Hey everyone, Sabrina Baker here, CEO and founder of Acacia HR Solutions. Welcome back to the HR Connection. Today I am managing things solo. Marie is knee-deep in client work and getting ready for our cohort coming up on April 17th. And so I am going to go this episode alone, and we are talking about something really prevalent right now: the world is crazy. And I want to just talk about that. I want to acknowledge it, and I want to talk about how HR professionals, especially those of us in a small environment, are expected to show up for others. And sometimes we need people to show up for us. So we're going to talk through what that looks like, how it can feel for employees, how employers can sometimes be a safe space, and just a few tips for how we can navigate that and show up for everybody else when we ourselves are feeling that burden. Around this time, six years ago, we were all kind of wondering what was going to happen with the next couple of months of our lives. I don't think any of us had any idea what 2020 was going to look like. I am in California, and March 19th was the official date in 2020 that the state went on a statewide lockdown. And I remember sitting in client meetings around that time. I was still very much in the trenches of client work, which is a little bit different than I am now. But back then, I was sitting in client meetings, and everyone looked so downtrodden, and the energy was low, and people were scared, and they were anxious, and there was so much uncertainty in the air that it was palpable. And as their HR professional, as their HR leader, everyone was looking to me for answers—and not answers to a global pandemic, of course—but answers around how do we navigate this as people. Back then, the world felt like it was on fire, and today the world feels like it is on fire. And once again, human resources professionals, regardless of size, regardless of whether it's small business or enterprise level, are being looked at to answer the question of how do we as humans navigate this. Back when I started my career a long time ago, I would always hear, "Leave your outside world at the door." When you come into work, you leave your outside world at the door. You don't bring whatever's happening at home or in your personal life into the workplace. And that is just not realistic. It wasn't realistic then. It's not realistic now. And it's not something that people are willing to do anymore. And so every single day, the real world walks through our workplaces and brings whatever fire, whatever joy or unhappiness is living in it with its employees, with your employees, as they walk through the door. And so today, what I really want to do is, first of all, is just acknowledge that. Can we just say that HR has to show up in a way that's very different from other departments when the outside world is on fire? And how do we do that? How do we handle our role when things are heavy for us too? How do we keep showing up when the world absolutely will not slow down, and we ourselves are feeling anxious, we ourselves are feeling scared, we ourselves are worried about what's going on, and then suddenly all of our employees' eyes are on us to help them navigate it as well? I have no doubt that you can feel when this is happening in your workplace. You have a team who feels quieter, things feel more tense, something is just off lately. The people who were normally champions and cheerleaders and really energetic, that energy is not there. And sometimes that gets diagnosed as something going on in the company. People want to look and say, "What's going on inside the organization? Is it our leaders? Is it something else that's happening in our employee experience?" And it may not always be. It's not always a you problem. It's not always a company problem. Sometimes it's a world problem landing inside your building. Unfortunately, political polarization doesn't clock out at 5:00 PM, and it is more rampant right now than it ever has been in my entire life. We have economic anxiety, tariffs, layoffs, cost of living. It's making people feel genuinely unsafe. You have people who are showing up to work with a lot more going on internally than they may be saying. And inside of a small business, there's nowhere to hide. If you have less than 100 people and 20 of them are feeling off or really silently spiraling, then everyone feels that. It is really hard to be positive. It's really hard to maintain positive mental health if you are glued to the news. And unfortunately, in our world today with social media and so much access to information, we're all glued to the news in some capacity. I have tried over the last couple of months to curate my content on Instagram and other social media outlets a little bit more to kind of drown out some of the negative noise, but it still shows up. It's impossible to completely avoid it unless you just don't get news at all, unless you don't do any social media, no TV, no radio. Hardly anything is safe. If you want to be out in the world at all, you're going to hear the negative things that are happening. So it brings this emotional residue to work. And what I have found is that you have one or two workplaces, one of two workplaces. You have a workplace that wants to ignore it all and act like it's not going on, and they're kind of in that old school of, "Let's just leave it all at the door and not bring that inside," even though it's inside. Or you have leaders who want to address it, but they don't know how, and it's very uncomfortable for them. So what are they going to do? They are going to do what they always do when there are people, things that feel uncomfortable. They're going to default to their human resources person. So now we, as HR, become this camp counselor. We become therapists. We become the person who literally should just have a couch in our office because employees who don't know where else to go come to you. Now, on the one hand, that's probably a compliment. It's a compliment that they feel like they can come to you and talk about issues that are going on and that you might have some help for them. You might have some comforting words or some solution. But for you, that can be really difficult. You're absorbing all of that. So you have your own emotions. You have your own issues with what's going on. You have your own belief systems. And then everybody else is kind of dumping theirs onto you and expecting you to have these solutions that, of course, you may not have and you may have no control over. And so it's really, really hard as human resources to show up as human resources when the world is absolutely on fire. So let's do this with the rest of our time together today. Let's talk through what I think our role actually is here. What are we required to do, or what should we do, what can we do? And then how do we keep showing up anyway? How do you protect your own peace while you have to continue to show up for others when you are going through the same things that they are? So let's start with what do I think HR's role actually is when we have a world that is absolutely burning? Okay, let me say something that you know. As an HR professional, you know this. But fundamentally, when things happen, we can forget this, and we can get really stuck in our own heads about how we need to fix things. So let me say this. You are not responsible for fixing how your employees feel about the state of the world. You're not responsible for making them feel better about it. You're not responsible for their feelings in any way. I know you can feel responsible. It feels really heavy. And when you are this HR professional who is so embedded in the business and you're so invested in the employees and the teams, you can feel personally responsible to want to help everybody and to make them want to feel better about what's going on. But that's actually not your job. It's not your responsibility. There is a job that you have here, and I think it's you and all the other leaders in the organization, but it's not to fix feelings. It's not to help people navigate their feelings. They're our actual therapists that they should really be moving to for things like that. If they need that on that level, they probably should go to licensed professionals for that. We certainly are not skilled. We can give some comforting words, but we can't make them feel better. And I don't want you to take that on as your burden. Where I think HR does have a role, where I think there is some responsibility, is in creating a space where people feel seen and safe at work, even when life outside is chaotic, right? So we have a responsibility as HR to make sure that people feel seen, that we see them, we understand them, we know what they're going through, we can have empathy and sympathy for what's going on. And we want to create this seen and very safe space at work, even though everything outside is insane. You've probably had experiences where you can have an employee who's going through something really, really tough at home. Maybe they've had a loss. Maybe they're going through a relationship that has broken up. Many things that could be happening. And their home life, their personal life feels really, really chaotic. And you may have extended to them the ability to take time off. I know this has happened in my business where I have had employees where their personal life is just really going through it. There's just something going on. And I will say to them, "Take some time. You don't have to show up." And they'll say, "This is my peace right now. The work allows me to put my mind away from that stuff for a little while. It gives me something else to focus on." And I do think that workplaces can become, in a crazy outside world, workplaces can become a safe space where employees can have almost a distraction from everything else that's going on. And so I do think that it is the responsibility of HR and leaders to make sure that we are creating this seen and safe space. I'm going to say that's not just when the world's burning. That's all the time, but definitely, definitely when everything else feels like it is on fire. So helping leaders, HR should be helping leaders understand that completely ignoring and completely expecting everyone to just come to work like nothing's happening, that's a culture choice you're making. That is an engagement choice, an employee experience choice. And it's not a neutral one like you think it is. I'm not suggesting, and I'll share in a few minutes what I am suggesting. I'm not suggesting that we go talk about all this stuff all the time, that we have kumbaya circles where we all share our feelings. That's not what I'm saying at all. But to expect employees to act like nothing is going on is definitely a choice that you are making and not a neutral one. It's one that could potentially hurt your culture and your employee experience. I think that it's important that leaders establish how they talk about this. What do they do? And there's no perfect answer here, but I do think there's one that can be hurtful. And that, again, is pretending that nothing is happening, right? When your employees can feel it, when they can see it, when they're experiencing it, maybe when it's affecting them with the things that have gone on in our country in the last couple of months, employees could be very impacted. If you have employees in Minnesota, if you have employees in many of these states, you can have employees who are actually personally impacted. And so pretending that that's not happening and expecting them to just be quiet about it or not bring that into the workplace is the wrong decision. So there's no right or wrong in addressing what's going on. But I do think that completely acting like nothing is going on is the wrong answer. And silence here reads as indifference. When you're absolutely not acknowledging anything, that can read as completely indifferent. And maybe because it's not affecting you, you're not going to talk about it. And employees see that, and it definitely has a negative impact. Here's what I know to be true. You don't have to take political sides. You don't have to have these big political agendas, these big programs where you go and you share your thoughts and you share leadership gives their belief system around these things. You don't have to necessarily take strong sides to acknowledge that people are really stressed. A very short human moment from leadership, from HR, can do more for culture than a whole engagement program. So you don't have to go and take these staunch sides one way or the other. If that's something that you believe as a business, your leadership believes as a business, you should do, then that's a discussion you have. But I don't always think that that's what you need to do for employees who are just feeling a little bit of tension, for employees who just you can tell they're stressed. I think that there are very human moments that you can have to acknowledge, "Hey, the world is crazy right now." And I'd love to give you an example. We are an HR firm, and so we do try to stay away from political conversations. We don't invite them. We're not going to I think know through knowing each other where people stand on things, and we support that, and we want to support their ability to stand up for themselves and, again, to be seen and to be safe. And so we make sure that we are doing that. But we're not going to sit and have any kind of political debate. We're not going to sit and have a debate over things that might be happening and which side of the fence we all sit on and kind of have this long, drawn-out conversation about it. That's just not what we're going to do. And I don't think anybody in my organization wants to do that. But what I can do is say, "Hey, the world is kind of heavy right now. How are we all managing?" And so a couple of weeks ago, in our chat, we use Google Chat for kind of our Slack channel. And we have a channel that everybody is inside of. And I told them that Punch the Monkey, if you've been following the story about the little monkey in Japan who was rejected at birth and how that monkey is integrating in now with the other monkeys and at times being rejected and at times being bullied a little bit, and that story and him finding his friends and the resilience of that and other feel-good stories that are happening, I put out in our chat, and I said, "These stories are saving my life right now. They are absolutely when the world feels like it's on fire, when everything is so crazy, I'm so glad that we have a few of these stories." And then I said, "What do you do when it feels like absolute chaos outside? And we've got this economy stuff, and we have all of the political stuff, and we have all of these things going on, and everything feels so heavy. What do you do?" And so I just asked that question. And I think that that's a very easy way to say, "Hey, I want to acknowledge that the outside world is bananas right now." And I didn't mean that to be a pun on the monkey story. "But the outside world is absolutely bananas right now. Here's what I do. I try to curate my feed as much as I can to have some really good feel-good stories. What do you do?" And all of my employees came back and had answers of they go and they seek out new hobbies. They seek out new friends. They try to have dinner with friends they haven't seen in a while, or they go for long hikes. They all had these things of what they do to cope. And it was such a good conversation for us to be able to be like, "We are all in this craziness together. And while we're not going to debate the ins and outs of the craziness, we are going to say, 'This is stressful, and we are all in this stress together. And here's some things that we're all trying to do to encourage our ability to be able to mentally get through it.'" As I said, work can really be a refuge right now. It can be a place of structure, a place of purpose, a place of connection. And that can be so important when you have everything on the outside going absolutely insane. Or it can be just another stressor. And I think that human resources does have a real hand in which one it is. Is it this safe, seen place, or is it this another stressor, which is just piling on other stressors on top of what's going on in the world? I don't think that you as HR can compensate for a leader who's checked out or a culture that was already struggling. So this is definitely not a time that you're going to be able as HR to overcome that because that groundwork way before that matters. But I do think that how you protect yourself and then how you show up is going to be super important in creating that, "Hey, I see you. You are in a safe place here. Let's not compound the stress that's going on in the outside world in your workplace." Okay, so let's talk about how you can keep showing up as HR, how you can protect your own peace, and then a few practical things that I think you can do with employees to let them know that you've created or that you want them to have that seen and safe space. So the biggest thing that I want you to hear, and I think HR is really bad at this, is protecting your own bandwidth. And when I'm talking about bandwidth here, I'm not talking about your work bandwidth. I'm talking about your mental bandwidth. If you are absorbing everyone else's emotional weight without any outlet, you are going to burn out. And you may already be burned out, right? You may have been burned out years ago, and now we're just compounding. This work is invisible labor that doesn't show up. We talk about invisible labor a lot that we have in HR. And this idea of when the world is on fire, employees are really looking to HR to help them through it, that is this invisible labor that doesn't show up on a job description. But you need to name it. You need to understand that you're going through it, and you need to figure out what is it for you that helps you be able to get through that. It's not going to go away. It's probably not going to change. You're not going to be able to just end it and have everybody stop coming to you and kind of dumping their emotional trauma on you. It's probably going to continue because that's a little bit of what we have built for ourselves as human resources. But you do have to protect your mental bandwidth. And so finding your own people, finding a peer network, a community, a mentor, finding those things, as I said earlier, curating your feeds that you are looking at on your own time, whatever that is, if it's hiking for you, if it's going out with friends, if it's meeting new people, making new hobbies, whatever those things are, make sure that you are making time to do those things so that you are protecting your own mental capacity. I am a huge walker, an avid walker. I walk four, five, six miles a day. And I know that on days when I don't get just even half of that walk in, I am not well. My brain is not nearly as focused and is able to handle the emotional load of what is happening in the world as it is when I do that. And so whatever it is for you that helps you be able to hold those boundaries in your own emotional bandwidth, this is not the time to give that up. This is not the time to lose that, stop doing that so that you can make time for other things. This is the time to really double down and make sure that you are taking that you time. We always say that. We know that. But I don't think as HR practitioners, and especially because so many HR practitioners are women, I think that we don't do a good job of that. And so definitely right now is not the time to be giving up on whatever your personal care is that helps you mentally be ready to help everybody else mentally. I also want you to hear me say this. Referring someone to an EAP or an outside resource, that's not a failure. You are not a therapist. You are not a licensed therapist. And people have a lot going on. They have a lot going on in their lives, not even just with what the world is compounding on top of them, but just in their own personal situations that you cannot be responsible for and you may not be equipped for. And so it is absolutely okay to say, "You know what? I'm not sure that I'm the right person to help you or to even talk through this with you. I'm going to refer you to this EAP, or I'm going to refer you to some other outside resource." And that's not a failure. That's actually fantastic. You are getting them the help that they need. So do not feel like you have to take the whole burden alone. You can use the resources that your organization has available to help your employees navigate this stuff. A couple of other things that I think really help is a brief, honest note from leadership. I obviously told you what I did earlier just in our chat. We're a very small team under 10. So if you're larger, it may need to be done differently. But acknowledging that times are hard, it doesn't have to be political, just human. This is a really stressful time in the world right now, and we just want to acknowledge that. And we want to say to you that we are hoping that your workplace is a safe place and that it could be potentially a refuge for you to be able to have some peace in everything else that's going on. I also think you could give managers some language, some talking points for when employees bring that weight of the world to them. So it's not just human resources, but if employees have really good relationships with their leaders, then they may say in their one-on-ones or in team meetings, "I'm just having a hard time navigating things right now," or, "This is going on, and this is going on." And leaders do not know how to navigate that. So they may say to that person, "Oh, you should go talk to HR." Well, that's not the answer. The answer is let's give them some language to be able to talk through this stuff. So when managers, when leaders have it brought up to them, what can they say? How can they help employees kind of get through the whatever hump they're in? Certainly, you want to check in on your policies, your PTO, the flexibility, EAP access. Make sure people know that they exist. Make sure people know what those boundaries are. If they need to take a day for something, or do they have the ability to do that? Make sure that people know those resources are available to them. I had said earlier, when I've had employees going through something, I'll say, "Take the day," or, "Take a week," or, "Take whatever." And sometimes they say, "Yeah, that would be really helpful to take a couple of days." Or sometimes they say, "No, this is a distraction for me, and I need to be in this distraction." And that's fine. But just letting them know what they have access to, what resources you have for them can sometimes be all you need to do. You don't even necessarily need to talk them through their feelings or their emotions. It's just a, "Hey, I hear you, and I know this is really stressful and difficult right now. And here's some resources we have that might help you. Let me know if you want to access any of them." The last thing you can do is really kind of watch for those employees who go quiet, super quiet. I mean, very different than how they normally show up. Their complete energy is just off. You can just tell their mental state. When you are in a small business, you have the ability to really know everybody well. And so you just know when somebody is completely off. And I think that there's a point where my team or this person seems off into now I'm genuinely worried about them. I'm genuinely worried about their well-being. And I don't want you to ignore that instinct. When you have that instinct about an employee, make sure you know your EAP resources. Make sure you know your referral processes to outside help. Don't wait until it becomes a crisis. You don't have to just walk up to them. I would never suggest you just walk up to somebody and say, "Hey, you've been quiet. Here's the EAP." But certainly walking up to them and saying, "Hey, you've been really quiet. I just wanted to check on you. Is everything okay?" That alone can open up the conversation that lets you know if they need greater help, if they need referrals out to get that support. So here's the takeaway for this episode. The world is on fire. It absolutely is. And your employees are feeling it. You are feeling it. Whether anyone is saying it out loud or not, everyone is feeling it. But your job as an HR professional isn't to fix the world. It's to make work a little less heavy while the world is hard, to make employees feel seen and safe while everything else is super, super hard. And you need support too. You need to be able to find your people, to find your community. Please do not do this alone because you don't have to. One thing that I want you to remember is that culture or employee experience, it doesn't fall apart because one big thing happened. It falls apart because 100 small moments went unacknowledged. And often you are the person who catches those moments that need to be acknowledged. I hope this was helpful today. Just a quick little hit on, let's acknowledge what's going on in the world. Let's talk about it, and let's talk about how we still have to show up. There are a couple of things that I want to share with you. So first of all, we launched last week the HR Department of One cohort. If you are a solo HR practitioner or small HR team and you're tired of figuring this stuff out alone, if you are somebody looking for your people, we are it. That cohort starts on April 17th. It is 10 weeks, a real community. It's going to give you practical frameworks. Early bird pricing does end here pretty soon, March 21st. So use code early bird at checkout. And the link for that is in the show notes. If you have not subscribed already to the HR Connection, we would love for you to do that. Also, we are on the HR Happy Hour Media Network. Those episodes published once a month. They are exclusive episodes, meaning they're different than what we publish on the HR Connection. But I would love for you to find us in both places. I'm so glad that you are here listening to the HR Connection. If you have topic ideas, things that you want Marie and I to run down, I would love to hear from you. You can connect with both of us on LinkedIn or either one of us. Next week, I will have Penelope Angulo with me. She is our payroll and operations manager, and she's working on a project that's so exciting and so overdue. You are definitely going to want to check that out. See you next time.