Welcome to The HR Connection, the podcast built solely for those managing human resources in a 1 to 500 employee organization. My name is Sabrina Baker, and today Marie and I are going to be talking about this phenomenon that seems to happen quite often in small businesses where HR is always used as the bad guy. We are going to talk through some scenarios that we think are very common that HR has to handle, like sharing disappointing news, doing performance discussions, terminating employees. And then we'll talk about what we have done or what we have seen work well to set appropriate boundaries and help leaders learn how to handle some of these discussions without us. Marie Today we're talking about something every person in HR has experienced. And if you're an HR department of one, you've probably experienced it more times than you can count. It's that moment when you become that messenger everyone wants to blame. You know what I'm talking about. Leadership wants you to deliver bad news about benefit changes, communicate an unpopular return to office policy, or be the one in the termination meeting because the manager doesn't want to do it. And suddenly, because of all of these things, you are the bad guy. You're the enforcer, the person employees avoid in the hallway. So today we're talking about how this happens, why it's especially tough in small businesses, and most importantly, how to reframe your role so you're seen as a partner and trusted advisor, not just the person delivering bad news. Sabrina, I know that we see this all the time with the clients at Acacia. Where do you want to start? Sabrina Here's the deal. Here's what I think happens. When we think about small businesses, 1 to 500 employees, you have a wide range of numbers there where HR could be introduced. It could be introduced early at like 10, 15 employees. It could be introduced at 40 employees, at 150 employees. Who knows? And whenever it's introduced, it's because something has happened to make HR a priority all of a sudden. We know that founders, small business CEOs do not make HR a priority in the beginning. It's sales, it's marketing, it's product, it's development, and it is not going to be HR. They know they need to hire people for that, but they think they can wing HR. So at some point, something happens where they realize they need HR. And usually what we know to be true is that that thing that happens is either they have some kind of lawsuit or legal thing happen, or they have employee relations issues, which just absolutely hit the fan and go crazy, and they're starting to have way too many people problems for them to be able to handle. And so they realize they need somebody to handle that full time. Then they come in, they bring an HR person in, and that person becomes the default for anything people. It's why we also get stuck planning parties all the time, because anything related to people, now this person has to do because it was the people issues that triggered their hiring. Marie And I think in small businesses, that dynamic is even more intense, right? Because when you're just that HR department of one, you don't really have that buffer that larger organizations have. There's no layers between you and the employees. Like, it's just you. Like, you're it. So that means that you become the face of every policy change, every tough convo, or every popular decision that gets made. And then something that you and I have talked about a lot is the relationships are closer in small businesses, right? So it's like when you do have to deliver the bad news, it hits even harder. And people, you know, they start to feel betrayed by you. They thought you were on their side, so they don't understand why you didn't give them a heads up. And something else, it's important to understand that leadership, they tend to use HR as that scapegoat, right? They don't want to be the bad guy in any sense. So they just ask you to deliver that message, and then you're just there left holding the bag. Sabrina And we see this with our clients too. This is not just something that in-house HR faces. We come into client organizations, and the minute they bring us on, same thing. They see us as anything people. And so we've got really good leaders who will default to us for these conversations because just what you just said, they don't want to be the bad guy. They don't want to have the difficult conversations, especially if it's with somebody who's been with them for a long time, or maybe it's a family member, or it's a high-performing employee. They don't want to be or know how to be, right? That's a whole other topic. They've never been trained on how to deliver those messages. And they just think HR is the person who should do that anyway. HR is good at it. So I'm just going to default and let my HR person handle every single conversation that has especially a negative connotation. Marie When we think about small business, do you think it's worse in a small business because of that immature leadership, or is it something else? Sabrina Yeah, I think it's worse because of immature leadership and the relationships too. So you have like kind of that combined you have a lot of homegrown leaders. We talk about this all the time, right? Homegrown leaders inside of a small business that have never gone through any development. They've never been trained on how to give feedback or how to have constructive conversations. So you have these immature leaders that just really don't know how to handle some of these situations. And then you have that relationship piece where on top of it, everybody's really, really close. And they are working in close quarters all the time together. And there's a lot of personality and feelings that go into it because of the work they're trying to do together. They're all in this like pod trying to build this business. And so there's like that relationship that comes from just that scrappiness. And so I think when you have all of that combined, it's just this powder keg of nobody wants to be the bad guy. Nobody wants to. And so HR makes sense to be that person. So let's just make them do it. Marie So let's talk about specific ways this plays out, because I do think that there are a few scenarios that are really common in small businesses. And I want people listening to know if this is happening to you, you are not alone. I also want to make it clear that we understand that as consultants, our influence is going to be different when it comes to how we support our small business clients. So trust and understand that what we have to share with you is coming from a place of we know where you've been, and so we want to help you. The first scenario we want to talk about is when leadership asks you to deliver bad news that they just don't want to deliver themselves. Sabrina, can you give an example of what this looks like? Sabrina You know, there's lots of them. Anything around benefit changes, pay freezes, maybe somebody leaves and we're not going to replace them, and so we're dumping all of that work on somebody else. There's layoffs potentially that are going to have to happen, and you're going to have to be the person to deliver that bad news. And where I think that this one gets really hard is when you had no say in the decision. When they decided to do these pay freezes, or they decided to choose a different benefit plan that is maybe less rich and saves them money, but not really the employee, and you really didn't have a say in that, or you had no control, that's really difficult then for you to be expected to go and be that bad guy who has to deliver that news. And this one, I think, is the one that probably makes HR professionals burn out the fastest just because of that very reason. They have no decision-making power, yet they're expected to be that messenger. I see articles all the time when we see like even just recently, Amazon had another just absolute crap show of layoffs, right, where people got notices a day early or something. I think that was like this weekend. And I see all the time, like, where was HR? Where was HR? And I want to say they were probably screaming from the rooftops that this was going to be a mess, and nobody listened. And we definitely have that in small businesses where even with us, with our clients, we will go, you know, we can think of clients right now where we have gone and said, this is going to be a mess for you. This is going to be employees are going to revolt. They're going to not like this. This is going to be really difficult. We should come up with a really like, if this is the decision you're going to make, we can't stop you, but we should come up with a really good communication plan or talk about how we're all going to deliver this message. And they don't listen. And what happens? Exactly what we said. It happens. Marie The second scenario is enforcing or communicating unpopular policies. So I think return to office mandates are a big one right now, or they were in the past few years. New PTO policies, whether that's vacation, sick time, or unlimited. Changes to remote work. And HR becomes the face of that pushback, right? You're the one answering the questions. You're the one dealing with the frustration, even though you didn't create the policy or encourage the creation of that policy. Have you seen this blow up with any of our clients, like where that policy rollout just went sideways? Sabrina You know, I think that early on, definitely. So early on in the business, I don't think that I came in, especially when I was by myself. I did not come in and establish myself as the authority that we do now. You know, when we come in now, they're hiring us to be experts. They're hiring us to handle things like this for them and guide them through things like this. And so when I think about the clients in the last couple of years, especially since the pandemic, that have rolled out like return to work policies, while I can't say it was handled 100% the way we would want it to, we did have a pretty big voice in at least the initial how the communication should be handled and who should be involved in it and the time frame we should give people to adjust. But early on, when I did not establish from the get-go that I was kind of the voice that they really should be listening to around these kinds of things, I can remember a client who, without talking to me, went from unlimited PTO to accrual and decided that they were not going to make any concessions around length of time that somebody had been there. So they wanted to roll out just one pay time off policy and give everybody two weeks of accrual. They started accruing. So literally, on the day that they rolled this out, they were like, you have zero hours. And when I saw the email with everybody else, and I had this it was a newer client. Maybe I was four months in, and they just hadn't thought about me in that way, I guess, of guiding them through this. I was just kind of their cleanup crew, I think. And I remember seeing the email with everybody else and going, this is a nightmare. And then, of course, the email reply started coming from employees who had been there 20 years, right, and had gone this was like their fifth PTO change. And 20 years, and you're giving me two weeks. Are you crazy? And then we had to regroup and almost like, forget what we just said. We're back on unlimited PTO for now. And then let me work with you to figure out a real plan. And still, even I couldn't get them to budge on some things that made me then be the messenger and the bad guy around some of the changes that we knew employees weren't going to like. And so I think that sometimes leaders just don't think it's going to be as impactful as it's going to be. And a lot of times, that's because it doesn't impact them, right? So they have unlimited PTO, or they have whatever they need, and they're not thinking that it's going to impact people the way that it does impact people, especially something like return to work or pay time off policies. And so they just make those changes and then want you to roll them out without thinking through, like, this is really going to be a big deal. This is going to be impactful. This is going to really piss some people off. And it can be an absolute nightmare when you just go send an email. And then not even just the rollout, but the enforcing of it, right? So we have then you have this you're supposed to be in the office two days a week, and HR somehow becomes the police of that, like with their little clipboard every day, checking, doing a roll call, an attendance list, like a teacher. Nobody else is enforcing it. Leaders are kind of loosey-goosey with it, even though it was their policy that they wanted. And then you have HR who is like the enforcer of that. And if the CEO thinks that somebody's not doing their two days in the office, then they're going to go to HR, and HR has to talk to that person. So I'm sure that that one happens quite a bit where we end up becoming the police and the enforcer of a policy that, again, we didn't even agree to or have any say in how we went about rolling it out. Marie Yeah. I'm smiling because, you know, I started working with you in 2021. And so there are just a couple of client situations just burned in my brain, especially around the return to work and bringing people back. And, you know, from my perspective, and being new in my role, I wanted to help as much as possible. But as soon as I started to be that person with the clipboard managing time and attendance, I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's back this up a little bit. The other thing to think about with changes like this that we're talking about in the small business space, you know, leaders think that, oh, we can just roll this out. And, you know, we're close with everyone, and it's really not going to be a big deal. But actually, people revolt. And they revolt way stronger than they do in larger organizations because they know that the power of their voice can really affect the overall business, right? And so just an extra layer that I wish I would see more leaders really think about before implementing something new or a major change. This last scenario is going to be something I think is really unique to small businesses or small business HR. And that's having to lead termination conversations because the manager just simply isn't equipped to do it. Now, ideally, the manager should be the one having that conversation, right? Managers, they should hire and terminate their employees. That's best practice. But the reality is that when you are that HR department of one, you've got that first-time manager who's never fired anybody before, or maybe a founder who's just terrified of conflict, like you mentioned earlier. Sometimes you do, as HR, you do have to step in and own that conversation, even though it really doesn't make a lot of sense from a best practices standpoint, but because the alternative could be way worse. Sabrina Yeah, I think that this one is one of those that leaders don't have training. They don't have training on how to give feedback, how to communicate effectively, definitely not how to terminate somebody. There is such a strong legal component to this that saying the wrong thing in a termination could be really detrimental. And a lawsuit hits a small business way differently than it hits a large one. And so this one, I think, is one that, yes, best practices that a leader absolutely should be terminating their own people. But I do think it's one that you have to think about your environment, your leaders. Are they equipped to do that? And then let's train them. Let's make sure that we give them the right talking points. Sitting in on a lot like I know when I have been on site with clients, if I have leaders who I don't trust to handle that conversation well, I will sit down and give them talking points and say, let's talk through this. I'm going to let you lead, but I'm going to be in the room because if you start going south somewhere, I want to jump in. And so this one is definitely one of those that requires some development and some training on the leaders' part before you push back to say, this is something you should be doing without me. Marie When I think about all of the clients we've had, despite the level of maturity or tenure within a manager, I do actually like to sit in that conversation. I just think it's best practice to have that third party there to be a part of that conversation. I do enjoy making talking points or scripts for managers who just really have never been in that situation before. I don't want people to become experts at having those conversations, right? But I do want them to feel comfortable and confident in knowing what they can say and what they can't say. And plus, being there, someone can go off on a tangent, and you can steer that conversation back to where it goes. I think that there are plenty of other scenarios that we can talk about this, like being the face of company decisions you didn't make or just employees that come to you to vent about something, and you're just absorbing all of that emotion. It really all adds up, especially in that small business space. So what happens when you're constantly put in this position? What's the cost, not just personally, but also to your ability to actually do your job well? Sabrina So if we think about the day, a day in the life of an HR department of one, day in the life of somebody who is managing HR in a small environment, regardless of whether they are an HR person or not, they're busy. Like, they have a lot of things going on. And to have to stop and handle things that really others should be able to handle, handle communication, handle, you know, this you feel like you're in this constant firefighter mode. And so you can't ever, between getting all the things done that you need to and then being the only one who can apparently communicate things, you are constantly in this firefighter burnout mode that it's just nothing's ever going to get accomplished, it feels like. And so you're just kind of spinning your wheels. On top of that, people don't trust HR as it is. You walk in, the minute you say, I'm human resources, they're like, oh, OK, especially now with all of the fake human resources people or stories that you hear that, you know, our friend who went to the Coldplay concert last summer didn't help us at all. And so there's so much bad karma, I guess. It's not even car. It's not even our karma, but like bad feelings about what HR is and does that in a small environment, you're already seen as somebody who they're weary of. And so you're trying to build trust. You're trying to build relationships. You're trying to do what's right. And then you have to be that person that's constantly delivering bad news. You're going to lose that trust. It loses your you lose credibility through no fault of your own, not even anything that you did. And so I think that personally and professionally, it leads to insane burnout. It leads to insane just feeling like you're constantly in firefighter mode because there can be one issue after another, potentially, of employee relations issues sometimes. Marie And just to echo that, like the cost is huge, right? Like, to your point, you're losing that credibility as a strategic partner. If employees are only going to be seeing you delivering bad news, they ultimately can just stop coming to you for help. They stop trusting you. They avoid you in the hallway. I think about, you know, when I was working in-house, I'm a pretty social person. And so I would love to just like have side conversations, get to know people, talk about what they're having for lunch, what's going on in their families. But the moment something you have to communicate, something bad, they don't want to be your friend anymore. They don't want to be friendly. And so it also can be it creates this isolation for your HR folks. And I don't think that a lot of leadership sees that as a negative consequence. Sabrina Yeah. Isolation in a role that's already lonely. If they're in an HR department of one, right, we talked about that last episode where it can be so lonely and so isolating, and you have to really be careful about your friendships. And then you go and make them the bad guy all the time. So then they're definitely completely isolated, completely on their own. Marie When we think about folks who may not have a lot of influence and really do just have to be that messenger, what can we tell them about rebuilding trust once it's lost? Like, if you've been in that role for a year and employees just see you as nothing but an enforcer, what can they do? Sabrina Yeah. I think that the work is done in everyday relationships. If I could give any advice to any HR professional, it's if you're not out trying to build relationships with your line managers, with your employees, if you're under, especially if you're under 100 employees, you know, if you are not trying to really build individual relationships with people, just like you said, getting up, get out of your office, walk around. I think that we have to show we're human beings. There's this whole mantra we know about HR is not your friend. HR is there for the company. And we won't even get started on that. We have opinions on that, obviously. But they definitely see that until we just show them that we're actually human beings also doing a job. And we want to do the job well for both the employee and the employer. And that it's that building relationships piece of getting to know employees and letting them see who you are. I think sometimes HR gets almost too guarded in letting people see who they are as human beings. The other piece of this, I think, that has to happen is sometimes the reason that the trust is lost to you is in the way that it was communicated. And so I definitely encourage, especially those who are managing HR on their own, like the way you communicate changes everything. And so if you have not had any kind of communications training, if you don't know how to communicate effectively, like that would be something I would encourage them to think about going through. Marie OK, so let's get into the good stuff. How do you reframe your role so you're not always the messenger everyone wants to blame? How do you shift from being seen as the enforcer to being seen as a trusted partner? Sabrina, I know that we are working with clients on this all the time. And you just touched on communication strategies. Where should people hit next? Sabrina Yeah, so definitely the next one would be setting boundaries with your leadership. I think it's really important that HR leaders sit down with their CEO, whoever it is that they report to, and they talk about how that person sees HR. And they have an opportunity to share themselves as the HR person how they think HR should be used inside the organization. And so really setting those boundaries as early as you possibly can. So if you're coming into the role, I think that's something you do in the interview process. How do you see HR? What do you see HR as? What is the function to you? Here's how I see it. And then if you're already in the role, and maybe you've been in this role, and you're trying to reframe things, then I think it's taking the opportunity to sit down with whatever leader is important for you and just saying, talk to me about how you see this function. And here's how I see the function. And talking about being an advisor to things and not necessarily always the messenger. Like, I want to be involved in this stuff. I should be involved in this stuff. I'm happy to help craft the communication. I'm happy to have talking points. I'm happy to, you know, do whatever I can behind the scenes to make sure everybody knows what we need to say. But I can't be the only one delivering it. You're going to want to talk about, like, why is it important that we all do this messaging and present this united front, and we all are able to talk through it, and how detrimental it is when you've got HR coming out and saying, this is the decision. We're all coming into office three days next week, starting next week. And you have a leader out with their people saying, well, I think it's stupid, too. But what are you going to do? We have to do it. How, like, undermining that is to the growth of the business. And so I think coming to a leader, if you needed to reset it right now, coming to a leader and saying, talk to me about how you see the function. Let me share how I see the function. And then going forward, when we have communication, here's why we need to all be sharing the responsibility to share that communication. And I'm happy to support it in all the ways of giving all the talking points, of doing whatever I need to do. But we have got to learn to share in that communication. Otherwise, we're just kind of undermining the decision overall because we're not showing this united front. Marie How would you suggest to coach a founder or a manager to deliver their own tough messages if they've never done it before? Sabrina So I love to do a couple different things with whichever they prefer. I usually offer them a couple different scenarios. The first one is we can do some role playing, right? So we can just sit and kind of go through some role playing. First of all, let me back up. I always, always, always start with we need to do some leadership development, right? Like, really, if we have the time, if we have the ability, let's do some formal leadership development. But if not, if we're like in the moment, we've got to terminate somebody tomorrow, then I would offer a couple things. I can give you some talking points. We can role play it, you know, you and I together. We can go through what you think you're going to say. I can write down some thoughts for you. I don't want you to read off of a paper. But I can certainly write down some things for you. And I can absolutely be in the room with you if you just, you know, in case you go off on a tangent or I feel like I just need to bring it back in or whatever, I can be there for you. If they don't want to do that and they're still kind of adamant about, I don't want to deliver this, then what I tell them is, I will deliver it, but you have to be there. And you have to listen, and you have to take notes, and you have to use it as a learning opportunity. So especially for like brand new managers that really, you know, they were good individual contributors. We tapped them on the shoulder and made them leaders. They have no idea how to deliver a termination or negative feedback. Then I will definitely offer to maybe one or two times, I'm going to do it for you. I'm going to sit in, and I'm going to conduct the conversation. But you are going to listen, and you are going to take notes. And we're going to talk after about what you heard me say and how you would do that in your own words because I want you to get to the point where you can do it on your own, and you don't need me to handle it for you. I think it definitely is in training. This is something we're going to be talking about in our upcoming cohort, right? So this is a big topic about how do we move from HR firefighter to something that's really elevated and moving the business forward. And part of what we know you have to do is train managers to handle things they can handle on their own. And so this actual topic around how do we do that? How do we give them this, you know, role playing options or leadership development or having them listen to us do it? And I don't think that that is isolated to terminations. I think it could be interviews. It could be positive things, right? It could be all-hands meetings or, you know, recognition of some sort, like having them watch you learn from you but then be prepared to handle it next time on their own. Definitely something that we will be hitting in the cohort, which will be launching in the ability to join will be launching soon. And the cohort itself will be happening towards the beginning of Q2. Marie Yes, it will. I also think that the bigger piece here, it's going to be around how you position yourself day to day and not just in those tough moments, too, right? Because if employees and leadership, they're only seeing you when there's a problem, you're always going to be seen as that messenger. OK, I do want to address something that people might be wondering about. So what if you try all of this? You set the boundaries. You position yourself as a partner. You communicate well. And at the end of the day, leadership still just expects you to be the messenger for everything. What if they just won't change? Sabrina Yeah, that one's difficult, right? Because I would love to say, then you need to go find a new job. But we are in an economy where people should smack me if I do say that. So I'm not going to say that. That's not and really, while it is the ideal answer, it is hardly ever the easy answer, right, to just go find a new job when you had mouths to feed and things like that. It is absolutely true that you can do all things right, and people still may not change, and businesses may not change. What we have seen in our almost 15 years of doing this is that something has to for some people, for some leaders, something has to be really bad for them to change. Like, they have to hit rock bottom. They're almost going to lose their business or all employees walk out or something, right? Or they have somebody who they really trust. Maybe it is somebody that's been with them for a long time who is telling them that this needs to change. Like, there's got to be something that happens to them that makes them realize this. And that may not be you. It may not be you may not have the ability to do that. And so understanding that you are not going to be able to change this potentially, and then what? How do you protect your own mental health? How do you protect your own energy by doing what you can, what you have to do, what you know needs to be done? I think that the thing, though, about culture shifts that I do want to say, and again, this is probably its own episode, but I do believe one person can have huge impacts on culture shift. And I believe that one person can have them in micro moments, in these little moments of brave leadership that they whether asked to do in front of an entire company or just with somebody they run into in the restroom, I think that they can start to shift things. But that takes a lot of time. And in the meantime, you still have to be that messenger. You still have to be that person who's maybe running yourself ragged. And so I think that you have to prioritize your ability to maintain your own mental health. You have to realize you're not going to maybe be able to change this. You're not going to be able to fix this and decide what's worth fighting and what's not worth fighting. Marie I think those are all really good points. You know, HR is hard, right? And people, in my experience, what I hear from people is that they get into HR because they do care about people, and they want to figure out how to help them and support them in doing whatever their job is and how they contribute to the overall business. But at the same time, it can be extremely emotionally taxing. And so as an HR professional, regardless of your role or tenure or, you know, whatever organization you're in, having that self-awareness around what is sustainable for you versus what isn't is really important to have. So to wrap this up, if you are the messenger that everyone wants to blame, please know that you are not alone in this. This is a reality for so many HR professionals, especially in the small business space. But you don't have to stay stuck in that role. And you can reframe how you communicate. You can set boundaries with leadership. You can position yourself as a partner or a trusted advisor. You don't always have to be the person delivering the bad news. And really, if the culture won't support that shift, it's also OK to recognize that and make a different choice for yourself if and when that opportunity. Sabrina Presents itself. Marie Thank you. Presents itself. Sabrina, any final thoughts before we wrap up? Sabrina You know, I just I think that this is definitely a very common place. It's definitely a tough place to be in. And it does take deliberate work on the HR professionals' part to shift it. And it takes consistency to shift it. You can't push back on a leader one day and then just take the message for them the next day. So you can't make them do one termination, and then the next time you just do it for them. I think that it does take time to fix this and to shift this. Marie With that, thanks for listening to the HR Connection. If this hit home for you, we would love to hear your story. And just remember that you're doing hard but important work. Don't let anyone make you feel like you're just the messenger. See you next time. Sabrina See you next time.