“I am racist, and I’ll say that to the whole entire world,” said former Cinnabon employee Crystal Wilsey, who also made obscene gestures and spouted racial epithets in a viral video. Cinnabon rightly fired her. Her behavior was absolutely inappropriate. Cinnabon issued a statement: We’ve seen the disturbing video from the Cinnabon bakery in Ashwaubenon, Wisconsin, and we do not condone this behavior.

Are your offices all decorated for the “holidays”? You may have left out any manger scenes, but it’s obvious that what you decorated for is Christmas. Fir trees, Santa Claus, and maybe an Elf on the shelf that your HR manager moves around. Christmas isn’t the only holiday in December. Jews around the world celebrate Hanukkah this year from December 14 to December 22.

The human resources group SHRM brands itself as “the voice of all things work.” But when sued for racial discrimination, the organization tried to keep its own HR expertise out of the courtroom — only to lose $11.5 million. The plaintiff, former SHRM instructional designer Rehab Mohamed, said she faced discrimination from a White supervisor between 2016 and 2020. The court sided with her.

Note: I should have published this before Thanksgiving, but I, quite frankly, forgot! Sorry! It’s officially no-fire season — that is, unless someone commits an egregious act— you don’t terminate employees from the week before Thanksgiving until January. That’s the rule from employment attorney Todd Stanton, and it’s a good one. (In the interest of full disclosure, I wrote the forward to Stanton’s book, 

It was a simple question: “What’s your favorite drink?” This is a nice question for a waiter or bartender to ask, or maybe your date. There is no wrong answer to this. If your favorite drink is RedBull mixed with prune juice, then you do you. But, as a job interview question, it’s weird. “Can I get you a drink?

Do you have suggestions for handling a shared bathroom where people aren’t washing their hands? We are not the only employer on this floor. I have had three gentlemen approach me saying that there are men on our floor who do not wash their hands, both from our office and the other office. The other office on our floor has guests visit regularly due to the nature of their business.

Good news! Several of you reached out to AIHR about their Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale and pointed out you needed a bit more time get your boss to sign off, and they heard you! AIHR has opened its Cyber Monday Extended sale until December 5th . All HR Certificate Programs will continue to come with an additional 25% discount for the next 4 days!

It’s Black Friday and I’m working. It’s not that I have to work — I’m self-employed and can choose my own schedule — it’s that I find this a great day to get things done. Now, to be fair, I’m an American in Switzerland so it’s a regular day (as was Thanksgiving) here. But almost all my HR clients are in the U.S., so they aren’t working. 

AIHR is having a Black Friday sale all week. Which means it's not really a Black Friday, but a Black Week Sale, but whatever. You should take it. The Black Friday Promotion runs from November 21st to December 1st. During this time, an additional 25% discount is available on all our plans: Certificate Programs, Full Academy Licenses, and Team Licenses.

There is a panic spreading across social media about the reclassification of many graduate degrees as non-professional, and how that could affect pay scales, as well as the amount people can borrow to pay for those degrees). If you’re an employer, the two questions you actually need answered are: “Do I have to reclassify anyone?” (no), and ‘Will this make it harder or more expensive to hire in certain professions?” Probably.

What if I told you one trick that could increase your LinkedIn reach by 400 percent! You’d do it, right? Well, this trick only works for the ladies, because men do it automatically. That’s right, one woman, Megan Cornish, changed her gender on LinkedIn to Male and asked ChatGPT to rewrite her posts in a male, agentic voice, and voila!

An employee didn’t get their paycheck on the last cycle. Mistakes happen, for sure, but according to their recent Reddit post, the reason was that an AI-powered payroll tool decided that their timecard was “irregular” and halted the deposit. AI can do a lot of cool things for you. It can help with scheduling, answer simple questions, and tell you what code you need to copy and paste into your Excel file to parse your data correctly.

Hiring is hard at any time, and it’s getting even harder. Why? Because you get literally thousands of applicants, many of whom are not qualified. It makes sifting through resumes difficult. And, arguably, one of the most important jobs in a company is the sales rep. Even if your product or service is amazing, if you can’t sell it, you won’t earn any money.

I started a new role a few months ago, and several of the senior leaders I work with are neurodiverse. My direct manager, who is in an executive role, told us she has ADHD, and I’ve never worked closely with someone who communicates in this way before. I’m really struggling to keep up with her communication style. She sends frequent, rapid-fire messages across multiple platforms, and the pace feels overwhelming.

Caution: oversharing and bragging to come. Last Friday, I was in divorce court. I shall spare you the details other than to say that my beloved ex rejected a proposed settlement, which meant an extra three hours in court and possibly continued months of waiting and paying attorneys. When we were all done, I was chatting with my lawyer, and she gave me the biggest compliment ever: "How can you be so funny when this is so difficult?"

Today, you feel awesome. You got an extra hour of sleep Sunday (unless you have small children or pets), and today you feel like a million bucks. But, deep down, you know that the politicians will never end the back and forth between standard time and daylight savings' time. Which means, come March, you'll have to spring forward. While others are whining about how much they hate it, Spring Forward HR is the opportunity to connect with other HR professionals, increase your skills, laugh, and maybe even win a prize or two. While all the details havent' been worked out yet, you can get your name on the list by registering here: Spring Forward HR

It’s the spookiest day of the year, and often a nightmare for HR professionals who have to handle people who show up to work costumed as terrorists, wearing blackface, or dressed as Adolf Hitler. But it’s not only costumes that can be spooky. Sometimes the scary thing isn’t a bad choice by an employee but something that seems genuinely unexplainable.

One of my friends shared the absolute worst paid time off plan I have ever seen. The plan is “unlimited” PTO, but there’s a catch. To get your PTO approved, you have to explain what you are doing, how much time you need, and the whole department votes on whether or not you can take it or not. The logic is—and I did ask—that because the co-workers have to pick up your slack while you’re gone, it’s only fair that they have a say.

Some people are insufferable. You don’t want to be around them because they talk nonstop about how awesome they are. Other people are just as accomplished (if not more so!), and are great people you want to spend time with. Obviously, you know they are super accomplished, so at some point, they must have mentioned what they do. What’s the difference?

Mark Zuckerberg allegedly had a contract with then-girlfriend Priscilla Chan that if she moved to Silicon Valley, he would spend at least 100 minutes per week outside the home and office with her. It may seem like a particular and odd thing to put in writing, but Chan wanted to know what she was getting into before uprooting her life for a boyfriend.

My phone is such a distraction to me, so I decided to leave it on the other side of the room during my workday, unless I had to make an actual call. (Shudder.) So, I put it across the room from me and set about to do all my work. 1. I need my Microsoft Authenticator to get into Inc's CMS.

They say business is cutthroat, and I guess it is in many ways. However, most businesspeople I know share the philosophy that a rising tide lifts all boats. As such, people want to help their friends, and sometimes even their competitors. One way to increase your visibility is to increase your presence on LinkedIn. No, the work and job focused social media platform 

I woke up Sunday morning to the news that Russell M. Nelson, President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, had died at the age of 101, and shortly after publishing an op-ed in Time Magazine: “We All Deserve Dignity and Respect.” As a lifelong member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I always listen to the words of church leadership when it comes to my spiritual life, but I’ve also learned that applying these principles to my work life has worked as well.

One thing that drives me absolutely batty is recruiters who get on LinkedIn and preach about how awful AI-written resumes are. I have never once heard a recruiter grouse about how awful it is to get a resume that’s been written by a professional resume writer, by the way. The only difference is AI-written resumes are free or very inexpensive, and professional resume writers charge a lot.

I had to stop by the pharmacy this morning to pick up a prescription. I, like always, began with “Der Familienname ist Lucas, l-u-C-a-s.” (“The family name is Lucas.”) I’m an American in the German speaking part of Switzerland, so I do it this way because while Lucas or Luca is a popular first name with boys, when Swiss people hear Lucas as a last name they assume it’s L-U-K-A-S.