The past few weeks have been filled with news about things employers have done that really make you wonder. Firing a mother who wanted to work from her baby’s bedside in the NICU (and then issuing the most robotic and insensitive social media apology), and repeated comments from billionaire CEOs about the alleged uselessness of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in the workplace. We all know of similar issues in legal profession.

To me, these types of things in the workplace don’t just arise when we are talking about remote work, DEI programs, or any other subjects that come up in this newsletter. I vividly remember when Sandy Hook happened. That event and all the news coverage that followed absolutely ripped me to my core: those children were the same age as my daughter. I sobbed every time I read a profile of one of the people lost in that tragedy. In all honesty, I cried pretty much for two weeks. During that time, as I tried to process emotions and get my work done, it blew me away that there was never a firmwide email acknowledging the trauma we were all—particularly parents—undergoing at that time. It wouldn’t have taken much, but the silence spoke volumes.

The pandemic was very similar. We can all recall those first few months in particular: we were scrambling to figure out our kids’ schooling, we were terrified for people we love, especially our older parents and grandparents. Work was chaos too: courts were being shut down, trial dates were vacated, and our colleagues were falling sick. Then there was the racial unrest—a word that doesn’t even cover the human cruelty we were regularly witnessing. Yet, while I remember emails about firm work-from-home policies and the occasional "Hope you are well” (because if you’re sick you’re not working), I never remember a communication that acknowledged how hard things were, how scared we felt, or anything that felt remotely personal.

It doesn’t take a genius to realize that events outside of work may profoundly affect employees or certain groups of employees. During neither Sandy Hook nor the pandemic was I looking for PTO or any other type of handout. I was just looking for humanity. It’s not hard to see that, with a just a little bit of that, many workplace issues would be handled and resolved differently.

It’s Humanity, Stupid

I get that workplaces, particularly in the law, are not warm fuzzy environments—and I’m not asking them to be. I worked long, hard hours and expected the people who worked for me to do the same.

And I acknowledge that there are parts of management that feel awkward and uncomfortable. There are times when the person on your team who is underperforming is also the one who’s expecting a baby. There are times when you enact employee-friendly policies that don’t end up working as anticipated so you have to adjust them. There are years when you don’t make the money projected and so you have to reduce the size of your team. There are people who make bogus allegations of discrimination or other mistreatment. There are people you grow to care about who ultimately disappoint you and need to be let go.

But although management is filled with difficult decisions, making those decisions with an eye towards our shared humanity is not. that. hard. It all goes back to the Bill Bradley quotation that begins this article. Respect people. Have difficult conversations with candor. Acknowledge what others are saying without gaslighting. Be a real person.

What does humanity involve? Let’s start with listening. How many corporate scandals have you heard about and then later learned that many people inside the company saw the issue coming long before management did? But no one was listening.

To be clear, listening does not solely mean sending out anonymous surveys, or hiring a consultant to get your employees to spill the tea: it means making listening a part of your culture. If you ask your employees about the “easy” stuff—where did you go on vacation, what books are you reading, what do you like to do on your days off—you might find that they disclose more of the “hard” stuff.

It’s also a good start to respond to concerns with something more than just trying to avoid liability. Should you be concerned about getting sued? Absolutely: people make false claims. But most concerns either aren’t actionable or have some truth to them. Addressing them with humanity, actually caring about what the person has experienced, is more likely to resolve an issue that automatically defaulting to containing the damage. Have you seen the TikTok video where a woman is terminated by two people in HR for “performance issues,” but the HR people have never met the employee, and can’t tell her what her employment issues are? Be a person. Have the hard conversations. Don’t just check a box.

Closing Thoughts

I’m not sure I have answers about why humanity is so difficult to find in workplaces—legal or otherwise. A recent Law360 [paywall] article suggested that it may be generational: associates and partners had divergent views about their firm’s cultures, and associates valued feeling heard far more than partners did. Other related articles suggested that firms’ singular focus on profitability contributed to negative cultures.

I don’t think it’s that simple, however. We were all once younger attorneys who wanted to be mentored and valued. And there’s nothing inherent in making money (or racking wins or whatever measurement your organization values) that makes it impossible to treat the people who work there as human beings.

I’d also love to be able to say that everything would be different if women were in charge. It’s certainly easier to recognize humanity in experiences you have personally experienced: maybe my firm leaders didn’t acknowledge the horror of Sandy Hook because it had been so long since they’d experienced dropping off their kids at school, and couldn’t imagine what it would be like if one day their children didn’t come home. Maybe they were all men who had their wives do dropoffs. But the company who fired the woman who wanted to be by her baby’s side in the NICU referenced at the beginning of this article? It was owned by a woman—and a mother.

There are no easy answers here. But these are questions worth asking. I’d love to hear your thoughts. Email me!

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