Brittany Leonard – A General Counsel’s View on HR Data and Processes

Connect with Brittany:

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Connect with Dwight:

• 
• dwight.brown@salary.com

Connect with David:

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• 
• david.turetsky@salary.com

 

Podcast Manager, Karissa Harris:

• HRDataLabs@salary.com

 

Production by Affogato Media

Resources:

• Civix
• HR Data Labs Season 4 Episode 18
• HR Data Labs Season 4 Episode 16

• “I've always tended to tell friends of mind, ‘The first thing you do when you get into [a General Counsel] position—you need to have HR as your ally. . . . Know that they’re there; know that you can talk to them; build that relationship [because] you always want to be preventative, not reactive, to a situation.'.”
• “The more open you are with your employees, the more you’re going to have them wanting to be on your team, waiting to help, because they don’t feel like they’re left out of the loop.”

Announcer: 0:02

Here's an experiment for you. Take passionate experts in human resource technology. Invite cross industry experts from inside and outside HR. Mix in what's happening in people analytics today. Give them the technology to connect, hit record for their discussions into a beaker. Mix thoroughly. And voila, you get the HR Data Labs podcast, where we explore the impact of data and analytics to your business. We may get passionate and even irreverent, that count on each episode challenging and enhancing your understanding of the way people data can be used to solve real world problems. Now, here's your host, David Turetsky.

David Turetsky: 0:46

Hello, and welcome to the HR Data Labs podcast. I'm your host, David Turetsky. Like always, we have with us our friend and colleague, Dwight Brown from Salary.com. Hey, Dwight.

Dwight Brown: 0:56

Hey, David, how you doing?

David Turetsky: 0:57

I'm good. How are you?

Dwight Brown: 0:58

Good.

David Turetsky: 1:00

And as we've always had on the HR Data Labs podcast, we find fun, phenomenal guests from inside and outside the world of HR to bring you their perspective on what's going on in HR, HR data, analytics, and HR process and technology. We have with us today, Brittany Leonard, who's the general counsel for Civix, which is a public sector technology company. Hello, Brittany, how are you?

Brittany Leonard: 1:25

Hello. Hello, everyone. How are you guys doing?

Dwight Brown: 1:28

Good!

David Turetsky: 1:29

We're great.

Brittany Leonard: 1:30

Good.

David Turetsky: 1:31

So Brittany, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and about your journey that gets you to Civix to talk to us today?

Brittany Leonard: 1:37

Yeah. So basically, obviously, you know, I had my law degree graduated law school about 10 years ago. Did the traditional path after law school, practice in a firm for two years. Did not like it, had no no fun, lots of hours, probably 80 90 hours a week. And I knew my background was in business. I worked for the city down here in Florida for about 10 years and by degree as well. And I knew I wanted to go in house and a position opened up in a kind of a weird situation about eight years ago, and I took it and it was not a legal position by any means. But they did see that I had legal my background and they said, Hey, we have our you know, in house counsel, if they need help, you know will you help them. I was like, Sure, quickly found out that the non legal position was not my avenue or expertise. And I jumped fully into the legal world of in house counsel with them. And haven't looked back since. And I love it. So

David Turetsky: 2:35

That's awesome. Actually, my dad had a similar background. He he graduated with a degree in electrical engineering went for his law degree, practice law for like 10 minutes inside a firm hated it, and went back and started building computers. Now this was back in the 70s. So it's so strange how those paths take people!

Brittany Leonard: 2:54

40 years later, peopl,e or 50 years from the 70s, 50 years later, people still don't like law firms. So there you go.

David Turetsky: 3:00

No offense to our friends at law firms.

Brittany Leonard: 3:02

Yeah no offense to you guys!

David Turetsky: 3:06

That's really funny. So one fun thing that you may not know about Brittany is?

Brittany Leonard: 3:12

I am very like, I like to think things through like I'm very much of a planner. I ended up visiting Montana for the first time in March in the next month, I went ahead and bought a bunch of property out there and saw the property when I was there, loved it, found out the realtor, she was the seller, sellers realtor and she goes yeah, I'll be your realtor too why not come on board. And so so we did the deal. And now I own a bunch of property out in Montana.

David Turetsky: 3:39

Wow. Do you own cattle out there too?

Brittany Leonard: 3:41

So my property is actually by the deed it's a designated that I have to let farmers use it until I start building. So currently, the farmer out there is Hay, using it for hay and he asked if he could put cattle on I said, that's fine. I'm you know, I'm not there right now. And I don't plan to build for at least two or three years so go do what you want to do.

David Turetsky: 4:01

So it'd be fertile ground by the time

Dwight Brown: 4:06

why does it Why is Yellowstone going through my mind right now?

Brittany Leonard: 4:10

And you know, the funniest thing is I've never seen an episode. I haven't you know, and it's on my list. Oh, people are very much obsessed with Yellowstone out there. They think it's the greatest thing and put them on the map but have never seen an episode now. Family members love it. Watch it. Like I said I was just I was out in Colorado in March and I've always wanted to see Montana and just to see it. And it was the cheapest flight up there from Colorado. It was like you know, ninty-nine bucks or something and I was like, Sure found an Airbnb. Loved it. And there you go. Now I'm a Montana, I guess. I don't know if you call it resident or what but I pay taxes.

David Turetsky: 4:46

There you go. That's awesome. The strangest paths in life take us different directions. It's so weird. So Brittany, one of the things we find, especially when we're dealing with people who work with HR is there tends to be some kind of frustration, typically, with people who are internal clients of HR, because either HR acts more like administrators, or because they're just not getting the right data or level of support. And I'm not, I'm not trying to overgeneralize I'm just saying that a lot of frustration that I've heard being part of HR as well as being a consultant to HR, is that we don't necessarily tend to think about the needs of others, do you? And I'm not specifically talking about Civix. But do you tend to find that with general counsel's where they typically have that kind of frustration with HR?

Brittany Leonard: 5:47

No, and I think, you know, I was just talking to someone in our HR the other day about this. I think, every company I've worked in, I think people have, I don't wanna say, an axe to grind with HR, but they always have some type of issue with HR. But I think it's different. And obviously, I'm sitting in a very different seat, someone say that's, you know, entry level employee. So I think, you know, from my standpoint, you know, I, anytime I need something from HR, you know, it's given to me pretty quickly, but I can see, I can put myself in his shoes of, you know, our 600 employees, that entry level employees, or what have you may not be able to get the same quickness of a response that they would like, or what have you. And I think I understand their frustration, but then from this end to see that HR gets so many requests on a daily basis, that it's unbelievable. I actually had to take over our HR a couple months ago, because they were all out out of the office, and the questions, whether they were appropriate questions, or some were just like, obviously, you don't read the weekly emails that we send out type of questions, they still have to respond to all of those. So you know, it's not like they can't give priority over one over the other. So just because, you know, someone thinks, oh, I have this pressing issue. Everyone else has a pressing issue as well.

David Turetsky: 7:11

I tend to believe that HR has a raw deal, usually because of that. Because they're kind of given the the mantle of trying to solve all business problems, no matter how great or how small, no matter whether they're focused on an employee or focused on the business itself. And meanwhile, there, there still has to be this emotional part of HR, that has to deal with issues like somebody's needing health care, and there's problems with the claims or with their status. And, you know, it's a life or death situation. And typically, that's not it's not something a business leader needs to deal with, usually, it's HR has to deal with that. Do you I mean, in again, not getting into Civix necessarily. But do you see that ever that other groups have to deal with, you know, this range of emotional issue from, like, healthcare all the way through to, you know, trying to save the business?

Brittany Leonard: 8:05

Oh, absolutely. Especially, obviously, when the pandemic happen. I mean, we got emails that way too personal, like, I didn't need to know that information about you. People overthink that, you know, from the HR standpoint, it's the home for everything. And HR is like, whoa, whoa, whoa, like, No, you know, this is more of a finance question. We don't handle that, or this is more of a tax question. This is more procurement, what have you. And I think people are so used to, you know, it goes back, I think it goes back to when you're a kid, like that first person you met on the playground, you always, like hang out with that person. And HR is that first person you have contact with, when you're initially hired. So it just feels, you know, for a lot of people, it feels like home, like, hey, I can reach out to them, because I'm used to them. And at least for our HR, they're very, you know, very nice and navigating and saying, Hey, look like we don't do this, but you know, go to so and so or here's where you need to go. But I know I've heard of, you know, other people in other companies where they reach out to HR time and time again, and just don't get a response. Because HR is like, well, not my monkey, not my circus, I'm not gonna deal with it. Typically.

Dwight Brown: 9:15

HR ends up being the go between or the or the broker of information for people.

Brittany Leonard: 9:22

Correct. They try their best and I don't think, you know, I've never met someone that had an ill well as an HR individual.

David Turetsky: 9:29

Right? I think it takes a different type of person, frankly, to be in HR to deal with the range of responsibility business savvy, and you have to be very empathetic.

Brittany Leonard: 9:41

Empathetic. That's so funny, we said the same word at the same time, yes, very empathetic. Yes.

David Turetsky: 9:46

That's funny. Well, you're a very logical person. So I kind of read where you were going with that.

Brittany Leonard: 9:52

Yeah.

Announcer: 9:53

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David Turetsky: 10:05

So, Brittany, let's talk a little bit about some of the struggles of the General Counsel's office. And let's, let's turn it a little bit, like 90 degrees and say, if you did have struggles, yeah, what are the areas? Or what examples would you have? Again, not pointing fingers at my friends over at Civix! But what what struggles do you typically see that GC's have with HR? And if you have examples, that'd be

Brittany Leonard: 10:28

Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest thing that great. what I've heard from friends, companies and stuff like that, and the GC roles is the communication. And, you know, when there's, say there's an employee investigation, or employee classification of, you know, what is this employee, you know, we need this information, we need these documents, the lack of either communication or response, because they don't have that initial, like camaraderie or relationship, if you will. And I think, for me, you know, I've always tended to tell friends of mine, like, look, the first thing you do, when you get into this position, you need to, you know, have HR as your ally, you need to, you know, build that relationship, you know, so that I don't expect you to, you know, have a conversation every single day, every minute of the day, but know that they're there know that you can talk to them, build that relationship, so that when you need them, and something you always want to be preventative and not react, you know, reactive to a situation. So and I think that's the biggest thing is they can't if they can't get the documents that they need, they can't respond to the legal issues that come down the pipeline.

David Turetsky: 11:32

And I think that's an important specific issue about documents or about data. And having the most appropriate tools at your disposal, that you have accuracy, and that you have timeliness, to be able to deal with it. Do you find that the HR systems that you've had to deal with have been able to provide you with that data? Or do you feel like you struggle a little bit, because it's still a little bit of offline versus online? Where you do get or you have to access that data? Offline? Meaning they're in files, file drawers?

Brittany Leonard: 12:07

Yeah. And that's, you know, that's a struggle, I think we deal with not only in HR, but even the legal side is, you know, some people are used to just holding on to these documents, and, you know, not giving documents for whatever reason, whether they're just used to holding them, or they forgot about them, or what have you. And even in investigations, I'm really big about saying, like, look, even if you think a document is going to hurt us, tell me now, so I can work away around it, I don't want to come, you know, on the ninth hour and find some, you know, big issue that you just didn't want to tell me because you didn't want me to, you know, be upset or, you know, not have an answer to I'd rather know it now and be able to, you know, work around the issue and prevent it to become what I call the snowball effect and get getting even worse, I guess you could say.

Dwight Brown: 12:49

Right, yeah, surprise!

David Turetsky: 12:54

Yeah, that that's in an investigation, the last thing you want are surprises. Yeah, absolutely. So I mean, what if the, if you had your druthers, would you rather have access to things like at your fingertips, like total self service, like through the computer? Or do you still rely on as we were talking about before the offline, a lot of the offline processes that are paper based stil?

Brittany Leonard: 13:17

I would love to have everything online, and you know, at our fingertips, but I think with privacy issues and things like that, you have to be very careful of what's transmitted and all that kind of thing. So it's just a very fine line of, I would love to have easy access. So we're not, you know, asking multiple people for different things. But at the same time, I understand the hesitancy as well.

David Turetsky: 13:38

And I'm sure because you're a government contractor in lots of different municipalities, and I don't know, if you're federal as well, you know, there's that extra, there could be an extra lens that's put on you, because of all of the need to follow not just all of the different state laws you deal with, because you're you work in those states, but also, you supply technology to different levels of the government. So you have to do backflips to be able to stay on top of those things, don't you?

Brittany Leonard: 14:08

Yes, I mean, not only do we do municipal, we do state and we also do FAA, because we're in the airport division, so you know, we kind of have it all the way around, as you know, very set guidelines and things like that, that we have to follow only that we protect, obviously, our software, but we protect the data of our client.

David Turetsky: 14:26

It's it's amazing how, and a lot of this falls on HR, sometimes. It's amazing how HR and you know, especially with good relationships with their general counsel, there's that compliance need that they have to fulfill on and I think it's overlooked sometimes, but that's just it's just incredible. And it's, it's wonderful, if it gets solved, but it's it's also really bad when it doesn't, and when when things happen in a in a really bad way.

Brittany Leonard: 14:55

I think the biggest thing with compliance is you know, some people are like, Oh, I'm gonna put this off. I'm gonna do it later on, gonna do it later, I'm gonna do it later. And then it comes to be this big issue and hey, we need this in the next 24 hours. And it's like, wait, wait, wait, like I haven't been doing this and it's like scrambling in the back end, it's just, it just turns into a hot mess.

David Turetsky: 15:21

So let's turn our tables then to talk about things where without giving legal advice, that you can give HR, some examples of things that they might not do as well, and that they should do better at.

Brittany Leonard: 15:33

I think, you know, a lot of it, you know, I put myself I like to put myself in a position that I'm not in a lot. So I like to put my position in employees that I see that are frustrated or what have you. And I think, you know, employees love to know things, employees love to be involved, employees love to be communicated with. And so I think that level of just openness to be like, hey, and I think we do a really good job of it here at Civix. We have quarterly meetings with everybody involved, and we go over policies, we go over finances all kinds of things, just to kind of like keep people in the loop. And I think that's kind of the thing I would say to any HR individuals to keep, you know, your employees abreast of as much as you can. Obviously, some things are sensitive, but you know, a lot of things that you think are sensitive, or you don't want to tell you employees aren't really sensitive, and they can be shared. And the more open you are with your employees, the more you're going to have them wanting to be on your team wanting to help because they don't feel like they're left out of the loop or you know, not involved.

Dwight Brown: 16:33

You end up heading off a lot of issues through transparency. We and and that's always the the big bad monster hiding under the bed. We think with some of these issues, we think, Well, if I, if I just withhold this information, things are gonna get better. Well, now, all of a sudden it comes to light. And everybody, all the employees are saying, Well, why didn't you just communicate that to us? Yeah. But it's become a big bad monster, because we didn't do that. Correct.

David Turetsky: 17:01

And I think this has its roots, especially in pay equity legislation that has been now kind of popping up or popping up all over the states, which is great. Giving people the ability to know, what are the hiring rates for each of these jobs before they get in? And, you know, there are no bargains. Hiring hiring people at a bargain is not a bargain. It's a bad thing. Yeah. And transparency. And I know that's not exactly what you're talking about in terms of transparency. But we've been talking especially on this program a lot about pay transparency which heads off or it should hit head off, pay equity issues. But one of the things we've been we've been talking about is changing pay philosophies to be much more open to Dwight's point. So that it kind of gets us out of that worry that we're doing the wrong thing. Because everybody knows what the right thing is. And everybody's aware of what pay rates are what structures are all about. What is our compensation philosophy? What do we pay the median? You know, why am I paid what I'm paid? When I grew up, Brittany, a long time ago, when I was when I was growing up in the world of business and in HR as a compensation manager. We used to tell people don't talk about pay or you'll get fired.

Brittany Leonard: 18:17

Yes, yeah, that was a huge thing back then.

David Turetsky: 18:19

It was! Because we just didn't want the watercooler talk. Well, now that's illegal to tell them especially in certain states. but But you know, we we did it for the right reasons, because we didn't want people to get jealous, especially during bonus season. Well, now, they shouldn't talk. And they're listening to Glassdoor and Salary.com and other places where they can find out how much people get paid. And they're more educated because the internet has given them access to that, right. I mean, have you seen that?

Brittany Leonard: 18:49

Oh, yeah. I mean, employees are so educated on so many different topics, I mean, from pay to even, you know, we have a lot of visa employees. And so they're like, right up on it, like, you know, where's the next step happening? What have you. And we've had to really like we even have, you know, bi weekly meetings with certain employees to say, here's where we're at in this process. Because just because I have, you know, outside immigration counsel, they'll sit there and say, Well, Google says this, and this is what I've researched. And this is where I should be out in the process. And I'm like, Well, I'd love for USCIS to work that quickly. But they just don't, they're overloaded. So, you know, here's where we're at.

David Turetsky: 19:27

Yeah, yeah. Everything on the internet's right, you know.

Brittany Leonard: 19:30

Absolutely. 100%.

David Turetsky: 19:33

Because it's published on the internet. It's a fact.

Brittany Leonard: 19:35

But I can't talk bad about Google because Google is so helpful. They helped me so much in so many different areas.

David Turetsky: 19:42

Hey, listen, we're with you. We're totally with you. I can't imagine going back to 1980, whatever, when I was in college, and not I mean, I wish I had Google then. But you know,

Brittany Leonard: 19:53

I was talking to someone the other day. Remember when you used to do that? Print out the paper maps like from Mapquest to go somewhere? I Could you imagine getting there now? Like, I'm just I'm waiting for her to tell

David Turetsky: 20:03

Brittany, I remember going to AAA to get my me where to go. triptychs. Yeah. Or trip chicks? What? Yeah, I think that's what I was called, where you used to get that that gigantic foldout map that had everything on it and you're in highlighted marker, they they took you well from wherever to Montana, actually, it might be a good idea to get one of those.

Brittany Leonard: 20:24

The only way I know where to get before, obviously, you know maps are on your phone now. But back then with the paper, I'd literally have to like look at my odometer and be like, alright, it says thirty-five miles like let me calculate thirty-five miles and start looking for that exit.

David Turetsky: 20:38

Well, we used to have to have someone with us and and hold the map while while we tried to drive. Now we've got you know, Google or Apple.

Dwight Brown: 20:48

Or navigation systems on our cars. Yeah,

Brittany Leonard: 20:52

I remember one time I got lost in Kona, Alabama, and I stopped at a gas station. That guy was like, Oh, just go up yonder and turn left here and go a little downwards this way. I'm like, Oh, God, I don't even know what you're saying.

Dwight Brown: 21:04

Go to the old oak trees, take a left.

David Turetsky: 21:07

Yeah, go five miles that way until you get to Bob's house.

Brittany Leonard: 21:11

Yeah. I like had the people in the car with me. I'm like, Hey, can you come inside? And like, get half this information? Because I can't retain all of it.

David Turetsky: 21:21

Yeah, let's try and write this down one step at a time? Well, the good news is that we don't have to do that anymore. Everything's on our phone. And it makes it makes life easier. Did you have any other examples that you might want to share with HR? Or do you think you've probably given

Brittany Leonard: 21:37

You know, honestly, like, for me, I, you enough? know, unless, you know, it's certain data analytics, what have you just to I think that would be huge. You know, we're just talking about the transparency with employees. And if HR is can incorporate, obviously, I know, there's budgets and everything like that. But just, there's products, and I'm obviously not the one to know what products are out there for HR, but if their product can help be transparent in the information, what if it's whether it's pay to say, hey, look, this is what we're on for the market, what have you, whatever employees are really like coming to you and saying, Hey, look, these are our issues. If there's something out there that can help you track that or give more data to your employees to be more transparent. I think that's key

David Turetsky: 22:17

And that's where HR data and technology is going. too. And there are two areas that are key there. Number one, the HR data needs to stay up to date and it needs to be less error prone. And the second thing is, is that the rapidity or the currency of the data is necessary from the market perspective. So companies that are producing market data that gets that reflects today's market will probably not just win the day, but they will also be able to ensure that we're looking at the right comparators and also be able to get up to date information on the hottest jobs and things like that. So it does help organizations and HR provide the appropriate data to managers and to employees on what's actually happening in the market for talent.

Brittany Leonard: 23:04

Absolutely.

David Turetsky: 23:13

So we've talked about the relationship of the General Counsel to HR, we've talked about some frustrations that GCs have with HR. And we've also talked about examples of how the strengths of HR can come across a little better. Anything else before we wrap up?

Brittany Leonard: 23:28

I think we're good. I think we're I think we kind of hit the nail on the head with everything today.

David Turetsky: 23:32

Cool. Well, thank you very much, Brittany, you're awesome. We really appreciate your time today.

Brittany Leonard: 23:37

Of course! Thank you guys.

Dwight Brown: 23:39

Thanks for being here.

David Turetsky: 23:40

And Dwight, thank you.

Dwight Brown: 23:41

Thank you!

David Turetsky: 23:43

And thank you, everybody for listening, take care and stay safe.

Announcer: 23:46

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