324. Workplace Red Flag or Green Flag? Summer Sessions #2, with Meghan French-Dunbar

0:02Welcome to another episode of our Treat Lies and Work Summer Sessions. For the next few weeks we're taking a little break from the workplace news and the deep dives to bring you something a bit lighter. The sort of episode you could enjoy maybe on a summer walk, a long drive or while you're pretending not to check your emails on the beach. And today is really simple. We're calling it workplace red flag or green flag just in case you're old like me and you don't know what red flag and green flag is. in the dating world, in all the memes. If someone exhibits a red flag, then you shouldn't date them.

0:31If it exhibits a green flag, you definitely should date them. Now, we have all heard the workplace advice. We're applying this very clumsily, I'm doing it, to workplace. We've heard the workplace advice, like things like never discuss salary or hire for culture fit. But are these actually signs of a healthy workplace or are they red flags that we've somehow convinced ourselves are normal? After the break, we are joined by author, speaker and host of the Unbehaved podcast, Megan French Dunbar MFD to put some of the biggest workplace behaviours, leadership advice and organisational trends to the test.

1:02Play along as well as each one comes up. Make your decision before we reveal ours. We'll be back in a very, very little short time. We need to hear from the sponsors, right? This is contractual, Megan. This is contractual. The dirty little secret is that most businesses think they know their customers. They have the data, the records, the history, but it's scattered across three teams and four systems. And in our case, it's about 216 ,000 spreadsheets, which means nobody can actually use it. What you should be doing is using HubSpot because why? HubSpot connects it all. Every interaction, every support ticket, every conversation into one platform every team can work from.

1:43So when sales talks to a customer, marketing already narrows the full story. And when you know more, you grow more. Nice. Check out HubSpot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses.

1:59Hello, hello, and welcome back. This is Truth, Lies and Work, the watering podcast where behavioral science meets workplace culture, brought to you, of course, by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne. I'm a Charged Occupational Psychologist. My name is Al. I'm a business owner. And normally we'll be here to help you simplify the science of work and build amazing workplace cultures, but not this week. Nope. Today we're joined by author, speaker, and also one of our favorite people in the world and host of the Unbehaved podcast, Megan French-Dumba.

2:26MFD, MFD, MFD. I mean, nobody can hear my awesome dancing that I'm doing, but I'm doing wonderfully. How are you both? Very good. Yeah, good, good. I'm also really disappointed I didn't do the X Factor intro. I don't know whether you get the same guy in the US, But in the UK, they go, Megan, French, Dunbar. No, you don't get the same guy, do you? I mean, I know what you're talking about. It's going so well. Tell us what you're up to, Megan. I mean, I'm enjoying a gorgeous day in Boulder, Colorado. It is 10 a.m. where I am. I've just gotten back from two weeks in British Columbia. and on the work side of things, I have very recently, I have the Unbehaved podcast and Substack and I have been really walking through what happened when I did my first legal psilocybin assisted therapy journey in May.

3:30And it has become, there's part one and part two on Substack and part one and part two on the podcast. And it has been a really fun topic to the more I get interested the more I go deeper and deeper and deeper into why psilocybin is so incredible uh so that's been fun and my one year book bookiversary is coming up august 5th uh you know living the life over here we were saying weren't we before we hit record that we that you would you think this is our around about our one year anniversary from the first time you're on the show yeah yeah amazing happy anniversary love yeah the best year ever spent with you too I feel bad because I didn't get anything I just didn't even think about it it's a typical man, just forgot the anniversary I'm so sorry I mean you've got me a co-host on the podcast lot so I'll take that, that's pretty rad true, true that's better than flowers from the petrol station or the gas station you use it I don't know, but I think petrol station flowers have like like come on yeah I'm not going to lie, when I last went back and I stopped at the garage just before I got to my mum and dad's and got a beautiful bunch of flowers.

4:44It was one of those, I don't know if you have this, Megan, where we have like supermarkets that will have the shop in the petrol station. Yeah. So this was a supermarket shop, I guess. Does that make a difference? Maybe. I don't know. This is some quality, quality broadcasting here. It is, isn't it? Hard thing stuff. Yeah. This is what people came here to talk about. should we should we get straight into our game yeah let's do it okay okay so i've got this list of workplace behaviors or career advice or situations that basically i'm going to read them out one by one and then you two lovely lovely women are going to decide can i say lovely women that sounded a bit creepy when i said that i say highly intelligent professionals would also work.

5:30And why did I have to make it women? Because you do people. You see? I genderize everything. I over-genderize. That's what I do. Well, what we're going to do is you're going to say, you think that is a red flag of a corporate culture or a... I was about to say blue. Come on, Al. This is a format point. Or a green flag. And then we're going to ask you why. I'd ask if you understand, but I think you understand better than I do. Okay, cool. No right or wrong answers. Definitely want some opinions. Let's kick off with our very, very first one. Before I do, Megan, on a scale of one to ten, how would you rate that sort of intro to this game?

6:06As a fellow podcaster. As a fellow podcaster. I mean, I guess I'd say red flag.

6:16Maybe like a three, but it's cool. You're still learning and you're just getting your feet under you. genuinely what this is this is going to be episode 324 we've done 120 so we're 444 episodes of podcasts we've done yeah you'd think we'd be better okay right i've got 20 of these i want you to pick a 20 yes i want you to pick a number we'll go megan first then we'll go leon I'd pick a number between 1 and 20. 18. 8. Oh, good choice. So this is a situation. And MD explains in a podcast interview, we recruit almost entirely through employee referrals. Is that a red flag or a green flag or undecided?

7:06Who wants to go first? Megan should go first. I feel red flag there. I feel like that is similar to CultureFit. And at least in my experience, when we the referrals that you would give out would often be to your friends and family and people who are very similar to you. And so it just perpetuates the homogenized culture of getting lots of people in there who have very similar qualities and would be potentially a hard way to drive genuine diversity of thought, opinion, experience, all the things that you want to really be in a place to drive innovation and all the things that you want in an organization.

7:50So my quick thinking is red flag. Leanne? I would say without more information red flag I worked in an organization where we did make a fair few hires through referrals but they'd go through the same recruitment process as external candidates and it was objective criterion so we did have a few a few hires that did end up being referrals or we didn't really have that same problem but I think knowing how few organizations organizations actually have a robust objective evidence-backed recruitment process, I think I'm inclined to agree it's a bit of a red flag. Do you know what's funny is that I read, there's a book called The Knack by Bo Burlingham and he's also written Small Giants I think.

8:35Well you and I have talked about this before at MFD, I'm sure we have and he said and one of the things he's, one of the stories he told was that they recruit exclusively friends and family and they said it was the most successful thing they've ever done but I suppose and back then I was thinking oh my god this sounds amazing i'll do that then but thinking about it they never they never actually said whether they've got diversity in there whether they've got any kind of like where it was group think or whatever so i i hadn't actually thought about it that from that point of view i mean if you are looking for a culture that is that gets along really well um perhaps just doing friends and family you know if you don't want diversity of thought if you don't want people challenging each other i i'm uh i don't know but it would be probably a very pleasant place to work yeah not much friction though i think i think family is a bit more problematic yes it's a lot more problematic isn't it um yeah those kind of nepo hires never really work out rarely work out um so yeah it would be an automatic red flag if those proposals were mainly family Can I ask a question?

9:45Do you think this would be acceptable if you were a startup and this was like your first 10 employees? Would that change your mind? I mean, I have personal experience with this. This is what I did with my first company, Conscious Company Media. We had our two co-founders. We hired one person, my first person off of Craigslist, hashtag 2014. And that person we didn't know. And then all the next, I think, five hires were all friends. and it was people we'd met in grad school and people who we'd met through various networks of ours. And I think perhaps my red flag comment came from the fact that I looked up at employee 10 and I had an entirely, we were all women between the ages of, let's call it 29 and 45, all white.

10:36And I had just hired a completely homogenous group of people because it was all friends and family. And I think when I was, I just gave advice to someone who's starting a company yesterday who called and I said, I think the biggest mistake that startups make is hiring their friends because you go with what you know and trust rather than what you actually need. And if they can make it through a formal vetting process to actually see if they have the skills and everything that you need to get to the next level. Cool. But I doubt that you have that if you are a startup lee can i play devil's avocado for a second i love it when you're an avocado you said you've said quite often that the people who get you here probably won't get you there yeah so often you've said employee number 13 is where things start to change it fragments and you often have to lose some of your earlier people so i take on board fully what mfd is saying at the same time i'm going to ask the same question to you and go if you would if you look to them kind of as disposable that's not a good way to to describe an employee he's all my friends your employees do you see what i'm getting at is that i think you've actually made more of a case for it being a red flag in that you're absolutely right you kind of and how many clients we worked with where we're helping them through this exact kind of friction point where they've they've been a startup they've either recruited people that they know or they've they've bonded very very closely and very very quickly and the issue that they're having is either the direction the company changes or the vision changes or the growth strategy changes and you're bringing in more people and you've suddenly got this us and them of like well we're the og people who have this really strong personal relationship with you that helped you even get to this point and you've got your new people and they're just excited to be part of a really cool scale-up company and it's that friction and the fact if they're your friends as well it just gets unnecessarily messy doesn't it i'm i've changed my mind i've changed my mind excellent right i'm with both of you lee choose a number between one and twenty uh number 15 number 15 okay here we go you discover in a new job that not only is the office dog on the org chart oh my god i've seen an org chart like that but they have their own email address lee let's go to you first red flag or green flag

13:14i'm always inclined to sway red flag for anything that's a bit quirky and a kind of a bit because you're also then, well, what happens if you have an employee that, or you're a candidate who really doesn't like dogs or is afraid of them or from a hygiene perspective or sometimes it's just annoying if you've got a smelly dog in your face. And I say that as somebody who has three dogs. I don't know. Do you know what? I've actually got a client that's in this situation, so I'm going to say it depends. Oh, it depends. MFD, thoughts? Blue flag for sure here. which is I don't know because I would work with a dog in my lap all day every day.

13:59If I'm at a party, I am the person who's hanging out with the dogs, not the people. And when I go into an office and they have dogs, it makes me feel super, super happy. I think org chart can be cute, whatever, on the website. Like I like that you're respecting your animal's email address. like the fact that someone went far enough to set that up i don't know i don't know but i mean leanne i'm hearing you like my friend nathan is allergic to dogs and there's some people who are afraid of them and so i don't know i i can't i can't blue flag which means yeah i think if it was a cat if it was a cat i'd be red flag oh interesting 100 yeah oh no i would be too but i would have thought a cat would be more acceptable to the majority of people they make me sneeze they're very sly i don't care for them it's the slyness that does it for me too leanne yeah they've got that side eye of going i know what you've done i've been checking out your internet history yeah that's uh that's not cool yeah right now see interesting interesting thought because if I hadn't followed up by saying they have their own email address, if they were just on the org chart or on the website as a kind of a member of staff, would that change it from blue?

15:25Which, by the way, MFT, you've just totally changed the rules because we didn't have blue flag, but I understand why you've done it. Thank you. You've ruined my format. But if it just had... I'm pretty sure you were the one at the top of the hour that said blue flag. You did. You did include a blue flag. Did I? I'm not sure it was for this intention, but you did mention a blue flag. It was a mistake. Hold on. I'm just going to rewind and listen to this bit and see if I'm actually true. No, I obviously did. If it was only that they were like a fun part of the org chart or a fun part of the website, would that change your mind from blue to red or green?

15:59Go on. You look like you want to say something, Megan. I mean, I don't have anything different from... It makes it better. It makes it better if they don't have the email. but the previous parts stand about you know people being allergic or scared or all the things and you want people to feel safe in a workplace yeah do you know what i think it comes down to the intention if it's just a cutesy bit like almost like a marketing kind of thing then i think it's slightly red flag because you could be it could be causing problems you could for example have a situation where there's a dog on the org chart because maybe it's a a um what they called assistance dog maybe you've got somebody who's blind in the organization or autistic who has an assistant dog and you're welcome into the office and you do all the checks you need to make sure everyone's comfortable and happy that could be a scenario potentially where it's okay right we're still sticking with blue because it depends and we've got to see what what the rest of the thing does cool okay i love this i love this shell right whose turn is it to pick a number is it you lee no megan next megan number one to twenty not including a five brilliant okay all right so So here's, this is interesting.

17:07Right, okay. At interview, you're told nobody gets an office, including the CEO. Because you picked it, Megan, why don't you go first? Tell me what you think. Red, green or blue? Red. Oh! Why? Well, I think, I mean, one, if we're doing a nobody has an office except for the CEO, it is implying that they, in fact, have to be working in an office. which is a huge red flag for me. The like work from office full time mandate, huge red flag. That prevents a ton of people from being able to work, people who have different abilities, working parents, people who are caretakers, people who have various needs outside of work.

17:55So the work from office mandate, huge red flag. If it is like even a part time situation and it's a completely open floor plan. I appreciate the, a bit like the, we're honoring everybody has the same value. So everyone has the exact same situation in the office and a completely open floor plan where nobody has an office doesn't account for people who have neurodivergence or different abilities. And it, myself included, I have ADHD and I cannot work effectively in a wide open floor plan with tons of people walking around and talking near me, even if I have noise canceling headphones and the whole thing, it is just incredibly hard for me to work.

18:41I need my little tiny space. And to not even have that as an option, to not have flexible policies or customizable workplaces that actually meet people where they are and just forcing one mandate across everyone and forcing them to kind of shift and mold themselves to fit the workplace. Red flag. Leanne? Lee, I'm loving that if you say green flag, then you're basically saying the ADHD is fake news. I'm loving this. This is going to be interesting. Lee, what are your thoughts? Red flag. Red flag all day long. Because do you know what it is? Everything that Megan said there, there's also research that shows that open plan offices are really really crappy for productivity and performance for neuro diverse people and neurotypical people it's just not a conducive environment for productivity and for work it's also I think it falls under this myth of like and I think often the intention is good like a leader that goes I treat everyone the same and it's like I know what you're trying to say but you shouldn't because as Megan rightly pointed out everyone has different needs and we can't just try and squeeze everybody into this one one shaped workplace environment and hope that everyone will get on the same um they won't you shouldn't treat everybody the same everyone has their own individual needs and personalization is key so red flag love it love it i think we can squeeze one more in before the break okay so uh lee your time to pick a number uh number two number two let me just look it up okay you just oh this is quite similar you discover that at your new job they have complete salary transparency i everyone knows what everyone else earns lee green flag green straight away straight out the gate green why because i think salary transparency should be a thing anyway i know certain certain american states now that i brought that in at a point of kind of hiring or on the job advert you have to display salary and it does irritate me than companies don't because it's like well I think this job is at my level but if I go through this like four-week recruitment process and then I get an offer that's half what my expectations are then what a waste of everyone's time I think it would it would it would hopefully having that transparency mean that there's there's fairness and equity in how salary is decided how promotions are worked out how any sort of commission or bonus structure works um i i can i can see some scenarios i'm thinking of you know like the bbc has paid transparency now so every year they'll they'll publish like the 50 highest paid stars and always some controversy around they're not worth that much so i can see in some environments it could cause some issues in places but i think if done correctly doing fairly pay transparency for me is a green flag.

21:37Oh, MFD. 100 % agree. Really? Yeah. I mean, I would take it the next step further to pay transparency and open book management. And I think when we have completely shut down workplaces that don't give their workers access to information, it implies that they just don't trust their people. and open book management, which has paid transparency as well as financial transparency around how the organization works, how it's doing. They actually educate their team members, regardless of their level, on the financial status of the organization. They give them financial education. And so everyone has a new sense of ownership, but they also feel a sense of dignity.

22:19When you come into any organization and they don't give you access to information and don't give you any insight into decision making, that makes everyone feel disenfranchised. And disenfranchisement is on the other end of the spectrum from feeling dignified. And when you're stripped of your dignity for most of the majority of your waking hours, it makes people really, really frustrated. So to go all the way down that rabbit hole, it's a huge green flag for me. It also is one of the things that helps ensure that the gender pay gap is in fact being addressed when you have a transparency. I think as well, there's an element of you kind of, we've worked with clients, haven't we, where they haven't always been that transparent and then have made decisions and they've had this massive backlash.

23:08And then we've kind of unpicked it. And when we, you know, encourage them to release more information around financial performance, and employees have gone, oh, why didn't you just say that to begin with? Right? Because if we treat it like an adult, and this is the way it is and this is why we're having to make some of the decisions we're making people will be more likely to accept them whereas if there's a change and I don't know why and it's that ambiguity then it's that classic thing isn't it my threat state goes I start to fill in the gaps or they must be in trouble it must be really really bad or the CEO's got a massive bonus and they just don't want to share it I start to disengage and I start looking for another job and it's just unnecessary gossip and drama whereas transparency which would probably I mean you might still have a bit but at least you know you're dealing with the facts aren't you and it's all out there Ali you you look surprised are you surprised by both of our answers here I am a little bit I mean I think in theory paid transparency yes that makes sense but it's like In theory, a four-day workweek makes sense, but I just think it's got so many ways it could go wrong.

24:15The research shows that productivity stays the exact same with a four-day workweek than it does a five-day one. And life satisfaction and employee engagement goes up. And so does employee retention. Just saying. I mean. Just because it's hard doesn't mean you can't do it. i feel like my argument has just been shot down no massively and no and i oh don't do the oh no no no it's okay now don't do that because that makes it even worse well do you know what i i would not have said green flag but i'm sitting in front of two very very experienced and accomplished people and i will just say right i'm gonna i will defer to your opinion no i think i think it's good because you're thinking like a business owner, you're thinking like an entrepreneur.

25:04And Megan, I know you'll have these conversations with clients as well. And you're like, it might seem counterintuitive, but this is the better way to go. So I think it's good that, yeah, you're the business owner in the room going, really? Doesn't sound like a good idea to me. It's funny because where we go, we recruit through employee referrals. I thought green flag. Yeah, that sounds a really good idea. Nobody gets an office. I put green flag. Yeah, that's a great idea. And then transparent, hey, transparent, but red flag. I love this. so far I am wrong 100 % of the time okay right we're gonna go we're gonna go to the break but before we do I want to tell you this right I love this there's a Twitter account called Fesshole and it's all about confessions why does that sound rude?

25:46I think it's meant to sound oh it sounds dirty in a good way that's why I like it I'll be honest most of them are pretty unbroadcastable but this one was someone who said I worked at this place for about three years. They were the worst, worst company I ever worked at. And they basically fired me. They were like, oh, you've got good news. You're getting voluntary redundancy. And it wasn't voluntary at all. They were basically getting fired. So on the last day, they did a spreadsheet of all the names of the company and then put fake salaries on it and left it on the printer and walked out the door.

26:22I was just like, wait for that to kick off. And I thought that was genius. opposite of paid transparency anyway right we need to we need to go to a break and we'll be back in just one second I hope unless I get cancelled did you know that the UK's number one management podcast that's us by the way and the UK's number one marketing podcast are both on the same podcast network we actually have a lot in common we both use behavioural science to help people do better at work and we both had to wrangle Rory Sutherland on an episode. And two out of three of us are devilishly good looking. And you're not going to say which.

27:04Phil, host of Nudge, UK's number one marketing podcast. It's brought to you, we need to do this in threes. The HubSpot Podcast Network. The audio destination. Or business professional. Seamless. Seamless. Tell us about your latest episode, Phil. We've just done an episode on fake fandom and how New York indie bands are paying agencies to create fake TikTok videos about how much they like their work. And we talk about the behavioural science behind fandom and how that encourages people to enjoy the music and all of that good stuff and do some big things about how this affects the world of politics, business and brands as well.

27:37It is. It's such a good show. Of course, you'll hear all the stuff you want to hear about how to grow your business by using behavioural science in your marketing. But there's also just some really interesting episodes that will be right up your street. Personally, I enjoyed Can Balsamic Vinegar Make Beer Taste Better? It can. And are we all just status-seeking monkeys? I am. Go and listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcast. But come back. Yeah, come back. Definitely come back because Nudge isn't as good as this. So come back. I'll cut that out. Keep that in.

28:10Welcome back. This feature, I don't know, some people might say this is working. Some people might say this isn't working. If you are the latter, then you will love Megan's book, This Isn't Working. You should definitely go to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, wherever you get wherever you get check this out my word he's a podcaster ladies and gentlemen you just redeemed yourself for the crappy intro if we do publish the video you'll see me leaning back in a kind of like a very accomplished yeah oh yeah check me out that was i feel that was a bit more ron burgundy than uh anyway right so we are we i've got another number of these let's see how we can get through and where are we up to?

28:53Who's choosing the number over the first one? I think it's Megan, Nick. Megan, Megan, you're the only person. Three. Let me just see. Oh, I can't do three because that's so obviously one or the other. How do you know? You said you got them all wrong.

29:13Why don't you choose your favorite one? Okay. Oh, yeah, I'll choose this one because I genuinely don't know how this is going to go. So I'm going to use a nerdy word in a second, and I will define it. So in this new job, you're bonused on token maxing. And just in case anyone's listening who doesn't know what token, I know you two do, but doesn't know what token maxing is, is the person who uses the most AI tokens in a month, and they get a bonus. So the more AI tokens, i.e. the more you use AI, you get a bonus. Is this red or green? Who are we going to go to first? I will just choose randomly.

29:49I'll point at someone at random. I have no idea where. Leanne. I don't understand enough about AI to understand what the intention would be and the good outcome from the company would be of people token max. Do you want me to give you a little bit of context? Like is it, what are they being incentivized? I understand they're trying to use all their tokens but to what end? There is a company which I can't remember the name of but basically they're embracing AI so much that the person who uses AI the most i.e. the most number of tokens gets a bonus because they are trying to leverage ai so much to build their company they want ai to do 90 of the work and the humans do the 10 that i can't okay then i'm gonna say red flag oh

30:37i'm gonna say red flag because i think it just comes down to i feel that like quantity isn't always as good as quality like if you're just throwing shit at the wall because it's using ai to get your token max so you get your bonus then you know whereas if you're designing it in a way that's like how do we use ai in a way that is going to take away the grunt work so we're moving our people onto more value-ed activities or how do we use ai in a way that improves our governance or our compliance or improves the experience for our customers or what's the goal behind trying to use AI to do that thing rather than let's just use AI.

31:17It just feels a bit like, I don't know, it's like if you're in a call center, would you really incentivize? Maybe you did back in the day, incentivize people for the number of calls made. It's probably much more effective to incentivize them on the calls they've converted to a sale. Interesting. Megan? I'm in total agreement and red flag. And I had the exact quality over quantity situation. It's you're not actually looking at what the AI is being used for. And I just had a conversation on a podcast a couple of weeks ago about the ethical side of deploying AI in the workplace. And instead of it being seen as something to replace jobs, what if it is used to actually help people grow and develop, help develop and nurture team culture?

32:05Like there's a lot of positive ways that it could be used besides maximizing productivity. And I feel like the individual bonus structure of one or two people get their bonuses based on how many tokens they have compared to all of their other teammates breeds internal competition instead of a more unified team oriented culture. And in my opinion, I think bonuses should be for every single human being at the organization based on top line revenue growth of the organization. So it becomes a we succeed together, not individual performers or people who are cutthroat or overworking themselves or using the tools as many times as they possibly can in an hour.

32:46all of a sudden that becomes a quantity over quality and individualistic behavior that breeds garbage cultures over the long term i love that and i was about to say what would be the alternative you just explained it um it was emily and katie's podcast you did the ai episode on what was that called the podcast it's called reimagining work from within with within people beautiful beautiful Beautiful. Okay, right. So I think it's MFD's time to choose. You give me... I mean, I feel like with the time left, you should just choose the juiciest ones. Got it, got it. I don't know. What do you think? No, I'm...