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Susan White (00:02)
If you’ve ever hired a babysitter, given a coworker feedback, or helped welcome a new teammate, congratulations! You are already doing HR. You just didn’t know it.

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, an HR consulting practice. With me is my dear friend JoDee Curtis, owner of Purple Ink, a large-scale HR firm that I am also an executive collaborator with.

Today, we’re going to talk about a topic that might sound a little off putting at first: HR for non-HR people. Don’t worry, we’re not gonna overwhelm you with labor law information or bore you with health and welfare benefit considerations. Instead, think of this episode as HR 101 for everyday leaders, employees, and managers who wanna do right by their people without having an HR title or being part of the organization’s people team.

Here’s the truth. If you’ve ever hired a babysitter, given a coworker feedback, or helped welcome a new teammate, congratulations! You are already doing HR. You just didn’t know it.

JoDee Curtis (01:17)
That is so true, right?

Susan White (01:19)
Yeah. Right. Today, we’ll break down the basics. What non-HR folks should know about hiring and firing, onboarding, coaching, and keeping things fair and human at work.

And of course, we’re going to share our JoyPowered® tips all along the way. So grab your coffee, put on your unofficial HR hat, and let’s get started.

Let’s first talk about hiring and firing. JoDee, let’s start with a few statistics so that everybody has kind of some context.

JoDee Curtis (01:52)
So as of August 2025, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that there were 7.2 million open jobs in the US. Interestingly, there is almost 7.6 million unemployed people in the US, the closest to a one-on-one match that we have seen in a very long time between the number of jobs open versus the number of employed in our country.

Unfortunately, there is usually a great disparity between the talent competencies needed for the positions and the people available who have those skills.

Susan White (02:36)
It would be so easy if we could just take every unemployed person and match them with one of our open jobs, but we know that’s not real. Second stat, our September 2025 unemployment rate in the United States is 4.4%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics again, which although slightly higher than it has been over the last few years, it is still a historically challenging job market for our employers; 4.4% is relatively low.

JoDee Curtis (03:03)
Yeah, yeah. And finding the right talent with the right skills in the right location at the right price is not easy. McKinsey and Company reported that only 56% of job offers extended to candidates are accepted and 18% of new hires leave during their probationary period, which typically is within the first six months. So even when you think you’ve found the right person to hire, they may not want to join your company and/or they may not stay.

So I think we can corroborate that story here at Purple Ink in that we’ve had many clients, many more than ever before, who in the past three to six months have extended offers that were not accepted, so it took a few rounds of candidates to get the position actually filled.

Susan White (04:04)
Mm. I think I’m hearing the same thing, that candidates are being much more selective and unfortunately employers are often having lower acceptance rates on offers than they anticipated.

JoDee Curtis (04:20)
Yeah. Yeah.

Susan White (04:21)
On the firing side, 1.7 million Americans were fired or laid off in August of 2025, and year to date, there’s been 13.8 million people who have been involuntarily separated from their jobs in the United States. That just number seems overwhelming, doesn’t it?

JoDee Curtis (04:39)
Yes.

Susan White (04:40)
We hear from our clients that firing someone is often the worst part of their roles as business leaders because they see how hard the impact is on the people that they’re firing. So let’s do some practical hiring and firing tips for our listeners. We understand that it’s challenging on both sides, hiring and firing. So what are some things that we can do?

So before hiring, our first suggestion is be super clear on what skills are essential and which ones are nice to have. JoDee, have you ever had clients come to you with a job description and you read that job description and you think, whoa, that person can walk on water and carry their own buckets. I mean, I don’t think there’s a human being out here who could do that.

JoDee Curtis (05:25)
Right, we have. And even on top of that, looking at some job descriptions or job ads where you might think, oh wow, this person is gonna cost $200,000. And then they tell us the salary is 65,000, right? So.

Susan White (05:40)
Hmm. Right. So we’ve got to make sure it’s the essential functions of the job, right, and let’s not try to get everything in the kitchen sink in who we hire.

So second tip we have on the hiring front, you really do need to understand the market rate of pay for the job you want to fill. And so non-HR folks, you’re not looking at salary surveys all the time. You’re not probably subscribing to industry compensation comparisons and whatnot. But there’s things you can do.

You certainly will have a pulse from the people that you’re interviewing how much money they’re looking for. That’s one data point. You certainly can go to glassdoor.com or indeed.com or anywhere else that people are reporting their salaries. And then also it wouldn’t hurt if you are part of an industry association to check and see if they’re doing any data tracking on this front. You want to have a realistic idea of what it costs to get the talent that you need.

And once you know how much it costs — that you think it costs to attract talent, you need to take a look at your own workforce. Business leaders, is it possible that you’ve got folks inside your organization who have been true and faithful servants to your business and you’ve not brought them along quickly enough, compensation wise, so that if you hire somebody from the outside, you’re actually going to have salary compression, you’re gonna end up having people earning less than that person that you brought in off the street?

So before you make that offer, before you create that employee-relations nightmare, take a look at your own salaries and decide maybe I need to make some adjustments before I do extend this offer to an external person at what I think market rate is. JoDee, I bet you do a lot of consulting on this.

JoDee Curtis (07:26)
Yes, and we do a lot of consulting on it because people don’t know those answers, right? Or they’re not really thinking — they’re thinking about the one person they might be hiring and not their current employees and where they’re at and what… especially with the transparency laws too, where you’re required to publish a range for the position and then your own employees are seeing that information.

Susan White (07:58)
I think that’s a really good point. I’m glad you brought up pay transparency. We know in some states and some locales, it is law. Now here, where we broadcast from in Indiana, it is not the law. You don’t have to post it. However, most employers are doing it because your postings may be going across state lines. You may want to attract talent from geographies where really viable candidates are. We’ve done a podcast on this before, but we’re both in favor of honoring the pay transparency law, whether you’re required to or not.

JoDee Curtis (08:29)
Right. Right.

Also, use structured interviews, right? That is, ask the same questions, have the same format for all candidates that you are interviewing for a position. This helps to avoid bias, whether unconscious or conscious. You, you might see that someone was in the same sorority as you and start talking about that for a good part of the interview, and then you might find yourself more intrigued with that candidate because of the sorority they’re in as opposed to skills, experiences, and other things you’re really looking for.

Susan White (09:14)
That’s a great point. You could have a great interview with someone, but then you pay for it for the rest of that person’s employment with you because you didn’t really get to the skills and competencies needed. Yeah, that’s great.

And then our final tip on hiring is make sure that you recognize when you do bring someone in from the outside, that you really, they’re not finished with the hiring process until they’re truly onboarded and assimilated into your company. So I know we put a lot of energy into wooing candidates, they put a lot of energy in getting the job. Let’s make sure when they show up that we spend a good amount of time, especially that first year, sharing with them our expectations and involving them in our company culture, doing regular check-ins, really helping them get immersed so that they feel welcomed and part of our team.

All right, so let’s move on to some JoyPowered® tips that we have about firing, which I know seems like an oxymoron, but there are ways that you can do firings or layoffs or discharges, I think, in a respectful way.

JoDee Curtis (10:17)
The first step is to ensure that the process is fair, consistent, and well documented. Who is being let go, right? Is it departments? Is it skill sets? Is it levels? Make sure, again, that you’re avoiding bias with individual people or with individual traits that are not consistent across the board.

Susan White (10:46)
You’ve got to have the why of what we’re doing. You want to document it. It just makes all the sense in the world.

And then when you’re doing it, our second tip is you really do need to demonstrate empathy and humility. Recognize there’s ownership, usually, if it’s a performance issue, on both parts. Maybe the individual who you’re letting go for being a poor performer, maybe we shouldn’t have hired them in the first place for that job. Maybe we thought that they could do more than they could do. Maybe we didn’t train, coach, mentor to the degree that person needed. Maybe we didn’t have the time to do it, who knows?

But recognize that the person that you’re letting go, especially in a performance situation, they’re not a bad person, it just was a bad fit, right? I also think when it’s layoffs and it’s lots of people, that even, it’s even more important, I think, to remember that humility and that empathy, because most of the time, those individuals, by no fault of their own, are finding themselves sitting in the wrong chair at the wrong time. And so how you as that non-HR manager or teammate handles it can really make a difference.

JoDee Curtis (11:51)
Right, Also communicate honestly about reasons, right? At a broader scope, you know, are sales down or net income is down and so you’re being forced to make cutbacks for financial reasons or is it their individual performance and have you had conversations with them and have you documented incidents on that or maybe there… you, you have hard data to show they’re not meeting their sales quota. Be very clear to people with what is happening because without clarity, people make assumptions and it’s best to just be honest.

Susan White (12:37)
So true. JoDee and I are both big believers that you offer transition, help, resources when you are exiting someone from your company. We’ve done a prior podcast called “[Offering] Outplacement? Outstanding!” I think that it’s worth going back and taking a listen to. Helping people land on their feet, whether that was a good or bad experience they had with you, how they leave is gonna be remembered. So if you can help them get a resume together, if you can help point them to new jobs, all of those things will be, I think, really help your employment brand and hopefully that person’s feelings about you and your organization.

JoDee Curtis (13:15)
And also think ahead about, you know, if you have a formal workplace plan in place, to think about what skills might you need later or what’s upcoming or what new products or what new divisions or locations might you have so that you don’t cut roles or people with specific skills you’ll need down the road. You don’t want to regret letting people go a month, two months, six months later.

Susan White (13:47)
So many organizations are thinking about, can I re-skill this person? Can I repurpose this role? And taking the time to do that, again, your employment brand will just really be strong, I think. Plus, you get people that you know their integrity, you know their work ethic, and then maybe you spend time and money teaching them new skills. So, well, good luck on the hiring and firing. Certainly if you have more questions, we love getting questions and as you know, every episode we answer them. So feel free on hiring and firing to send in questions.

JoDee Curtis (13:51)
Yeah. Yeah.

Susan White (14:16)
So let’s move on to what we think is the second core area for non-HR people, and that really, I think fundamental area is managing performance. HR often gets involved when there’s an HR department, but assuming you don’t have an HR department or there’s nobody available to kind of guide you through it, we think there’s some real simple things to keep in mind.

The first one is you gotta make sure that all of your employees have goals, that they have specific, measurable, achievable, reasonable, time-based goals, the old SMART model, because it’s really hard to manage performance if someone doesn’t have a goal they need to achieve. For you saying that they’re not very good at something without them knowing how much of what they need to do by when, it’s going to be a very difficult circular conversation.

Make sure that as simple or as complicated as you think it needs to be, make sure every individual has goals that they’re measured against and then you have communication with them. When they’re meeting them, you’re praising them. And when they’re not, you’re talking about the consequences and how to keep them accountable.

JoDee Curtis (15:21)
Yeah, yeah. And that goes along with number two, which is communicating the rules of the road. So not only having SMART goals established, but also just communicating expectations, right? Which I always say, think clarity in communications is the — or clarity in setting expectations is the key to life, right? Whether it’s your kids or your spouse or your employees to say, you know, if you want people to be on time for work, tell them what is on time, right?

Susan White (15:57)
Right.

JoDee Curtis (15:58)
That is, we make assumptions, I think, sometimes that people — that we say get to work on time. Well, what time is that? Is that eight o’clock? Is it 8:15? Is it 9:30? Right? If we’re telling our kids, you know, to be home early versus 10 o’clock or whatever time… be very clear in all expectations.

Susan White (16:25)
That’s great. It’s why many companies will put together an employee handbook or kind of, like, work rules so that there aren’t surprises. So I think that’s an excellent one. The third one is you really need, if you’re managing performance well, you are giving frequent feedback, good and bad. You’re not micromanaging. You’re not breathing down that employee’s neck, but you are with — at least daily commenting on something that they’re doing well, something you appreciate, something that maybe we want to approach that differently. But you’ve got to be doing frequent communication with your staff.

JoDee Curtis (16:59)
So important. So, and number four, we said — we talked about empathy in firing above, but just being empathetic in working with people, right? So understanding they may have a different style or a different perspective, but that still means we have to hold them accountable, right? We have to say what we mean and we have to hold them accountable for being there. If we said be there at eight o’clock and they’re not, we need to have that conversation and reset expectations around it and make decisions if they’re not coming in on time.

Susan White (17:42)
Yeah, I love what you said about, you know, you’ve got to understand their styles, meet people where they are. The very best definition I ever heard was on an earlier podcast of ours with a guest, and they said that emotional intelligence is understanding our own emotions and managing them, understanding others’ emotions and relating to them. So that’s where I think empathy really is important for all of you leading, leading teams and people.

JoDee Curtis (18:00)
Yeah.

Susan White (18:07)
Well, our fifth suggestion here about managing performance is to think about having a discipline process. And many of you have worked in large organizations, you probably know there’s usually a three-step process. When somebody is doing something wrong, you coach them or give them a verbal warning. If it doesn’t get better, you put them on a written warning. If it doesn’t get better, you put them on a final written warning or some organizations call it probation. And then if it still isn’t good, you let them go.

I would say depending on the size of your organization, you’ll figure out what is fair and if it’s a two-step process, three-step process, maybe a four-step, depending on your culture. But you wanna make sure that it’s no surprise to people so that people understand there’s a progressive disciplinary process we have here. And here’s what it looks like, here’s what it feels like. We don’t want you surprised that… getting a written warning. We want you to know that written warnings do exist. So be transparent about it and then to follow it consistently, That’s going to be the best way to avoid risk into your organization.

JoDee Curtis (19:09)
And then documentation. I know many of you probably groaned out loud when you heard that word because that’s… you know, people think of, I have to document everything, it takes so much time, it’s so much work. But it really isn’t a big deal if we do it consistently. It’s a big deal when we don’t keep documentation and then we’re trying to go back and document everything we knew about for the last month, right?

But even — let’s go back to my example about setting expectations of being at work at eight o’clock, right? And if you observe someone walking in the door at 8:10 with a Starbucks coffee in their hand, I personally send myself an email, you know, and I would say employee arrived Starbucks in hand at 8:10 on this date, and then I transfer that into their employee file.

So keep it simple, just be consistent with it. And I know not all situations are that simple, but make it as simple and less cumbersome… by doing it more often makes it less cumbersome. Also too though, don’t forget to document the good, right? So let’s say the employee came in at 7:45 five days in a row. Write that down too, right? As they took it to heart. Otherwise, three weeks from now, if you notice them racing through the door at 8:05 when maybe something major kept them from getting to work on time that day, you’re not going to just document the times only when they were late.

Susan White (21:01)
That’s great. I love that advice. Okay, so let’s go to our third fundamental area for non-HR managers that we think you want to have a handle on, and that is engaging and developing your team. If people have been put underneath your charge, you owe them the attention, the care, the feeding, the nurturing for their career.

And so I think the very first thing that’s important for all people leaders to do is to help each one of their staff members understand why their job matters. What is the value that they’re bringing by the work that they’re doing? I think it’s important for them if it’s not just obvious to them, that it’s going to help them relate more to their work. They’re going to align more with your mission if they understand their job really matters. And I also think it’s important that they know their boss knows that their job really matters. So it’s a two-way win in my opinion.

JoDee Curtis (21:54)
Yeah. Yeah. Number two, learning what drives each individual. And this is — sounds easy, but it’s not always easy if you’re supervising, say, 20 people, right? And to understand each individual, you won’t be surprised that I suggest CliftonStrengths® assessment.

Susan White (22:10)
Yeah.

JoDee Curtis (22:17)
Because that’s really — what our strengths are is what drives us in our work. But another way to do it is sit down and ask the person what drives you, right? Are you motivated by money? Are you motivated by time off? Are you motivated by challenging assignments, right? What is it that drives them that you can keep in your pocket, right, when you have a new project coming up or a new assignment?

Susan White (22:52)
Right, then you can feed it, which is exactly what number three is. Provide the coaching style and resources that help each individual grow, and it will be different. And unfortunately, if you have 20 people reporting to you, you’re gonna be really, really busy because you do want to make sure that you’re providing that kind of support that they need. And you need to take the time, as JoDee just mentioned, to understand what it is.

JoDee Curtis (23:15)
Yeah, Number four, hold supervisors accountable for re-recruiting their team members every day. You know, sometimes we get excited about bringing in new people to our teams or, you know, replacing people that left, but don’t forget about the people who have stuck with you, who have been there, and think about re-recruiting them so that you’re not surprised when they announce they’re leaving, right? Have conversations with them.

Susan White (23:49)
At a company that I used to work for, the managers and supervisors were held accountable for their turnover. And so it was part of their scorecard that they wanted to retain staff. Now, if there was a performance problem or undesired turnover, we could pull that out. But for good to great performers, it was… the supervisor had to answer for the fact that they were not able to retain them. So I do think that can be something you think about. Managers who lose staff and they, they don’t think it’s a reflection on them are kidding themselves. There’s always a piece of it that the manager owns.

JoDee Curtis (24:22)
Yeah.

Susan White (24:23)
The fifth idea we’ve got for this engaging and developing your team, make sure that there’s multiple ways that employees can communicate up and out in your organization. You know, so much of the effort that we do as supervisors and managers is making sure we’re educating, communicating to our employees. Let’s make sure that they have ample opportunity and they’ve had agency to speak up, to share their ideas, to let leadership know when they think that leadership is on the wrong track without some type of a punitive response. So figure out what can we do to make sure that employees are heard.

Many organizations we work with do employee engagement surveys that are anonymous. So employees can do it that way. But many other organizations will also have, like, stay interviews that they conduct with employees about what keeps you here. What could we be doing differently? They have town halls where they absolutely encourage employees to ask questions and the response of management is not defensive, it’s welcoming. So think about what can we do to make sure that there’s really strong two-way communication happening everywhere.

JoDee Curtis (25:29)
Right. Number six: frequent, transparent leadership communication. And that’s really where they can acknowledge realities. Maybe it’s a tough economy for our product right now, or sales are up, so there’s a lot of overtime, or sales are down, so we may have some layoffs, right? Admit mistakes, apologize, but also celebrate the achievement of goals and values too. And Susan, you just mentioned town halls can be a way to do that. It can be video messaging. It can be emails. It can be an internal podcast, right? There’s lots… And we encourage thinking about different mediums for those, right?

Susan White (26:16)
Keep it fresh. Yeah, I love that. Well, number seven on our list about engaging and developing your team may surprise you, but we think it’s not necessarily one, two, three, or four. That is thinking about, are you rewarding your employees financially to the degree they need? Are you providing good compensation, good benefits, incentives, perks? Have you made this an attractive place to stay?

And so it is important to look annually or maybe every couple of years, compare yourself. How are we doing against competitors? How are we doing in this market? What are our employees telling us? Do we need to up our game? So it’s important. People, they may love you, but if you fall behind the curve in the total reward space, it’s going to be very difficult for them to make that decision to stay.

JoDee Curtis (27:03)
Yeah.

Susan White (27:04)
So our fourth area and final area that we’re gonna put on all of you non-HR managers is the legal area, staying compliant with the law. As employers, you have responsibilities and you as a non-HR person are probably thinking, what are they? How do we go about this? What ideas do you have, JoDee?

JoDee Curtis (27:24)
Well, number one, if you don’t have an experienced HR person at your organization, identify a labor law subject matter expert, right? And that might be someone internal or external, might be legal counsel. Have that person be your advisor. Don’t wait to shop for one when you need it, right, when you get that demand letter or litigation charges or whatever else might happen. Have someone available to assist you with those. And run your employee handbook and HR policies in front of them too, so that they keep up to date on your policies, but also that you ensure your policies are up to date as well.

Susan White (28:15)
Yeah, I think that’s very smart. I’m a big fan of going to any local law firms’ employment law updates in the locations where you have employees working because local laws, state laws are always changing. The federal space, you can pretty much, you know, feel pretty comfortable because there’s always a lot of news around it. You’re paying attention for your primary workplace, but the state and local laws are forever being tweaked and changed and so on and so forth. So I think it’s important, if there’s law firms in the places where you’ve got people working, try to hook into any free offerings that they give.

JoDee Curtis (28:51)
Yeah. And those might be online too, or free webinars. There’s a lot of those available online for free or for very reduced fees as well. And think about subscribing to employment poster update services so you receive new posters as federal, state, and local laws change in all the locations where you have employees.

Susan White (28:54)
Yeah, good point.

And then finally, I would talk to any of your vendors who support any part of your efforts. So if you have a payroll vendor who’s doing it for you externally, talk to them about if they provide services from a compliance standpoint. Any benefit organization, whoever you carry your benefits with or your benefit broker, talk to them about who they might recommend.

If you have an applicant tracking system, maybe there’s also some consulting services that they can give you on compliance, whoever runs your HRIS system, so on and so forth. There’s usually a lot of people like JoDee and I that are in lot of communities too, independent HR consultants who you might want to engage with. But don’t wait until you have a problem is our final point there. You want to make sure you stay in compliance. So talk to people, figure out what is going to be your line of defense to make sure you’re doing things right.

JoDee Curtis (30:12)
Yeah.

Susan White (30:12)
All right, well, JoDee, because we are talking about HR for non-HR people, and we don’t have a guest, I’m going to ask you our JoyPowered® question. It’s our tradition in all of our episodes to do that. So JoDee, where have you seen non-HR people find joy in getting involved with HR activities?

JoDee Curtis (30:33)
Well, I was thinking that you and I are probably the best example of that because neither one of us started our careers in HR. So we were non-HR people who started taking on more HR type roles or functions. For me, it was getting involved in recruiting was my first step. And I realized I loved that.

But you know, too, many of our clients’ organizations, it does fall on the, if they don’t have a separate HR department, it many times for whatever reason falls on the accounting team. I think because likely they’re running payroll and may be involved in the benefits, and so suddenly accounting people get more involved in HR.

But I have found many people over the years… I have a friend who’s an engineer who transitioned into HR because they were taking on so many HR tasks already anyway. Even a physician I know who was in active practice started taking on more administrative roles at the hospital and found himself not in an HR role, but being very involved in a lot of HR scenarios.

Susan White (32:03)
I think you’re right. I believe that I’ve met so many HR people over my career. I believe that people really genuinely like people and they get a chance to do some interviewing or they get a chance to help kind of work through an employee conflict and they come out on the other side of it stronger, that we get a lot of people who come into HR because they have really good business knowledge, but they really enjoy helping make people better, helping people realize their dreams.

I think it’s joyful. So listeners, some of you, I hope that you are loving the people involvement that you have in your work. And who knows, you may someday join us in the profession. But if not, hopefully after today, you feel like you’ve got some real good, simple ideas.

JoDee Curtis (32:44)
Right, Well, now it’s time for our listener question. Susan, one of our listeners asks, “What advice do you have for someone who’s trying to specialize in the HR field from being an HR generalist?”

Susan White (33:00)
First of all, I think coming from a generalist background is ideal for any HR specialist role that you decide to go into. Your wider perspective across the HR function is gonna help you be a better specialist. You’re gonna be able to advise, I think, clients better because you’ve got the whole picture and not just a slice of it.

I started as an HR generalist after I was in our branch world in banking, and it was great for me. I was focusing primarily on employment and employee relations and projects, which helped me when I ended up becoming, like, a comp specialist. So I got involved as a generalist with different lines of business, and as they had needs, I would need to go to specialists and say, here’s what our issue is, and I’d get a chance to see and observe them working through issues. It was just great, great, like, on the job type of learning.

When I eventually became an HRBP, having a generalist background was very attractive because I had had that wide breadth of knowledge. So I think, don’t sell yourself short. I think that when opportunities come along in other organizations to be an HRBP or to be a HR manager of some kind, I would promote the fact that you’ve had your hands in lots of different parts of HR.

I guess secondly, advice on how to make that move, I recommend maybe studying and getting a specialty credential. If there’s an area that’s particularly attractive to you, let’s say it’s compensation, there’s certainly compensation certification that’s out there. SHRM also has classes on compensation. If you wanted to go into ER, SHRM’s Workplace Investigations Specialty Credential, that’s nice to have in the employee relations to be able to run investigations.

There’s also at local universities, they have a number of courses about different parts of HR. Go ahead and take those courses. Go ahead and get that, some of the book work behind you. You’re going to have a lot of practical experience. But with that, those credentials or having taken some courses, it might just make you a more attractive candidate for one of those specialist jobs.

JoDee, any other advice you might have?

JoDee Curtis (35:08)
Well, I think that was great advice and I too started, actually spent the majority of my career as a generalist. Even when I was HR director and a VP of HR, I still considered myself very much a generalist and really was not — until after I started Purple Ink, working in… I mean, I was doing everything in HR, but really found my passion in training was something that I, so that’s what I do most of now. So just trying different things, figuring out what you like. And then I think your advice on getting certifications or additional education is wise.

Susan White (35:52)
That’s great. One last thing I just thought of is maybe you volunteer to start something in your company that hasn’t been done before. Maybe you’re reading HR journals or any of the blogs out there and you hear about something. You know what? We’ve never done succession planning, for example. Let me work on pulling that together and standing it up. You’re gonna actually be able to get some real-world experience doing something in a specialty area, talent management, for example, and that’s going to serve you well as you look for other jobs that are more specialist related.

So if it’s training that you love, like JoDee, well, maybe there’s a training program I could stand up here, I could deliver. It’s going to get you real cred when you eventually interview for that training role.

Alright, JoDee, it’s time for In the News. An HRdive.com article on October 1st, 2025 was entitled, “Workers are avoiding advancement. How can HR adjust when no one wants to lead?” Yikes. This article was written by Caroline Colvin and it caught our interest. Colvin uses a new term that I had not heard of called “conscious unbossing.” Conscious unbossing, right? I don’t want to be the boss.

This term reflects the growing trend, especially with Gen Zers, she says, that fewer people want to be supervisors of other people. She cited research from Express Employment Professionals that the majority of Gen Zers, those are people born between 1997 and 2012, would rather be an individual contributor. Supervisor roles can be viewed as potentially harmful to one’s mental health and well-being.

There is stress with it. JoDee, as you know, managing other people does bring a layer of stress. Does this surprise you, though?

JoDee Curtis (37:36)
Yeah. Well, I do feel like I’ve been hearing it more and more. So I guess it doesn’t. I never had that feeling at all that I didn’t want to lead others, so it’s very opposite of my own history, but I can see it, right? It gets more complicated when you’re leading people, for sure.

Susan White (37:51)
Yes. And unlike you… like you, I did spend most of my career managing other people, really from my early 20s until, gosh, my mid 50s. And I have to say, I am not sure that was the right route for me. I love, love, love being responsible just for me and not worried about anybody else, their family, what’s going to happen to them. It’s very liberating and very freeing for me. So.

JoDee Curtis (38:08)
Yeah. Yeah.

Susan White (38:27)
I kind of do, can relate a little bit to the conscious unbossing. I didn’t think it was an option if I wanted to advance in my career, but maybe, maybe times have changed.

We have seen many people who were the best engineer or the best salesperson or the best whatever promoted to supervisors, hoping that whatever they were really good at would be instilled in the people who worked for them. Often it doesn’t work because they may not have the people leading skills that they need. They may not know, that wonderful, wonderful engineer, how to transfer their skills and abilities to the people underneath them.

I do think that conscious unbossing can be really good. If people feel comfortable and confident, can still ascend in their career without taking on others, and then if we can leave those jobs of bosses to people who really love to coach and to mentor and to develop, I think we’d have better workplaces.

So some practical things that HR can do in reaction to this whole concept of conscious unbossing might be, first of all, be reasonable what supervisors’ expectations are. According to Colvin, you can make sure that your supervisors are not gonna be put under undue pressure and that we’re really equipping the people who say yes to the boss assignment to be good at what they’re — at leading other people.

You know, give them the coaching, the mentoring they need to be people leaders. And then really reward them for that supervisory path, for taking on the responsibility of other people. Maybe by doing those things, we can get some of the people who are today consciously unbossing to take a second look at opportunities.

JoDee Curtis (40:09)
Yeah, I think that is so important that we do both of those things. And I think people probably look up and see bad supervisors or managers and then think, I don’t want to do that. But it’s because… a lot of times it may be because we haven’t, haven’t trained them, we haven’t supported them, we haven’t given them tools, we’ve thought it was a nice bonus to make them in charge of people because of their good work. And yet, and then we watched them fail to achieve success in that.

Susan White (40:41)
Yes. Yeah, and not only do they fail, the people underneath them generally fail because they didn’t get good leadership. Yeah, very true. Very good food for thought. 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 January 12th, 2027. Again, that’s getjoypowered.com slash shrm to get the code and it’s going to expire on January 12th, 2027. Thank you for listening and thank you for your dedication to the HR profession.

JoDee Curtis (41:33)
Thanks for listening and make it a Joy Powered Day.

Susan White (41:38)
Thank you.