214. The wildest overemployment scam in tech history. PLUS! Fake empathy, nepo hires and salary secrets, with Rameez Kaleem

28:47Al Elliott:right okay they're going to be my content content manager i'm like how the heck do i find out what a content manager should be paid what a lot of um hr teams and organizations will do well they will go online and they will look for a content role and see what the salaries are and there might be going on indeed glassdoor other recruitment surveys but i always say to those organizations, you know, when we do this, all we're saying to the employees is, and if there's a disagreement on pay, that our internet research is better than your internet research. Because that data is the same data that employees have access to.

29:30So what we always suggest is to use salary surveys that are formal surveys that are not based on advertised salaries, but they're based on actual salaries of employees.

29:42Al Elliott:What happens if there's pushbacks, the CFO pushing back? Are you seeing that? And if so, how do I defend my position that I want to pay a certain amount? There isn't a lot of investment to be made. There are obviously some adjustments to be made because there might be equal pay risks because people are significantly underpaid. But ultimately, whether it's Gen Z or any employee, what they want to know is that are we being treated fairly? and it goes back to people are less interested in what everyone else is earning around them but they want to know is there a process in how you're deciding pay for me and that's the same process for everyone else so that we are being treated fairly and then once we start sharing the context around how we make pay decisions we start sharing with them the pay approach to pay is equitable and that helps to build trust with them and once we have that trust what people tend to do is they start to not focus on what they get paid but they just start focusing on doing a good job for you.

30:43I feel the topic of pay transparency is so important it can sometimes be confused with pay disclosure so if we talk about pay transparency some business leaders they'll say well I don't want everyone to know what I get paid or I don't want my colleagues but that's not what pay transparency is about. Pay transparency is about giving people context, treating them like adults to say this is how we make decisions and you know making sure that they realize that the pay is managed in a fair and equitable way and it's not a case of it's not a binary issue of you either have it or you don't. It makes you wonder doesn't it Al like why some employees are still reluctant to list salaries when all the data suggests that it's good for them and all the people want it it kind of it kind of makes you think that it can only be for a shady reason well yeah for shady

31:35Al Elliott:reason but also like think about when you're buying cars recently over the last sort of seven eight years in the uk certainly but i think in the in the us there'd be lots of companies to come up who are saying we are very transparent about our car prices the olden days when you got some dodgy guy with a fag hanging out his mouth sorry that's a cigarette for just in case you don't know what talking about in the US that's the great hanging out the mouth going how much you want to pay how you know oh we'll do you a good deal those have gone so I feel like I feel like that has been revolutionized but we've not yet tackled the sort of pay transparency side of it yeah and I think that's kind of the the crux of it isn't it really that as Ramiz was saying about Gen Z and their need for transparency and I think this has also kind of been bubbling with millennials and probably younger gen x as well because there's been so much disruption and so much ambiguity and so much turbulence in our working lives that we just crave some kind of transparency some kind of control or clarity wherever we can get it i think it's absolutely true as well um with what he was saying around um the world of work has fundamentally changed people might may well be happy to take a lower salary if it allows them more remote working and flexibility and that just makes sense when i was when i was doing my biggest commute i was spending about 130 40 pounds a month on travel and that was back in like 2011 2012 be easy double now yeah triple it's a lot so so yeah i can i can see why that would be a factor as well and there's so much in the news about people hiding stuff and you know not being honest about stuff so you immediately think if someone's not being honest or won't be transparent about their pay what else are they not being transparent about which gives you such an opportunity to flip that on his head to be able to say we are transparent like jeff roberts phenomenal guy currently traveling his way around europe some of the most amazing places they keep sending photos of but he's from outsetter and they've got such a transparent way that everyone earns money and equity and can just work one day a week or six days a week or whatever they want there's the other guy i don't remember his name but remember about four or five years ago and he paid everyone 72 000 a year yeah yeah yeah yeah and so you kind of feel oh well i trust them So even if it's going to cost you a few thousand more to make sure everyone's on equal footing, the transparency means that people are going to naturally trust you more.

33:57And as we learned before the break in Leanne's segment, when people trust you, then they're much willing to forgive you if something doesn't quite go awry. Yeah, absolutely. And I think in terms of like, this is all very much steeped in research as well. This is what psychologists call organisational justice. and it's as much about understanding the reasons why a decision was made um so it's not necessarily a case of of having transparency to the the level that i'll just mention that everyone is paid the same amount it's transparency around how salaries are calculated how they're decided how bonus structures work how promotion or or salary bands and how you move up in them how that works um all of that feeds into organizational justice and without organizational justice um we can very quickly feel very detached from an organization not want to put in um extra role effort um and really it's usually a yeah it's the start of disengagement if we don't trust our organization then that relationship isn't going to go very far is it absolutely not i know you did a bit of work

34:54Al Elliott:with the nhs about 15 years ago and that was making sure that everyone was getting paid the same but that was just too much wasn't it they went too much the other way so that people it was more of a fight to get what you're worth rather than yeah it was the old person knew how to um how to rig the system as well which i respect but yeah was it the uh was it was it the equivalent of sohill so soham yeah yeah yeah pretty much pretty much but yeah okay so all the links to ramiz are in the show notes i suggest you go and check out his website um and also he's just got he's got so much experience in this in this field he's such a measured calm guy he's got a book out which i thought was about to come out but actually it actually came out a year or so ago so you can go and buy it right now check the show notes the links will be in there and now Well, I believe it is your favourite time of the week.

35:40Al Elliott:It is. It's time for the world famous weekly workplace surgery where I put your questions to Leanne. Leanne is a chartered occupational psychologist, an expert in work. She's also pretty awesome. And there's not been a question that's stumped her yet. So let's go and see if we can do that now. I've got three questions here that I'm going to ask her. If you've got your own question, you know what to do. Go to the show notes, send us an email. I'll put it to Leanne next week. Okay, so question number one. Should I hire my spouse into my small team or is that asking for trouble? Just in case you're wondering why I'm laughing at that, then Leanne is my spouse and I am Leanne's spouse and we now work in a small team.

36:15Al Elliott:So yeah, this is very close to home. So I run a small consulting business with a tight knit team and my partner's been out of work for a couple of years now. He used to be in a professional role, but after losing his job, he decided to step away from work entirely. Financially, he doesn't need a job, but I've been thinking about bringing him into the business. Would this actually help the team or just blur the lines too much between home and work oh and the ps here is any upsides to hiring your spouse right let's let's let's find out what leanne really thinks about working with me i don't think it's about working with your spouse i think that's the wrong question i think the question should be does your spouse have the expertise that is required within your business and if they do then you should consider hiring them too many i think this is very true of of every small business owner that will always look to the people they know and typically that will include family to fill roles and functions within their business and I think that's fine so long as they are part of the same recruitment process you'd put everyone else through and this starts by understanding the job that you need in your business what's the role that is required in your business what is it going to deliver how does it fit into everything else and how that's delivered that's what psychologists call a job analysis that is where you start if you start at that point and then look at actually the type of experience and skills and knowledge and capabilities you're going to need to fill that role if your spouse meets that criteria then yeah it might well be worth bringing them into the business there are complications that come with that and I think unless your your partner really really wants to work in your business I wouldn't advise it I think it would blur lines it sounds like it's not necessarily something that has to happen if there's an underlying turn here that you think they need to be engaging in some type of work there's lots of different things they could look at if they were in a professional or previously they'd look at um non-exec roles they could look at board advisory more voluntary stuff charities public sector lots of fulfilling roles out there for somebody who has expertise but doesn't necessarily need to earn a paycheck um so overall i would say the way you've asked the question i'm not sure you've entirely thought this through so it's a high level simple answer no don't hire your spouse do the work to understand what your business needs do the work to understand what your partner needs and then go from there yes i think and i think you've hit the nail on the head something which bothered me about this question was it felt like the person asking the question was basically going well i have to go to work and so this person so my partner needs to put it's not fair they sit at home because they don't talk about kids or anything or any child care or any caring or caring stuff that may well be but i don't know uh so i got the sense that they were a bit like a little bit jealous of going well i would love to be able to sit at home and and watch bargain hunt and um that's a very british daytime tv show by the way uh referees there for all us all us brits um the other thing which i was thinking was if they have got expertise why not bring them in as a consultant or even just just this this new term that i've just made up called a silent consultant and that's where they would they would do the work but nobody actually knows they're delivering the work you're just you just go oh i've got a consultant um even i mean you could even just try that anyway that might be an idea to start off with is just get them in as a consultant whether it's a silent consultant or not your dark consultant that's what i'm going to call it from now on dark consultancy so it's my word of the week um and bring them in and see if they actually do bring value just do it like a two or three weeks project because you'll soon find out a if you can work with them b if they actually are bringing in um sort of like you said value and c most importantly whether they actually want to do it because they might even be telling you they want to do it but actually they might just be they feel like they have to say that any other thoughts lee i think what do they say are there any upsides in hiring your spouse careful upsides are you can speak very openly very clearly what's on your mind you can bounce ideas around they'll become equally obsessed with you over an idea that nobody else in your organization will quite get to that same level um i think it ultimately gives you quite a lot of flexibility if you're working the same organization because you're working to the same schedules the same hours the same kind of yeah peaks and troughs of what's happening the thing is I think you suddenly become everything to each other when you work with your spouse you become colleagues you become friends you become enemies from time to time um it's a lot so you I think you have to be really confident in your relationship um to really to really yeah get the benefits from it lots of people say to us oh i don't know how you do it how you do it and that to me is a sign well then you shouldn't do it because if if it's not even like couldn't even imagine it then probably not i don't what do you think though are there any upsides there aren't many upsides being truthful um there's um yeah look i think some of the upsides are that uh that work that you're sitting down at night and you can't and i'll say to leanne you okay to talk about work should go yeah yeah you're fine and we'll chat um that's cool some of the other upsides are they know you so well that if you say you're going to do something they'll call you out and go but you're not going to hire you um or if you say i will do this they'll be like cool i know you've got this um downsides are you just can't really turn off um because if if you know you sit there on a saturday and you want to chat about something you go what have you done this week well i've done the same thing as you've sat opposite me for most of the day um so there's that um and the other downside which is also potentially an upside is that you tend to be able to take the same time off shall i say so currently in bulgaria it is now it is 36 degrees today beautifully sunny um a lovely time to go and sit in the pool and i think if liana half said to me al should we just sack off this recording and go and go and sit in the pool part of me were like maybe maybe yeah it's easy to skype your spouse that's for sure anyway so i hope it works out for you and and if any of those things start to you know ring true a little bit just ask yourself that question what what's my motivation for bringing my person into into work so question number two to what degree is an employer responsible for the well-being of their employees as this person says i run a small business and this question has been on my mind more and more lately in a perfect world i'd want to support my team as much as i can but in the real world things aren't always that simple especially in trying to keep a business afloat what are your thoughts deanna excellent question very simple answer if you are a uk business that employs two or more people you have a legal obligation to order the stress risk factors within your business every 12 months and if you have more than five people on your team you have to share the feedback with them too interesting but most people don't know that no most people don't it's not it's not very much in first it's enforced this is under the health and safety executive and all the health and safety laws that go with it.

43:12So yeah, you have a legal obligation to not to invest necessarily in employee well-being, but to measure the aspects of your work environment that may be causing stress. You then have a moral obligation. If not, it's a gray area, whether it's a legal obligation to actually do something with that. So I think this is where often business owners will get a bit confused around well-being. they'll see well-being as like oh do i need to have an eap program do i need to have mindfulness at lunch and do i need to you know offer free counseling or um sessions around financial well-being and that's yes that's nice to have you don't have a legal obligation to do any of that they're what we call a psychology individual level interventions they're things that help an individual um manage stress build their resilience which is half the story the other half the story which is why it's in HSE law, or health and safety law, is that you have a responsibility as a business owner to create an environment that is psychologically safe for your workforce, much as you have to make it physically safe.

44:15So you can't have broken steps and just holes in the middle of the office. It's really easy to get compliant with this. The HSE themselves have a management standard survey that looks at kind of the five main aspects that can cause stress in the workplace that's things like relationships level of control somebody has over their role um the amount of change that happens in an organization um and you can just send that survey out to your people they also have a score sheet um that comes with that and it'll give you an idea of kind of how people are thinking and feeling in your business and where your stress hot spots potentially are um it's not always very transparent and giving you an exact reason why so it might tell you that relationships in your business are a bit strained and are a source of stress but won't necessarily go into the detail of why that is and the impact it's having on your business if you want to do that you need a more detailed employee engagement survey but it's a really good starting point and of course it's a legal obligation um so I'd start with that um because yeah the other stuff is nice to have the other stuff is important but it's half the story and I think for most individuals they will rarely cite individual level interventions that aren't working for them like you're not going to hear people go oh do you know what I went to meditation at lunch today and the instructor was really bad like they tend to say my manager is awful and is ruining my life or i have such a high workload right now because they're the actual organizational elements that impact stress and that's where you have a legal obligation nicely put and i think

45:43Al Elliott:that's that's a key thing to remember is that i think a lot of people think oh well-being of my employees is like you say wellness app it's mindfulness it's journaling and all that kind of thing whereas as leanne said that's the equivalent of i don't know i don't know anything about fitness but that'll be equivalent of of of warming down but the actual important thing is going out for a 5k run and that is like having decent managers and i mean if you're interested in this there are seven hours for an amazing workplace culture which leanne has designed it's called the rx7 uh seven times r get it and and some of those are role responsibility recognition, relationships.

46:21Al Elliott:These are the core things. And these are things, if you get them right, then you don't need a wellness app. Or in fact, if you do, then it's just like, oh, brilliant. Everyone's doing so well that they're like, wouldn't it be nice to have a bit of yoga together at lunch, you know, in the park or something. So yeah, I think that's really, really important, but it's a great question to ask and a brave question. I think a lot of employers wouldn't necessarily want to ask that question. Be fair, it was anonymous, us but wouldn't want to ask that question and i think just my last bit of advice would be as a fellow business owner who doesn't i know i know more about this than most people do just because we talk about it twice a week but before leanne and i started doing this i would have gone oh god what i need to do don't worry there's very little you actually have to do have to do there's one thing train your managers that's what leanne always says but just get leanne's email jump on it jump on the call with her for 20 minutes and she'll talk you through like the quick 80 20 wins and you can just employ someone for like once a month just to help you with this you don't need to have a full-time person yeah absolutely um i'll leave a link to the hsc stuff in in the show notes you can read more about what your legal obligations are um and the tools that they offer to use them which are completely free brilliant okay so question number three can disk d-i-s-c actually help with team tensions or is there something better there's something better was there more There is more.

47:39Al Elliott:Now, this person runs a marketing agency, 14 people, and they're recently having some personality clashes. One team member in particular asks endless questions. I think it's about them getting it right, but it's winding the rest of the team up. Some are actively avoiding her now, and I don't want this to get worse. I'm thinking about using DISC, which we'll explain what DISC is in a second, to help everyone understand each other a bit better. But I've never used it before. Is there something better I should be looking at instead? Just so I know, is Disc, is that the red hat, blue hat, or is that Edward de Bono?

48:10Al Elliott:Yeah. No, not the hats, but it's colours. Right, okay. Yeah. So tell us what Disc is and what your candid thoughts are on it, Leanne. Disc was invented by the same person who wrote the Wonder Woman comics. I knew that. I think that's all you need to know about the scientific validity of Disc. Yeah, it's very popular. It's very popular. and I understand why because it gives teams a really nice clear vocabulary and visual representation of their role within a team and that's really nice but as John Amici said how we distill the complexity of human behavior to four primary colors it's just not that simple and I think that's the same with any kind of type-based personality assessment by type-based I mean it puts you into a box or it puts you into color um so disc puts you into into red blue yellow green um myers briggs will put you into intpf and j and all that nonsense so tempted to give you another one what no i can't oh i know i know which one you yeah yeah yeah yeah you're as well from a scientific perspective having a team building afternoon with your staff and talking about everyone's different horoscope you know it's it's it's as useful as that in terms of a valid way of building relationships and self-awareness and understanding between your team.

49:34There are some psychologists and some psychologists who've been on this show that will say, I don't see the harm if it's for team building, if it's a caveat, it's not being used as anything towards recruitment or formal development, it's just a team building exercise. I don't see the harm. I kind of see the harm just because business owners like this stuff because it's just so easy to understand then they'll go oh do you know what that was great and they said we shouldn't use it for recruitment but do you think we should because looking at our team we don't really have any yellows we should probably hire a yellow so for me it kind of the danger is there because that quick fix is just so tempting understandably to a business owner when it comes to recruitment so i personally don't don't enjoy recommend recommending these types of tools in any scenario type based ones if you really want to do a type base the only one that i would say is fairly useful with belbin right the team was that's like the real old school one but i think it still stands in terms of of a useful type-based assessment that helps you understand roles within a team so that's things like you a plant do you have the ideas and the creative you're complete a finisher um i think there's eight eight or nine roles so it's a bit more

50:43Al Elliott:extended than just four are they the ones where it usually has two words you're a complete a finisher you're a starter and yeah monitor evaluator or something yeah um so i think that can be quite quite helpful particularly if you've got somebody who's asking lots of questions it might help you them understand kind of um why they do that and where they sit in in the role they sound like a bit of a duck shuffler as we talked about the other week a perfectionist um and how that can rub up a complete or finish the wrong way because i just want to get the job done um and also build that self-awareness that this is my you know default behavior maybe at times I need to modify that a little bit to you know meet the objectives and deliver the outcomes that the team needs to deliver so I think for understanding that can be really helpful and it's really simple it's not a long questionnaire so it's not too time intensive so Belvin could be a good one I prefer behavior-based tools because I think they're just a bit more a bit more useful in a team dynamic when we're talking about behaviors underpinning culture I also think from a um scientific perspective there's a bit more validity to them even the very best personality inventories are only you know so much effective in terms of predicting job performance um even the very best ones i respect them and i think they play an important role um but i i think for these type of things i prefer behavior based um intervention so i'd be thinking things like um Tools from the Real World Leader Group are really great.

52:12They do a 360. They do an individual one as well. Things like the Hogan Personality Inventory could be quite good. That's based on the big five model of personality, which is probably one of the most researched and validated in the field, but again, links it to behaviors. So they would be my go-to in terms of doing this. but there are also other things you can do within a team building exercise to build that understanding and awareness. I think it was Sophie Wood that gave us a really great one on her episode a few weeks ago about trans inclusion. That's about how you write down circles of like what's made me me up to this point and the individual experience I've had.

52:52And it's those types of conversations that are going to build openness and honesty and understanding. So I think that's the objective, isn't it? Is how do you build self-awareness and mutual understanding? and for me I'm not sure that DISC is going to be a very effective way of doing that the other problem with something like DISC in any type-based psychometric to be mindful of and be careful of is that once people know that they're a red or a green or an INTP they cling on to that identity with everything they have and some people will do it in a way that's like well that means that these areas I need to work on and develop myself as a professional there are others that will use it as an excuse yeah i can't do that i'm i'm a i'm a complete finisher i'm not a plant i can't do that i'm a blue i'm not red um and you really want to avoid that use of that shared vocabulary um so you kind of want somebody to deliver this in a way as well that helps explain that these things are indicative of what our preferences are they're not written in stone because we've all noticed those important you know annoying people that are kind of like you know i'm an i'm an arsehole because i'm a scorpio what can i say yeah um and it's that's not cool so I'll leave links to Belbin and the HPI and the show notes but in terms of disc nah

54:04Al Elliott:Leanne did her dissertation on Hogan and we've actually had we had the chief scientific officer from Hogan on Ryan maybe oh back in the early early days so if you are he's been on a couple of times he has actually yeah so if you're interested just search Truth, Lies and Work Hogan and you'll find the episodes we'll try and put them in the show notes if you remember but yeah I've got nothing else to add to that Leanne's the expert in that and I think the main thing is I wanted to make the point and you made at the end that as soon as you decide someone is a red, then you've made up your mind about them.

54:33Al Elliott:And as soon as you decide you're a blue, you've made up your mind about yourself. And if you're not careful, then you get, well, that's the reason why I don't get on with them. Because they're a red. And it's like, well, hang on. Maybe it's because you're just a bit of an arse. I don't know. Anyway. So all the links will be in the show notes. Lee, anything else to add before we say goodbye to these lovely people? No. Okay. So we're back next Tuesday with another This Week in Work, where we have a hot take, of course. we have a news roundup and the same you've just listened to the world famous weekly workplace surgery probably why i put your questions yeah nearly got it out there nearly got it out and on thursday we have got the nicest man in business we do tim lupicini he's giving us a master class on humility in leadership um and i think i think you might be surprised he's certainly not soft he's wildly successful um and just can't kind of shows that that being a good person is half the work.

55:25Al Elliott:Yeah, and if you're wondering, oh, right, there's another person who leads three people and has got a good idea. No, this guy has got 24 offices, law offices across the US. There's thousands upon thousands of people and still manages to just be a really decent guy and a great leader. So if you manage a lot of people or you want to manage a lot of people, then this Thursday episode is right up your street. Lee, people need to subscribe, do they not? Yeah, if you wouldn't mind subscribing wherever you listen to your podcasts. leave a review that would be really nice thank you to some of the couple of reviews we had in this week that's always good get in touch come over to LinkedIn join the conversation that's why we have all the chats bear our souls and pretend that everything's okay actually we don't pretend that everything is okay that's the point anyway come over have a chat just to be clear the answer bear our souls not bear our souls just to be we will see you next week bye bye bye

56:24Al Elliott:And could the wildest employment scam in Silicon History Valley? So let's go and join Ramiz and we'll learn why this is not necessarily a legal or an ethical issue, but a cultural one. You might want to say pay transparency. So let's go and join Ramiz and find out if pay transparency is illegal, unethical or a cult. That's not right. And they suddenly come out and go, oh, well, well, look at this. Do that again. I think I was on to a good point. Oh, this is a really short one. I'm sorry. I should have read this properly. Do that again.