Transcript- How to Respond When HR Isn't Helping You

How to Respond When HR Isn’t Helping You –…

by Angela McConnell

Edited, for length and clarity
Holly - Let's kick off with how to respond when HR isn't helping, our favourite bright and shiny topic for me and Rachel to talk about.

Rachel - I started off in tech recruitment, and I've worked in every function in HR, I've done it all. I've done recruitment, onboarding, employee engagement. I've been in people and culture versus HR, for example, to show you the difference in terms of the terminology.

But over the last five years, I've specialised more on the compliance and policy side and employee investigations. I've worked like within unionised and non-profit public sector as well as the private sector.

More recently just launched my own business in workplace investigations and advisory. I will say though that my own background is fairly diverse over the last 20 years.

To be fair, I don't necessarily believe HR is a bad thing. I've just seen it in terms of context, culture. There are so many other components to it that even in terms of practitioners, it's just like any other occupation.

You get some amazing people and then you get not so great ones. Then you can also have some really great ones who work in some challenging circumstances or workplace cultures, where they want to advocate and support employees and they can't, or they want to provide information to employees and they can't.

H - Well, I'm excited to have you here today as well because you bring this broad range of experience like you say. Rachel and I had like a little chat when we were organising this, and we were both talking about how weird it is, not counter to her business it is for Rachel to come here and talk about this, but, Rachel does investigations and individual employees are not the ones who hire her. It's the HR people that we're now talking about not being helpful, who hire her.

I said to her, listen, “I'd love to have you have this conversation.” And also, "You sure it's this conversation you want to have?"

The thing that I love about Rachel is she one of those people who's really on the side of the folks who end up unfortunately subject to some of the bad incentives and tough situations that HR people can find themselves in.

So I'm excited to have you here because you bring that knowledge and also because you bring that bit of heart and humanity.

For any of you who don't know who I am already, and it's possible some of you don't, I am Holly, I'm an executive coach who focuses on working with women in male-dominated industries.

I do that because I spent years working as a mining engineer, developing an unfortunate love and understanding in depth of those times when HR is not helpful to you. Also, a few times when they were helpful to me.

I see this kind of thing all the time with my coaching clients, where they find themselves in situations where they have to go to HR for help.

Sometimes that goes well and many, many times it doesn't go as well as they'd hope. So, I'm often kind of on the front lines with them strategizing how they get around this, how do they approach it, and how do they from that point decide about where they want to go.

Because you may get exactly what you want out of the situation, or you may be left with a pile of options that aren't exactly appealing.

You've got to make some choices. So, I work in this all the time, even though it's not the focus of my work, it comes up constantly. So that's kind of why, I wouldn't say excited to be here, but excited for you all to have this information.

I would prefer that none of us had to talk about this, but given that it happens, I'm excited that we're talking about it.

How Should People Approach HR with an Issue or Complaint?

Rachel, we're going to get into the bad stuff, but let's start with a good place, which is, what should people do? What's the best practise here?

If you could write your dream scenario for somebody who had to go and bring a complaint or an issue or a challenge to HR, what would you have them do so that it went really well?

R - Okay, that's a tricky part as far as what goes on and what doesn't, but I think there's critical pieces to, I'd say, bringing a concern and complaint.

I've got my lens around a workplace issue or bullying; there's so many different scenarios you can walk through in terms of issues.

I'm not talking about things like benefits, or where do I find this, you know, like, I don't know, like-

H - Obscure dock.

R - Department. Yeah, yeah, okay, fine. That's the easier stuff. It's a concern around, say having a conflict with a very challenging boss, or your job suddenly changing, or demand shift and you haven't been given a heads up that things were shifting.

I think that I would say the most challenging part is that you have to separate emotion from facts. I’d say it's a lot easier to support somebody in terms of what they're bringing forward when you can look at specifics, when it comes to facts.

HR is always in a tricky spot because, somebody mentioned being on the side of the employer, and here the function really is risk.

You need to be able to look at or assess a situation and go, okay, you're there to protect, you're there to give advice to whoever, you're there to look at policies, but you're also there to protect.

So, there are functions in HR where they're not in that scenario, but I'm talking about say, a complaint for bullying where you really have to know that you have to provide concrete information of a situation or a circumstance. Or even an email can be written, could be even over instant messages where you have to provide that in a factual format.

I would say my best like concrete advice-

H - Is to come in with facts first?

R - Yeah, yeah.

H - Get your facts in order.

R - And it's very hard to do. Especially when you're feeling emotional, and as much as there’s, quote, unquote, objectivity in the workplace, people still have feelings.

But HR isn't necessarily like as therapy function.

H - Well, I think it can sometimes-

R - That's the other piece, knowing where the separation is.

H - I've certainly known HR people who get pulled into a therapy function quite often. It's really common to have people crying in your office, right?

R - Yeah, yeah.

H - But at the end of the day, for HR to be able to do their job well and kind of figure out what's happening, what actions need to be taken, they've got to be basing it on facts. So, the more you can separate that out for them, the more likely they can do their job well.

R- I think those are critical things. And if you need to vent, HR can listen to you, but they still have to, in order to make an impact, be able to work with facts. That's essentially it. It's a tricky spot to be in.

Then the other piece is confidentiality. From the side of bringing an issue or concern forward, HR has to keep things confidential. They can know information and they cannot share it.

And that's a good thing, right? If you're dealing with a medical issue, you don't want them sharing it with other people. That's actually a positive piece to the function, they're there to help you confidentially to navigate, they can't share or disclose because, from a compliance side, they're not able to.

They could even know something even in the background with certain behaviours or things that they're not able to share.

I've seen HR professionals’ wear; it's like a mask. I don't know if anybody else has experienced this, but I've seen other professionals do it as well, like where they've got to keep their game face on.

It's because that disclosure piece is very critical and-

H - Well, and if you're somebody bringing a complaint forward, there's something really interesting around that disclosure piece.

I've found myself in situations like this, I've seen clients be in situations like this where they'll come to HR with a concern or a challenge, and they'll describe what's been going on.

And then HR says, "Okay, well, do you want me to act on this? Can I go and disclose this?" There are some situations where, you know, you're going to create a fiduciary duty for them to act just by having made that complaint

But in a lot of scenarios, they'll say to you, “What do you want us to do with this? Do you want me to move forward?”

If you want HR to be able to move forward, there's a small risk you have to take there, right? In saying, yes, this is going to become an official complaint, not just background information and cool conversation that we had in your office, for them to be able to actually move and take action on.

They'll still do so in a confidential way, but if it was just you and Bernie screaming at each other in the lunchroom, I think Bernie's going to figure it out when the complaint comes, even if it's anonymously. So, there's a limit.

R - Yeah. There's the also the duty to disclose. So, as I say, confidentiality, if you didn't bring a formal complaint forward, and it starts going through that process, you actually have to be aware that the person, a group or the individual, they actually have the right to know.

That is a part of that process. It gives them an opportunity to say, “Look, this is what happened.” You can't just take one side. You’ve got to be able to give them an opportunity to look at it.

The best-case scenarios I have seen, honestly is with organisations or leaders, depending on who they are, go, "Okay, you do your job, I'm stepping back, and you can make recommendation," and they will take it seriously.

Then there will be corrections. That doesn't necessarily mean it will lead to a termination or firing, but they will go through the process.

I think it creates stress with employees when they do act on it, because they see the effort, they see the seriousness.

Even with other employees that aren't even aware of what may have occurred, they could notice changes later on.

It could be a toxic work environment, it could be bullying in the workplace, but if they see those corrections or they see those changes, then it actually builds trust.

Then I think the other piece that came to mind, is with whistleblowers and reprisals, it's illegal. If somebody brings a complaint forward, you can't be terminated based on bringing it forward.

Like it can happen in other ways, but -

H - Technically no. And I think that the situation is very rarely like a vaudeville villain tying you to a train track. Almost Bond style, explaining the plan to end your career for this reason. It doesn't usually go that way, right?

It shows up in other things like constructive dismissal where you know, “Oh, we're just going to move you into this really boring job for a while, and needs must, that's the way the organisation has to go”, and you get included on a little bit less and you're not pulled into certain meetings.

It's quite often things like that. And while constructive dismissal is also illegal, it's much more subtle and complicated to prove. You'll end up there at times.

When an Issue Arises, Approach HR Early

Something I want to add, Rachel, that I've been thinking about as you're talking is what does good practise look like? We've been talking about really getting the emotion out and getting your documentation in a row.

But I think coming forward early is probably a little bit underrated. I think I've been in this situation, I've seen clients in a situation there's something weird happening with a coworker and you think, "Maybe they're having an off day. That's probably nothing."

Eventually it happens again but it's been three, four months and you think, "Oh, that was weird, a second time." Eventually you find yourself in this boiling frog situation where the temperature of the pot has just come up degree by degree by degree.

Suddenly, "Oh my god, it's a crisis!" Especially if that situation ends up being framed later as an interpersonal conflict. You don't want to be the second person to talk to HR about that.

You want to have been the person that brought that to HR's attention early. It doesn't necessarily have to mean rolling into HR's office and saying, "So and so's left me out. I used to do this at work".
"I was supposed to go on a pit tour with somebody and they left without me. They just left in the pickup, despite just saying they would go".

I'm not going to march myself up to HR and say, "They don't want to play with me." You know, as if I'm a child on a playground, right? But when it happens seven times in a row, you're thinking, "Hmm, they really don't want to play with me".

The second time that happens, it might just be a friendly knock on the door, just, "Hey, FYI, this happened today. I don't know if it's going to turn into something, but I just want to let you know."

It might be a conversation with your manager, it might be a conversation with HR, but not being the second person in that conversation is really important.

R - The other piece to it too is the observation factors. Which is if you see somebody being, say, bullied or toxic behaviour directed to a colleague, you can bring that forward to HR and that could support the other person.

H - Somebody else.

R - Yeah, and then a lot of the time, it's not just one person. I've seen it with groups where you get, say one or two people and then you say, "Go to a manager of a certain team," and they say, "Oh, it's all of us."

It's like pulling out threads to be able to do your due diligence or really look at it.

H - Yes.

R - And it goes back to those cultural components which are so critical for any workplace, which is to have a healthy work culture. Conflict does happen a lot of times and a lot of people don't know how to deal with it in a constructive way.

But ultimately, if you let it escalate or explode, like you said, that the, you know, frog in boiling water, then it's just going to make things get a lot worse quite quickly.

The conflict resolution is a very hard one though. From the HR side, I love it. I totally love it. I think it's so important but it's also critical in the sense that you also have to have people who know how to deal with conflict.

H - Yes.

R - A lot of people don't. For example, say they're an engineer. I've worked with a lot of developers who say, "No, I can code. Don't talk to me, I can code." Then they're putting management roles or leadership roles where they then think, "Oh, I have to deal with this!"

HR's Risk Management Function

H - You were talking earlier about how a key function for HR is not just talent development and acquisition and things like that, but risk management as well.

How do we make sure that this company can continue to, this sounds evil, use its human resources in a productive way that adds value and doesn't create too much risk?

Knowing that about HR, that this is a crucial part of their job and how they view things, what are some helpful ways that if I'm coming to HR with a complaint?

Hhow can I frame up my concern so that it aligns with what HR is trying to do? How do I get on their side and not be the person they're working against, I guess is the question really?

R - Well, again, it's a tricky question because it depends on where you work. I think one of the critical pieces is having a relationship with HR.

So, orgs or individuals who actually engage with HR beyond just going to them with something, but having HR that has a presence in the broader org is good. It's positive.

I worked for an org where I realised quite quickly that employees viewed you like the Grim Reaper. They see you and think, "Oh, I'm in trouble. If you come into a room, I know I'm in trouble, something bad's going to happen."

Given the current climate, if there's layoffs, typically you know HR is in the room, it's not good. So being able to have some conversations to at least engage in different ways, so they're not The Grim Reaper. This goes on the HR side as well.

Then I would say review policies. In terms of your employment agreement, your job description, the policies are very critical. Policies are considered actual contract terms.

You sign your employment agreement, but then it's a supplemental agreement in terms of how you operate as an organisation, so reviewing the policies and if you have questions, ask.

That doesn't make any sense? Ask.

H - Part of what you're talking about there, Rachel, is if you all go home right now and you dig out your employment contract, there's probably a line in it that says something like, “You agree to our workplace policies as amended from time to time” or something like that.

That means that A, you're agreeing to the policies as exist when you signed up, but also they can change more over time.

So, there's maybe a leverage point for you there where you can go, “Well if what's happening right now in the organisation, the thing that I have an issue with is against policy”, that might be a way that I can align with HR's interest.

Because HR has a duty to help uphold some of those policies that they've set forth and that they're required to uphold. That's a potential angle that you could just find on, your SharePoint or maybe now it's an AI robot you chat with.

R - I'm sure.

H - But you know, you'll have access to that information in some capacity, and it could be an interesting place to start.

R - The other thing too, in terms of case law or more recent case law, there are judges that look at changes to your employment terms. One is there's always a foundation in the law, regardless of what you sign, according to if you're in Canada, it's the province that you work in, regardless of what's in your agreement.

I know in the US, I worked for an organisation with American companies and they would say, “At will”, and Canada's not at will. So, even if that's in your agreement, you still have to call Canadian compliance and law.

Then you've also got the basics and also common law. That is very critical too. There's also, in BC you've got Workers' Compensation, so those bodies are actually there to give you resources to help in addition.

If you review the policies, your employment agreement, and really understand those pieces, and if it's really serious, you think you need more, go on those government websites at least to have a foundation.

When you go to HR, if you review them and understand a bit before you even have a conversation.

I do find that sometimes, how should I put this to you, the “he said or she said”, sometimes you see the behaviour before you see the facts. There's other things that can take place as well in terms of how people operate at work.

H - I think as well, going into these conversations with HR, understanding what the incentives can be around what they're required to do for the company, what they're required to do legally, can be really helpful because these situations are never easy.

You're always in a situation where you're emotionally taxed, where you're probably exhausted, where you're really frustrated by what's going on in front of you, and needing help.

Also, it is the time when you most have to have your shit together as an employee. The more you can come across as cool, calm, and collected, the more you can come in with your facts in order.

And the more you can treat this like an impersonal negotiation, I think this will go better for you, right? When I do salary negotiations with people, we do a tonne of prep work, a tonne of research, a tonne of work to understand what are the other party's incentives, what are their concerns, what are the things that they can do, what are the things that they can't do.

I would really encourage you to think about conversations with HR in a similar way. Even if you have an HR that you're being collaborative with, it’s like collaborating with a crocodile that can take you across the stream.

Might be the world's loveliest crocodile. You might love that crocodile to pieces, and you've always had a good relationship with them. And the job function can sometimes still be crocodile, so you might get eaten.

So, it's important to make sure that you're keeping your eyes on those risks as you're going through the conversations from your end, because they are as well. Do the reading that Rachel's suggesting, do some thinking upfront about whatever your complaint is, is there a way that it creates additional risk for the company?

Is there a reputational risk if what was happening were to get out? Is there a safety risk if this kind of thing continues? Would the company be at risk of a lawsuit if this was happening, not just to you, but to others? And how likely would that be to succeed?

Another way to think about that too, and I've seen clients get burned by this, where they hadn't necessarily done the wrong thing, but the narrative was not in their favour.

Also important to ask yourself the question, can the company be sued for keeping me around? Because sometimes that could be the case. Is this creating a hostile work environment because of the back and forth.

Really do sit there and think through how this actually looks from the incentives of both sides, because it's important for you to know that going into these conversations.

R - I will say, I mean, this is not a happy topic, but in terms of the power dynamic, the power is never with the employee.

You'd like it to be. I used to feel like I do have a real strong sense of justice. That's my interest in this area.

So that’s unfair, it's wrong. But reality is, its risk mitigation, and sometimes it's a company going, "Okay, we have money. They don't. They depend on us for a pay check, see the unemployment rate right now going up."

So, you know, they're going to think, "Whatever. We don't care if you leave," It's a harsh reality to deal with.

Knowing where your threshold is in terms of, "I had to get out. This is not going to work out in my favour. I need to come up with a plan now to be able to leave."

I noticed in the comment there was a question about documenting intangibles, like microaggressions and psychological manipulation. I'm glad somebody brought this up because I feel like for a lot of workplaces, this happens all the time.

Looking at a physical thing is a lot easier than dealing with those micro things and even dealing with groups. Really, really challenging. Even the notion of what is acceptable behaviour, and that can vary according to the industry that you work in.

Holly can speak to that too, but if you work in gaming, it's not unusual for people to swear and scream, like-

H - Same with mining, yeah.

R - Yeah, and so knowing where those thresholds are and where the acceptable is. Sometimes honestly the acceptable isn't acceptable at all. There are some really bad scenarios in those cases, so knowing where that threshold is around acceptable or non-acceptable behaviour. That's a hard one.

Keeping a Log or Diary & The Unexpected Sources of Documentation You Can Access to Help

When it comes to the microaggressions or like the psychological manipulations, keep a log. This is one of my recommendations for anyone, keep a diary.

Say you go into a meeting or even a face-to-face, something that can't be recorded, when you leave that meeting, keep like a little notebook or a little log and write down the dates, the time, and what happened.

If you need to vent, that's probably your best strategy is just to get it all out too. You don't worry about the language, just get it all out. But at least you have documentation, the log, because you can extract that information and that is where your case is.

That psychological piece, according to the WorkSafe in BC but also across country, is that mental health and psych, again that compliance side. You can't build a case if you don't have specifics on that.

H - Well, something else for folks to think about, I think increasingly our meetings are monitored and tracked and recorded by AI. You know what I mean? So, I think that that's a really good place for you to look for documentation.

If you have a manager that you have the sense, maybe in week three of working with them, you think, "I don't know if this is going to be a good relationship. I can't put my finger on it."

Just start an innocent practise of saying, "You know what, I just always get my meetings transcripted so I can see what's happening." And if you start that early, when you get that sneaky feeling, the documentation is there for you.

That can be really helpful. Okay, so Rachel, I want to open up the room to some discussion for folks here who have burning questions. Any last thing you want to say while you're up on the soapbox before we go into Q&A that you really want the person really to know?

R - I'd say if you're going to record, you do have to ask for consent. So, just be careful with that. Lots of meetings ask at the beginning, but just keep that in mind. You can't secretly record somebody.

Question #1: What Kinds of Things Should I Document?

I think there's subtleties too. Even in terms of discrimination, ageism in the workplace is huge. There's also more information coming out about perimenopause, menopause as well, and bias.

A lot of people don't get it. At least people are talking about it now. But there are subtleties to a lot of things that can occur. And even in terms of a log, if you're not getting asked to meetings that you technically should be, or things change, then that's a red flag.

Document that, look at it. Because that would follow along the lines of moving somebody along. How do we make their lives miserable so we can get them to leave?

H - Have them eventually go? I think there's two customers for the little black book of documentation that you're going to do. One is HR, or potentially a lawyer down the line if things go in that direction.

But the other reason for doing this is for you, right? Because it's really easy to get caught up in all this, how do I win? How do I be right at the end of the day? How do I get the bad guy to get got, and how do I keep my job?

All those concerns can really play in. Those are all valid and important things to think about. But it's also really important to think about your own mental state coming through this and the capacity that you have..

I've seen this over and over and over again, I've seen this with myself too, where we will work so hard to try to fix a bad situation and it's incredibly, incredibly taxing.

Then what happens is whether that situation resolves in our favour or not, later we end up at a new workplace. And because the old workplace has been so toxic in these predictable, patterned ways, we start to carry all the ways that we adapted to the old bad situation, into the new situation.

And it can be really challenging to get your mental health back and to get your normal way of perceiving risk and opportunity in this new company back to build healthy and productive alliances with your colleagues.

Those are really important professional competencies for you to be able to maintain. And if you sit there fighting a legal battle, or an HR battle for years, sometimes the cost to yourself can be really, really, really high.

Part of what’s good about documentation, it helps you see, yes, this is happening to me, and yes, it is bad and you can make decisions from there.

The decision might be to stay and fight it out, but sometimes the decision might actually be to leave earlier than you'd expect and quote, unquote, let somebody win because that gives you more resiliency to build on the next thing.

There's a real cost sometimes to fighting the fight. I love when people fight the fight, but I also love when they're able to go on and do the next great thing. There's always a balance there.

The first minute you find yourself in HR's office is the time you probably should be dusting off your resume. You're not necessarily going to use it, but as an insurance for yourself. Make sure that you don't find yourself six months into this when you're even more exhausted, even more depleted, "Oh, I got to apply... Oh, I got to update my resume."

It's really hard.

R - I think that situations too are set up where, if you think you can tap it out, I'm going to fix it, you’ve got to know where your threshold is and when it's just time to, like you said, dust off your resume, get out there because the impacts are going to be too great.

I've been in lots of situations where I think, “If I just work harder”, you try to self-correct, if I just do these things. When in reality, in retrospect you realise, “Oh no, that wasn't me. That was just a situation I should have just left.”

So, it's for yourself because the impacts your personal life too. My breaking point was realising that I have a 12-year-old daughter. But for a couple of years, I was in such a state that I was not a great functioning parent.

Everybody has a different choice they need to make, but at least you have the tools to do that.

H - And kind of a helpful thing to think about for yourself if you're sort of in there trying to fight it out, and whether that's fighting it out adversarialy or fighting it out in a collaborative way with HR or the colleague that you've been having challenges with, or whatever that looks like, trying to get to a good solution, if you are working this hard, I want to know if everybody else in the situation is also working this hard.

If you're in a situation where you're working this hard and HR is working this hard and the person you're having challenges with isn’t, that's the kind of situation where I'm more keen on the resume solution than I am in the stick around solution.

If you're working this hard and everybody else is working this hard, I think you're much more likely to see a positive resolution then. So just a helpful check to keep your pocket friends.

Comment: Be Careful Who You Vent to At Work

R - I think the comment around talking or venting to people is also really critical. I’ve made mistakes too, where I’ve thought, "Oh, I can trust this person," but in reality knowing where the separation is and talking to people outside of work, and also to be fair, a colleague or a coworker will have their own stuff.

You don't want to loop them in unnecessarily because it can put them in a really tricky spot themselves. You don't know sometimes who is talking to who and that's a hard part as well. It's being able to talk to someone to get some guidance before you move through those steps that is critical.

Question #2: Can You Share Examples of Microaggressions That Should Be Reported?

Microaggressions can be as small as, say you have a work arrangement where you're working hybrid three days a week in the office. Then suddenly they start clocking you.
That would be a microaggression, where you didn't show up or you're five minutes late for work.

Like something as small as tone policing in meetings can be a microaggression where, you're articulating yourself in a certain way or communicating a certain way in a meeting and then you get called out for it where in the past you wouldn't have been.

Being told to do something and then, “We expect you to do it that way.” There's some sort of specific way that nobody has told you anything.

Being told not to take things personally. Totally. That's a good one, like...

H - Somebody's getting just a little too close to you all the time and kind of looming over you. I've run into that one.

R - Interrupting talk.

H - My favourite most hilarious microaggressions from maintenance was calling my colleague Ms. Pushy Pants for holding them to a deadline they agreed to. It's so bad, it's actually funny.

Write them all down, you know what I mean? Because one, it's valid for you to feel their microaggression, and I think sometimes there can be merit, like I talked about earlier in being strategic in what you do and don't bring to HR.

Rachel talked about how in gaming and mining, swearing is received very differently than it would be in other industries. There's a big difference between like swearing near somebody and swearing at somebody, right?

R - Yeah.

H - And that line can be really tricky. So, if anyone on this call at any point is sitting there thinking, "Hey, is it strategic to share these microaggressions? Is that going to likely lead to a resolution? Is it going to help me move forward? Is now the right time to have this conversation and what should this conversation look like and how should I frame it?”

I'm happy to get on a call with anybody for free to talk about that, just to be clear, 30 minutes of my time can really be helpful and I'm really happy to give anybody my take on it or reach out to other folks that you know in the industry, if you've got friends in HR that you don't currently work with, that would be a time to pull some of them in.

People you meet at WIMDI, mentors, just try to get somebody else who's got a read on that because you also run into tricky situations where, I've run into this a lot, I'm a, quote, unquote, difficult woman, I'm very opinionated, I'm aggressive, I'm all those things.

I catch a lot of those accusations just by existing and there is not no truth in them. I am a forceful communicator when I want to be and I can be quite direct, and in some workplace cultures, even if I wasn't a woman, that would be complicated.

I think most of the time it's mostly just the "woman-ness" of it all for folks. So, when you're in a situation where there's some truth to it, it can be even more complex to deal with, because it's more likely to be received as just feedback, right? There's an art to how you can approach it from there.

R - I was just thinking about feedback too, the whole notion of constructive feedback. Full credit to people in HR as well where, you can coach people on how to do it, but I worked for an org where they were like, "Oh it's just radical candour" and it was actually, ”Oh no, this is soul crushing, self-esteem,t his is another level of, quote, unquote, feedback.”

If you're feeling something in your body and your gut, you know something's wrong. If you have tension, or if you go into work and you don't feel safe, you don't feel comfortable enough to just exist, then there's something wrong.

Even if in a lot of the times it's not overt, it's not in your face.

H - And let me just add two things to that quickly because I think that's a really good call out, Rachel, paying attention to those bodily symptoms, right? They might be things like tension knots in your stomach, but they might also be things like numbness or freezing.

Even if you notice that you're fawning around somebody and you're working over-time to win their favour and you're thinking, "Who is this girl? Why is she doing, that's not like me".

Those are all signs that there's maybe potentially something quite wrong. If you're somebody who has been working with a therapist and they've been taking notes over many years about the things you've been talking about in your sessions, sometimes that can be a helpful person to, A, "Hey, is this thing really happening to me?"

But also, B, "Got any documentation for me now that I'm talking to a lawyer about this?" Sometimes they actually will have contemporaneous documentation.

I know we're at the end of our time. Rachel, give us your last words that you want to leave these folks with and as well where people can find you in case they want to hire you and what they might want to hire you for.

R - That's a good question. The best way to get hold of me is through LinkedIn right now. My primary business is in workplace investigations and in HR advising, but another side note is I'm also available confidentially if you need support or even extra advice in terms of, not coaching, but navigating the nuances of what you can and can't do.

A lot of people want to know what you can do and what your rights are. Even if your team say something like severance, I'm your support in terms of how that works.

It's a little bit different than going to a lawyer, but a lot of people don't even know what their rights are, lawyers are expensive. So, that's the other way I can support people

H - Okay, great, I love it, Rachel. Okay Rachel, well thank you so much. This has been a great conversation.

R - Thank you.

H - Big round of applause for Rachel. Thank you everybody.

R - Thank you so much.

How to Respond When HR Isn’t Helping You –…

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How to Respond When HR Isn't Helping You