Episode 306 · 2 June 2026 · 1:04:06

Firing your HR department, restroom lurking and the accidental manager. PLUS! Does Gen Z value purpose over pay? With Dr Jake Tuber

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Intro and guest banter with Dr. Jake Tuber
intro#podcast-intro #guest #coarse-language
Word of the Week: restroom lurking
news roundup#workplace-stories #office-behavior #humor
Tech firm fires entire HR department
news roundup#hr #layoffs #tech-industry
Truth or Lie: Does Gen Z value purpose more than pay?
truth or lie#gen-z #purpose #pay #truth-or-lie
Workplace Surgery: The accidental sales manager
workplace surgery#workplace-advice #sales-management #career
Workplace Surgery: The workaholic wellbeing hypocrite
workplace surgery#work-life-balance #wellbeing #hypocrisy
Workplace Surgery: Loyalty vs. honesty with a 7-year employee
workplace surgery#loyalty #honesty #employee-relations
Outro and wrap-up
outro#podcast-outro #wrap-up #upcoming-guest

Show notes

Firing HR, Restroom Lurking & the Accidental Manager — with Dr Jake Tuber

Guest: Dr Jake Tuber — organisational psychologist, returning guest, and host of the Workwise Substack.

This week, Al and Leanne are joined by returning guest Dr Jake Tuber to tackle the biggest stories in work — and the result is, as ever, gloriously sweary.

They dig into the viral trend of "restroom lurking" (44% of workers admit to hiding in the loo to regain composure — which says far more about office design than it does about bladder control). Then Al breaks down the shock news that checkout software company Bolt fired its entire HR department, and why the CEO's "smoke alarm" defence is a catastrophic misreading of what HR actually does.

In Truth or Lie, Jake takes the lead on the big question: does Gen Z really value purpose over pay? Spoiler — it's more of a life-stage phenomenon than a generational one. And in Workplace Surgery, the trio tackles the accidental manager, the workaholic wellbeing preacher, and the loyal employee who's stopped growing.

🔥 Stories Covered

1. Restroom Lurking: The New Workplace Space Crisis

Leanne reveals the latest viral workplace trend: "restroom lurking." A Kickresume survey found that 44% of workers admit to using office restrooms to regain composure when overwhelmed. The deeper issue? Modern office design has left employees with nowhere quiet to go.

Source →

2. Tech Firm Fires Entire HR Department

Al breaks down the shocking news from checkout software company Bolt, which laid off its entire HR department. The CEO defended the move, claiming HR "creates problems that don't exist." The team discusses why this "smoke alarm" approach to policy is a catastrophic business decision that overburdens untrained leaders.

Source →

🧠 Truth or Lie: Does Gen Z Value Purpose More Than Pay?

The media claims younger workers only care about meaningful work and ethical alignment. Dr Jake Tuber leads this week's segment to reveal why this is actually a "life stage phenomenon" rather than something unique to Gen Z. Previous generations felt exactly the same way in their twenties — they want meaning, but they aren't willing to sacrifice financial security to get it.

Academic Resources & Studies Mentioned:

💬 Workplace Surgery

Three listener questions, tackled live:

The Accidental Sales Manager: How do you undo a promotion without destroying confidence or your credibility? The team breaks down the classic trap of promoting your best individual salesperson into management — and why coaching them up beats demoting them with grace.
The Sustainable Business Owner: What do you do when you preach wellbeing but are secretly a workaholic hypocrite? Jake and Leanne discuss the mindset shifts required for founder-led businesses — and the practical scheduling tips that actually work.
Loyalty vs. Honesty: How do you have the hard conversation with a loyal, 7-year employee who has stopped growing with the business? The team maps out a fact-finding approach to avoid an unexpected review bomb.

(Got a question? Submit it via the connect link below.)

Connect With Us

Get in touch, book a call, or find Al and Leanne on LinkedIn — all in one place: truthliesandwork.com/connect

Mental health support: findahelpline.com — UK: Samaritans 116 123 · Mind 0300 123 3393 — US: 988 — Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14

Truth, Lies & Work is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network.

Full transcript

Expand full transcript

Leanne ElliottDr. Jake Tuber is back this week, so it's likely this episode will contain some coarse language. Listener discretion is advised.

Jake TuberWhy is it that that is how my introduction happens? What the fuck is that about?

Leanne ElliottSorry, Jake, you're absolutely right. Bang out of order.

Al ElliottAnyway, it's my turn. Coming up this week in work.

Leanne ElliottWhat do you do when you need a moment at work, but there's just nowhere to hide? Well, apparently a new workplace trend has hit office life to solve this exact problem. I'll reveal all in my Word of the Week.

Al ElliottAlso this week, a US tech firm decided their workplace had too many HR-related problems. So they came up with a very simple fix: fire the entire HR department. Honestly, you couldn't make this up. I'm sure Leah and Dr. Jake will have some thoughts on this.

Jake TuberAnd in Truth or Lie, does Gen Z value purpose more than pay? The media is quick to tell us that kids want more, but is that really the case? I've done the research and I've got the verdict.

Al ElliottAnd in the workplace surgery, one listener asks, how do you undo a promotion without destroying someone's confidence or your own credibility? They promoted the best salesperson and found themselves in a little bit of a pickle.

Leanne ElliottThis is Truth, Lies and Work, the award-winning podcast where behavioral science meets workplace culture, brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.

Al ElliottMy name is Al. I'm a business owner, and I'm here to ask the questions you might be afraid to.

Leanne ElliottAnd my name is Leanne. I'm a Chartered Occupational Psychologist, and I'm here to answer them along with organisational psychologist and all-round excellent human, Dr. Jake Tuber. Say hello, Jake.

Jake TuberHello, Jake.

Leanne ElliottAnd together we'll help you simplify the science of work and build amazing workplace cultures.

Al ElliottWe'll be right back after a very quick word from our sponsors. 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 3 teams, Teams and 4 systems, and in our case, about 216,000 spreadsheets, which means nobody can actually use it.

Leanne ElliottWhat 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. So when sales talks to a customer, marketing already knows the full story. And when you know more, you grow more.

Al ElliottNice. Check out hubspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses. Hello, hello, welcome back. Leah, Dr. Jake. Dr. Jake, I've heard a rumor that you're writing a book, but you're keeping it kind of low-key. Is that right?

Leanne ElliottIs it? What's it called?

Jake TuberTrying to keep it low-key. We have a whole launch plan out, you know, we're trying to not overdo it. And it just happens that, you know, when you have great friends, sometimes they really want to support you and Uh, as soon as I find some great friends, I'll let the two of you know.

Leanne ElliottOh, nice. How rude.

Al ElliottIt's a bit like, it's a bit like, you know, when you go to your mum's house and then one time you don't eat sweet corn, for example, and then she's got it in her head that, right, okay, he doesn't eat sweet corn. I think it's the same with your book. I just, every time I see you, I'm like, we need, we need to talk about his book. So anyway, we will.

Jake TuberWe don't need to talk about the book. We won't. You do not need to talk about the book. We will. There'll be plenty of time to talk about the book.

Al ElliottLet's talk about what's going on in your week. What's happened in the last couple of weeks in your, in your life?

Jake TuberOh my goodness, my life is, my life is going well. I've had some exciting, uh, developments on the work front, some exciting new client work that's been happening. And more than anything though, spring has sprung here in beautiful New York. And for the 6 days of the year where it's not too hot and not annoyingly cold, New York is in fact the best city in the world. And we are somewhere toward the back end of those 6 days. So I am a happy camper. I, I don't think I fully appreciated how much My general mood was seasonally affected, just in general. Just the ability to feel like looking out my window, it's not dreary, I could go outside. I'm not saying I do go outside. I'm not saying I actually enjoy the weather, but it's the potential to enjoy the weather that makes me happy. And more than anything, it means my kids are outside, so I'm a happier human being because they're running around and they're tired.

Leanne ElliottIt just feels like a world of possibilities, doesn't it, when the sun is shining? Like you say, you don't have to do anything with them, but Life feels better.

Jake TuberThe sun is shining. The, the, the peace deal in Iran is gonna happen any second now. Everything— we're gonna open the strait. Everything's gonna be better. Everything's gonna be great. Great.

Al ElliottIt's— I, I do know, I feel like that when the sun's shining is the same as when you just fill up your car, uh, with a tank of gas, as you guys say, and it says, it says the amount of kilometers you can do, or miles you can do. So 650 kilometers is your range. You're like, I could drive to— and obviously in your case, I don't know anything about— because America's massive. You couldn't just drive to Canada.

Leanne ElliottCouldn't get out of state for that.

Jake TuberYou know, that's a good question. I wonder how, from New York City, uh, I'm trying to do the math in my head, could you technically make it to Canada? What would be the shortest distance with about 650 kilometers? I bet you'd be pretty close, actually. But, uh, no, you— I mean, depending on the direction you go, you could either pass through 6 states or in certain places not make it anywhere out of one. So it's a big country here.

Al ElliottDo you know what we need? We need like Joe Rogan. We need like a Google gimp who we can just say, hey, pull that up, go and get that route for us while we're talking. But can I—

Jake Tuberam I allowed to say the word Google? We need an AI agent who's our like fake podcast producer, right? Go look that up. Yeah, go ahead.

Leanne ElliottGo.

Jake TuberCan you pull that up, Derek? What should— I think his name should be Derek. I think his name should be Derek. Derek AI agent, go pull that up for us.

Al ElliottI like that. We'll, we will look into that for future. Meanwhile, Lee, anything to add? Oh, sorry, Dr. Jake, you might not know this, but there's some, there's been some significant developments going on in our local park.

Leanne ElliottYes.

Al ElliottLeanne has been supposedly, allegedly attacked by a crow twice.

Leanne ElliottYes.

Al ElliottWe have talked about it on the pod before. For those listeners who are no doubt desperate for an update, I went to the exact place, same place where the alleged Oh, I haven't heard this yet. Yeah, I haven't told you. The alleged assault happened this morning. No crow.

Leanne ElliottReally?

Al ElliottNot a— so I'm not sure whether you're just, you're just attention-seeking and making all this up, or whether the crow was just there at a different time, or it was busy.

Leanne ElliottMate, I don't know. It definitely happened, and it happened twice, and it was a bit weird. It went for the— it went for our miniature pinscher, Jake, um, which I think I had mentioned before, he's not that miniature. So it was, it was an ambitious snack on the crow's part. Um, but then he just wouldn't leave us alone. He just kept like kind of bouncing towards us. You know, you can like stamp your feet to try and scare him and it just wouldn't go away. I was like swinging around my rucksack at one point to try and scare him off. And in the end, another crow came in and intervened. And then the second time I had the bigger dog with me, so he managed to chase it away. But I don't know if it's looking after a chick or something, or it's got eggs laid. I don't know, but it's very keen that I wasn't in his area.

Jake TuberCrows are one of the smartest animals in the animal kingdom. Fun fact is that Uh, most crows are actually smarter than the average American politician.

Al ElliottIt doesn't strike—

Jake Tuberin fact, we might elect a crow, actually. If the Democrats are smart, they'll just run a crow, uh, in the next election here, and that'll, that'll turn the tide. Uh, crows are brilliantly smart animals. You can teach them. They can solve memory puzzles. They're, they're amazingly, amazingly gifted. Wow.

Leanne ElliottSo what did it want with me, Jake? What was it trying to tell me?

Jake TuberYou probably had like a, like a candy bar in your pocket or something and you didn't realize it, you know? Like, I don't know, it probably— you know, to be honest with you, listen, I wasn't there, and given Al's skepticism, I don't even know if this crow is real. So I'm not gonna— I'm not gonna indulge this fantasy until we have proof. In a world where everything is being filmed, there's no footage of this, Al? I'm suspicious. This is very—

Al ElliottThank you very much.

Jake TuberVery suspect.

Al ElliottIt could be from the future, Leanne. Maybe it's got a message for you.

Leanne ElliottYeah.

Al ElliottWhich would be annoying if it was in Croatian because then we'd have to translate it and it'd probably mistranslate it. Anyway, Lee, anything to add before we go to your favourite time of the week?

Leanne ElliottNo, I feel humiliated enough to let you carry on.

Al ElliottWell, let's see if we can humiliate you some more with your favourite time of the week. This is the time for the, well, the news roundup. I don't normally say this bit.

Leanne ElliottIt's time for the news roundup.

Al ElliottCue the jingle.

Leanne ElliottCue the jingle.

Al ElliottOkay. Right. Who's going first?

Leanne ElliottMe.

Al ElliottOkay. Talk to us.

Leanne ElliottI've got a new word.

Al ElliottOkay. And you know, JT, that we, we, we listen to the word and we have a go at Guessing.

Leanne ElliottWe listen and we don't judge. Only we do. We judge hard. So my word is restroom lurking.

Al ElliottOh my God. I think we've got to go straight across the pond. You can't see this, but Dr. Jake has already got his head in his hands. He's really thinking George Michael.

Jake TuberFirst of all, now I want to know why the word restroom lurking makes you say, let's go to the Americans. That's what I want to understand. Why? Why was that your instinct, Al? Like, defend that statement first before we go any further.

Al ElliottWell, I've got a valid defense, which is restroom. We don't call it restroom in the UK. We call it, we'd call it the toilet or bathroom, the bathroom or something. But that wasn't really the reason. The reason was you look, you, you've got the look of a man who knows his way around a restroom. So anyway, the look of a lurker, the look of a lurker.

Jake TuberI'll tell you this, if by that you mean you look very middle-aged and like you can't control your bladder, then okay, touché. If that's where you were going. I'll buy that. But, but lurker, I don't know. That's, that's tough. That's tough to stomach here. All right. So what do I think restroom lurker means? Given the nature of what this podcast is about, I'm going to give us the benefit of the doubt. I'm going to guess that this is companies monitoring how much time employees are spending in the bathroom.

Leanne ElliottOoh, no, but good guess. And it might come to that if this workplace trend continues.

Jake TuberOkay, what is it?

Leanne ElliottAny guesses?

Al ElliottUm, no, because nothing, nothing I'm thinking of right now is broadcastable.

Leanne ElliottOkay, brilliant.

Al ElliottSo I will leave it there.

Leanne ElliottSo this, I saw this in a Forbes article. Forbes is just the gift that keeps giving, isn't it? Like, there's so many quirky, quirky stories in it. I enjoy it muchly. But apparently it's when employees retreat to office bathrooms or restrooms for a few minutes when work is just becoming a bit overwhelming, and it's not because they, they need to pee or do any other business in there. They basically just need a break, and there's nowhere in the office for them to go. So they'll go into the bathroom, they'll scroll on their phones, they'll maybe calm themselves down, they'll sit just somewhere quiet for a few minutes before heading— have a cry. Absolutely. Um, and the article also cites a survey in this from KickResume, which found that 44% of workers admit to using office restrooms as a place to regain their composure when they're feeling overwhelmed, and 10% said they spend more than 10 minutes there at a time. And women are more likely than men to report doing it. Um, the article is basically linking it to a wider workplace problem, not just about increasing workloads and kind of constant connectivity and overload, but also the lack of quiet spaces in offices after a period of working from home or hybrid thoughts.

Al ElliottI did. Dr. Jake, as a fellow human male, I'm interested in your opinions on this. I don't like going to a toilet and then just like mucking about in— not mucking about, but, you know, wash your hands, check your phone, whatever. Because then if you're in there for 10 minutes, everyone's like, oh, I know exactly what he's doing. And I get all self-conscious about that. But am I just— maybe I'm just British.

Jake TuberNo, I agree fully. I think guys generally have the capability to get out of the restroom quicker. You know, there's usually more urinals available. You're not, you're not usually waiting or anything like that. So if you're in the restroom for a long time as a guy, questions are being asked in a way where I feel like women get, rightly so, the benefit of the doubt of, you know, doing things in there that maybe take more time. Maybe there's less available stalls. I, I'm with that 100%. So I don't, I don't wanna spend any more time in restrooms than I have to. Like, I walk in there and I'm already like, how do I, how do I get outta here? Like, where's the, Nearest exit. Because also, you know, Al, with guys' restrooms, even in an office, you can't quite tell how much of the liquid on the floor is just, you know, excess perspiration from the plumbing versus urine. You know, what is the, what is the mixture of the water to urine ratio on the floor? And I, I don't wanna, I don't want my shoes involved in this.

Leanne ElliottYeah.

Jake TuberI don't wanna, I don't wanna think about, okay, well, in this office with these employees, this is, this is probably mostly mostly water. This is excess hydration from the urinal plumbing system. I don't— no, get me out of there. I don't want to have to entertain any more of those thoughts than possible. I'll just cry under my desk.

Al ElliottI'm with you. I'm with you. Like, women, women see restrooms like an extension. No, this is, this is a terrible thing to say because I started to say—

Jake Tuberlet's—

Leanne Elliottwomen see—

Al Elliottwomen see—

Leanne Elliottcontinue, please.

Al ElliottLet's continue.

Leanne ElliottI can't wait to see how this turns out.

Jake TuberYeah, let's hear it.

Al ElliottAs a, as like, like, like a sort of a lounge where very happily stand there, chat, uh, do a bit of makeup, as you say, do what I'm— this is, this is my guessing because I've, I've got a story about, about women's toilet. I'll tell you in a second. Uh, and so they, uh, and so I think whereas men, exactly what Dr. Jake said, I don't want to go in there, do my hair, check my— I want to be in there and the second the tap's off, I'm grabbing a towel as I'm walking out the door. I'm using my foot to open the door because I don't want to touch the handle because I've washed my hands, but I bet I'm in the minority there. I'm like, no, I don't want to spend any more time in a toilet than I possibly can. Can I tell you really quickly?

Jake TuberIt's totally true.

Al ElliottGo on.

Leanne ElliottSorry.

Al ElliottGo ahead. No, no, go ahead. Go. All right. No, no, no, no.

Leanne ElliottYou hang up.

Al ElliottYou hang up.

Jake TuberNo, you go. No, you come on. No, you, no, you, you do it.

Al ElliottLet me tell you really quickly the story. All right. So I was in a shopping center, uh, which amusingly was called Cock Edge, um, in Warrington. Um, and it had, uh, And so they'd got a supermarket, a couple of the shops, and I went to the toilet, uh, and the door was open, went to the toilet, went in, and I only went to wash my hands because I'd just been in and I think I'd had a doughnut or something, so I was like dirty hands. So I went in, washed my hands, turned round, and under one of the stalls there was a watering can. It was obvious someone was in the stall and they'd bought the watering can and they took it into the store with them, not wanting it to be robbed, because to be fair, in Warrington—

Leanne ElliottIt's Warrington.

Al ElliottThat happens. Uh, so they take it in. I thought it was kind of funny, like, you know, you look, see under the stall, you see a watering can. So I I took— I got my phone out and took a picture as the door opened and a woman walked out. And I realized that I'd walked incorrectly into the female bathrooms and I was taking a picture of a woman walking out of a cubicle. I had never run so fast in my entire life. Anyway, that was my— that's an awful story. And it's genuinely the reason that—

Jake TuberI don't think that's gonna hold up in court. I don't think that's gonna work.

Al ElliottYeah.

Jake TuberI just happened to wander into the wrong restroom and take a picture. I think, The door was open. We could probably do better than that.

Al ElliottLeanne, I feel like we've somewhat hijacked your Word of the Week.

Leanne ElliottYes, this is about people not being able to find a space to have a moment at work.

Jake TuberShould we just start over from the beginning?

Leanne ElliottNo, I think you make a good point though. I think women's bathrooms are usually nice. The occasional time that I've run into a men's because the women's has been like queuing around the restaurant, it's been a grim experience and I've not done it again for another 12 months at least. So yes, and there are, there's usually seating areas, there's usually people, People chatting. I've had some brilliant conversations with people I've never met before, will never see again, in the ladies' bathroom. But I think the point of this is that, are we spending enough time prioritising quiet places for people to go during the working day, especially now we're forcing them back into the office? I remember when I had one of my first manager jobs and we were in a community centre and it was really short on space and we had loads of customers coming in every day. I made the decision after a request from a member of my staff to close one of our one-to-one rooms for lunchtime for about 2 and a half hours to give coaches the opportunity to kind of basically rotate. If they want to just sit somewhere quietly on their own for half an hour and have their lunch, they could. The shit I got from senior management because I was taking an hour and a half away of productivity in terms of customer meetings. I had to really fight to like push back and like, no, this is, this is important. This will enable people to, to work better and longer. So I think it's I think the point is, if people are resorting to going into the, into the restroom just for a 10-minute break, we might need to work a little bit harder to find some quiet spaces in the office, or indeed encourage people more to go out for a, for a break, for a quick walk, etc.

Al ElliottYeah, yeah, agreed.

Leanne ElliottAnyway, that went in a different direction than I expected. What have you seen this week, Al?

Al ElliottWell, this week I saw in, and again, a friend of the podcast, I've forgotten where it was, but, uh, the link will be in the show notes, no doubt. Um, and it was, um, a story about an American fintech called Bolt. It's, it's what I've described was as a masterclass in missing the point. So US checkout software company Bolt, they fired 30% of their workforce back in April, which is, well, that's kind of normal. It's almost like non-news now because that's what's happening at the moment. Companies restructure, you bring in AI, whatever. Here's what gets kind of interesting. In among those who let go were the entire HR department. Every single one of them. Now, some people would've done that very quietly, but Ryan Breslow, Breslow, the CEO, didn't do it quietly. He went on stage at a Fortune event and defended it. He said his exact words were, and I'll read, we had an HR team and that HR team was creating problems that didn't exist. It was, those problems disappeared when I let them go.

Leanne ElliottUh, yeah.

Al ElliottOkay. So do you know what it was likened a little bit to? Someone likened it to noticing your smoke alarm keeps going off and solving the problem by removing the batteries.

Leanne ElliottYeah.

Al ElliottSo you basically just—

Leanne Elliottoh, that's a good analogy, isn't it?

Al ElliottIt's a great analogy, isn't it? Um, so basically that's the story. And I thought, do you know what? I could write more, write more notes here, but I have a feeling that you two are gonna have some thoughts on this. Dr. Jake.

Jake TuberIt's a brilliant way to make the numbers look better, right?

Leanne ElliottYeah.

Jake TuberOh yeah, we've, we fired all the police and it's amazing. We've recorded no assaults in the past month. How, how come? It's really incredible.

Al ElliottYeah.

Jake TuberI, I think the smoke alarm analogy is even better though. It's shocking to me that this is the case. And I, oh man, I'm just trying to imagine if I was an investor in this company, what I would think of the CEO who thought that this was the right way to handle things. Listen, if the HR department is seeming bureaucratic, it's seeming like it's creating more issues, et cetera. That's a performance management problem for HR, right? HR is not immune to being governed like a function that should be delivering business value. In fact, it absolutely needs to be the flag bearer of delivering business value in many respects. To get rid of it is such an odd, odd choice. And I'm just really curious to see how inevitably when they realize they need to staff it back up, what do they actually do differently to prevent the same situation from arising? What structural changes are they going to make as a company? Because eventually, if they want to grow, they're going to need an HR department or a function that carries out a lot of the duties that ideally were being carried out by HR. So what are they going to do differently next time? Because there will be a next time. If there's not a next time, it's because the company isn't growing, and that I'm sure is a problem for the CEO as well.

Al ElliottAgreed. Lee, thoughts?

Leanne ElliottI've seen this article pop up a few times this week on the old LinkedIn, and people understandably having, having their strong opinions on it. What popped up weirdly just before we started recording, because I didn't know that you'd include this as your article because I like to be surprised, uh, Sally Clark. You know our friend Sally Clark who's been on the show before?

Al ElliottOh yeah, yeah.

Leanne ElliottShe was asked to, um, by news.com.au in Australia to comment on this, and her article just came out before we went, um, before we recorded this, and I thought she summed it up beautifully. Um, so she's a burnout and well-being consultant, Jake. If you haven't come across Sally Clark, she's excellent. But she said it's yet another attempt by tech bros to reduce humans to data, which could be amusing in its childishness if it weren't so potentially dangerous. Also note that leaders will now be dumped with HR responsibilities they aren't trained for, which will overburden them once they've spent a few months outsourcing HR tasks They'll feel this on the bottom line.

Al ElliottWell, they're already feeling it on the top line because Bolt back in 2022 was worth— the valuation was— they floated, I think, on the NYSE, I'm guessing. So they were floated and they were worth $11 billion in 2022. Now they're worth $300 million. That is quite a drop.

Leanne ElliottBut didn't I also read that their share price has gone up since they made this announcement of sacking HR? I'm not sure. I think I saw that.

Jake TuberWell, that's just because if you look underneath the numbers, that drop from $11 billion to $300 million was mostly just HR-bloated spend.

Leanne ElliottI mean, that's a good way to HR.

Jake TuberYou can save about $10.7 million a year. Million dollars a year. Uh, I'm sure that their stock price went up, but Leanne, is that just because they made any workforce cut? It was it because— did someone say it was the getting rid of HR that led to— it was probably just anytime you Cut operational costs. You know, the exchange thinks, okay, yeah, you're doing one. You generally, time you do anything publicly that says we're making more money, we're saving money, the market responds with a quick blip that makes your stock price go up a little bit. It doesn't matter how benign that decision is or how absolutely historically catastrophic that decision will be. Any change that signals to the marketplace, we've noticed something and we're doing something different. Yeah, the stock price is gonna go up in the near term because people speculate it will go up in the near term. Uh, this sounds like an absurd decision. This is quite worrying though. If I was— I'm trying to imagine what my experience would be like if I was an employee there that did not get fired, that was one of the 70% of its workforce that was retained. I would be very worried about what senior leadership might do.

Leanne ElliottMm-hmm.

Jake TuberBecause yes, does HR, you know, push paper and do things? Sure. But they are often, at least in the US, the bulwark against executive overreach and policy violations. And who do you go to now if, you know, your senior leader, your CEO does something inappropriate, unethical, questionable? That's supposed to be a channel for you to utilize. And so if I'm an employee there, I'm not just worried about the state of the company and my future economically. I'm worried about what my leaders wanna do that would lead them to think, This is a good decision. You know, listen, not to make a silly political analogy, but like, you know, when you fire all of the inspectors general here in the U.S., the message you're sending is, yeah, I want to get into some corruption. You know, and it's sort of the same thing. Like, you fire all the HR people and you're sort of signaling, I want to do things that HR wouldn't have let me do. And that's not great.

Al ElliottTo be fair, they have told— they have said they've replaced it with a smaller department called People Operations, which are focused Oh, this is for the purpose of balance, focused on employee support and training. It just— no, it just doesn't sound like— it sounds like they've got a few people who are just sitting there and will do what they're being told. Guys, anyway, the link will be in the show notes. Jake, we should probably go to break because we've got your truth or lie coming up next. We've been looking forward to all week. So, Lee, anything else to add before we nip to a quick break?

Leanne ElliottNo, let's nip to a quick break.

Al ElliottNip to the equivalent of the podcast bathroom.

Leanne ElliottLet's go nip.

Al ElliottWe'll see. We'll see you in a second.

Jake TuberAl, let's meet in the bathroom for 20 minutes.

Al ElliottSee you in a second.

Leanne ElliottDid 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?

Al ElliottWe actually have a lot in common. We both use behavioral science to help people do better at work.

Leanne ElliottAnd we both had to wrangle Rory Sutherland on an episode.

Al ElliottAnd 2 out of 3 of us And you're not gonna say which. Phil, host of Nudge, UK's number one marketing podcast. It's brought to you— we need to do this in threes—

Leanne Elliottthe HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.

Al ElliottSeamless, seamless. Tell us about your latest episode, Phil. Uh, we've just done an episode on fake fandom and how New York indie bands are paying agencies to fake their fandom. 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.

Leanne ElliottIt is. It's such, 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'll be right up your street. Personally, I enjoyed Can balsamic vinegar make beer taste better?

Jake TuberIt can.

Leanne ElliottAnd are we all just status-seeking monkeys?

Al ElliottI am. Go and listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts.

Leanne ElliottBut come back.

Al ElliottYeah, come back.

Jake TuberDefinitely come back because Nudge isn't as good as this.

Leanne ElliottSo come back.

Al ElliottI'll cut that out. Keep that in. Welcome back to Truth or Lie, that time of the week where we take a popular workplace idea and ask if the research actually backs it This week, Dr.

Leanne ElliottJake is leading Truth or Lie, and we're asking, does Gen Z value purpose more than pay? The media seems to think so, but what does the research say? Dr. Jake, over to you.

Jake TuberI just wanted to hear you say Gen Zed. I just love it when English folks say Zed instead of Z. That's why I chose this topic. The answer that you're waiting for is somewhat yes, actually. It does seem that Gen Z does value purpose quite a bit. Maybe not more than pay, and perhaps not necessarily for the reasons that the popular media might think. So there's been a lot of talk about this, and especially some global research firms, Deloitte and others, have looked at this. There was a global survey that Deloitte did conduct that found 89% of Gen Z respondents to the survey said that purpose is most important for job satisfaction and wellbeing, and around 44% reported leaving jobs that they felt lacked purpose. Christian et al. in 2024, a little study found that Gen Z employees were often motivated by things like personal growth and meaningful contribution and ethical alignment rather than purely financial rewards. And in general, studies of workplace expectations also show that Gen Z places unusually high importance on topics like mental health, diversity and equity and inclusion, flexibility, authenticity, social impact. Nicholson Smith found that, et cetera. So there is some good research out there. Now, I will say this, however, I don't think a lot of this survey-based research is extremely useful. I think a lot of folks cherry-pick some of the data. So looking back at the global Deloitte survey, 89% of Gen Z respondents said purpose is important for job satisfaction and wellbeing. Well, is that a forced ranking question? I don't know. Is that saying that purpose is inherently more important? Mm-hmm. Or if you can just click, yeah, purpose is important. Sure, I agree. There's no downside to saying yes to that. I'm not necessarily impressed by that stat. Similarly, 44% reported leaving jobs they felt lacked purpose. Well, is that the reason they left the job, or is that, yes, I left this job and it also happened to lack purpose? Not to say that correlation wouldn't mean much, but I do think it's very easy to look at those stats and draw conclusions that Gen Z is just about purpose. In fact, there's some interesting data to suggest it's a bit more nuanced and maybe a bit more traditional. So, uh, Business Insider study about 2 years ago in 2024 said that Gen Z places high importance on competitive salary alongside things like flexibility and values alignment. So it's not just purpose. It's not like saying, sure, underpay me, I don't care as long as the work is meaningful. Uh, there is some baseline expectation that they get paid decently, but here's what I think is Perhaps most interesting, I don't think this has much to do with Gen Z itself. I think this has to do with the fact that Gen Z is just currently the youngest, generally speaking, generation that's entirely in the workforce. This is more a life stage phenomenon than it is unique to Gen Z, and I'll tell you why I think that. I looked at some research dating back to the late '60s and early '70s. 1969, Rozak and others. Talked about the baby boom era youth being widely associated with values around anti-materialism and identity-driven values. Uh, Engelhardt and others, 1971, younger cohorts in affluent societies in particular increasingly emphasizing things like self-expression and quality of life measures over material concerns. So those happen to be the early workplace generations at the time, and what do you know, they're finding the same things. Gen X, Frequently characterized by things like institutional skepticism and a preference for work-life balance, along with emphasizing things like autonomy and personal fulfillment. Those are research articles from Smull and Sutton, 2002, uh, Sonamo and Gardner, 2008. And then millennials, gosh, millennials were described exactly the same way according to Twenge et al. in 2010 as Gen Z are described today. So in general, I think that most of this, and in fact most generational research, has much more to do with the life stage of that generation and what they do care about and can afford to care about than it is something particularly different about them. Here's the flip side though. There are some reasons to think that Gen Z as a generation might be slightly different, or at least intensified, because this generation has a pretty unique cocktail of economic precarity. There's a digital identity culture that's embedded in them. There's a lot more institutional distrust, certainly here in the US, and I believe globally as well. And then they, many of which entered the workforce right around the pandemic or just after, where global workplace attitudes shifted. So it is possible that this generation is experiencing something slightly different, but I don't know if that's because they were nurtured different or natured different. They're just finding themselves in a unique place to be in their 20s. So I think the most defensible research conclusion To the question of whether or not Gen Z really values purpose more than money is probably not that they're uniquely unconcerned with money. Rather, they appear to want meaning without sacrificing that financial security, and they may be less willing than previous generations to tolerate meaningless work purely for economic stability, especially when it's hard to believe that economic stability. is worth the time investment upfront.

Al ElliottInteresting. I think this throws up a really, really important question, which is, what the hell does economic precarity mean? I've never heard that word in my life.

Jake TuberI don't know either. I just saw it online.

Al ElliottYou're lying.

Jake TuberYou lie. Uh, it's precariousness. It means trepidation. It means, you know, you're, you're not in a great financially stable spot. Economic precarity.

Al ElliottRight. Cool. Got it. Lee, thoughts?

Leanne ElliottI was chatting to somebody the other day. I was on somebody else's podcast actually, and they asked me about generations. I, Generations are such an interesting conversation, such an uninteresting area of research, because when we dig into it, there's not really that much difference. Like you say, we look at research among youth populations, it's been the same since the boomers and beyond, before that as well. We're not that different. And I think as well, I agree with you, I think there is something slightly different about the context of Gen Z, but equally, I wonder how that will will play out if we do happen to maybe, I don't know, one day see a bit more stability, or indeed they age in a way that their careers require more stability, whether they have families, want to buy a house, etc. So I'll be interested to see how, how that plays out. But I also think on the flip side, it's, it's like saying that millennials and Gen X and boomers don't care about meaningful work. It's like, of course, of course we do. Like, in an ideal world, yeah, of course we would have work that That is meaningful, because that is a really important aspect of organisational life. It's an important aspect of maintaining our wellbeing and avoiding burnout. Meaningful work is the biggest predictor of work engagement, which is essentially the opposite psychological state of burnout. So, it's very, very important for all of us to find some meaning and purpose in our life. And I would also argue that since the pandemic, I've seen a lot more of that shift in older generations. How many people, even just anecdotally, Al, do we know?

Al ElliottYeah.

Leanne Elliottwho are like 40-plus, who are having some significant career changes, starting a business or they're changing industries because they've reached a point where they've gone, is this it? So they're now pursuing meaningful work. So it's like maybe Gen Z are just seeing it sooner because they've seen the disruption at the beginning of their career.

Jake TuberI don't know.

Leanne ElliottMy thought is, is we're not that different as the media wants us to believe.

Jake TuberAnd I would add to that conversation that I do think we're seeing the rise of a few factors that might make not necessarily this group of people different from an evolutionary perspective, but create a combination of both instability and opportunity that obviously makes doing things a bit differently in terms of how much you prioritize purpose a bit more rational. So there's a couple of different features here, right? To your point about boomers, that was a generation that not only had generally more stability, but the way, at least in the US and certainly in Western Europe and other places, there was a certain employee-employer contract. You stayed in the job long enough, you did your time, unless you did something egregious, you generally didn't get fired. You might not have a ton of economic upside, but you'd stay in your field, you'd move along, you'd get your pension, and then you'd leave. And then in the 1970s, that productivity sort of decoupled itself from labor intensity to some extent. So you had companies that could begin to grow and scale independent of just hiring more hands to do the labor. And once that happened, the risk balance started to shift as well. Companies sort of went away from, I'm gonna provide you with your retirement if you stay here long enough, to in the US anyway, here's your 401, you own the risk of that, you invest it, you handle that. And so you started to really see the beginning of the shifts that are really at hyperspeed now, really about 40 to 50 years ago. And in today's world, you have 2 things. You have the lack of predictability. It isn't like I just enter the workforce, I do my time, And it'll be okay. But you have 2 other factors, as I see it, at least 2 major ones. First is for Gen X and Gen— and millennials, they entered and have been consumed in a workforce that was different from prior generations in that work was something that could eat up your entire day and identity, and there was something nice. prior to the existence of email, that even if you had a knowledge work job, you went home at the end of the day. You could not keep doing your job. Whereas in today's world, work can be all-consuming. And so if you can't find time to find purpose outside of work because work never really shuts off, yeah, it makes sense you'd want more purpose out of your job. Not only was it just a, a deal that you made socially where I'm gonna stay at this job, I'm gonna go there from 9 to 5, I'll do that for 40-plus years. I'll get my pension, my retire. But you could find purpose outside of the hours of 9 to 5. For Gen X and millennials, you kind of grew up in a work environment where work was just always potentially on, depending on the nature of your job, of course. And so if that is something that can be all-encompassing, it makes sense that progressively more and more generations are gonna say, hang on a second, if work is something that never goes away, it better be purposeful. I can't have that second hobby, that second Part of my identity. It's gonna be more all-encompassing. So you have that factor. And then the second one is, in my mind, you also have more economic opportunity to go and do something differently. Now, it was hard to go start your own business a long time ago. The technology didn't exist. The geography was a constraint. Now you can go and say, hang on, I can go build this idea. I can vibe code it now myself. I mean, that's relatively new, but it's not that hard to think about pivoting. And so I think you see older generations who are over 40, Gen X, even boomers saying, Hang on, is this really it? I wanna do something differently. In the past, there would've been like, well, of course this is it. What am I gonna go and do something? I, how do I get something started? Now you can start something at home at night until it blossoms into a full-time job that may just pay the bills, especially if you have a little savings built up. So I think you have a combination of general macroeconomic forces over the last 50 years leading people to feel that economic precarity. Then you have the fact that if work is going to take up all your day or can, be the only thing that continuously permeates every moment of your life? It better have more purpose. And now I have the opportunity to go and create something with more purpose. Yeah, let's fuck around and find out. Why not?

Leanne ElliottHear, hear. I was telling a story to somebody the other day that when I was in my first job out of my master's, this would've been 2008. I, it was when we lived in North Manchester and it was snowing really hard in North Manchester and I worked in South Manchester. To the point where I couldn't see my car. It was just one big snowball. Couldn't get out of the road. I think I even tried, didn't I, and skidded at traffic lights, and there'd been a crash further down. So gave up, turned around, phoned my boss like, I'm really sorry, I can't come in. Literally sent him pictures because I was afraid he wouldn't believe me because it never snows in South Manchester. And it was the days where I didn't have a mobile phone for work, I didn't have a laptop for work, so I had the day off. And now that would just never even happen. And that's not that long ago. I know, I know. Anybody under 25 listening is like, 2008, oh my God. But it's not that long ago in terms of how quickly work has changed.

Al ElliottYeah, absolutely.

Leanne ElliottAbsolutely. So interesting, Jake. Thank you.

Al ElliottYeah.

Leanne ElliottWhat's the final verdict? Oh, sorry.

Al ElliottNo, no, no, no, you're right. What's the final verdict?

Jake TuberThe final verdict is it depends. No, the final verdict is I do think Gen Z probably cares more about purpose and will hold on to that feeling. More than any generation previously. But that's not because Gen Z is somehow neurologically wired differently or have all been babied. It's just a function of where they happen to find themselves as they're entering the workforce at this point in time. And they obviously need to hit a baseline of satisfying those economic concerns because at a certain point, it just doesn't matter how much you care about the job if you can't pay the bills. And I do think overall it's fair to say Gen Z is the most purpose-driven, generation that we've had, even for generations early on in their working life. But I don't think that means they're willing to just eschew basic financial needs to pursue purpose.

Leanne ElliottWe had Oliver Yonchev on. He was a co-founder of a business with Stephen Bartlett. Flight Stories.

Al ElliottHe's good mates with Stephen Bartlett.

Jake TuberYeah.

Leanne ElliottSo we had him on and what did he say is like, yeah, we do need Gen Z optimism, but let's be honest, they've just not been hit hard enough with the life stick yet.

Jake TuberWow.

Al ElliottI always get fired up when I listen to you, Dr. Jake. I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I need a banner or something. Go, Jakey.

Jake TuberThat's exciting to hear because we started off this episode being like, Jake is here, there's going to be profanity. And then Jake is here, so let's talk about restrooms. And I just feel like there's a lot of very subtle American bashing going on on this podcast. And so I'm glad to see that in the spirit of True America, I can at least bring some fire and passion to an otherwise, you know, relatively placid, organized conversation.

Al ElliottI know. And I just want to apologize for the subtle American bashing, and I will make it less subtle next time. Anyway, right, come on. We need to get to the surgery. Time for my work. By the way, Jake, I'm guessing because you're a proper scientist and everything, you're going to give us the links to put in the show notes and all that to all those things.

Jake TuberNo, fuck you guys.

Leanne ElliottGoogle it yourself.

Jake TuberYeah, I'll send those over.

Al ElliottNo problem. Amazing. Okay, so we've got 3 questions here. I'm wondering, Lee, do you Do you want me just to put them firstly to Jake, seeing as he's our guest?

Leanne ElliottYeah, absolutely.

Al ElliottAnd then you can jump in. All right. So welcome. So this is— I've got to say, World Famous Weekly Web Episodes. You haven't said a bit. I was just saying, World Famous Weekly Web Episodes, where you write your questions to Leanne and Dr. Jake. Question number 1, it's all about— they write, I promoted my best salesperson and it's disaster. So this person said, my salesperson was brilliant at selling, very tenacious, persuasive, brilliant with clients, but as a manager, she's an absolute disaster. She micromanages, Can't delegate, and her team's turnover is through the roof. Oh, team's turnover. Oh, of staff. I see. I thought you meant turnover of revenue. I created this problem by promoting her, and now I have to either move her back, which will humiliate her, or keep watching the team fall apart. Dr. Jake, I think the core question is, can you undo a promotion without destroying someone's confidence or credibility?

Jake TuberProbably not in the short term, but I kind of object to the premise of this question. Right. I think, yes, the question is a good one. How do you undo a promotion without destroying someone's confidence or credibility? You probably don't. I think the disaster here, though, to be blunt, lies with the person who promoted them, not the ineffectiveness of the manager. First of all, stop me if you've heard this before: salesperson gets promoted to management and suddenly isn't as good at the job. I mean, that is the most classic example of you went from being a doer to being a person who manages others and doesn't do a great job. It's a very different role to go out and sell versus manage people who go out and sell, maybe more so than any other transition to management. That is the most cliché example of where managers struggle. So you've gotta know to some extent that this person has to be potentially up against it. But I think the issue here, the disaster frankly, is putting someone in a position where they're gonna fail and then looking at it as like, well, I've either gotta let them fail or I've gotta demote them. No, you've gotta coach them. You've gotta invest. This is not a sunk cost fallacy to invest time in them. You put them in this position because you think they have the potential, hopefully, to manage, not just because they're the best seller and they could be the person who manages the other sellers. Go and coach them. Give them the opportunities. I would say there's 2 things you need to do. One, they need to make sure they're getting the feedback to know where they're struggling and why. Have concrete understanding of what success looks like. But ideally, then the conversation has much more of a coaching cadence than a supervisory, you must do this cadence. And it's asking them about where they're seeing their gaps, what kind of support they want, how to put a plan together. You're using much more of a curiosity perspective in trying to help them be successful. And ideally, the person who sent this in makes their most important job facilitating this person's success as a manager, not figuring out how to get a better manager in their spot because they're gonna either demote them.

Al ElliottRight.

Jake TuberOr let them fail. So I absolutely understand the challenge this person is in. I don't wanna sound too harsh. It's tough to see somebody that you've promoted to manager really struggle. That's on you. That's your responsibility. If you put them in that position, you've gotta give them at least sufficient time and tools to succeed. If after some coaching, if after a real try, they don't make it, try to move them to a role where they're gonna be successful. It's not necessarily demotion, it's just a recognition of their skillset and where it's best utilized. They may opt out.

Al ElliottYeah.

Jake TuberBut this is on this person to coach them up, not just demote them with grace. I certainly know that is a really tough transition for a lot of really talented individual contributor sales folks to move into management. It's something that's been written about a great deal, uh, and that is a very common challenge, but it is certainly one that you can work on if you aspire to be a senior leader and oversee others and you have a sales background, even if it's not what you deem your natural skillset, they are very much learnable skills if you're willing to put in the time and energy.

Al ElliottExcellent. Leanne, any thoughts on that?

Leanne ElliottI agree that the skills are different, aren't they? Is it the Peter Principle? You're promoted to your level of incompetence. And I think we see that in sales more than any other, any other kind of vertical. I always think you're better going for the person who's kind of mid, mid salesperson, but showing really positive, like, pro-social skills in terms of collaboration and communication and, and teamwork and all that, all that kind of stuff. Um, handle this very, very carefully. I agree with everything Jake said. This is all about coaching and supporting that person before, before anything else. I was demoted from my first management role, and it is, it is humiliating. It is so hard. I wasn't struggling with the team aspect of things in terms of recruiting them and training them and managing them. I was absolutely fine on that. Mine was more kind of the ops side and the finance side. That was just out of my depth. I was 20.

Al ElliottYeah.

Leanne Elliott7, completely out of my depth. Um, but my— in my demotion to a smaller area, still as a manager, my manager stepped up and became much more of a coach to me, much more of a mentor to me, taught me all the things I needed to know, supported me really hands-on at first, stepped back over time, gave me more autonomy when I felt confident, he felt confident in, in that as well. Lots of coaching conversations, and I ended up getting promoted above the role that I got demoted from.

Jake TuberWow.

Leanne ElliottSo, you can absolutely turn this around with the right support. So, your energy right now needs to go on protecting this person, and because it could have a huge ripple impact on the rest of their career. So, you need to put in some effort to see if you can turn this around.

Jake TuberI'm not surprised that you were able to turn around that way with the help of some great coaching. It does make me curious about this notion of getting demoted. I, this is purely anecdotal. I'm gonna go and look this up. I would encourage our listeners to Let us know what they think about it, what they've experienced. I feel like demotions happen less now than they used to. I, I think in today's world, if you get in a role that you are not good at, they may just move you elsewhere or quote unquote manage you out of the organization. I don't hear many stories of somebody being in a role and them saying, we like you, you're not good at this job, so we're literally going to drop you back down. a level. That just doesn't seem to happen. And I wonder, is that just my very limited set of observational data here? Is that actually true? But I do not feel like I've heard in years an actual story of somebody truly being demoted, or at least it being called a demotion, even if in practice that's effectively what happened when you go from managing a large team to being put, you know, off in a corner somewhere. The notion of demotion The demotion notion, as they say. I wonder if that has actually diminished over time. I would love to hear whether others would agree with that. Maybe if it differs from geography, from one place to place.

Leanne ElliottYeah, great.

Al ElliottThere we go. That's your new TED Talk, The Notion of Demotion. I like it. I like it. Okay, on to question number 2. This person says they're a hypocrite, but they don't know quite how to stop. So they write, I tell my team to take breaks, protect their evenings, and ask for help when they're struggling. However, I never do any of these things myself. I'm always the last one to leave, the first one in, and the only person who can't switch off at weekends because the business is always on my mind. I know I'm a hypocrite and I know it's unsustainable, but I don't know how to lead a wellbeing culture when I can't model it myself. Wow. Interesting. So they already know, they know a lot about this because people don't usually use the words model it myself. They're watching, listening to you, Leanne, and you, Dr. Jake. The last question is, is this just what it costs to own a business? Hmm. Dr. Jake.

Jake TuberI certainly think that part of owning a business and running it is that it's always on your mind and it never goes away. That's just been my personal experience. I work with a lot of founders, CEOs, and that is how they're wired. It's, it ultimately falls back on you. You don't usually just put it away. So I, I do think to some extent that is part of the cost of of owning a business, if you will. I absolutely love the desire to create a culture of wellbeing if they think that it benefits the business. And, and generally speaking, cultures of wellbeing do benefit businesses in most cases. So I absolutely love and commend this effort to do it. I would say, to be blunt, you've probably got 2 options. You've either gotta force yourself to live it, or you've got to force yourself to interact with the rest of your business in a way that doesn't pull any one of those directions. That means If you're thinking about the business and need to get something sent after hours, you delay send it so it doesn't hit their inbox until 9:15 the next morning. That means that if there's conversations that you might want to have that might make your day a little bit easier the next day, but might make someone's evening a little bit more intense for them, you simply sacrifice it and don't do it. So you don't have to stop thinking about it, but you have to stop putting others in a position where they need to be Thinking about it. And so it doesn't necessarily mean you need to model it so much as you need to engender it. You need to create the interactivity and the communication circumstances. And I would say also you can do this from policy. So you can put into place policies around not using certain devices at certain hours or guaranteeing that people are inaccessible at certain times. And then you have to hold yourself accountable to those policies, not just your intuitions. So I would say put into place. Well-being-based policies, and then accountability mechanisms that force you to be beholden to them, whether that's shutting off your email servers for certain hours or doing certain things that, you know, a little bit more of a technological intervention. I absolutely think there's ways, but the best way to do it is to create a set of norms and explicit rules that are, generally speaking, more explicit rule than just norm. Write those down, codify them, And then think of yourself just as an employee as anyone else, and you are beholden to that because you may not be able to model not thinking about the business off hours, but you can certainly create circumstances and situations where you have no choice but not to be interacting with the business and your employees during those hours.

Al ElliottNicely.

Leanne ElliottYeah, I love that. What's interesting about this question is you haven't really given us any clues as to whether the team is struggling with their wellbeing or whether it's just that, or they're doing great, but you are struggling. Um, But I agree, yeah, those kind of having those policies and those firm procedures in place will absolutely help you to model it. The other thing I'd say as well is that sometimes it's just about optics. So, if you're always the first one in and always the last one to leave, it's going to be really hard for your team to believe that behaviourally they're okay to not be the first one in and leave on time. You're going to kind of unconsciously set this expectation of what success is needed or needs to happen to achieve success in this organisation. So, maybe just, maybe go to a coffee shop around the corner for the first hour, or leave on time and do some work at home, maybe a couple of days a week, just to give that visual that you are leaving at a time that everybody else is leaving as well. The other thing I'd say that, again, kind of looking at the question, probably overanalysing it, but you say, I know it's unsustainable. I wanted to pick up Yeah, that seems to me that you're already knowing it's unsustainable because you're starting to experience a level of stress that is starting to impact other areas of your work and/or life. So, I'm with Jake. There might be an element of forcing yourself to actually try and switch off, or at least engage in other non-work activities at weekends, even if your mind is still on work. It's all those things, isn't it? Exercise, mindfulness can be really great.

Al ElliottYeah.

Leanne ElliottSpending time with friends and family. I actually spoke to an entrepreneur once who actually scheduled this in their diary in the same way they scheduled everything else. So they scheduled their weekends like 10 to 12, I go to the gym and then meet John for a coffee afterwards. 1 to 2, I go and play football with the kids. 3 to 5, I spend some time with the wife. Literally, we scheduled it out to help him stay on track with these activities. And he explained to me that he felt it easier to, To keep track of because it almost, in his mind, he framed it as work. It's part of my work responsibility as an entrepreneur and business owner to do this sustainably, to engage in non-work-related activities. So maybe something like that might help if you are a little more, um, if you're keen to, to plan.

Jake TuberI think it can often trip people up if they feel like they need to make a mindset shift and convince themselves they need to switch off. I don't think that works. I think the same thing that makes you an entrepreneur, that makes you a business owner, might really prevent that. I agree that things like mindfulness, I love the idea of scheduling off moments, absolutely hacks to help, but you may not be able to switch up that belief that you need to be thinking about the business. So what I would encourage someone like this or business owners out there to similarly think about is not forcing yourself to switch off, but rather forcing yourself to think about being productive in a longer time horizon. In other words, If you're like, I need to be on all the time right now thinking about the business, that is going to burn you out. It's going to be unsustainable, and you know that. That means you are thinking about the short term. That means you're addicted to feeling like I need to be in motion all the time or I'm not making progress. I want you to not think about switching off, but rather thinking about running a marathon, not a sprint every day. And so you need to be thinking about operating at a pace that will allow you to grow your business over time the way you're telling yourself, your spouse, your investors, whomever, not operating at a pace that only allows you to get through each day feeling like you've accomplished a lot. We get addicted to that feeling of day-to-day business motion when we know rationally we need to be operating in a way that scales long-term. So rather than trying to convince yourself to think about this as a matter of, I've just gotta find a way to switch off. The shift in thinking is I've gotta think like a business owner who's planning long-term because that is still a business choice you're making, not a personal one. And it is about being the kind of CEO and business owner that you'd wanna work for, who's thinking about the long-term success of the business and the behaviors today that'll get you there. Not someone who's just operating every day because it satisfies that underlying need of, if I don't feel like I'm doing something right now, I'm failing.

Al ElliottWhen Leanne and I first met, I was building, um, my third business. Um, and in fact, probably the one that's given us about 80% of our wealth, isn't it? Uh, and I did it for 18 months and I built a business. I worked till, you know, midnight every day. I even said to Leanne, I was, I was that person. I said, Leanne, I can see you for 3 hours on a Thursday. This is genuinely, it's like a third date. I can see you for 3 hours on a Thursday. If that's no good, then I totally understand, but I'm building this thing.

Leanne ElliottAnd one evening at the weekend.

Al ElliottAnd one evening at the weekend. Yeah.

Leanne ElliottYeah. No, you did. You gave me a schedule, but I think this is where You, you recognise that you, you wanted and needed that kind of social interaction, another aspect of life you were building alongside your business. So, you found time. And it was up to me to go, is that enough? And at the time I was 22, 23. So, I was like, yeah, cool. I'm, I'm still living with my mates. Great. See you on Saturday. You know, it kind of works. So, but I think what's, what's great is that you, you were aware that you needed to prioritise time, even if it was only a little bit.

Al ElliottYeah.

Leanne ElliottFor another aspect of your life. And I think this, this is a great tip for, for this person writing in.

Al ElliottAbsolutely.

Jake TuberI was just like, Leanne, I could see you this Saturday. I only need 6 minutes. So how about 9 PM? And then I'll get back to work.

Al ElliottExactly. We could do it twice. So I love that.

Leanne ElliottI love that.

Al ElliottOkay. Now on to question number 3. I'm hoping that it's not too serious because of my laughter. Uh, okay. So how do you balance loyalty with honesty? One of my first employees been with me for 7 years. She's loyal, she cares, she knows everything about how we work, but she's also stopped growing. The business has moved on and she hasn't moved with it. Having the conversation feels like a betrayal of everything she's given me. How do you balance loyalty with honesty, and at what point does avoiding the conversation become its own form of disrespect?

Jake TuberIt sounds like she needs to have a talk with this person about the fact that she isn't keeping up with the business, and that's hard because this has been an early employee. employee cares deeply, knows everything about the business. I think there's an obvious podcast host answer here, which is being honest is being loyal, right? There's a bit of like, if you really are loyal to what they should care about, you have to be honest with that. And I think that's true. I don't want to just be facetious about that. I do think that in general, if you do really care about them, if you're loyal to them as a long-term person, et cetera, you should be able to have hard conversations with them. You should be able to talk about them. And frankly, to ignore something that is going to be potentially perilous for them is— I don't know if I'd say disrespectful, but yeah, sure, it's not good. I think the harder question here is how do you actually go about broaching this topic of conversation? How do you suddenly say to somebody, hey, I know we haven't talked about this in a while, but, uh, you're not quite cutting it anymore? That is a tough topic. And Leanne, I certainly have thoughts, but I would love to kick it to you and say, like, how would you—

Leanne ElliottYeah.

Jake TuberThink about actually voicing these concerns, not whether or not you should, because I think we can all agree you're not doing anybody a favor, both this person and the organization, to have somebody who's just not doing well in their job lagging there for a long time simply because they were, you know, an early employee. So how do you go about starting that conversation?

Leanne ElliottMy thought is always to gather the data, right? And I'd want to start with that person and check in with them, particularly if you, you know, you're growing at a point where you maybe don't don't have one-to-ones as regularly as you did, or don't check in in the same way that, that you might have done when they were one of your first employees. And sitting down and having that conversation, just checking in, like, are they all right? What's going on? How's life? What else is happening in your world? Maybe there's something completely outside of work that's having an impact on this individual and their growth within the organisation or their approach to work. It could be absolutely nothing to do with work and entirely about something else. So, that would be my place to start, is to just check in with this person and see, How things are going in general. And then second, I'd look at, well, what's— what data do I have that this person has stopped growing? What data do I have that this person isn't cutting it or isn't keeping up with the rest of the team? If it's just a feeling or a gut, or you just got some fresh faces in who are really enthusiastic, that's not good enough to go and have that conversation in a way that's going to be constructive and helpful. You're going to have to look at performance data. You're going to have to look at sign-up to training, or how often this person puts their hand up to help with different projects. You're going to need those, those data points to go to this person and say, look, I know she didn't sign up for any training programs in the last 6 months. I noticed that performance-wise, you know, you kind of dropped down 20% or so. And then you can talk about it as a performance conversation. Yes, there is a personal aspect of this, and it's really freaking hard. I've been in this situation. So it's also important to remember that in terms of, of growing a business and the team that will help you do that. The people that got you from startup to where you are now might not be the people who are going to get you from where you are now to where you want to be in the future. That might take different skill sets. It might take different competencies and attitudes. It might just take a different— somebody who wants to work in an organisation that's scaling rather than one that's in startup. So, this has to be back of your mind as well, but I'd always start small. Start with the data.

Al ElliottDo you know what's funny? I was, um, there's a, there's a podcast. Well, I'm sure everyone knows a podcast called My First Million, uh, which is, uh, brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the, uh, audio destination for business professionals. I say that because it's not contractually mentioned to say it, but I was listening to it and Gary Vee, you know, Gary Vaynerchuk, he was on it and he said, uh, he found in one of his first, when he first started, uh, VaynerMedia, I think is his company. Um, there was a Facebook group of 8 people who, who just shitposted, just shit-talked him, hated him, absolutely hated him. And he found out about this and he said, can you do some research? The person who was like looking into it and all, each one of those 8 people were the people who he'd, he'd probably put off firing for 18 months because they were there from the beginning and he put off firing for 18 months. And he's now reached out to all of them. He's now friends with most of them. Everything's okay. But his point was, shit, man, I thought I was being a great manager by saying, yeah, all right, see you after the weekend while I'm planning their exit over the weekend. And actually I should have just gone, Dude, we need to talk. This isn't— it's bad news. You're gonna be let go today, sort of thing. Anyway, don't do— by the way, don't take that as advice on how to get let— how do you fire people? That's not— that is not advice.

Leanne ElliottIt's a common problem is what you're saying.

Jake TuberYeah. Yeah. Well, I would also add too that I agree with you, Leanne, and that conversation is probably more than one conversation. That first conversation is probably fact-finding. It's not about you Yes, you may wanna come with the data to back up your evidence that this business has moved on and they have not, but it's not about dumping the data at them right away. It's about sitting down with them and saying, how are you going? How do you feel about where your career is going, where the business is going? Not because you're trying for an angle to jump in there when they say the right thing and say, well, I'm glad you said that because I've been waiting to talk to you. It's not that. It's actually just learning a little bit and framing this about understanding them first. What are their goals? What are their priorities? Mm-hmm. How does that align with the business? Do a little fact-finding about where they are in their own journey upfront, then have a conversation later. Because if you do that upfront, it allows you to come back to them and say, hey, you know, in our last conversation you said XYZ about your goals, your priorities, et cetera. I was looking at that in combination with where we've been going and where we're gonna keep going, and I'm noticing some divergence here. How can we reconcile that together? Right? It just gives you a much greater opportunity to have them be a partner to you. In moving forward, as opposed to you feeling like you need to level the hammer in a single conversation and tell them they've screwed up. So, start with understanding what they want to achieve, where their goals are, et cetera, and you'll be able to have a much more productive conversation that allows you to frame both the business interests and their interests in a mutually inclusive way.

Leanne ElliottAgreed. And I also think as well, this is a really good opportunity for you as a, as a leader and manager to get in the habit of having these conversations more regularly. Because the best managers do, don't they, Jake? The best managers will have these conversations, know exactly what the goals are of their employees and where they want to take their career. We've spoken to managers, haven't we, through our work, who know that their employee is going to leave in 3 years because they want to retrain to go and do something entirely different, but they're supporting them through that because they know they've got 3 great years and 3 years of excellent work. So, I think if you're open to having these conversations constantly, then You won't get blindsided or surprised, and certainly these conversations won't feel as awkward.

Jake TuberCertainly a hallmark of effective management is one where no one is ever really blindsided to learn almost anything. I mean, that's not always possible. Your company's gonna make new announcements that have to be kept under wraps for a while. Certainly the first time you hear about some underperformance has to be new to you. There has to be a first time for everything, but certainly there should never be these big moments where it's an annual review conversation, or it's just a conversation that's long overdue and you've had to have, and you're giving someone a very meaty piece of information for the first time. Ideally, good performance management means they're getting enough consistent data and feedback that by the time you're having the conversation, it's obvious to them what's been going on, and this is a necessary conversation to have to figure out what's next, not one where you finally give them the information that they have been searching for or needed and didn't know.

Leanne ElliottAbsolutely brilliant.

Al ElliottThank you so much, Dr. Jake Tuber, Leanne Elliott. Next Thursday, we are joined by Vince Sanderson, expert in leadership and management development.

Leanne ElliottHuge on the TikTok.

Al ElliottHuge on the TikTok. Got 26.5 million views, I think, on TikTok. You know, big, big, big cheese, but also just a genuinely lovely guy. And he's from From the north, well, almost the north of England. Um, and, uh, yeah, we prefer people from the north of England than North America, I think, to be fair.

Leanne ElliottBut at least you're from the north, Jake. That's amazing.

Al ElliottExactly. Uh, if you want to join us, and people have given us loads of feedback, by the way, on this kind of format where we do bring on a guest. So if there's someone you can think of who you might want to bring back, I know Dr. Jake's coming back. Really looking forward to that. Dr. Jake, thank you so, so much. Um, what are you up to now? Are you going to go off and make up more words like economic precarity?

Jake TuberUh, the rest of my day consists of a few calls and, uh, crying in the corner about, uh, being insulted as the American on the show.

Al ElliottAh, love it, love it. Okay, make sure you go and check out Dr. Jake. Make sure you go and check out his LinkedIn. And no, I don't think he is doing a book, is he? No, we won't, we won't mention that. Lee, anything to add before we let people go?

Leanne ElliottJust the usual— subscribe, leave a review. We've had some lovely reviews recently, actually, from, from American Listeners. Um, so, so clearly they like us, Jake. It's not, it's not us, it's you. Um, so yeah, leave us a review. It really does help people to find the show. Get over to LinkedIn, join the conversation. Uh, that's where I post and where Al started posting recently as well. If you haven't seen the beautiful painting that he did over the weekend, go and check it out.

Jake TuberDo not.

Leanne ElliottYeah, we'll leave all the links in the show notes.

Al ElliottSee you soon.

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Firing HR, Restroom Lurking & the Accidental Manager — with Dr Jake Tuber

🔥 Stories Covered

🧠 Truth or Lie: Does Gen Z Value Purpose More Than Pay?

💬 Workplace Surgery

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