Strengthening Leadership by Prioritizing Others
Episode Notes
In this episode of "52 Humans," host Paul Wolfe interviews Laurie Ruettimann, founder of Punk Rock HR, about human-first and empathetic leadership. Ruettimann shares her experience in HR and how a conversation with a coworker about self-care led her to explore investing in herself as a whole human being in a psychologically safe way. She also expresses her concern about the sacrifice of individual well-being by HR professionals during the pandemic and the potential negative impact on organizations. The conversation touches on the need for national conversations about healthcare and paid leave, and the potential effectiveness of human resources professionals having a voice in creating effective legislation with teeth. The episode ends with Wolf encouraging listeners to bring greater empathy to their workplaces through small acts of kindness and humanity.
About the Guest
Laurie Ruettimann
Founder
The Punk Rock HR
Laurie Ruettimann is a well-known human resources and talent management consultant, speaker, and author. She is known for her workplace culture, employee engagement, and leadership development expertise. She is also known for her honest and direct approach to HR and commitment to promoting workplace fairness and equality.
Ruettimann has written several books on HR and workplace culture — including her best-selling book called, "Betting On You" — and her work has been featured in various publications, including Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, and NPR. She is also one of the top LinkedIn Learning leadership instructors, and she is the host of the Punk Rock HR podcast.
-
0:10
Hello and welcome to another weekly episode of 52 humans, the vlogs on stories of human first leadership.
0:16
I'm your host, Paul Wolf and I've created the show to inspire us all to transform our workplaces by returning to the humanity that binds us today.
0:24
I'm so looking forward to chatting with Laurie rude about human first and empathetic leadership.
0:29
Laurie is the founder of punk rock hr, an author, a speaker, a podcaster and so much more.
0:35
Laurie.
0:36
Welcome to the show.
0:38
Well, thanks for having me.
0:40
You got me tucking my phone behind my chair as the buzzer was just going off.
0:44
But I'm so pleased to be here and congratulations on the show.
0:49
It's absolutely great.
0:50
Thank you so much.
0:51
I appreciate you taking the time out of your busy, busy schedule to be here and chat with us.
0:55
A tell us a little bit.
0:56
Tell us about punk rock hr like how it came about and what you, what you focus on these days.
1:00
Well, you know, years ago, I was just this like lowly hr intern and I got made fun of, you know, I had shaved heads and some tattoos and had to take out my piercings because they weren't professional and my boss is like, who the heck do you think you are?
1:13
You think you're punk rock hr?
1:15
And she did not mean that in a very nice way.
1:18
And I told this story to my dear friend Chris Dunn and he said, if you don't buy the domain, punk rock hr right now, I'm gonna buy it and sell it back to you for thousands of dollars.
1:29
And that was 2007.
1:31
I just left corporate America and I bought the punk rock Hr Domain and had been writing speaking podcasting about counterintuitive ways to see the world of work for a very long time longer than I was in.
1:44
Hr It's so one.
1:46
I love the name and I love the story.
1:48
I didn't know the story.
1:49
That's, that's amazing.
1:51
Do, have you talked to that boss that made that not so nice comment to you?
1:54
Like it'd be nice to rub it in their face.
1:56
Yeah.
1:57
Yeah, it would be, but I'm not that curious and like the, the, the world of work, like it has shifted so much since the pandemic and just with five generations in the workforce and, and all of that.
2:08
I just think it's such interesting work and now that I'm out here kind of talking about human first leadership and just being able to engage with companies and leaders and C hr OS, it's just it's interesting to hear what's going on and how companies are thinking about work in general.
2:21
I've got some strong opinions about it but, you know, that's for a whole another conversation.
2:25
Maybe that's a punk rock hr podcast.
2:27
There you go.
2:27
You're welcome.
2:30
So talk to us, tell us, tell us your story of human first and empathetic leadership if you will.
2:35
Yeah, years years ago I worked with this really great guy, Jim and he seemed to have his life in order.
2:42
You know, he's doing very well at work, had a thriving personal life outside of work, always had time to vacation.
2:48
And yet when he came to work, he was really committed.
2:50
And I just was like, dude, tell me your secret, how do you have it on lockdown?
2:56
And he said, I don't have it on lockdown.
2:58
I'm a slacker.
3:00
But when I show up, I believe that a job worth doing is a job worth doing well.
3:04
And I also believe in putting myself first.
3:08
And what that means is focusing on his own individual well-being, focusing on relationships, making sure his home life is in order.
3:16
And he believed that if he put himself first and dealt with all the good stuff, it would have a positive downstream effect at work.
3:24
And it did, he was the model of someone who was emotionally regulated, took time off.
3:30
It was very well respected at work and it really made a lasting impression.
3:35
On me.
3:35
And it gave me permission to explore how do I invest in myself as a whole human being in a safe, psychologically safe way and also show up and kill it at work.
3:46
And once I started testing the waters with that, it was a real game changer for me.
3:50
And I'm really grateful for that lesson early on in my career.
3:53
This is such a great example.
3:55
He was so ahead of the curve.
3:57
You know, we're in the mode now of talking about mental health and it becoming more normalized here in the US and that conversation and still has a long way to go.
4:05
And just, you know, and like, you know, shameless plug, I wrote a book called Human Beings first, which is just like, that's what we are.
4:12
That's one thing that makes us the same.
4:15
How, how do you think that impacted or how did it impact you and the, and the way you work and the way you think about taking care of yourself because self care is so for sure, you know, he and I in this conversation kind of came to the realization that nobody does anything great in this world on four hours of sleep, right?
4:33
And we worked with people who would eat breakfast off their toddler's plate.
4:37
And he's like, you can tell, you can tell that cognitively they're not there.
4:41
And because they're in a certain phase of their lives or, you know, they're making certain choices.
4:46
But your decision to take care of yourself is good for the company.
4:52
Your decision to put yourself first actually benefit your fellow colleagues if you need to eat, go eat.
4:58
If you need to sleep, sleep, if you need to take time off to go to the doctor or shuttle your kids around, you are an adult, you are hired to do a job.
5:06
I trust you.
5:08
So you feel free if you need a lunch, go eat a lunch.
5:11
And it was you're right so early and actually not something that was widely talked about.
5:17
It was like his super secret thing that it was passing on to me.
5:20
And during the pandemic, it was really great to see the pendulum swing in that favor.
5:25
But now I'm worried that the pendulum is swinging the other way.
5:29
I mean, we have not talked about empathy and compassion in a good six months, have we?
5:34
I mean that word, those words are not part of our normal discourse and that gives me pause.
5:40
No, I I so agree with you because, and, and it's interesting.
5:43
It's also just the, the the light got shined, shown whatever the right word.
5:48
10 of the word is there on hr at the beginning of the pandemic because we were like chief medical officer, chief, nurse, chief, therapist, chief, everything with no data.
5:56
And then you're starting to see it now where you know, like budgets are being cut and I I get economics and financial challenges but and then, you know, you're hearing disproportionately diversity, inclusion teams are being impacted greater in layoffs than hr teams are.
6:10
And I get, if you don't have as many employees, you know, some of the hr teams may be impacted, but it's so important to keep thinking about taking care of the whole person.
6:20
Mental health should still be a benefit, a conversation.
6:24
We need to do better about it nationally.
6:25
But career development and employee development and you know, inclusion resource groups or employee resource groups and all of that.
6:31
So I, I, yeah, the pendulum I think went far.
6:37
and I was hoping it would end itself in the right spot and I think you're right.
6:41
It's, it's moved too far away from where we are.
6:45
I think you're right.
6:46
I'm, I'm a little concerned.
6:48
I will say that for example, in human resources, we really sacrificed our own individual well being during the pandemic for the sake of the organization only now to be told, I'm sorry, economic changes are happening and you're out like that doesn't seem very human first.
7:05
That doesn't seem very people centric.
7:07
The other thing, you know, these hr professionals knew it, they knew for years that things were wrong in their organizations and they made a commitment to the company and to the brand to really step in and make a change.
7:19
And I was always concerned because hr professionals especially during the pandemic, didn't see themselves as employees.
7:25
And my message during the past three years is we fix work by fixing ourselves.
7:30
First.
7:31
We are the canary in the coal mine.
7:32
And if it's not, not good for us, it's not good for other people.
7:35
And lo and behold, here we are in 2023 being let go.
7:39
And I think it's a harbinger of times to come.
7:43
Like I'm, I'm a little worried that this self care thing is so important and I think you're right, like, you know, we, we had unlimited P T O and indeed, which is where my last corporate job and we focused on people that did not take time.
7:54
We didn't really focus on those that took because it was like, you've got to disconnect and I, I, I use this example a lot Europeans know how to take time off and disconnect and the Americans need to learn from them.
8:06
Like it's like the world is gonna go on if you take two weeks off or you take a week off or you take time off to go to your son's Little League game this afternoon for three or four hours because the weather is nice and you want to get out of the office, but it is so important as humans just to be Yeah, to have our moments of Zen and meditation and make sure we're ok because you're right, I'm not gonna give you 100% if I'm not.
8:29
Ok.
8:30
Absolutely.
8:31
You know, the interesting point you make about Europeans and I don't know if you're a fan of succession.
8:35
But just recently on one of the episodes, Jerry, the character talked about Europeans and she said they're soft, which I thought was hilarious.
8:43
They're wrapped in a cocoon of social welfare program programs.
8:46
We've been raised by wolves and that's why Americans are innovative.
8:50
And it's funny, but it's actually interesting because there is this social welfare net that happens in so many European Scandinavian countries that we don't have in America.
9:01
And it really harkens back to an earlier point I made in all of my work, which is that hr sits at the intersection of work, power, politics and money.
9:11
And if we're not involved in a national conversation about health care and a national conversation about paid leave, what are we doing with our roles?
9:19
You know, it's ok to talk about the benefits in our company.
9:23
But unless we all benefit from parental leave from guaranteed time off, none of us benefit from it.
9:29
So I really think there's some interesting work that could be done in the world of hr that doesn't just benefit a company and its brand and its revenue but benefit the nation as a whole.
9:40
That succession on your podcast.
9:42
I love and I love Succession and I've not watched any of this season yet.
9:46
So like, but I, I'll read an article and I stop when it gets to like something juicy.
9:50
So I, I've got to do it.
9:51
I'm going on a trip tomorrow.
9:52
So that's my plan.
9:53
, I, I agree with you about banding together and pushing for national change.
9:57
The thing I just learned, I'm, I'm on the board of pay scale and I had one of their employment council on the vlog cast a couple weeks ago and she told me through a linkedin post that there is finally a national law or a, a proposal for a national law bill.
10:12
I guess if I remember my constitutional law, a bill proposed for national pay transparency.
10:18
And so I think that's the way that change gets affected is that there are national laws, not these individual state laws or in your, in your example, not just individual companies doing the right thing for their employees, which is a good thing.
10:29
But how do we all band together?
10:31
How do we also influence each other to do more of the right thing for our employees?
10:35
For sure.
10:36
You know, anybody out there who's taken the S P hr exam would know that it's been illegal to pay people differently since the 19 sixties.
10:43
So the fact that we still continue to have to write legislation is frustrating.
10:47
And I think when you get human resources professionals in a room having that conversation, you may get more effective legislation with actual teeth.
10:56
That's what I'm looking for.
10:57
Completely agree.
10:58
I'm there with you.
10:59
Like let's go rally, I'll do whatever.
11:02
Yeah, we're going to Washington.
11:03
I love it.
11:03
Let's go.
11:05
Laurie, thank you so so much for your story and the conversation.
11:09
I adore you, you know that and I appreciate you.
11:11
Thank you.
11:12
Come on, come hr any time and we will have fun.
11:16
Thanks for joining us on 52 humans.
11:18
If you enjoyed this, please give me a follow to be notified of future episodes.
11:21
I so appreciate all of your support.
11:24
If you want to watch past episodes or you have a story of human first leadership that you'd like to share, please go to Paul Wolf dot com forward slash 52 humans.
11:32
And lastly as I do each week, I'd like to ask each one of you to think of ways you can bring greater empathy to your workplace.
11:38
It's these small acts of kindness and humanity that make for a better work culture and ultimately a better world.
11:44
I'm Paul Wolf and I'll see you next time on 52 humans.