm-hmm.

JoDee Curtis (31:53)
Not that they shouldn’t, and that could be a part of why they’re not a good boss. But is there someone in HR or do they have a skip meeting with a boss occasionally that they might be able to have that conversation with or it may be the person needs to hear it from someone else too.

Susan White (32:08)
That’s great advice too. Sometimes we know the problem, we see the path forward, but we don’t have the influence yet with whoever this is. And so can we find somebody who is a good influencer? Sometimes it’s that that person’s boss, or sometimes it’s just somebody else who can come in from the sideways who has that influence to affect change. Yeah, great point. JoDee, it’s time for in the news. An HRdive article dated April 14th, 2025 was entitled “High Heel Dress Code Lawsuit May Proceed, Judge Says.” They had me at high heels. I was interested in reading. Yeah. So there was a cocktail server who worked for MGM National Harbor Casino in Maryland who suffered from plantar fasciitis and asked for accommodation to work in comfortable shoes instead of the required high heels. I have to let my listeners know that I was with JoDee in person this morning and she had some fabulous dazzling shoes that had a heel. So I know, JoDee, that sometimes you go heels. I, on the other hand, I’m wearing flats today.

JoDee Curtis (33:21)
Well, and you know, my heels were very low heel for high heels.

Susan White (33:28)
Okay, but they were heels.

Let’s get back to our poor employee with the casino. After two years of asking for an accommodation starting in 2017, where she was actually accommodated and she was able to wear flat shoes from July 2019 through December of 2021. Things changed. A dress code memo was then issued banning ballerina shoes, Birkenstocks, bedroom slippers — okay, I agree, you shouldn’t wear bedroom slippers anywhere — wedge heels, flip-flops, slingbacks, crocs, or any slipper style sneakers, tennis shoes, or any other shoe with excessive strapping or ornamentation. Seems pretty specific, doesn’t it? The cocktail server was wearing Skechers style black shoes at the time. And so MGM National Harbor took the position she was violating this new dress code and eventually terminated her because of it. I know. A National Law Review attorney’s position noted in this particular article was that US employers generally cannot require employees to wear high heels if that aspect of dress code applies only to women. This is gonna be a very interesting case to watch. So please, let’s all watch it. If we get an update, we’ll certainly come back and give you an update on our podcast. I’ll tell you what, if I had to wear high heels at work, I wouldn’t last a day on my feet. I just wouldn’t.

JoDee Curtis (35:05)
I wouldn’t either. So very interesting. I am anxiously awaiting an update on that one.

If you’re SHRM certified, you can get credit for listening to this episode. To get the code, go to getjoypowered.com slash SHRM and fill out a short evaluation. When you finish the evaluation, you’ll get the code and a link to a proof of participation certificate. The code will expire on June 30th, 2026. And again, that’s getjoypowered.com slash SHRM to get the code and it will expire on June 30th, 2026. Thank you for listening and thank you for your dedication to the HR profession.

Susan White (36:02)
If you like our show, you should check out our Patreon page. We have three monthly membership tiers where you can get perks like early and ad-free access to episodes, video recordings of the episodes, our top action items, and bonus episodes. And if you wanna try it out first, you can sign up for a seven-day free trial.

You’ll get access to past content when you join, so even if we don’t post anything new during your trial period, you can still get a taste of the perks members get. If you’re not ready to sign up for a membership, but you want some of the perks, head over to the shop page on our Patreon. That’s where you can purchase individual episode video recordings, ad-free audio, and bonus episodes. You can find all of this great stuff at patreon.com/joypowered.

That’s patreon dot com slash joypowered. Thanks for listening and for supporting our show.

JoDee Curtis (37:03)
And make it a JoyPowered® day.