#182 The Revolution in HR Tech through the Lens of Neurodiversity with Katherine McCord

0:00:01 - Mehmet
Hello, welcome back to a new episode of the CTO show with Mehmet. Today, I'm very pleased to have with me Katherine. She's joining me. Live from Florida today. Katherine. She's a speaker, educator and entrepreneur, and she specialized in a lot of topics that I love to learn about. This is why I invited her to the show today. We'll talk multiple things, but mainly related to HR, tech and things in between. Katherine, first of all, thank you for being on the show today. If you can just introduce yourself for my audience and what you are up to, Absolutely, it's a pleasure. 

0:00:34 - Katherine
Thank you so very much for having me. So, like you said, I'm Katherine McCord. I'm very excited to be here with you all today. I run a people operations consulting business, so the human side of HR is where I eat, live and breathe. It's just kind of my jam. I also speak internationally on the topics of innovating hiring and innovating neurodiversity inclusion as well as disability inclusion. So that's pretty much it. That's the short version. Oh, I always forget to say this. I also invented the first ever anti-bias applicant tracking system that fires the resume. So that's another one. There you go, oh and I'm the. 

CEO of the Octopus Movement, a global neurodiversity movement. There you go. That's all of it. Now I'm done. 

0:01:17 - Mehmet
That's amazing. That's great. Let's start from you, because you mentioned in your introduction I read about it before, but I would love you because you are an advocate of it neurodiversity. So if you can a little bit elaborate about what is neurodiversity and how it can help us succeed in our careers oh, I got you, yeah. 

0:01:44 - Katherine
No, neurodiversity is awesome and it's so cool because this is something I've known for a long time and now the rest of the world is catching up and science is catching up, and so I'm super excited about this. So the term neurodiversity was coined by an Australian sociologist named Judy Singer, and it's to bring the idea that difference is not a deficit when it comes to how the mind works, and that has since turned into a whole movement, and now the term is used to define a medically visible and or a diagnosable difference in how a person processes information and stimuli. So think everything from cerebral palsy and traumatic brain injury all the way over to obsessive compulsive disorder, autism, dyslexia and even bipolar and other mental health diagnoses as well. So anything that affects how you process the world around you, that's a neurodiversity. The diagnosed population is about 15, maybe 20% of the population at this point, but the suspected actual neurodiverse population is closer to about a third of the world's population. So this is a big, big population, and part of the reason that we're finding for that is that there is now scientific evidence, and this study can be found in the National Library of Medicine is that there are links between certain neurodiversities, in particular autism and possibly a couple of others as well, with the genes that cause humans to influence, that cause humans to evolve. So one of the theories is that this is the direction that we're going as a human race. Pretty soon, everybody will fit into this category of several generations from now, which is fascinating. 

But the other thing that's really come to light is that there used to be this idea that all of these things were deficits, they were something wrong, and what we've come to realize is that doesn't even make sense. So we've known for a very long time in the medical community that when the body has something, has an area in which it struggles over here, has a weakness, if you will then on the other side it compensates. So you may have heard that somebody who loses their sight, their hearing will increase. Somebody who loses their taste, their smell will come. So it's a similar type of concept, and so while your mind may have a difficulty over here like let's use dyslexia as an example so while you may struggle when it comes to reading and writing, then over here you have super creative thinking and 3D modeling going on in your brain, and so there's this kind of balance right, and we have found that that's what breeds innovation, and you can look at any invention that you want to and you're going to find there a diversity. 

Even going back Before this was really a concept. Individuals have had their profiles examined by scientists and doctors and it's been like, oh well, yeah, clearly this was going on right Even back to Albert Einstein, a Hedy Lamar who was not just a Hollywood bombshell but also the inventor of the technology that led to Bluetooth and so on and so forth Really cool lady. And even further back, not even some of the great musicians and I like Mozart. 

0:04:59 - Mehmet
We're very clearly neurodiverse right. 

0:05:02 - Katherine
So when you get that innovation, you get that creativity. 

A lot of times that's from neurodiversity, and even Hewlett Packard was founded by neurodiverse individuals, and they did something amazing a few years ago, which was that they created a neurodiverse hiring and cultivation program in which everyone was supported and working in a way that was natural to them. 

So that meant if they wanted to get up and pace while they worked, great. If they wanted to sit on a yoga ball instead of a chair, great Noise, canceling, headphones, what work buddies, whatever was that they needed or wanted. That's what they did, and what they found is that that team became 33% more productive than the rest of the counterpart teams, which is extraordinary. So we've kind of come to realize that it's not just about neurodiversity and superpowers, but also this idea that when you let people work in a way that's natural to them, the productivity increases, the innovation increases creativity and even all the way over to your profits. So Boston Consulting Group did a study and showed that when you're fully inclusive in terms of how you let people work, including with the neurodiverse community, you will see an average of 19% higher profits. Wow. 

So, there you go. That's the short version. 

0:06:21 - Mehmet
Yeah, that's fantastic. Actually, I have interviewed a couple of, I think one month back, jason Dettrich he has like a deluxe lia, I think, and he's working in NASA today. So I was curious to understand and we were discussing about STEM education. But I can see whatever you just described now. So you see this aspect of creativity and I've seen a lot. I was lucky, I would say, to meet a lot of people also with similar than I think is what we call it ability, not disability, so we should call it ability. 

0:07:07 - Katherine
I do want to be clear, though real quick, because you said that disability does come with neurodiversity too, and disability from the medical standpoint or the psychiatric standpoint. But that's not the whole story, that's just a piece of the whole situation. 

0:07:23 - Mehmet
Yes, yes, and actually there is one thing here at least I can talk about the place where I live. So here they remove the world disabilities, people with disability and they replace it with something called people of determination. So because these people usually really they are more keen to show the world that, ok, regardless what we have, whether it's a physical or mental issue, they can still add to the society, which is, I like it also as well. Now can you just tell me a little bit about, regarding the neurodiversity, how you have embedded it in, because I know that you have something called the Titan Management and you did the design of what you just mentioned about the Antibias African Tracking System, so how you embedded all these together when you designed the system. 

0:08:21 - Katherine
Well, so, just for full disclosure, so I am neurodiverse multiple times over. So I have actually I have four different neurodiversities. The two that I talk about the most are my OCD and my bipolar, and I like to be very clear, because a lot of people say, look, we all have OCD. No, no, you don't. I literally count everything that I do. I'm obsessed with even numbers. It also makes me very highly organized, which is great for work, by the way, it's super awesome for work. I malfunction if I get something wrong or I don't hit, or if I miss an appointment, or if I'm one minute late to an appointment or something like that, because I'm so obsessed with having everything exactly a certain way Oddly flexible on my teams, I've been told, though. So that made me happy, because I was afraid that that would carry over right to that work. So a while back, I realized how broken hiring tech was, and basically so the ATS, the applicant tracking system, came to be as an answer to the mass job boards that were created. 

Right, it's like monstercom, career builder, ad, et cetera and so they needed a way to track all these applicants that were coming in. Now, these companies needed this. They built the first applicant tracking systems and while they've developed some cool new features like automated email and scorecards and stuff like that, the basic layout has not changed since the 90s, which is absurd to me. That's completely absurd. So, and they also have they're also inherently biased, creating and they're inherently not designed for people in the disability community and people with neurodiversities. They're just, they're not structured that way. And so I gathered together an amazing group of humans for some focus groups, people from all over the world with every diversity that I could possibly find right, and brought people and some different people with this. You know the same diagnoses, things like that. I had all their feedback and every single bit of it was implemented into the system with the idea of creating a fully inclusive application experience. 

That also is a lot more helpful than a resume, because resumes you know you can read articles about this and you know Harvard's published a great one. There's been others as well, like on LinkedIn. There have been several articles published about this Resumes are not an effective way for candidates to communicate about themselves, mostly because there's not really a right or wrong way to do it right. It's just kind of whatever people feel like doing. At least here in the States that's very much the case. And then they're also very biased generating because you know, you see names, you see maybe location, you know things like that, and this type of information is very much bias creating, and so we wanted to get people through that first push right when the unconscious bias can really come into play. Because a lot of times what I've found is, once people get past the application process, if the company likes you, that's kind of just it right. So the idea was to get people past that initial hump, give them a more pleasant experience, help them align better to the job. 

So the profile that we design is anonymous at first until you decide to move forward and then, at which point, the candidate unlocks it for you. Once you've said hey, I'm interested in you, the candidate unlocks their profile, then you can see their name and phone number and all of that, and then it helps them to completely align themselves to the job. And when I started showing it to hiring managers they would. They looked at it and go oh my gosh, this is great. This is exactly what I need. This is actually the information that I need from people. 

And I said, yeah, it's almost like I've submitted candidates to a bunch of hiring managers over the years or something, you know. Almost, almost like I knew what I was doing with that, isn't it? But that's basically what the structure was modeled after was my submittal emails that I would send to my clients when I was in recruiting. So that's so. We just kind of completely reframed it and we changed how questions were asked so that they were better for people with neurodiverse brains, and we just kind of read, read it everything so that everybody felt included and everybody felt that it was a productive way to present themselves. 

0:12:46 - Mehmet
Wow, that's, that's really great. Now you know, I want to add you know, a couple of things about what you mentioned. You know it caught my ease when you said you cannot judge someone by just a resume. It's yeah, and you know, like there are a lot of other things. So, for example, like you cannot judge a student by just an exam, which is like a one hour and set of 20 questions. 

0:13:14 - Katherine
Yes, right, same. Thing. 

0:13:17 - Mehmet
Yeah, you cannot judge. You cannot judge also, like same thing, a candidate, and you know like how we can do it, and this is. You know we bleed me too, because you talk about that HR tech is wrong and you know it needs a major correction. So what are the things you would add to that? I would say oh gosh, yeah. 

0:13:40 - Katherine
So there's so much with HR tech, because it's not just the applicant tracking system, right, there's HRS, there's, there's all these different systems. Some of the some of the main things that I would love to see changed is how information is processed into them, so meaning the way that questions are asked, the way that we gather information, down to that gathering of what we call here in the states that EEOC data. So, like you know gender, your veteran status, you know that type of disability, this type of thing, right? So these things should be collected anonymously. They should not be associated with the candidate's profile in any way, shape or form. Now, there's good reasons to have that data. Right, it makes sense to have that data, but you don't need to dissociate with a candidate's profile. There's no need to that if that's not part of your hiring process, if that's not why you're hiring them, then you don't need to know it. 

Another big thing is to take away the superfluous information. If you don't need to know it, then why have it right? It's even the same thing when you interview people, right, like, why are you asking questions that have nothing to do with why you're hiring them? That makes no sense. And then also with HRTEC, how questions are and how fields are filled out. So, for instance, even on on, like the HRIS systems, you know which kind of stores the employees, once they've been onboarded, the way that things are asked, sometimes just make no sense. And so you see a lot of HR people having to go through and like clarify what things mean and help people with things. 

Just, weren't it better, you know, and take out, and there again, take out fields I have spent? I mean because I'll go through and I'll fill out these things periodically to, you know, just see how they work. And there was one where I was looking at it thinking I should have been done with this in five, maybe seven minutes and it took me almost an hour because it kept repeating the same questions it kept, you know, it was just asinine and there was a bunch of stuff there that just really didn't you know. Or if I had, if I had uploaded a document, it could have just parsed it out, you know, for me and I shouldn't have had to set that manually fill it out. So, being a lot more aware of the human experience, making things a lot more streamlined because they're way too complicated than what they are so efficiency, and then also, like I said, just do it better, you know, and take away the silliness that's, oh, and the discrimination aspect. Take that right on out. 

0:16:09 - Mehmet
Yeah, 100%. And you know, like again, from technology perspective, I mean technology, hiring, in tech, I think there's a lot of repetitive things that comes and you know the formats that they do, even like forget only about the tracking of the application. Like you know the way they do it in a robotic way, I would say, oh yeah, it's terrible, it makes me sad, it's unbelievable, like because someone used to do and you mentioned something like a couple of minutes ago, like you know, when we used to do something in the 90s and used to work. That doesn't mean you know necessarily that it's still applicable, can you? 

0:16:54 - Katherine
imagine in the IT world, if you look at somebody and said, well, we did it this way in the 90s, why do you want to change it? They fire you. No tech has evolved since the 90s, goodbye. And yet HR tech is just still sitting there. 

0:17:11 - Mehmet
Yeah, and this is why I keep bringing the HR tech and hiring a couple of times and I'm repeating because I know maybe someone didn't catch the previous episode so maybe hopefully they will be listening or watching this this time Especially startups like what we can tell startups, new companies, about how they can streamline, you know, their hiring process and you know, take into consideration also you know the topics that we just discussed, like neurodiversity and inclusion and all these topics right. 

0:17:42 - Katherine
So it's simple, right? It's so easy to hire effectively and yet so many companies just don't do it. So here's my rundown of how you hire effectively. First of all, get all the details together before you start looking. That means your budget, so the salary, any bonus, what, the basic outline of what they're going to do, so on and so forth. 

Then do not create an ideal candidate profile. I see so many companies do that and it's actually counterproductive, because what happens is your mind then sees that that is the correct answer and anything outside of that isn't going to work for you. Well, that's not how humans work. Humans don't fit into a little box. So you just X'd out a whole bunch of candidates that would have been terrific for you. So, instead of that, focus on the problem that you need solved and find someone who can do it. Don't focus on years of experience, because who cares? I mean, I've seen IT people who've been doing it for 15 years and they're still stuck on the oldest technologies out there. They don't know anything past C++. Then I've seen people that are only a couple of years past their degree and they're brilliant and they're out there just innovating the space. So years of experience is not what matters. What matters is expertise, level, that matters and ability and talent. That's what matters. So focus on those things and then make sure that you don't accidentally put discriminatory qualifications in your job description. So, for instance, and people, how could you accidentally do that? Well, it happens all the time. 

So, for instance, I had a client recently I was helping them get some things together and they said okay, we need people who can stand for a long period of time. I said why? And they said well, you know the height of this work area. This isn't this. I said couldn't they use a standing stool? They go oh, yeah, yeah, I guess they could, right, and they didn't mean it as anything, right, it just it just didn't occur to them that that was highly discriminatory. So it doesn't mean that the person needs to stand, they just need to be able to be at this height, you know, for whatever. And I told them they said well, maybe you know we couldn't hire a person with a wheelchair. I said, yes, you could, because there are wheelchairs now that can be raised up, like they just push a button and up they go, you know. So I said be real careful. I said don't assume. So that's kind of the message Don't assume what people can and cannot do. And that's the biggest thing, we place all these assumptions right. So, like you know, you see. 

So my mom, for instance, she loves that, I use her as an example for this. So she has debilitating rheumatoid arthritis, hmm, has a little walker, right, she looks so pitiful when she's going along and then she opens her mouth this is this whole other world of experience from her right. And so she would go into meetings and people would be like, oh, look at the poor little lady, you know. And then she'd open her mouth and she rocked the whole meeting, right. And so if you had just seen her walk into a room, you might think, oh, you know, she's disabled, she can't do this, she can't do that. And then you hear her and you see how she functions. And that woman worked over 80 hours a week until she very recently retired and she was, she was an executive at a major hospital system in the HR realm, so she was walking all over the hospital doing different things, rocking, you know, rocking life. So you can't just assume. I have a friend in Belgium and he is, he has cerebral palsy, he is in a wheelchair, but he is also or I should say, and he is also a jiu-jitsu champion and a model, wow. So so you just never know, right. So don't assume that's another big one for startups. Don't assume, you know, it's so easy to get stuck In terms of your interview process. 

Keep it. Keep it simple. Not everybody needs to interview everybody and if you're at the top of the company or at the top of the department, you don't need to be interviewing the entry level or staff level people. So, in other words, if you're a director, you do not interview staff level people. Managers do that and that's where it stops. It does not need to go past that. And if you don't trust your managers to hire your people, you need new managers or you need to work on yourself, because maybe the problem is you right, maybe you need to let go of some stuff, but that's kind of it. So you know, trust your people and don't over-interview. None of these long, stupid processes. I've never understood that. Keep it simple and don't assume that's. The biggest thing that kills people in their hiring process is assuming. 

0:22:24 - Mehmet
And I know that you talk about something else, which is like years of experience. Yeah, yeah, I hate that. 

0:22:30 - Katherine
That makes me nuts. 

0:22:36 - Mehmet
And just before you put your opinion on that, it irritates me when I see I'm not applying for jobs Now. I left the corporate, but still I see these posts and we see a lot of meme about that where they put we need 10 plus years experience in blah, blah, blah, blah, Right. And funny enough, sometimes the technology just started to exist five years back and you see, still they're like we need 15 years. You know, like the other day I've seen like I think it was related to something which is like just recently, you know, like generative AI, right? So generative AI, of course it was there, but obviously they need someone who understands how GPT and what they're all dead. We need someone with 10 years plus experience in nobody's going to have that Someone is lazy and copy paste. 

0:23:31 - Katherine
But that yeah, no copy paste. Let's add that to the list. No copy. 

0:23:36 - Mehmet
So what you can tell us about that. 

0:23:38 - Katherine
Sure, sure, so. So first of all, I see this a lot. In fact, one thing, kind of to your point, that's been really cracking me up lately is you see a lot of job descriptions because I'm always looking through the stuff, right this because I like to stay really in touch with what's going on and I see a lot of job descriptions that say, like you know, 10 plus years and DE, and I and I'm like you do know that was not a job title until like three years ago. Now they may have been doing that type of work, but they're not going to have that title, and you know what they're looking for. 

Titles that's what it is, by the way ignore titles, they don't even. So, how many times have you seen somebody that it says like VP, right, and really all they were was like a developer, right, which is not? I'm not saying there's anything wrong with being developer. My point is they were not a VP, right, they were not doing executive type work, and that happens a lot in the financials too. So be very careful with titles. But that years of experience thing always cracks me up because, number one, a lot of times it's not a thing, especially in tech. I'm with you. I recruited in IT for many, many years and still do, sometimes from time to time, and I see a lot of that. I'm going. You do know that technology is not that old right. But also the problem with it is is just because somebody's been doing something a long time does not mean that they're good at it. 

I see that all the time. Here's an example. So, because HR is kind of my jam, so I once had a situation in which a person who had been an HR manager for over 10 years just a little over 10 years. In one fell swoop it just completely discriminated and broke federal law. They participated in the process that broke federal law and then there cost her company a huge, multi-million dollar lawsuit and it was obvious. It was a thing that nobody would have ever. So what it was was somebody requested an accommodation and she immediately wrote them up for the exact thing for which they requested an accommodation. And they requested it for a while and then just got the response and all this. This was an ongoing. They knew about this, and so it's like what in the world? And then she defended it. By the way, that was the funniest part. It wasn't like, oh my God, I'm such a bonehead, right? Nope, defended it. So that's a situation in which somebody has all these years of experience but never actually bothered to hone their craft. 

So when you're interviewing people, look at what they actually know, and I think a big problem to is hiring is not. A lot of people are taught how to interview properly, right, and it's not the candidate's job to be good at interviewing, it's ours. We've got to move past that. Well, they weren't a good interview. Are you hiring them to be a recruiter? No, then who cares? Unless they're going to be interviewing people. Who cares how they interview? Do you think they can do the job? And your job as a leader is to bring out of them their talent and to help them showcase themselves in the interview. So when you're interviewing people, it's on us as the hiring team humans, especially on the recruiting side. I would say that a lot of this should start happening on the recruiting side. Right To support the hiring managers, but bringing out this person's talent, that's your job, not theirs. They're not professional interviewers and some people are, especially in the neurodiverse community, right Are really good at their jobs, but interviewing is just not going to happen, right? 

I had a candidate years ago. He was one of my favorite candidates of all time and I was recruiting him from one high level financial institution into another and he was a cybersecurity professional and he emailed me right off the bat and said I do not do phone interviews. Not going to happen. He said this is how I interview. He laid it out, provided the exact structure. We did the whole thing. 

We had to kind of coax him a few times to get exactly what we needed out of him. They hired him for an astronomical sum because this was, let's see, this was about 10 years ago and he was hired for over 300,000 a year so a huge, huge salary for somebody in that world and he rocked his role and he worked in his own way and he did his own thing and he just interviewed the way that he needed to. So we need to be flexible with our interview style and we need to be ready to bring out the answers that we need, regardless of how the person presents. So I've told people that I've had people go well, they didn't interview. Well, I said that's your fault. 

And they kind of pause and they're like what I go? That's your fault. You're the recruiter. Why didn't you make the interview better? Now, if you're saying that they weren't qualified, that's different, that's fine. Or if they said something off-putting, ok, that's fine. But if the flow wasn't good, if the conversation wasn't good, that's fine. You got to stop and make people feel more comfortable. 

0:28:47 - Mehmet
Yeah, 100%. And many points. You mentioned Resonance, because I have these things also myself personally. So with your experience, Katherine, in people operations and HRT, what are some of the major trends you foresee in these areas for the next few years? 

0:29:11 - Katherine
Oh, that's a good question. So I think, for trends that we're going to see. Well, let me start with what I don't like A lot more AI. And here's where I don't like it and where I do so. I love AI as an assistant kind of capacity. So, for instance and I did kind of the company name is eluding me right now and I really wish it wasn't but there is a company out there that created, basically, an AI assistant for recruiters and so candidates can go in there and get basic information on the company, the role, all of this from this virtual assistant. And that is awesome. I am all for that and they did it beautifully inclusive. They really knocked it out of the park. Huge fan of that. 

Where I don't like that I'm seeing AI is that there's this idea that AI can kind of replace recruiter or replace the sourcing part of recruiting and tell you which candidates properly align, and all of this not one of them. Again. I've gone into HR Tech conventions, played with every single one of these things and within three to four minutes, these poor developers just look sunk down and I feel bad. But I'm like look, your technology is cool, but it doesn't replace what a human being can do, and here's why. And so we need to get past this idea that AI is nowhere near replacing a human being at this point. It's just not a thing. We've got to get away from that and use it for what it can be useful for at this point. 

There are things for which it's wonderful. I think it'd be great for onboarding and education Huge fan of that. So AI is going to be a huge trend in this space. You're going to see a lot more work in the inclusion space and making tech more inclusive, which is very interesting, and there are some companies out there doing it really well, and there are some that have just completely missed the mark. It's really funny the difference between the two. The ones that are doing it well are the ones who are asking people and not just assuming what people need. 

So the ones that are out there actually talking to the humans and having people from different diversities and all play with it. 

Those are the ones being successful. The other ones are flopping horribly. So I think that's going to be a big trend. And then another one that I'm very excited about is that there are starting to be more and more tools built around supporting people once they're in an organization and making sure that they have the growth that they want, the opportunities that they want, that they're having the right kind of experience, matching them with mentors, these types of things, and I'm really excited to see that building up and to see continued education, skill building, certificate earning and, again, just even the soft skills and things like that connect you to other people within your company. That could be good resources. So, for instance, I saw one that if somebody over, let's say, customer success, is interested in design, then they'll find them somebody who is interested in being a mentor over in product design and they'll pair them together, which I think is super freaking cool. So I think things like that are going to continue to grow and I think that's wonderful. 

0:32:41 - Mehmet
Yeah, that's great and I like what you mentioned about inclusion and how some companies are doing it well while others they assume and the best way we said this multiple times on the show because we cover startups you need to go talk to your customers or, potentially, yes, 100%. 

And the other thing about use of AI, and again, we discuss it a lot of time. So the way personally I see it, as you mentioned, is like an augmentation People start to use this word nowadays augmentation so it's something that will help me to do other things in faster, maybe more efficient way, but, of course, there will be always the reliance on us humans. And I repeat guys, don't be afraid of AI. Ai doesn't work like that. 

0:33:33 - Katherine
No, no, it's not Skynet, ok. It's OK. It's not going to be the Terminator, it's OK, and I do want to say it. So chat, chat GPT is cool, it has its purposes. But I see this weird movement on LinkedIn where people are telling and not recruiters, just random people are telling job seekers to use chat GPT to reach out to recruiters and stuff. Please don't do that, because you can immediately tell that a robot typed that up. It's going to be weird and it's going to be awkward. Please don't do that. Now, if you let somebody know upfront that your written communication is not really your thing, so this is something that you're doing as a reach out, that's different. That's part of inclusion. So just if that is something that you need to do because that's part of your diversity, that's cool. But let people know upfront that this is what you're doing because it helps you to communicate a little bit better. Acknowledge it, because if you don't, it just comes across odd. If you acknowledge it, it's fine, if you don't, it comes across super weird. 

0:34:39 - Mehmet
Yeah, Now one point. I don't want to leave without asking European about it, and again, I repeat these topics because they are important, I believe, and the main thing we see usually in startups and we see it in actually everywhere it's not like only in startups, but because in startups it's more, I would say, challenging workplace Mental health. So how does this fit into the workplace? 

0:35:12 - Katherine
That is a good question and it's one, and sometimes my answer surprises people on this one. So number one is the employer's responsibility is to do what will really help happen in the workplace through homework-based support for the higher person. And then number two is the job question about the employer's security. I really like similar questions. Obviously good benefits, right. I even encourage a lot of companies, if they have the bandwidth and the budget, to have telehealth and things like that available so that people can have little touch points as they go, have mental health break rooms, things like that, if you can, if you're that size organization. 

But outside of that, the only obligation that the company has is to create psychological safety and a mentally safe environment. So, no abuse, no discrimination. Psychological safety also. It primarily involves being able to speak up, ask questions in dissent, without fear of reprisal. That's your job as the employer. Those things Past that, oh. And to give grace to people who are going through personal issues it's called reasonable accommodation for. 

But past that, I'm seeing an odd trend where it almost seems like people feel that others other humans, entities, whether it's a job or otherwise are responsible for their mental health. Nope, I even seen posts where people say managers should be trained to diagnose. No, that is a doctor. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. These are not mental health professionals. You do not want that. That's gonna go weird directions, I promise you. No, none of that. We do need to be training managers and leaders on an HR how to better support people going through this. That's important. What are the things you do and do not say to your team members when they come to you with an issue, a personal problem? How do you accommodate them? That kind of thing that we do need to be training them on that. We need to provide wisdom. 

But it's not the employer's job to make you mentally healthy. That's your job. That's your responsibility. So the employer's job is to support you and to make sure you have the right benefits and to make sure that you have the right support at work, and then, past that, it's their responsibility to accommodate you as you need it and as far as it can possibly be reasonably done. So that's kind of. So there is responsibility with the employer. It's an important responsibility, it's part of integrity, it's part of being a good employer, but past that, I think that we need to also remember that that's our job, it's not our medical access, it's not our family. So we need to also keep that line very clear, because right now it's starting to get blurred and that's not really right. Your manager is not your counselor. That's not a thing. No, no, no, please don't expect that. 

0:38:27 - Mehmet
It's very true. Yeah, because you're not a doctor to diagnose your employees. 

0:38:35 - Katherine
I've seen multiple posts about that. I'm like what no? 

0:38:39 - Mehmet
Yeah, that's weird because you know like actually sometimes the mental health issue comes from, I'll not say bad relation, but because some disagreement that's called it between a manager and the people report to him or her and then you cannot like give the same guy or you know the same, you know, yeah. Yeah, you cannot do this. I mean, you give him the authority to do such things for medicine. Yeah, so it's like someone beat me and they ask him he would be the judge at the same time. 

0:39:21 - Katherine
Yeah, right, yeah, that makes no sense. That's completely illogical, Like it's completely not really ridiculous. I don't understand. So the other side to this, too, is you know, so you did hit on the abusive boss, right? So that again goes back to what I was talking about the training of your leadership, of your HR, and all this how to actually handle this. One of my pet peeves is when I see HR people say, oh well, he didn't mean that, or I know him, he or she or whomever you know. I know them. They didn't X, Y, Z, but you're literally. 

Your whole job is impartiality and being the middle person. If you're an HR, Uh-uh no, and so that's part of creating the right environment, right? So when you're hiring your HR person, one of the number one things that you should be looking for is impartiality and the ability to rise up above even issues that hit them very personally and to look at it fully objectively. When you're hiring and DE&I expert, make sure that they understand that inclusion cannot be exclusive. In other words, they should not be focused on one or more, on one or more diversities. It should be everybody and everybody's experience and it should be a global concept. If you bring somebody in who's a specialist, that's great, but they're not your. They should not be running your DE&I program. 

0:40:44 - Mehmet
That's not how that works. 

0:40:45 - Katherine
Also, de&i people should be working themselves out of a job. It should happen. If you've done your job, it's so ingrained in the culture that then you're no longer needed and you should have KPIs for your DE&I people, by the way. And then this goes into other things as well. So you shouldn't put somebody in a leadership position who has an ego the size of Texas. You know you shouldn't do that. Work with them first, and just because somebody was a great performer in their current job does not mean that they are a manager. That's another thing. And there are some people who are not great managers but they're excellent executives. So kind of know people's strengths when you're hiring and all it, because that's gonna make a difference. 

0:41:27 - Mehmet
Oh wow. I wish every single CEO in startups listened to this. Yeah, seriously this is good, right? 

0:41:42 - Katherine
Oh, there's some. We're gonna have to do another one, just on that. 

0:41:47 - Mehmet
Yeah, let's keep it here. Let's keep it here. No, I share my opinion very openly, on LinkedIn mainly, and other places as well. 

0:41:58 - Katherine
About what. 

0:41:58 - Mehmet
I'm seeing happening, especially in the tech companies and startups, and the way they put things all together. It's nonsense for me, and you mentioned something which I have to put. This comment, but in another way If someone did very well in company A doesn't necessarily mean he will do well in your company, and vice versa, yes. And if you assume that this guy, you would bring him here and he would be plug and play from day one because he was successful in a company that used to do the same thing as you are doing, nope, nope, nope. And it can be the other way around, yes, where someone who doesn't perform well here, if you bring him and he would be 100% Crashing it. 

0:42:53 - Katherine
Let's let's say this 100%, 100% and even under different leadership, that can make a difference within the same company. Somebody maybe struggle in this department. You put them with a different manager that just you know, with whom they just jive better and he's a little bit stronger leader for them. And All of a sudden there's they're selling. 

0:43:10 - Mehmet
Yeah, 100%. I've seen this. I've seen this. 

0:43:16 - Katherine
Yeah, not once or twice, all the time. 

0:43:19 - Mehmet
Oh, exactly, katana. As we are coming to the end, I have a question which is a weird question. Oh, is there? Is there any? Is there any? Any question you wished I asked you and please feel free to ask. 

0:43:38 - Katherine
You know what I, you, you kind of covered a very broad, a very broad scope and I kind of went off on some tangent. So I think we kind of got it all covered. I, I will say I guess maybe the one. The one thing is, you know, as you're as a startup especially because that's my, that's my jam I love my startups. I I loved I've taken on bigger clients too, and they're all well and good, but I love my little, a little baby startups, right. 

So, to hit really hard on kind of a point that you just made, when you're a startup, remember that this is a completely new Adventure. 

This is about, and you need to have a strong mission and a strong vision, and that's how you hire your people, the people that align with your mission and your goal. Those are the people that are gonna be more well suited. And when you're in a startup, look for people who want to do everything, because that's what you're going to need, not the one who is good at this one little section of a job over here. You want a multi-faceted human right that can just do all kinds of things. You want the neurodiverse individual, you want the one that is a little octopus with their eight arms and eight different things. That's who you want. So I guess, just to kind of hit home on that a little bit more, the that startups you know, look for your unique animals and look for the people that really do Get that world, love that world, eat, live and breathe for that world, and who are more focused on building something and on mission, then on anything else, and those will be those types of humans, will be the right humans for you. 

0:45:12 - Mehmet
Amazing advice and thank you for mentioning this, Katherine. You know where people can find more about you, and Find me on LinkedIn. 

0:45:23 - Katherine
I am all over LinkedIn. Please message me. Reach out to me. I'm always help. I'm always here to help whoever needs it. I'm even if it's just a quick conversation also, my Excuse me. My professional site is Titan management, usa, comm, and I do a lot of speaking and teaching. I'll come to your organization and teach you a lot of these things. Reach out to me. My speaker site is K McCord speaking, comm. 

0:45:47 - Mehmet
I will make sure that this will be in the episode description, whether you are listening on your favorite podcasting platform or watching this on on YouTube. Katherine, thank you very much for your valuable time and valuable knowledge. I would say, of course I would, you know. I would say, if we need to cover more, that would take hours and hours, because you know the way you explain things and you know I like also you, you spending it in a kind of I Would say you might try to make it funny, which is yeah, which is which is you know, because HR is not the most funniest thing. To be very frank with you, right? 

0:46:27 - Katherine
I think it's hilarious. Hr is hilarious, yes. 

0:46:34 - Mehmet
Actually, you know like, reminded me of a guest, Sam, who said like what he's doing with his podcast, he's bringing a comedian with him to to explain some little bit like rigid, technological right, you know theories and things like this, in a you know funny way, resonates with people. So, yeah, I love this because, you know, always it's nice to see people who you know like act this way, you know right, explain the things in this way, which made, I believe, a lot of things, especially about Inclusion, especially when we talked about, you know, all the other topics that we covered today. So feel free to connect with with with Katherine, you know, you know about your diversity also as well. 

This is very important topic and I think you know we'll see it more, as you mentioned. 

I'm trying to summarize a little bit here and, as usual, this is the way I end my episode. Guys, like if you have any questions or feedback about this episode or the show Engineer, I like to hear the feedback. Even if it's bad, no problem, you can. Just I want to hear your feedback. Send me an email. You can find also more active on LinkedIn or Twitter, if you want. Also as well, if you are a Twitter fan, if you are interested to be guest, like Katherine was guest today. Also, don't be shy. Wherever you are in the world. I have guests now from all over the world. I covered from US, uk, south Africa, new Zealand, australia. Time difference is not an issue. I can always accommodate you, don't worry about it. So we can make it happen and, as usual, I hope you enjoyed and we'll meet again in another episode. Thank you very much and see you soon. Bye, bye, you. 

Transcribed by https://hello.podium.page/?via=mehmet