Decoding 2025's Top Workplace Buzzwords

Kristen: [00:00:00] Welcome to Love and Leadership, the podcast that helps you lead with both your head and your heart, plus a bit of humor. I'm Kristen Brun Sharkey, a leadership coach and facilitator.

Mike: And I'm Mike Sharkey, a senior living and hospitality executive. We're a couple of leadership nerds who also happen to be a couple.


Kristen: Join us each week as we share our unfiltered opinions, break down influential books, and interview inspiring guests.


Mike: Whether you're a seasoned executive or a rising star, we're here to help you level up your leadership game and amplify your impact.

Kristen: \ Hello and welcome back to Love and Leadership. I'm Kristen 

Mike: And I'm Mike. You're smiling like you're so cheerful and you weren't just like having a laptop meltdown,

Kristen: Basically. Basically a melt. Yeah.

Mike: Have [00:01:00] you ever seen that meme that guy's ~like ~so frustrated? His laptop and he is ~like, ~boom, and he throws it out the window.

I gotta,

Oh, I gotta find it and send it to It's classic.

Yeah.

We're having, we're having,~ uh,~ rec technical difficulties with our recording company. ~Descript,~ We're coming for you.

Kristen: Yes. We love when recording UIs change and seemingly remove features. ~So, um, ~Yeah. Anyway,~ uh,~ we're gonna do a little bit of a different episode today. I thought this would ~kind of ~be fun and oh, Mike is now showing me the gif of the, 

Mike: Has he thrown it out the window? I think this is an abbreviated meme. ~We need to share this on our, on social media.~

Kristen: ~Sure.~

Mike: ~It's classic.~ I feel like memes are not as big as they used to be.~ Am I wrong? I felt like for a moment we were all like just communicating with each other in memes and now, um.~

~I feel like the language has changed. No. Are we still doing memes?~

Kristen: ~I don't know. ~

Mike: ~out.~

~Well, I use, you know, I,~ I'm not just speaking randomly, you've got,~ um, you know, ~workplace buzzwords as our, it looks like our topic of the week, and I use memes at work ~and I don't know if I. ~and I, I hope people appreciate them because I go out of my way to like download the appropriate meme to share a feeling.

~Um, ~And no one else does that. That's kind of my love language.[00:02:00] 

Kristen: Yeah. Sending memes ~is, ~is definitely your love. One of your love 

Mike: It's definitely one of my love languages. Yeah.

Kristen: Well, yeah, so moving into the

Mike: Any who.

Kristen: So ~this is, ~this is a little bit of different episode. ~Um, I, ~I found this article on ~on~ AIHR, which is not anything to do with AI, it's the Academy to Innovate Hr. And it was all about like 27 trending HR buzzwords to know in 2025. And we're not gonna go through all 27, but I thought it'd be fun to go through some of these. 

Mike: Is is interface one of them?

Kristen: ~Um, ~Not on its own,

Mike: Oh. But in combination with another one. Similar. Okay. I'm curious, but,~ um, you, ~you had me in interface,

Kristen: But yeah. But ~these are, ~these are ~kind of, ~I think, ~Indic~ indicative of the current atmosphere at work. ~Um, ~interesting to go through them. This is also gonna ~kind~

Mike: You mean ~the, ~the atmosphere of shared trauma bonding

Kristen: Basically. Yeah.

Mike: We're all experiencing in this country, [00:03:00] or some of us are.

Kristen: Yes.~ Um, ~

Mike: Or 99% of the people that listen to this podcast understand what I'm saying?

Kristen: Yes. Hopefully, um, everybody's gonna be feeling those tariffs. So

Mike: Yeah, ~we're shopping for, ~as we are shopping for a stroller, the pro we're watching the price tick up,~ uh,~ unlike the Dow Jones. But, you know, in, in, in, in, uh,

Kristen: Really

Mike: it's really painful. Yeah. In inverse proportion to the Dow Jones. Oh,~ it's,~ it's going up.

It's going up. Oh, it's up a hundred dollars since we started looking yesterday. 

Kristen: Might have just panic bought a car seat

Mike: Yeah, we bought a car seat

Kristen: Approximately an hour ago. ~Um, yeah.~ Yeah. Fun times. ~Um, ~But ~this, ~this is hopefully a little bit of a more fun episode and this is gonna ~kind of ~kick off a a format that we're gonna start interspersing,~ uh,~ which is these like buzzword breakdowns. So we take a, a buzzword like psychological safety or buzz phrase I guess. [00:04:00] And,~ uh, and we, ~we break it down in ~kind of ~like a ~probably, ~probably shorter episodes, but I'm done saying if they're shorter episodes.

Mike: Well, when you leave, when I, when you unhinging me, you know,

Kristen: It depends on what time we're recording.

Um,

Mike: Coffee intake,

Kristen: Coffee intake

Mike: Strength of coffee.

Kristen: Yes. Yes,

Mike: Proportion of coffee to food.

Kristen: But,~ uh,~ but we're gonna start interspersing some of those too. ~Um, ~And as we start ~kind of ~batching episodes and getting ready for when our baby arrives in a few months 

Mike: Little leader..

Kristen: ~Yep, ~Yep.~ So, ~so. ~Kind of ~jumping into buzz words I pulled out about roughly half of them.

~Um, ~Like I said, not all 27, and I think some of them are not super new, but some of them I had not heard of before. So the first one is anti perks. So these are like workplace policies, conditions, or practices that [00:05:00] negatively impact employees, but are kind of phrased as ~a, ~a perk.~ So, ~So these are things like ~you know, ~taking on increased workload, but it's actually like unreasonable with

Mike: challenging work environment expectations, fast paced,

Kristen: ~having like strict attendance policies, um, having,~ Yeah, and I think a lot of people, I think the classic example of this is like a unlimited PTO policy.

Mike: Well, I've never had anything like that.

Kristen: It's very common in tech. It's particularly common among startups because then~ people are not,~ the companies are not obligated to pay out vacation time.

Mike: Yeah, there's always a catch.

Kristen: Yeah. But they make it sound like it's this huge benefit. You get unlimited vacation days. But,~ um,~ the reality is like the culture does

Mike: not, but we guilt you if you take them

Kristen: To actually take that vacation. So I thought that this is the first time I've heard this phrase and I thought it was~ kind of, kind of~

Mike: Anti perks. Is that like anti pasta

Kristen: Anti pasta,

Mike: [00:06:00] Complicated

I like how you put it,~ it it, ~it's framed as a, ~you know, ~as a perk, but. Come work in our fast paced challenging environment. Right.~ Do you like, do you like, uh, uh, what do they call it?~

~You know, ~Every day is a new challenge. Oh, that doesn't sound good. Yeah.

Kristen: Yep. Yeah, exactly.

Mike: It sounds like you mismanage ~your, ~your business ~and, ~and create false urgency with poorly defined roles and bad leadership.

Kristen: I think a lot of the classic ~like~ tech perks could even fit into this.

Like free meals at the office is great, but ~it's, ~it's done intentionally.

Mike: So we keep you there.

I don't know. I'm a boss too. Like I, I would do stuff like that, like free massage. ~You know, I, I, I, ~I am doing that, but I'm also calculating the cost benefit ratio of keeping my team members, ~you know, ~I, I want them to be happy, but I also want them to work. Yeah.

Kristen: It's a balance, 

Mike: You want me to buy everybody Starbucks? Sure. You'll be more productive for the rest of the day.~ Uh uh.~

Kristen: Yes.

Mike: ~You know, ~It brings up something like that Jocko talked about, [00:07:00] right? Like leadership and manipulation. What's the difference? 

Kristen: Hmm.

Mike: Leadership is technically a type of manipulation. And the only difference is the intention.

Kristen: Well, I think that's gonna be an interesting lead into our conversation next week, which is all about How to Win Friends and Influence People.

A book that ~um, ~can be used for evil.

Mike: It can be used for evil. Yeah, it can be used for evil.~ Um, ~It, certain leadership can certainly be used for evil. As we're seeing nowadays. ~Um, ~you want, but~ I mean, ~what is leadership? It's the definition of leadership is being able to ~like ~galvanize and organize a group of people to accomplish a goal.

That's a pretty neutral description. Right. What the goal is could have ~nefarious, ~nefarious intention. Do we have to define leadership ~as, ~as only having a positive benefit? Well, very rarely do you have positive benefit for everyone. ~ Right. ~

Kristen: Yeah, no, that's true.~ Well,~

Mike: People are gonna [00:08:00] benefit and some people are not gonna benefit as much. 

Kristen: Yeah,

Mike: You have to make, you have to make choices. And in the military you have to sacrifice actual lives, you know. 

Kristen: Not 

Mike: the, ~no.~

no. Stakes are lower, but~ you know, ~people's livelihoods and their careers, ~those are, ~those are high stakes item,

Kristen: So Anti perks. Anti perks, yes. Yeah. And ~the, ~the next ~co~ couple are I think, ~kind of ~extensions of quiet quitting or versions which is, that's been around since the pandemic really. So,~ um. We're, we're, ~we're not gonna discuss that entirely, separately, but,

Mike: Oh,~ I,~ I've never heard of this, but I love it.

Bare minimum Mondays.. 

Kristen: Bare minimum Mondays is a workplace trend where employees are prioritizing self-care and minimizing their work efforts on the first day of

Mike: I love this,

Kristen: So[00:09:00] 

Mike: I love this. Yeah, I, I, my Mondays are rough, so I like, I ~kind of ~go into my Monday going, okay, I just need to, my goal tomorrow is to be peaceful and roll with it and not, I don't have to fix everything that's gonna happen in the week on Monday.

I ~kind of ~like this, less stress and potentially less burnout among employees. That seems like a,

Kristen: I don't think this is bad. And it's ~kind of ~like positive combating the Sunday Scaries 

Mike: The Sunday scaries,

Kristen: Which is a phrase that's also been around for a little bit now. But,~ um,~ but yeah, the whole idea is like you ~focus on. You know, like ~prioritize ~like ~three or four less time consuming tasks that's easy. Yeah. Keep ~the, ~the work at a bare minimum. Focus on your self care.

I 

Mike: love this. 

Kristen: Yeah. It's, I mean, ~I, I think it's, I, I'm, ~I'm all for this,

Mike: All for this. To, ~you know, uh, ~Somebody told me culture is how your employees feel on Sunday night. 

Kristen: That's a good quote.

Mike: It's a good quote.

I don't remember where I got it. Huh?

It's ~probably, ~probably attributed to Maya Angelou.[00:10:00] 

Kristen: Aw.

Mike: I mean, she's amazing, but there's a

Kristen: Absolutely amazing,~ um,~ has an actual, a lot of amazing actual quotes

Mike: for sure. But a lot of stuff she did not say.

Kristen: Yeah. Also gets attributed a lot of stuff.

Yeah.~ Um, ~So the next one is kind of like in the same vein, but it's specifically around like in return to office mandates. So this is called coffee badging.

So this is a tactic that employees are using to comply with return to office mandates. But the whole idea is you go into the office just long enough to show your face.

You log into the system, you have a coffee and then you go home again. So it's ~kind of ~like an alternative to quiet quitting. 'cause you're like, you're meeting the technical requirements of going into the office.

Mike: I do that sometimes. I did that on Friday. Yeah.

I waved the flag. Like I had, my work was mostly done for the week. I. ~You know, ~and I went in, I waved the flag, ~you know, ~till like noon and then I, on Friday, I was like, okay, I'm ~kind of ~done.

Kristen: Yeah. ~You know, I, yes, I mean, ~I think there's, [00:11:00] it's ~kind of ~like a little bit of a rebellion to return to office mandates, but I think

Mike: I've never been able to work from, so I don't know.

Kristen: don't, no,

Mike: That's a,

Kristen: Like particularly in tech

Mike: actually, sorry. Sorry. All you people that are so bougie, you can't even do Hi. ~Uh, ~I've never been able to have a where worked from home.

Kristen: Yeah, but I think that's an interesting one. Definitely reflects where we're at right now.

Mike: Coffee badging.

Kristen: I would say a lot of these are very Gen Z influenced as well. So like the next couple are like very Gen Z influenced. So conscious quitting is, so this is when employees intentionally leave their company for ethical and moral reasons. And in practice, this kind of means that like Gen Z employees especially will likely leave if their organization's social and environmental values aren't aligned with theirs. Which, ~you know, ~if you can leave your job, but this is becoming more and more common. It's especially with Gen 

Mike: You know, You say that, and I don't totally agree with Gen Z, [00:12:00] but I've seen in my world, more and more leaders start to vote with their employment,~ you know? ~Executives in my world are hard to come by. It's a very unique set of,~ uh,~ disparate skills. And,~ you know, ~I don't think people that are in the service business as we are, want their primary function ~on life to be~ in life, to be creating shareholder value. And I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with profit..

I love profit, I love profit, I love making, but that's not our reason for existing. And if you lead with that,~ um, you will lose, ~you will lose leaders. And we're ~kind of ~voting with our conscience and I want to see more of that. Mm-hmm. Because there's a whole layer of leaders that can shape workplace policy and workplace culture by saying, we're not working for you.

If your value, ~you know, ~if your values are not aligned ~with, ~with ours, or at least [00:13:00] close.

Kristen: Yeah, totally. And there is, I think, a certain amount of financial privilege in there to be able to, which we'll ~kind of ~get into if some of these I think are more reflective a lot of people are feeling very insecure about the economy and their jobs.

Sure. But I think ~like ~if you're able to do ~that, ~that Amazing. And that will, I like the voting with your employment.

Mike: Voting with your employment. Yeah. ~I mean, I see, you know, ~I see tech companies in a lot of these big companies now. They've gone a different direction in the last couple months, but they're, they can shape culture in a way more powerfully than, government can because they control the~ , ~framework of our reality more than governments do.

Kristen: Well, a government is now an oligarchy of corporate leaders. 

Mike: Yeah. The governments, ~you know, ~it's a,~ well,~ it's a wannabe all oligarchy, ~you know, ~but oligarchies are predicated on control of capital, right?

~And, ~And flow of resources. And that is like what Putin has, right? In Russia, he controls the oil and gas industry. Mo he controls the, [00:14:00] all these, ~you know, ~resource rich industries. And by that he's able to control the culture and the people ~and the, ~and the country. ~You know, so you, ~You can manipulate a country and a culture by only really controlling a few things. 

Kristen: ~Mm-hmm. ~Oh yeah, for sure.

Mike: The military must be one of 

Kristen: Yeah. 

Mike: We don't really have a culture of,~ uh,~ military rebellion in this country yet.

Kristen: Yet

Mike: ~there's, ~There's not much of that. ~Um, no, there's not much of that,~ But ~it, ~it is certainly prevalent in~ ~and cultures. So if you don't keep that,~ uh,~ in line, ~ that's a, ~that's a very weak point. ~If you ever and someone who've seen, uh, the Death of Stalin, amazing movie and, uh, I can't remember the field marshall, but he's able to like overthrow. Kind of over, I can't remember who it was.~

~Like, so who who after Stalin?~

~it's not Khrushchev. There was a power. Oh yeah. Uh, after several years, Gregor Ov, remember. But anyway, there was a field marshal that showed up with his army and he had the loyalty of the Russian Army. And instead of, you know, it wasn't this.~

Kristen: ~I will.~

Mike: ~Sorry. We're gonna find this out. Oh, Baria. Okay. So~ if anyone has seen ~the, ~the movie, the Death of Stalin, ~you know, ~field marshal Zhukov,~ uh,~ showing up with ~like ~a big part of the Russian army is the reason that Khrushchev became,~ uh,~ the leader and not Baria. ~Um, ~So if you don't have the military on your side, especially if you have a powerful military,~ you're, you're, ~you're maybe gonna get overthrown.~ Uh, ~~But~~ yeah, now it's tech companies, especially resource companies, oil and gas. China's, China's fighting back against these tariffs, spike, controlling and, and prohibiting the export of rare, some rare earth minerals that are only available there. So what do you do? You can't make cell phones without them.~

~Can't make computer chips without them. ~

Kristen: ~Anyway, any move.~

Mike: ~Sorry.~ Great movie though.[00:15:00] 

Kristen: So ~the, ~the next one is still on the topic of quitting, but this is a TikTok trend called Quittok

So this is a trend where employees often Gen Z again post their resignation stories and sometimes they even like live stream themselves while quitting.

Mike: Oh my God, I'm doing that next 

Kristen: time.

No you're not.

Mike: Remember that, uh, you were pro too young. The song,~ uh,~ Johnny Paycheck from the eighties take this job and shove it. I ain't working here no more. Oh my God, You've never heard that? Oh my God. We got a link to that. That is classic.

Kristen: ~Um, ~But yeah, this is obviously not a great thing according to most companies and HR departments.

Mike: Quit. Quittok. Quittok. Quittok.

Kristen: Yeah. Yep.

And then this is where, where you asked if interface is included. I'm like, well, [00:16:00] not exactly, but it's in the same realm.

Mike: So

Kristen: Employee experience or EX 

Mike: ~Mm. ~

Kristen: is,

Mike: That's a big one. I hear that a lot.

Kristen: Yeah. And I've heard it referred to as like employee experience, but not this like EX concept.

~Um, ~

Mike: heard ex

Kristen: Yeah, but it's like the HR equivalent of like customer experience. 

Mike: We used to talk about that in hotels, we talked about internal marketing. Like Hilton very much wanted to be a good place to work. ~Mm-hmm. You know, ~And ~they, ~they focused on that and I think they were always in the top 50 companies to work for and, and I found them.

So, you know. That's 

Kristen: Yeah.

And it's, there's three elements of it that have a significant impact, that overall employee experience. So the physical experience, like your, like physical work environment and everything that goes into that, the digital experience. And the cultural experience and all three of those have a big impact on how employees feel about what they 

Mike: Oh God. This is [00:17:00] really resonating with me because I've had to work on many different, like property management softwares, for instance.

Kristen: Yeah. 

Mike: The difference between hotel groups would had really ~like, ~affected my mental health. There were times that I literally, like Keno had to stop me from literally banging my head against,~ uh,~ a wall because you, I could not get help and ~no one knew how to, you know, ~right after a pandemic, no one knew these systems anymore.

And I remember I was trying to create a group ~at, ~at the hotel and like, how do you create a group? It's this. Okay. Nobody knows when we call the help desk. No, we don't know. That's another soft. What do you mean? Nobody knows? Drove me insane,~ you know? ~Yeah,

Yeah. ~You, ~you probably have the experience of working on very efficacious software, but some of the things I've worked with are like government

Kristen: Oh, I've, I've worked on some 

Mike: Yeah, I bet you. Okay. 

Kristen: of software also, like things that looked like they were from the nineties.

Mike: so Oh, nineties [00:18:00] is li like, there's government software out there that's from the like 1967. I'm not kidding. Oh God, I'm not kidding. ~Yeah, ~yeah, ~I~

Kristen: I believe you,

Mike: And that's why some things like the unemployment system is so slow. ~You know, ~I remember somebody telling me in New Jersey, I think it was written in like 78 or something, and they can't update it for some reason. I don't know, like some of these things are not super updateable. 

Kristen: Yeah. 

Mike: And ~you know, ~that's why you

Kristen: I mean, yeah, for sure.

Mike: ~You know, ~That's why the post office only recently got like tracking. They

Kristen: They have to completely rebuild

Mike: Have to rebuild it from ~yeah, yeah.~

~Yeah. ~

Kristen: But yeah, I think that's important to recognize ~that ~that's part of the employee

Mike: experience. Oh, God, it is.

Kristen: A big part of ~like ~the frustration 

Mike: can

bring 

Kristen: is huge. 

Mike: Yep.

For sure.

I love that. ~I, ~I think that, yes. Yeah.

The physical experience for sure. There are hotels that I walked into their offices and it was like, this looks like you haven't painted it in 32 years. Like, how is this my office? The carpet ~is, ~[00:19:00] is from like Nixon's ~like, ~and they just don't care.

~You know, ~they'll renovate the hotel, but ~not the, ~not the ~where the, ~where the employees work, what, ~you know, like, ~Yeah. Oh,~ I,~ I've had hotel offices that are the size of our bathroom, and I'm not exaggerating. It's a clo, the GM's office will be a closet. And what you're telling people is space is so valuable and you are not.

Kristen: Mm. Mm-hmm.

Mike: I got your message, sir. I'm not, I didn't need, I wasn't looking for ~A-A-A-A-A, uh. ~ ~ You know, ~an office on the 56th floor overlooking Central Park or something. You already put us in the basement. The least you could do is paint the walls and maybe give us a wind. Nope.

Okay. Yeah. All right. Message received.

Kristen: Yep. That's definitely sends a

Mike: message. I'll say one other thing. Sorry. ~You got me off here.~ You

Kristen: You

Mike: got me going off here.~ Not got me off. Please take that out.~

~Uh, ~

Kristen: ~God. Yeah.~

Mike: I have been, I have worked for a number of groups where you don't get your own email address. 

Kristen: Oh.

Mike: Where you take over the [00:20:00] property, the property will have ~like ~a GM email address and it's because the turnover is so high.

Yeah.

Kristen: That's terrible.

Mike: I had a leader who was very excited recently ~that ~that's what they wanted to implement, where it was like a generic GM email address. So that when you left, the email address would stay with and we could forward an email

Kristen: Yeah, you can forward an email address.

Mike: Search is hard in the background. Like I need history. Sometimes I need documents from two years ago. So that can be a little, but if you have a good IT department, my current ~IT ~IT department, shout out, Think Connected San Francisco. You guys are amazing. They can dig stuff out from years ago.

They can turn on my, ~you know, ~lights remote, like they're amazing. But you're,~ what,~ what are you telling me? You're telling me I am disposable. Message received,

Kristen: planning for when I leave. And I just started. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's

Mike: interesting ~that that's very, ~That's very prevalent. And to be honest, it's a little bit ~more, ~more prevalent in what we call like the economy scale in hotels.

~Like ~Motel [00:21:00] six will, you probably don't get your own, you just get ~the, ~the property email address. They don't expect you to stay that long.

I 

Kristen: mean, I get having like an alias that directs your personal email address, but just not having a personal email address at a

Mike: ~I mean, ~They're supposed to like, it's supposed to maybe be like that too, but it's the message you are sending.

~Like, ~I got that message real quick. 

Kristen: ~Yeah, ~yeah.

No, that says a 

Mike: lot.

~I'll, ~I'll call these people out someday. Yeah. Your practices are terrible ~and, ~and people know. They know ~they're, ~they're ~you, ~you treat people are replaceable. New York City taught me that, you know that there's somebody that's as good, more talented, smarter, and willing to work harder right around the corner, but~ it, it, ~it's still hard to find good help at all levels.

So if you don't appreciate your people and you don't make them feel valued, and you make them feel like they're totally replaceable, they're gonna Quittok on you. Or quit talking out the door.

Kristen: There we go. ~ Um, so yeah,~ So speaking of ~like ~quitting, so ~the, ~the [00:22:00] next several are kind of job market and job related.

So yes, ghost jobs, I hadn't heard this yet, but it also makes sense,~ um,~ or fake job listings. So according to like this article from CNBC four in 10 companies posted fake job listings in 2024. And these are coming from real companies, but they're referring to vacancies that aren't real, and for which the organization does not intend to hire for anytime soon. 

Mike: This is a thing

Kristen: This is a big thing. I

Mike: A bunch of recruiters on LinkedIn and they're talking about this ~and ~and type of thing, and it's ~like, ~if you're not hiring, why are you.

But there's, I guess they, they give the impression that they're growing, right? Active pool of candidates, always looking for good people to join.

It's like I see ~the, ~the interview process that people completely like, it's 16 interviews long. It took three months, right? Four months. And then they took a job somewhere else and they're like,~ well,~ I thought we were [00:23:00] moving at, are you surprised?

Kristen: Yeah. Yeah. If you string somebody along for that long,~ but,~ but yeah.

So this is a real thing. ~Um, ~You used to be able to be reasonably sure that if you were ~flying,~ applying for a job, that it actually existed.~ Um, ~Internal candidates were thing like, it is, it has always been pretty common that because of just legal requirements that you have to post it externally, even if, you know you're hiring somebody internally.

But other than that, I think this this has become a lot more common. It is definitely a trend. So good things to be aware of if you're job hunting, 

Mike: I feel for people in the job market.

Kristen: It's brutal 

Mike: It's pretty brutal. I just want ~the, ~the application program to populate my resume. Dear God, it's 2025.

Kristen: I know.

Mike: Like, can you not parse my

Kristen: I still have to create a text based version of my resume so I can paste from it? Yeah.

Mike: My God. Oh. Copy and [00:24:00] paste. Hell. That's so bad. That's employee. Employee experience starts the moment you apply for a

Kristen: Job. Mm-hmm.

Mike: the applicant, it starts at the application. We say that in certain, like when somebody contacts our community for a booking or to move in, it starts ~the, ~the moment they see our website or someone picks up the phone and answers their phone call.

Kristen: Mm-hmm. 

Mike: Yeah. And if you're an employer, like your employee experience begins the minute your candidate interacts with you, your software.

Kristen: Yeah, totally. ~Like ~That's the experience ~that you're, you're showing.~ that you are showing.

Mike: It shouldn't ~like ~read my resume, bro. ~Like, ~It shouldn't be that hard to apply for a job.

It's all right there. It's all right there. Mm-hmm.

Kristen: Yeah. 

Mike: Including my references also there.

Kristen: Yep.

Mike: Oh my 

Kristen: So I thought the next one was really interesting 'cause ~you know, ~we've all heard of like job hopping.

But,~ um,~ where people are like going to like different companies but [00:25:00] there's a newer trend of industry hopping. So with people moving from one industry to another throughout their career, rather than spending their whole career in like a single sector. ~Um, ~And it has the benefits of ~like ~expanding their professional network leading to a diverse skillset and potentially higher job satisfaction. It also can be seen as like a career cushioning activity, which like career cushioning is like another one of these buzzwords where you're ~kind of ~padding out your skillset and experiences to make yourself more valuable in a challenging economy.

Mike: ~I, I, ~I know nothing about this.

Kristen: No. Nothing at all.

Mike: Deloitte calls this, ~um. ~A serial specialist. Serial specialist. 

Kristen: Hmm. 

Mike: Yeah. People who keep a job for like three. And this is in general, when you see somebody that doesn't keep a job for like five or 10 years.

There used to be, now it's very normal. It used to be ~a, ~a kind of red flag. And then Deloitte ~kind of ~did some studies and found out there's a whole,~ like,~ I don't if we all have a ADHD or you know, after about three years, we [00:26:00] get bored and we wanna learn something new. And that is not a detractor, that's an actual asset to the organization because these people tend to be very high achievers and ~they, ~they dig in.

Like you could now have a career in broadcast radio if you want, if you wanted, right. Like, you know.

Kristen: Yeah. Well, I thought what was interesting is how like prevalent it's become, there's a, this is actually from a different article, but there was a McKinsey survey that showed that 48% of people quitting their jobs in the past few years found jobs in different sectors. 

Mike: Yeah that's ~the ~the turbulence of in the economy also. I think some of that

Kristen: For sure, there's definitely some of people like I'll take the job I can get,

Mike: But people are realizing, I think employers are more realizing there are a lot of transferable skills.

Kristen: ~Mm-hmm.~

Yeah. There's more openness to it.

Mike: They have to be or they're struggling to hire. ~Yeah, yeah, ~Yeah.

Kristen: Yeah. This clearly been a part of your career.

Mike: Well, I just hired, so I hired an activities director, we call it Director of Community Life, without any direct experience. I got him from [00:27:00] hotels and he had been volunteering, his his girlfriend was a activities director at ~a, ~a rival community.

~Uh, ~So ~he, ~he knew what it was, but he, ~you know, he, ~he's been a hotel manager, director of rooms, but he has~ like a,~

~you~

~know, ~transferable skills ~in, in, in,~ in service and leadership, in organization ~in, ~in communica, and he is just killing it.

And, and I had to kind of convince my HR director that I was like, she was like, yeah, he doesn't, he hasn't done the job.

I was like, trust me. And he's just killing 

Kristen: Nice.

Mike: Nice. Yeah. 

Kristen: That's awesome. Yeah. Good example 

Mike: Yeah.

Kristen: ~Nice. Well, the, uh,~

Mike: it they say you can, you can teach skills. Right. Hire for, and then you get into like hr, nebulous, legal, standing. When you say hire for culture, ~well ~that's a, that can be problematic too.

Kristen: Oh, yeah, yeah. Yep.

Mike: Yeah, because that can be a buzzword for like, we're hiring people that look like us.

Kristen: Oh, yeah. [00:28:00] Definitely. Can be code for bias.

Mike: And it's nebulous. You can kind of claim that. And what does that mean? You didn't think I was a cultural fit? Yeah. Hmm.

Kristen: So we talked about like, like executive presence can be used that way too. ~ Um, ~So yeah. So next, next buzzword. I thought this was ~kind of ~funny because if might've heard of cuffing season, this is particularly when living in cold places where during ~like ~the winter months, people want to ~like ~get into a relationship ~before, ~before it gets cold and nobody wants to go out.

~Um, ~So like cuffing season I think is around like before the holidays, basically before ~like the, ~the cold winter months start. So ~this, ~this buzzword is job cuffing. So this is a trend where employees, particularly those in like uncertain roles or uncertain industries, or just companies with an uncertain future, commit more firmly to their jobs. And they might increase their engagement, take on extra projects signal like [00:29:00] long-term interest, basically to avoid layoffs.

Or just to increase their job security. So while this can ~kind of ~temporarily boost commitment and productivity, it's like usually when somebody is doing this, they're like doing it in hopes of like a promotion or a raise or something. In this case, employees feel like they have to go above and beyond just to maintain their roles, that can lead to a lot of burnout.

And I think a lot of people are in this place right now. 

Mike: Yeah.

I mean, I work harder when I'm worried about losing my job. For sure. ~You know? Um,~

Kristen: But it's ~kind of ~like a, there's like a temporary productivity benefit to it, but ~it, ~it's not lasting

Mike: Well, that's a kind of a fear based leadership model. 

Kristen: It is absolutely fear-based. Yeah. We talked about our motivation episode.

~It's like if you're,~ If you think of like Maslow's hierarchy, if you're worried about those like bottom needs, right? Like having enough money to have a shelter and food,

Mike: Sorry, ~I was, ~I was down the,~ uh,~ field marshal Jhukov,~ uh,~ rabbit hole here. There's a man ~that didn't, ~that didn't, what is it? [00:30:00] Job cuffing.

Yeah. He did not job cuff. He was fully invested in his role. 

Kristen: And then so the next one, this is ~kind of like, ~like we've had ~like ~The Great Resignation,

Yeah. And this is one, one Labor Market Economist named James Crockett has been talking about this,~ the,~ the follow up to The Great Resignation being The Big Stay. So with tighter job market, lower pay races for job switchers, more employees are choosing to stay put in their current roles.

Mike: I want a Lazy girl job. How do I get one of those?

Kristen: So yes. The next one, lazy girl jobs. I also just love that mike is going in and capitalizing

Mike: each,

Kristen: word in these

Mike: ~it's a, ~It's a proper title. We might come back to this later.

You know what I think of when you say that the lazy girl jobs is,~ um,~ from Silicon Valley. There's a storyline in the middle where there's like these Hooli employees that have no [00:31:00] responsibilities, that they just ~like ~hang out on the roof all day and for some reason they can't be fired because of their stock options or their contract or something and they're just like chilling.

Oh,

Kristen: Oh yeah. Yep, for sure. 

Mike: ~How,~

~do I, ~How do I make that happen? Sounds great. 

Kristen: Well, this is kind of a specific thing. So ~this, ~this term was ~um, kind of ~propagated by Gabrielle Judge, I hadn't, I was not familiar with, but she has like 500 k followers on TikTok or~ Um, ~but she's, she calls herself the anti work girl boss. And this is like base another kind of like Gen Z rejection of hustle culture,~ um,~ trend. But these, this is basically decently paid jobs that emphasize work life balance and flexibility over high responsibility or career progression.

And opting for roles that allow them to maintain personal fulfillment without the stress of climbing the [00:32:00] corporate ladder. So this is often described as like jobs that offer remote work,~ um,~ salaries from 60 to 80 K, which I think that's gonna depend a lot on where you live.

Mike: Well, that's not the Bay Area

Kristen: Yeah. In the Bay Area.

I went, I don't know. Yeah. ~Um,~

Mike: ~that's an, ~That's an Idaho pay range.

Kristen: Yeah. Well, yeah.~ Um, ~But yeah, ~they aren't, ~they aren't necessarily lazy in the traditional sense, but they prioritize mental wellbeing and they allow workers to maintain a steady income without sacrificing personal time or facing burnout.

Mike: So like Europe, basically 

Kristen: Europe.

But yeah, like certain administrative roles, content moderation, freelance work with like predictable and 

Mike: has 

Kristen: demands.

I 

Mike: think France has 

Kristen: a 30 hour work week. 

~Uh, ~Yeah, that sounds

Mike: I am, I'm on 30 hours before the end of Wednesday.~ Gotta, ~I gotta do bare minimum Mondays, bring it down to 25. 

Kristen: ~Right?~

So the last few of these, these are all a little more random, but, ~um. ~like terms that are coming up. [00:33:00] So personality hires are people who are hired primarily for their personality. ~Um, ~They particularly have like ~strong interpersonal, ~strong interpersonal skills, a positive can-do attitude, a great culture fit, quote unquote, whatever that means.

Maybe not a good thing,~ um,~ and the ability to cheer on their coworkers.

Mike: I, this sounds like the soft skills, which we've renamed human skills. I think that's useful. ~I mean this, ~this is, these are ~active, ~active listening, empathy, relationship. These are extraordinary, important,

Kristen: very, very valuable skills.

Yeah.

Mike: But it does, as we will find out in How to Win friends and Influence People, it does not hurt to be positive and supportive and encouraging ~and a, and a, ~and a big cheerleader of your teams and your, those are actually some of the foundational aspects of good leadership. 

Kristen: Yep, for sure.

Mike: Can we have an anti personality hire? Like we hire you ~in, ~in tech support [00:34:00] or something,

Kristen: Based on your technical

Mike: though you're super grouchy and ~like, you know, ~got a cloud over your head, like line Linus, ~you know, ~like

Kristen: There are a lot of those out there, but. Despite

Mike: despite the,

Kristen: ~um,~ And then the next one is proximity bias. So I thought this was interesting. So this is not like a ~new term, ~new term, but it's ~um, ~become a lot more popular due to the rise of like hybrid and remote work. So proximity bias refers to our tendencies as human ~be~ beings to favor those who are literally or figuratively in our proximity.

So that could be a location, an office, workplace, or social circle, but in a remote or hybrid workplace, this can often look like remote employees being excluded from important meetings, conversations, promotions

Like office-based employees being favored in general, and employees being promoted based on their personal relationships.

Mike: Oh yeah.

Kristen: Yeah, [00:35:00] it was. I,

Mike: But there's some just natural, like I, one of my first hotel jobs, I don't know if I didn't get promoted when I wanted, but I kind of asked, and they were like,~ well,~ you're on the, you're on the three to 11 shift. The management's gone. You get there and they leave, so they don't see the work you're doing,~ you know?~

Mm-hmm. Even though you're holding,~ they, they, ~they I absolutely know that you're doing a good job because you're holding down the fort and the police didn't burn down, and they trust you to do that, but at the same time, you're not the one they're talking to all day every day. Yeah. 

Kristen: Yep. 

Mike: But personal relationships, that's something else.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, 

Kristen: Yeah, ~I mean that's, ~that's true And then the last one is kind of the other side of quiet quitting is just quiet hiring. So this is companies are addressing like needs for more head count without hiring, basically. So without actually hiring [00:36:00] new, full-time employee so

Mike: it's, ~I ~I might do this a lot. Yeah. I might have done it today. I did not quietly hire today. It has been five days since we quietly hired anyone to oversee a new product line.

Kristen: Yeah, so like this kind of could look like upskilling and reskilling current employees, hiring temporary people to do specific tasks, assigning like current employees to different roles or like a combination of all of these. And it, that obviously can be a good thing in terms of development if you're giving people new opportunities rather than hiring externally. ~Um, ~But ~the ~ ~ the, ~the thing that you ~kind of ~have to watch out for is giving people like too much additional work without ~an increase in their, like, without like ~a promotion or raise basically.

And 

Mike: Oh, we'll give you a new title. 

Kristen: Yeah. Well that's, yeah. The, [00:37:00] but ~a lot of, ~a

Mike: Not more money,

Kristen: A lot of, yeah. Right. Or that too. And a lot of this happens ~like kind of ~like quietly. There's not like a, this person has a brand new, has a new title, and is now taking this 

Mike: It's not an actual promotion.

Yeah. 

Kristen: They're just handed new

Mike: We, we'll add some more responsibility ~to your, ~to your docket.

Kristen: So like, I've obviously seen this practice happen a lot, but it's interesting to hear this term applied to it so. 

Mike: Quiet hiring. Yeah. Let me capitalize that. Hold on.

Listen, 

Kristen: He can't handle it. Can't handle it. 

Mike: Oh, pr the,~ uh,~

Kristen: So, yeah. So

Mike: You even made it bold face.

Why would you not? Okay. 

Kristen: ~Well,~

~there were reasons.~

There were reasons.

Mike: What were the reasons?

Kristen: ~Like ~If, because I was pulling in them from the article.

Mike: Oh, you copy pasted? Yeah, I still would've corrected it.

Kristen: Oh my God.

Mike: It's like ~I'm still, ~I'm still the person that has to go back and correct a text message that I sent when the message is clearly fine, but I have to correct the spelling of they or theirs.

It was like [00:38:00] eight

Kristen: eight text messages ago.

Mike: Oh, why do I do like. Move on, sir. It's fine. They got the mess. Nope, I need,~ it's,~ it's perfectionism I guess. Yeah,~ it's,~ really an illness.

Kristen: ~so? ~So yeah. So that's all ~the, ~the buzzwords. But I thought this was ~kind of ~fun to go through

Mike: This is super fun.

Kristen: Oh, maybe we'll do another edition. 

Mike: Anti perks, coffee badging,

Kristen: And then we'll also do some breakdowns of like more ones that are a little meatier.

Mike: ~oh, you know what? I haven't heard you in my headphones the whole time.~

Kristen: ~Oh, you know what? Me either, huh? ~

Mike: ~Huh?~

~I was wondering what seemed different.~

Kristen: ~Yeah, you're right. Well, that wasn't working before either.~

Mike: ~Well, I hope we recorded~

~some of ~

Kristen: ~it's not plugged in.~

Mike: ~Uh, love and Leadership.~

~much ~

Kristen: ~mic bleed. Okay. Yeah.~

Mike: ~Yeah.~

Kristen: ~Oh, well,~

~um, ~

Mike: ~you can fix it. We'll fix it in post.~

Kristen: ~Yeah. Yeah. It's all, everything technical~

Mike: ~We'll, we'll fix it. We'll fix it in post, uh,~

Kristen: ~anyway, so we're gonna go ahead and wrap there.~

Mike: I kind of wish I'd read this before. I bet I could have come up with some HR words that I've seen on my, like LinkedIn friends.

Kristen: Well, we can always do another 

Mike: We should. I follow a couple of labor lawyers on LinkedIn and ~I'm, ~I'm always watching to see which way the wind is blowing. Yeah.

There's one guy in Florida that has some amazing stories,~ like,~

Kristen: oh, I'm sure.

Mike: ~Well, ~He specializes in, ~um. ~For the worker Breaking BS, non-compete clauses that, that employers make them sign, which are very hard to [00:39:00] enforce apparently.

And he knows how to do that. But some of the stories he has, oh my goodness.

Kristen: Oh my gosh,

Mike: It's super concerning.

Kristen: It's super concerning,

Mike: ~Like,~

Kristen: Yeah. Well this is like, I,~ um,~ I've met like a fellow speaker who is a, an attorney and also ~like, ~does a lot of expert witness and investigation work and ~like, ~I'm actually like, hopefully we're gonna have her on as a

Mike: guest.

Oh, that'd be amazing. She's, what does she do exactly? She's

Kristen: experiences. So she's a lawyer, so she was like. ~Kind of ~like an HR lawyer for a long time, but she has like a consulting practice now. But she 

Mike: Yeah. that's a good job. 

Kristen: She'll serve as an expert witness ~for ~for ~like ~a particular,

Mike: for lawsuits?

Kristen: lawsuits? For lawsuits, yeah. And then she'll also.

~Like, well, ~I don't know if she does it as much anymore, but ~she's, ~she's also done a lot of like investigation, like being like the third party who comes in during HR investigations

Mike: Sounds like forensic HR,

Kristen: Something like that. It's really her it, her background's very interesting. I was like,

Mike: That's a great, [00:40:00] like

Kristen: My mouth was just open when we had a dinner.

Mike: That's super interesting. I bet she has some. I bet you've seen some shit.

Kristen: Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

Mike: ~Uh, ~Guys,~ it's,~ it's easier to do the right thing. It's easier to be moral, it's easier to, ~you know, ~I take this back to what we were talking about last week, agrarian versus hunter gatherer.

Hunter gatherer. It's a zero sum game, but ~we, ~we can actually all win and profit and you can win, and I can win, and we can all prosper together. I promise you. Yeah. Gotta, we gotta change our mentality. We, they don't have to lose for us ~to, for us, for we~ to win. For us to win. For us to win. You don't have to ~that, ~that's not how you know the universe 

Kristen: No. Yeah. I also wanna bring in somebody to talk about ethics in leadership. It's such an important topic.

Mike: ~God, who we got.~

Kristen: ~Um, ~

Mike: ~T-B-D-T-B-D,~ 

Kristen: But. I feel like we'll have some exciting interviews coming up.

Mike: ~Do we bring in a business leader or a philosopher or, I'd ~

Kristen: ~I was actually actually gonna see if my professor who taught that class wants ~

Mike: ~Oh, that's awesome.~

~Yeah. Business ethics is a class.~

Kristen: ~Oh yeah. This is,~

Mike: ~It should be. It should be a department in the government.~

Kristen: ~Yeah.~

Mike: ~Yeah.~

~anyw who,~

Kristen: So we'll go ahead and end there. We will be back next week with our LBC on How to Win Friends and [00:41:00] Influence People, 

Mike: And if you haven't.

Yeah, if you haven't watched ~The Death, ~the Death of Stalin,~ um,~ it's ~kind of ~an interesting exploration of bad leadership in so many regards.

Well, but then you'll see like Khrushchev was actually probably a good guy trying to like work within a very constrained system. ~You know, ~You can be a great leader like,~ and,~ and just because somebody's working for an ideology that you don't agree with doesn't mean they're evil. Yeah. It means that, ~you know, ~you can't see their perspective. We talked about that last week. Right ~? ~

Kristen: Yeah,~ that,~ that also feeds in nicely to some, of the How to win Friends and Influence People stuff. So

Mike: yeah.

Awesome. Thank you.

Kristen: All right. Thanks everybody. See you next week.

Bye. Bye. 

The Love and Leadership Podcast is produced and co-hosted by me, Kristen Brun Sharkey and co-hosted by Mike Sharkey. Please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. [00:42:00] We can't stress enough just how much these reviews help. You can follow us on LinkedIn under Kristen Brun Sharkey and Michael Sharkey, and on Instagram as loveleaderpod.

Kristen: You can also find more information on our website, loveandleadershippod.com. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll see you again next week.