15 Years of Conversations: Celebrating with the HR Happy Hour Show OG’s

15 Years of Conversations: Celebrating with the HR Happy Hour Show OG’s

Hosts: Steve Boese & Trish Steed

Guests: Lance Haun, Lois Melbourne, Robin Schooling, and Lisa Rosendahl

Today, Steve and Trish sat down with four of the original guests of the HR Happy Hour Show! They reflected on their experiences on the show, sharing memories and insights on its impact on their careers and personal lives. They discussed the podcast’s early days and how the show evolved. Our guests also shared their life changes, personal evolutions, and the impact of technology on their careers in HR. Join us for all the fun!

Thank you for your continued support of the show and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts!

This episode is sponsored by Paychex. Are you a business leader or HR manager navigating the complex world of hiring and retaining top talent? Then you need Paychex’s Essential Guide to Finding and Keeping Your Dream Team to discover how to attract high-quality employees and keep them engaged and motivated long-term. Whether you’re looking to enhance employee career growth, improve your onboarding process, or understand the importance of flexibility in today’s workplace, this guide has got you covered. Grab your free copy at paychex.com/awia to unlock the secret to building your dream team today.

Transcript follows:

Announcer 0:00
Welcome to At Work in America, sponsored by Paychex. At Work in America digs in behind the headlines and trends to the stories of real people making a difference in the world of work. And now here are your hosts, Steve Boese and Trish Steed.

Steve 0:28
Welcome to the HR Happy Hour show, it is our 15th anniversary show number two of three special looking back shows we’re doing Trish and I did one a week or so ago where we talked about the show and our some of our memories from it. And on this show. We are so happy to be joined by four of the original HR happy our friends, fans, guests, supporters, right all of it combined, are joining us today. So we got a full house here today. Of course Trish you first welcome. Hi, how are you? Thank you very much. Really, you’ve sort of spearheaded this idea of hey, we should really celebrate the 15th anniversary of the show.

Trish 1:09
Ya know, and honestly, you said four guests, I would count myself today as a guest because when you started the show 15 years ago, I was a guest honestly, even the listener most of the time. So a lot has changed. And yeah, I just thought obviously we’re all still kind of in our same little community. But everybody’s doing something different 15 years later, and that’d just be a fun way to get everyone back together.

Steve 1:34
Yeah, it’s gonna be fun. So thank you for everybody for being here. Thank you for listening thanks to our friends at Paychex of course for all their support. Go to paychex.com/awia for all the good stuff from them, but just let’s start doing a quick round of introductions. First up, Lance Haun, Lance lives at the intersection of work life and technology. He is the vice president of market insights at the Star Conspiracy, and writes and speaks about all things work and technology. Lance made his HR happy hour show debut on episode four. That was a long time ago. Lance, how are you?

Lance Haun 2:09
Good. Glad to be here after 15 years.

Steve 2:13
All of us could probably say that I’d be still upright. Yes, absolutely. Well welcome Lance. Next we have Lisa Rosendahl, I can’t believe we got you for this. Lisa, you are hard to find. But we found you. Lisa Rosendahl has provided HR leadership for over 30 years in a variety of roles in the public and private sectors. She served as an officer in the US Army. That’s pretty awesome. And is currently a national HR consultant with the Department of Veterans Affairs. She actually trump’s Lance on in that her HR happy hour show debut was on Episode Two. How about that. Lisa, welcome. How are you?

Lisa Rosendahl 2:52
I’m doing great. That’s probably the one and only time I’ll ever trump Lance Haun, but I’ll take it.

Steve 2:57
Well, it’s great to see you. It’s been a while but thank you. Thank you for being here. We have Robin Schooling, the inimitable Robin Schooling that’s not in there. Robin, I added that word I like that is the director of talent strategy with the HR consulting firm, Humareso. And as a self proclaimed advocate of the workplace revolution, she’s the co host of the other popular HR podcasts I’ve heard about called Drive Thru HR, which has been around for a very long time as well, and has a long running HR blog. Yes, that is still a thing. And she remains on a quest for the perfect French 75. Maybe right now, as we record I don’t know. But Robin, how are you? Welcome.

Robin Schooling 3:35
I am fabulous. And I sadly am not enjoying a French 75 in my lovely anniversary HR Happy Hour.

Steve 3:44
Yes. Great. Yeah. For if anybody catches the show on YouTube or sees any of the clips, we did create some swag that we tried to get out to everybody. I’m not sure it made it to all the guests. But we did do some swag for the show. Our last guest we will welcome and that’s so special to me to have her I you know, just because of all the support. She showed this show at the very beginning when it was completely unwarranted. But is Lois Melbourne, she was the co founder and CEO of acquire were the creators of the original org publisher software, which is an amazing piece of software. By the way I was a user or publisher My God, that thing was awesome. Add another workforce tool. After selling the company. Lois is focused on travel hacking kids explore their careers and writing books. Lois, welcome to the HR happy hour show. And thank you again for all your support. I’m

Lois Melbourne 4:32
So glad to be here. It’s so exciting. It’s been 15 years.

Steve 4:37
I know and I’m going to try not to talk about order publisher too much but I mean, I bet so because I really love that product, but I won’t say more about it. But Trish, so let’s go to you first you said you’re sort of like a guest on today’s show and not the host but that’s cool. I’ll do all that I’ll do the heavy lifting. 15 years ago Trish 2009 when we started this show, what were you up to and then why did you listen to this silly show.

Trish 5:01
Yeah. Oh, well, I was newly on Twitter probably at the end of like 2008. And back then there were no lists, we were all just kind of struggling to find other HR professionals. And I know that everyone on this call are some of the very first people I started sort of following and interacting with. And that’s how I heard about the show you were just someone that came up kind of in that group. So I thought, Well, I’m gonna listen to this thing. And for me, it was really important because my kids were, oh, gosh, Heath has an idea. They were like four or five years old. At that point. The twins were and so I wasn’t someone who was able to get out and network after work, like in person. And so for me, the HR Happy Hour was my way to network. It was a way to get online and it was so interactive. And I was a practitioner at that time, I was working as a director of HR at FleishmanHillard. And I just looked forward to it. So there was it was live show, there was no way I was gonna miss that show whether it was in the car football practice at or whatever. Because I learned from it. Yeah. So yes, it was fun to network and get to know everyone. And and at that point we hadn’t met in real life either. So it was such a unique sort of time, I think. And but I really felt like everyone, both on the show today. And even kind of in those early days, I felt like they were my real friends that even though I hadn’t met them yet, I had this really strong solid bond. And it was just very important to me. That was like the one thing I did for me. So I went back and looked, I listened to every show I I may have called in and listen, I’m one of those first two or three. But the first one I was on was actually even after Lance. So I was on I think it was episode five, which was HR evolution. And that was kind of coinciding, we were all trying to figure out now that we’ve found each other on the HR Happy Hour and on Twitter. How do we how do we meet? Yeah, sure.

Steve 7:05
Yeah, yeah, Lisa, I haven’t seen you in forever. So welcome back. Lisa, do you remember 15 years ago, what were you up to? And do you have any early memories of this, this group of folks in this show at all.

Lisa Rosendahl 7:18
You know, listening to Trish, I think you and I live the live the same life, I was an operational HR manager at a medical center, I had a daughter who was about seven at that time. And I worked, that’s what I did. And HR Happy Hour was kind of my time outside of work is you know, I work for the federal government. So you’re in the federal sphere, and to just kind of engage with people outside of the workplace, who were doing the things I was doing, and actually doing things that maybe have been more creative. I really look look forward to that. I do remember the show I was on I don’t remember what the family was doing. We were doing something but I’m like, Stop, I have to go right. And I ran upstairs, shut the bedroom door, sat on my daughter’s bed and dialed in, you know, and I don’t really remember what we talked about or what we did. But you know, I’m clocking down the time. And it’s like, I gotta go and was just like, that was just my time. And I was trying to make the connection between HR Happy Hour and HR revolution. So thanks, Trish, because they were so closely connected. But I remember looking forward to that. And it was like, all of the avatars came to life. When we were there. You know, you’re so used to seeing people’s pictures on the screen. And to see everybody in person, it just made it that much more richer and deeper. It was just it was amazing.

Steve 8:38
Yeah sure. Sure. 15 years ago, even probably five years ago, honestly, we weren’t we weren’t doing endless video calls as just a normal part of our work. And so we just weren’t seeing people unless we went to see at an event of some kind, right? Like doing video chats and video calls was just not a thing in 2009. I’m not sure when it became a thing, but it definitely wasn’t that bad. Right? Yeah.

Speaker 1 9:00
Well, it took us 15 years later, right? I mean, I haven’t talked to you guys in like, a long time. Like, I see you on Facebook, and we’re connected here and there. But we can get on a call. And it’s just we have that. Like it’s just real and it’s there. And so, you know, from humble beginnings, look at what you guys did with the show. It’s amazing.

Steve 9:18
For sure. Robin, you were part of that group to like one of those original HR leader practitioners and what were you doing in 2009? I can’t remember specifically because you’ve, you’ve done everything in HR.

Robin Schooling 9:29
Around 2009 I was still I was about halfway through my tenure. I was there seven years. But I was the head of HR at the Louisiana lottery at the time. Wow. Okay, and so I was, you know, again, a practitioner knee deep and day to day I was very involved with Sherm at the time and that that was my world, right because, and I liked my job and I enjoyed the Sherm stuff but I was I was I was restless because I felt like it was the same old same old people or ideas and sort of timing wise as Trish talked about I got on Twitter end of 2008 and, you know, poked around and started to find people and exactly that found HR happy hour. I Lance, I think you were one of the first people I probably followed on Twitter for sure. You and China Gorman. I remember calling China Gorman very early on. And then yes, found found the show and didn’t didn’t miss a one. I can remember so clearly on Thursday evenings, that I would make sure okay, you know, dinner’s done, the kitchen is cleaned, everything is ready, It’s quarter to seven. And I’ve got to get back to my office and, and get ready for the show. And my husband knew every week, but that’s what I was gonna do on Thursday night. Whether whether I called in or whether it was just the infamous Twitter back channel, which I focus on specifically, at least I intend to. And I and my first my first show, I don’t know when it was it wasn’t a very early one. But when I was a guest, as opposed to just, um, hanging or calling in, or was Jennifer McClure, and I, together were the guests for for a show. All right, I was so nervous. So nervous, we’re nervous, oh, my god.

Steve 11:36
That one up out of the archives and retweet that.

Trish 11:39
I will tell you, it was called breaking into HR. I looked it up to figure out when she was an official like talking as I guess so you don’t sound nervous on that episode. I didn’t listen to the whole thing. But yeah, you sound good. But together, it is amusing.

Steve 11:55
I appreciate you guys saying that. It’s amusing to me to look back, though, because I used to get a little bit stressed about the early days of the show, we did it live right at eight o’clock Eastern time on Thursday nights. And I invariably, every week or two, something would be going on and like, Man, I gotta like start the show, you know, like I was the person who started it right at eight o’clock. And I was always like, every once in a while I call him I’m not going to do I’m not going to be there something happened, something going on, I was out or something. And so yeah, there were a couple of very, very close calls at around 7:58pm. But I appreciate that. Let’s go to Lois first. And then Lance, I’ll come to you next low. As I mentioned at the top of the show, you were the co founder of acquire which is a software company which had been fantastically useful solutions for people who, whose software did not do the things it should have done for them. And we became acquainted, you know, it seems that connection, I think and then but certainly you you were an acquired team are so gracious to us into the show. And so if you look back in 2009 That was probably before the company got sold I think probably yeah hadn’t been right. So maybe maybe look back on that a little bit if you don’t mind and share share a couple ideas or thoughts about those days.

Lois Melbourne 13:15
I think the you know, the show was so was witty was one but it it gave a platform for people to talk about their work that wasn’t the stuffy everything has to be prim and proper about you know, HR and better unit and it just it it got real and that was that that was on brand. So when I think about what we were looking for and why this was such a good fit was I just believed that difference a place where people can talk about real thing and that was important to me because it was kind of an you know, no BS kind of marketer at the time and and itself. So the the honesty and the grit and the humor and and then the friendships just kind of made it a no brainer. But I will have to say that I first staked out being a sponsor without giving any money I gave koozies Yeah, right. Right. So so the very first sponsorship was nothing more than putting out koozies to a whole bunch of people so that they would tweet pictures.

Trish 14:45
And we all did so good.

Steve 14:49
I wish I had one of those still I don’t I you know that’d be fun to if I had one I put it on the Diet Dr. Pepper can here. Yeah, thank you Lois, that it was also an interesting time to we lots of folks were getting connected on social media was really growing at that time. And, and the software space was changing too, right? Like cloud was now becoming the same. Because, you know, now look, all we’re ever talking about is AI. And that’ll be endless for the next couple of years. But back then we were talking a lot about cloud software and deploying software to companies in that fashion. And it was pretty revolutionary in its own its own way. And it was an interesting time to be in technology, especially in HR tech, much like it is now but in last year, in that space heavily in the HR and HR tech space 2009. You original Episode Four I think it said here or any others you probably appeared eight or 10 or 15 times I don’t remember, but were you like still doing HR in 2009?

Lance Haun 15:51
It was yeah, that I think 15 years ago, we I was at SHRM when we were talking just to Lee, Chris, Don Laurie, and I were talking with trying to Gorman about using social media and blogging. At Sure. Can it was there. It was also the first time that ever streamed a session. So they had that it looked like it was like from the stone age’s. Now if you can find a copy, but yeah, I mean, I think we did that. And then we, the thing I love about the show, is that we can just cover like, whatever and kind of similar to Lois, I mean, like just being able to talk about different things. Kind of have some unhinged moments. Like everything a real memorable thing was like all the Cincinnati people like calling in and so like on the old block, duck blog talk radio thing. It seemed like the area code 513 Come up with it’s 513 Mafia. Yeah. Like, I was like, lots of fun. I mean, like, it’s just fun, because like, HR, you know, I think it’s gotten better now. But certainly in 2009, didn’t feel super fun, at least for me personally. So like, this was like, one of the things that really opened my eyes to it. The other thing that was fun. Steven, Steven, I did we hosted a happy hour at era. Yes, I do recall that. You do die like we did the live stream for that. Yeah. Steve did all the heavy lifting. And I just showed up and you know, kind of did like the sidekick thing, which was fun.

Steve 17:22
Did you remember that? That was really fun. And we did get to take the show on the road some over those years and try to do them live either do a live show or do an actual live stream, you know, and sort of combine it? I do remember that Cincinnati thing that I hadn’t thought about that forever? We did a show I don’t remember what number it would have been. But it was supposed to be what’s the best city for HR?

Speaker 2 17:46
I think I remember that. That was the gimmick. I remember that.

Steve 17:50
We challenged people from all around the country to call in and yeah, the Cincinnati people showed up really strong. And maybe Cleveland did too. I’m grasping to remember where else might have turned up for that. But I do remember that that one particularly?

Lois Melbourne 18:06
Well, one of my favorites that you did on the road was the one that we hosted in our suite at the Chicago HR tech show.

Steve 18:16
I remember that one.

Speaker 3 18:18
I’m sure we broke multiple fire marshal rules during that, because there was like, standing room only in that room. And we were you were interviewing Mark Effron. At the time was still at Avon. And now is the Talent Strategy Group. And he had just launched his book.

Steve 18:47
Uh, yeah. And I remember him kind of sitting there in that really big room full of people. And, you know, I think there was a buffet, there might have been a bar going on. I don’t remember it was quite quite the scene. And I think he was like, looking at what the heck did I just walk into?

Lois Melbourne 19:03
What have I done?

Steve 19:05
I thought I was being interviewed about my book. I think maybe he had his book out at the time. And I thought he was just what what was happening here? And I think in those first couple of years, that might have been maybe 2010, or something like that, or 11. But in those first couple years of the show, yeah, it was still had that kind of, oh, it’s an event thing, right. You know, it was, it was kind of before and I described this a little bit. Trust me the show the other day, there was a couple solid years and the early part of doing this activity, where I literally had to ask people, I’ll hand me your phone, like your iPhone or whatever you had. And I’ll have I will instruct you how you access this HR Happy Hour and listen to it because lots of people didn’t even know how to do that right back then. Right. And so the event nature of the show was it was a little bit different because there weren’t a lot of podcasts out there, especially in this space. did it and it was a it was very novel and kind of fun, right? When we were going to do events like that, Lois, like you mentioned or the era events, last two interest we did.

Robin Schooling 20:09
I recall to HR Happy Hour broadcasting live at HR revolution in Chicago. Because there was, wherever we were for like the party the night before, and there was the red carpet. And everybody came in on the red carpet. And here’s the bar and the tables and the whatever. And, and then the HR happy hour, you know, Booth was a room down the side. And so everybody would just kind of go in there. And, you know, Steve’s at the, you know, the microphone, which then to again, there was kind of cobbling things to go on the road with the show was a lot different than it is now to live and people sophisticated.

Steve 21:03
And the idea like, I guess it was part of just we didn’t really care what we were doing, right? It was just meant to be interesting and fun and kind of like a group of friends. And this idea that we’ll let’s do a red carpet show at an HR conference. I mean, it sounds ridiculous. Like you say that right now. Maybe back then it didn’t seem so ridiculous, because we actually did it.

Trish 21:25
Well, I think to it, once we all met, then it became like family. So Lois, like by the time we did that show that you were talking about, I would feel sorry for anyone walking into that situation, who wasn’t part of it, because the rest of us were like, super close at that point. I mean, and it wasn’t, you know, talked about before, we were seeing each other on video all the time. Like, I had no idea how old people were or what they were like. And I mean, Lance was, you know, my HR guy online, and I had no idea he was young. But he was so smart. He was such a good writer. And here I am an HR lady with like, very few resources. I would actually like, call him or email him and ask him my HR questions, because he was my HR guy, you know, so it sounds maybe silly now aliens, but like, I really admired you. And so when you would come on the show, and I was looking at, like you did shows, you know on HR and sports on social recruiting on like, it got to be into real topics. I was like, Oh my God, this guy’s brilliant. Whoever this Lance Han is, you know, so in a weird way, it morphed into like, taking people that you got to meet in a really fun way, and then elevating them because of their skills. So for me, it was kind of that dual meaning of listening to each show, I was going to learn something on every episode.

Speaker 2 22:54
You know, and Lance also hosted a number of our websites over the years to Yes, because he hosted me, I think he did women of HR. Yeah, because there was another offshoot women of HR was an offshoot of the HR Happy Hour slash HRevolution.

Trish 23:19
And all of us, including myself as a guest, all of us guests that was women of HR with a couple other people. So Lance was our token woman. Yeah.

Steve 23:35
Yeah, so we, you know, we’re looking back to and kind of having some laughs, which is great. And some of the fun things we did some of the live things, the red carpet thing, and there was some fun and games going on. But I do think it was kind of cool. If I can say this to say that we did cover what was happening currently, right. You mentioned like social media. Sure. At Sherm Lance, right. We that was like the very first time this concept of bringing in bloggers slash influencers slash social media people was happening in an HR space, at least at a significant level. And then, you know, I know we did a show right after that Sherm conference on the same subject with all those same people. And so whether it was social media, or recruiting or tack or stuff that was happened, like, whatever year it was, where it became fashionable for big companies to we’re not going to do performance reviews anymore, right? When, when that started to be a thing, like we, like we had the guy who wrote, like, stop doing performance review book, you know, on the show, to talk about that for an hour and things like that. And, you know, we’ve evolved somewhat over the years and how we’ve approached that. But I guess if I were to say what I am happy about when I look back, and there’s two things one is certainly the camaraderie and the friendship and the opportunities that that the show gave to people to get their voices out there and get their voices heard. And the second thing was, I think the opportunity to really talk about those kinds of important issues in a different way. Write that wasn’t, you know, HBr or it wasn’t McKinsey or it wasn’t, I don’t know, some TED talk or something like that which, which are fine. There’s nothing wrong with that stuff. But I thought our stuff tended to be a little bit more raw and a little bit more real.

Robin Schooling 25:15
I, you know, as, as I was thinking about getting together to have this conversation, I was thinking back on, you know, guests that I remembered. And this is, I mean, you know, whatever, 1012 or however, many years ago she was on, but instantly came to mind. The One Show that I remember and because I thought it was just so cool. She was on there talking with us, was Sherry Turkle. Oh, yeah. Talking about kind of the, the changes with technology and, and, and the keeping us up, you know, sort of, yeah, her book was following us instead of bringing us together and kind of that whole dynamic.

Steve 26:00
So I’m glad you mentioned that Robin, that is absolutely one of my favorite shows we ever did. And her book was called alone together alone came out in about maybe 11 2011, or something like that. And it was really all about how social media and technology were changing the way people are relating to each other with a with a very specific focus on children. Yes. Right. And she was talking about the impact it was having on children and some of the events in the world plus technologies, getting kids with phones and things like that, and how it was changing how children were growing up. But yeah, I agree, Robin, that it’s still probably my top 10 of all time.

Robin Schooling 26:34
I love that, that.

Speaker 4 26:38
That was fantastic. I mean, I think the great thing is you can always be a little bit more ahead of the time if you can kind of cut some of like the rehearsed HBr case study style things. That’s a really cool thing I like I mean, I also like the fact that way ahead on like the podcast game because now everybody’s got a podcast they had podcasts are worth millions of dollars, apparently. So if I could buy into this podcast with koozies now sign me up. Yeah, it’s different

Trish 27:08
than more than Kuzey. But

Steve 27:13
I won’t lie, Lance that there’s not a touch of bitterness that from me from time to time, when I say wait a minute back then we were the only ones doing this. Now now Dua Lipa has a podcast and I’m thinking to myself, like, I’m not trying to make pop songs, right and take her audience. And yet she can make a podcast and come after mine. And I get your audience.

Speaker 3 27:49
I don’t remember who the guest was. But I think there was a lot of discussion amongst the group about something that will make us laugh now. And that was the remote workers. You know, and how that back then it was called telecommuting. That’s right. You know, and there was the horror stories, and there was the winds. And, you know, there was a lot of discussion about that. And some companies were like, No, our employers won’t let us do it. And others were like, how do you get around this? And it became, it was one of those where it really became an active q&a, because there was a whole lot of people with questions, and there was a lot of people with answers. And, and I remember that going, that litter chatter afterwards went on for a long time. And there was a lot of, you know, well, let me connect.

Steve 28:52
Yeah. Yeah.

Lois Melbourne 28:54
You could say, I know a little bit about that. Yeah.

Steve 29:00
There was a lot of there was, there was a lot of power and just bringing together folks at the same time. Now we went to a asynchronous modality, a few years into the show, mainly because I couldn’t take it anymore. be totally frank with everyone was this after a couple years and 100 some odd episodes of broadcasting live and bringing the group and the Twitter and I just, I just couldn’t do it. It was like I was either going to quit it, or we were going to do it some other way. Right? Because, you know, every night every Thursday night at eight o’clock, we did it every week. We very rarely took a week off. It was it became a little bit tough for me. But we did lose something, though. Lois. I think your point is really well made because we lost a little bit of of that right when we went to becoming essentially what is just now known as a podcast, right?

Trish 29:50
Well, I think when I think of that, too, I remember I was working in New York City, and you happen to call me and you were telling me you were thinking of stopping the podcast and I wasn’t a co host you And we’ve been doing it about three years and you were really exhausted. Like I think by then though, you would, if you look that first year, it was a little more that that loose, fun kind of podcast. In the next two years you were tackling I mean, I wrote down like you were attacking, tackling culture, technology, diversity, like some pretty meaty topics for, you know, 12-13 years ago, your show notes that you would write before each episode were like, eight pages long, and all the show prep you were doing so I just remember being on the cell phone like I’m walking through New York City, and I’m like, please don’t wait. What can I do to help? And that was kind of how that happened. So I’m glad you didn’t quit. Because I think then, like, but you’re right. I do miss the back channel. I definitely think of Lance specifically like being on Twitter, right, watching that Twitter stream. And back then it just flowed so fast. Yeah. The Google Wave. I forgot about Google Wave. Yeah, they’re doing the Twitter back channel, Google Wave. We didn’t have you know, Johnny, Nick on there. We’d have Paul Hiebert on there. It was just, you know, Kelly mitten at the time right now. Like all these people? Yeah. It was all ages.

Steve 31:23
You mentioned. You mentioned a few names. Just a word. Look, we’ve, we’re so happy. Lois, Lisa, Robin and Lance join us today, there were probably 15 other folks we could have invited right to be part of this. And we had to stop at some point. Right. But yeah, some of those folks you mentioned and some others as well, were a big part of this. And part of that community both both at least mentioned HRevolution earlier, that HRevolution community was was pretty tightly intertwined with the what was going on on the happy hour, but it was, yeah, it was important for a lot of us. I mean, I had a day job to back then, like a real real I have a job now to do. But that doesn’t seem like a real one all the time. But the job I had that was a real job. Like the kind you have to get in your car and drive to every right. It’s there all day. Right. So it was always your hobby. Yeah, definitely was.

Trish 32:18
And now that show is part of your job. So I do, morphed it that way. Yeah. Mentioned Robin, you know, is now on Drive Thru HR, which has been around like 14 years at least.

Speaker 2 32:30
We’ll get we’ll hit. It started February of 2010. Okay,

Trish 32:37
I was really close. So that was another one I listened to you know, it was Brian went and we actually just had Brian on an episode, what, two months ago maybe with his new book, but yeah, Brian Wempen and William Tincup. And I remember listening to them at lunch, every lunch every day. And this on Thursday nights. So I think it was that combination to have of getting that that real time feedback. So I could be at work and have a new idea like that. Go and try it out. Yeah. Oh, cool.

Steve 33:14
Yeah, it was awesome. It was good stuff. I think the last thing maybe throw out there to the group and do again, appreciate everybody taking some time to spend with us today is it’s kind of if there’s like one thing that stands out to you like if you think about your either your career or just the world of work, the HR profession 15 years to now is there’s something that’s boy, I’m either surprised by this or excited by this, or I can’t believe this is what’s happened. You know, is there anything that boy where you’re sitting today, because we’ve spent a lot of time kind of looking back? When you’re sitting in your role today? Or just in the space today? Is there something that boy, this is really interesting or exciting, and maybe I’ll spin it this way? I’ll ask a question a different way. Trish, we’ve been asking just about all our guests this year about celebrating, right because we’ve been acknowledging the fact that we’ve done 15 years and we stopped counting the number of shows that 500 was a couple years ago so I don’t know how many shows we’ve done probably 700 Now, but the is there something you’re maybe celebrating this year? Maybe that’s a better way to ask the question. Like anything stands out to you guys.

Trish 34:22
So what about you first?

Steve 34:25
Or Lisa? Okay, yeah, take it Lisa.

Lisa Rosendahl 34:27
I don’t know what’s running through my mind is I’m in a I think I’m in a really great spot in my career and I feel like I’ve kind of all the work that I did early on operational HR learning from people kind of getting outside my box expanding my my horizons is put me in a really great spot. I really enjoy what I’m doing. But a big thing is I am counting down to retirement. So that’s kind of like on my on my horizon. It’s like within within reach, and I’m starting to think about is you know, even No, I’m in like an HR consultant role right now I’m still pretty connected to the field and how things get done is like this would be an opportunity for me to really to do something different within HR and contribute in another way. So I’m really excited about trying to figure out what that next step is for me. And so it’s really kind of great that we’re meeting and we’re talking now because it’s like, it brings me back to where we started and in everything that, you know, this community has brought to me outside of that day to day work, and it’s like, I was getting a little draggy for a while but I feel a little recharged just talking to you guys. More often, okay. Celebrate that we’re here now. Okay. That’s what I’m gonna celebrate. It’s I can look at you guys and talk to you again.

Steve 35:45
It is really fun. That’s well said, Lisa. And you could also you know, please retirement start a podcast. That’s what everyone’s doing.

Trish 35:51
So yeah, be on the network. I also just add before each person also goes and Lisa wanted to first also maybe just in your personal life, right. I know you mentioned your daughter was about seven when you started listening to show just personal life changes. How is the family? What do you all up to?

Speaker 1 36:09
Well, the kid the kid is now 23 years old. She’s graduated college. She is going to graduate school in the fall. So in October, she’s going to be going to Oxford. And yeah, so we’re really very excited about that. I’m just thrilled for her. She’s worked so hard to get to this point. And that’s probably that’s really very exciting. So remember, like the little kid who is now like an adult on her own? Who’s on her way to Oxford? And in a couple of months?

Trish 36:38
Congratulations

Speaker 1 36:40
Yeah, isn’t that you know, the husband still here he retired. I’m still working, you know, all that kind of thing.

Steve 36:49
that’s easy enough to

Speaker 1 36:51
you know, so probably probably the kid I think you all have probably may seen her watch her grow over the years, you know. And Trish just like your kids. Amazing. I love watching or hearing about what what they’re doing.

Trish 37:05
Thank you. Yeah, I think it brought us all just closer and family in general. And we’ll save it for another show. But I mean, we’ve Steve and I have talked a lot about eldercare lately, and just some of the challenges we all relate to with our families. And again, I think a lot of people in the community that are still connected really we all help each other. Give advice to each other. So yeah, it’s watch all the kids grow up and all the things that are coming I want.

Steve 37:33
Yeah, I want to throw it to Lois only because I’m interested but also because most you maybe have had the biggest changes over the 15 years, right. We’ve mentioned acquire a couple of times acquired that sold, you’ve gone on to a lot of different things since then. Love to like get an update from you.

Speaker 3 37:51
Life has definitely changed and it sold acquire and stayed for a little while and then retired out of there. But ever retirement is supposed to really be I don’t know. But yeah, I’ve been started a nonprofit that helps kids explore careers. And that has been a lot of fun working. All age of kid, even the wrinkled pegs. I wind up the whole spectrum, a lot of mentoring, different career changes, etc. But I started writing I released a science fiction novel, it’s about artificial ethical, artificial intelligence. Wow. So so that came out in 22 It’s called moral code. And that has been that’s been an exciting process from now working on historical fiction. But my kid is also 23 and has gone the full circle and actually work that pay comm Oh yeah, he’s he’s the program are there? No, there. He started there. And startup February. Great.

Trish 39:16
We’ll have to look.

Steve 39:19
They’re also friends of ours and got to spend some time with them. Not that anyone cares. I did. Why did a dive bomb into SHRM yesterday, it was in and out, like in 12 hours. I didn’t have time to talk to anybody other than who I arranged to talk to, but I did see the friends of Paycom and, you know, just to to Yeah, that’s exciting. It’s a small world, right? In this HCM?

Lois Melbourne 39:44
Small world and he’s come and he’s actually working in the HR space, which cracks me up. Yeah, but like, life is good.

Trish 39:55
Like lowest I think this is something like maybe you don’t even know when you’ve inspired people. and really everybody kind of on this call our kids watch what we do so, so carefully as they’re growing and maturing. And Lois was actually one of the people that my daughter credits for getting her interested in writing because Lois wrote a children’s book, okay. And mentioned, like, named Carly like in it. And so Carleigh is now in journalism in college, partially because Lois inspired her about writing. And also Lois, his love of f1 is now Carleigh’s love. So I think I think she’s really just trying to be Lois, really, but you don’t even know who you’re being impressionable, for. Right, just by the way, you’re living your life and the things you’re doing. All of our kids watch that because you know, I talk about it, I’d be like, Oh, Lois is doing here. Look at Louis’s pictures, you know, so I think that’s cool, too, that you’re not you’re not even just helping the people you intend to help you help in so many others as well.

Steve 41:02
Yeah. Lance, I’ll throw it to you. I heard you’re going you starting at Oxford in September. Is that?

Speaker 4 41:09
Likely, so I’m counting down to retirement, but I’ve got a few more months. Oh, yeah. No, no, I mean, like, I think one of the things that especially over the last 15 years, I think I’ve realized I’ve, I’ve shifted into more of a marketing and consulting role. But how many of the skills I learned as an HR person, like have helped me out being a critical thinker, being a tough interviewer asking questions, not being afraid to kind of just not know, something. That’s, that’s a really helpful, like, it’s helped me more than I expected, like I expected to just like, shift out of like HR and like, not have to think about it ever again, I think about HR stuff all the time. Maybe more. Now, I’ve got a lot more time to think about it, I spend more time writing about it. And so yeah, I do a lot more writing than I could do back then because it’s part of my job, but also just because I enjoy it. And I get to have a different vantage point than I did when I was like anonymously writing your HR guy, now almost 20 years ago, which really makes me feel like I’ve aged a little bit and thinking of things that make me feel aged a bit. My daughter just turned 10 this year.

Trish 42:20
When we had no children, I didn’t know what I was missing.

Trish 42:26
You created a whole human.

Speaker 4 42:30
It’s crazy. Unbelievable. Yeah, it was it was great. So it’s I mean, that’s, that’s been a lot. 10 is an amazing age. I’m told that it might get a little dicey later. I’m not worried about that. I’m thinking about it. I’m trying to avoid it happening at all costs. But no, it’s great. And, you know, family’s good. My wife went from winemaker to school teacher, like so like, we’ve gone through some changes and like, it’s been fun. Yeah, that’s awesome.

Trish 43:03
Do homes. I mean, you’ve moved you moved. I feel like you’ve grown up, right. Because you were on that younger, back then. And now. Yeah, you’ve gone through all those life changes, right?

Lance Haun 43:17
I’ve definitely grown up just a little bit. I’m not sure. Yes, like, agent. Okay.

Steve 43:29
Let’s get let’s get Robin in here before we wrap Robin. 10 years 17 careers. Nice. Right?

Unknown Speaker 43:37
Um, well, I’m gonna start with the with the, with the personal stuff, because my my, my daughter has a little bit older and everybody else’s. Some of you may remember she came to HRevolution in Chicago when she was a young adult at the time. And she was contemplating HR. I don’t know why Trish’s point did they see what we do, I think but she pivoted from that and went basically into the IT security world instead, right. But she’s doing good. She moved back, left New Orleans and move move back to the Midwest a few years ago. I’m kind of contemplating coming towards retirement at some stage but a little bit of time yet. And I’ve you know, I have shifted and pivoted and certainly not in house for a few years here now, but I’ll always consider myself an HR practitioner. I don’t care what I’m doing. I’m just somehow you know, to Lance’s point, all of the the skills and the thinking skills and the experiences that you get, you know, have have just have shifted and morphed and gone to different things. I think when I look at What I would like to do yet is, and this is gonna sound very touchy feely, perhaps but because of what we’re talking about, but I, I hope that those who are at the beginning of their HR career now, or, you know, even middle HR career, I hope they find that that spark and that moment of passion, like we did, because I think had I not found, we were at the right place at the right time, and had I not found all of you and others that we found at the same time, and had the channels and the mechanisms to connect with people in a new way. Yeah, um, I don’t know what I would have become. And, and I don’t like the segmentation. There’s so much out there now, and so many avenues, and there are so many places for people to go. It’s kind of like, we don’t watch one TV show as a collective nation anymore. Right. And so how do we as a collective reflection without talking about the elephant in the room organization, right? Because that’s not the answer, either. It did. We were I was involved with that organization. And they needed more than that. So where are eager, curious, free thinking? HR professionals, HR adjacent folks that want to have those kinds of conversations, where can they go? How do we get them there? Yeah, that’s what I want to work on, help solve for, I guess, before I hang it up.

Steve 46:47
I love that. Robin. That’s fantastic stuff. And very inspirational.

Trish 46:50
How long have you been podcasting?

Unknown Speaker 46:53
With I joined with Michael. So when Brian had lost and then Tincup left. And so Mike, Michael Vandervoort, it was just much kind of like Steve was, you know, just kind of running to keep it alive. And he was kind of at the point as well, where he was like, I don’t want it to go away. But I’m exhausted. And he said it to me, kind of like seeps into you. trician I’m like, I’ll come help, you know, we’re not going to let it die. I’ll come help you. Differences. We, for us, it truly is our hobby, you know, at our happy hour became incorporated into the ethos of of your business really, in so many ways. We but we continue to do it. Because we enjoy and so I joined with I joined him in a joined with Michael, maybe 2000. Let me think what is 2020? For? Probably 2017. Maybe Wow. So yeah, it’s been a while.

Steve 48:00
Yeah, yeah, it’s a grind for sure. And I do appreciate that Robin. And yeah, I’m glad you’re still doing it. Because I mean, because honestly, you could look back at this arc that we’ve looked back on so so fondly over the last 15 years, I hope. And certainly the story of HR happy hours and interesting and a good one but but the drive thru HR story is right there alongside it, quite frankly, right? Because it’s started right around the same time and had that same kind of place in the community and still does, right so BlogTalkRadio proud of that. Yeah, I never moved the show. After all these years, I was told 100 times by people smarter people than me. You got to put the show somewhere else put the show up somewhere. I’m still on that same URL all these years later, but hey, this is great stuff. Okay. We could go on forever. We should not we’ll I’ll hold everybody to when we do the 25th anniversary show. Just send you a zoom invite you can all come back to that.

Trish 48:58
I hope we’re all retired doing it from a retirement home.

Steve 49:02
But thank you once again Lance Haun, Lisa Rosendal, Robin Schooling, Lois Melbourne of course for this fun a little bit narcissistic walk down memory lane for me, but I appreciate you taking it with me and of course Trish thank you for the inspiration and and the collaboration and the hosting and everything else. So fun stuff

Trish 49:24
Cheers to 15 years.

Steve 49:28
So swag on the way if you haven’t gotten it yet, but yes, thanks to our friends, of course that Paychex for all their support. They’re wonderful to work with and they’ve been with us for a long time to. Thanks everybody. Once again, check out all the show archives at HRHappyHour.net. If you want to see our smiling faces and some of the things we held up to the camera check it out on YouTube as well. So that’s it. Thanks for listening everybody. My name is Steve Boese we will see you next time and bye for now.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai