Interview Transcript

Savannah: What does your human resource job entail?

Francesca: Basically, all aspects of HR. So, its employee relations, payroll, benefits administration, counseling, approve hires, salaries, compensation, classification. What I do touches everything. Compliance – you know, make sure we are in compliance with all federal, state, and local employment laws. Training. So yeah, my job is all of HR. Karen assists me with the hiring and a lot of what she does also is help the hiring managers with the hiring process. Helping draft interview questions, work samples, assessments, reference checks, background checks.

Karen: Unemployment.

Francesca: Yes, we do unemployment compensation, so all the unemployment claims that come through she processes those. Workers compensation if we have an injury. So basically, every aspect of HR comes through our office.

Savannah: What is your interaction with millennials on a day to day basis?

Francesca: We actually have one in our office. She is one of the older-end millennials. Our interaction with her has been great, she has been one of the best hires I’ve ever had. She actually has a degree in HR. so when I first interviewed her, she didn’t have a lot of HR experience, but she did have a HR degree, and I met her at Big Bend SHRM (Society for Human Resource Management) meeting. And she has worked out great, our interaction with her has been positive.

Savannah: Awesome.

Francesca: None of the stereotypes that you hear apply to her.

Karen: And really, we’ve had a couple of them, but they have been mostly in the entry-level.

Francesca: And as far as our feedback from other supervisors, its that with millennials, there is not that long-term stay. A lot of job turnover. They are always looking for something better. So, you don’t get that longevity. You don’t get that five or six years, it’s a year or two, maybe three sometimes. So, they are constantly looking for something better when they leave the organization or apply for a higher-level position. They want to better themselves at a higher rate than most people.

Karen: And sometimes that expectation that they are ready to move onto the next level is not realistic. That there are people that are more qualified and have more experience or more education, but they feel like they want it now, as opposed to, I need to do this, this, and this in order to get to here.

Francesca: Which is good, being ambitious is really good. But depending on the position sometimes you just can’t get there.

Savannah: There is a difference between having goals, and not wanting to take the time to move your way up. How have you seen working with millennials differs with working with people from other generations?

Karen: There really isn’t that much difference.

Francesca: At least not here in this organization, I do know that they are more tech-savvy which is good. A lot of departments that have people from this generation benefit from being able to use the technology, and the applications, and the spreadsheets at a faster rate and learn quickly. So, I think that is definitely a benefit. But just, you know, bringing in new ideas, especially how to do things quicker through technology, not so much the paper stuff. But there is definitely a lot that I see as benefits. But I don’t think we really have an issue, here at the Bar we have people that have been year for thirty years and as they’re retiring, you know the younger generation is coming in. There is going to be a shift in how things are done versus how they used to be done.

Karen: And everybody just needs to be open to change, regardless of the age. Too much change is happening not to be able to adapt.

Savannah: How flexible would you say The Florida Bar is regarding work hours and scheduling? Cause I know upon research a big thing with millennials is moving around because of the lack of flexibility.

Francesca: We are flexible in a sense that, you know we don’t allow people to work from home or work remotely, so they have to be in the office to work. However, we do have a 38.5-hour work week, versus 40+, and since we’re are open 8am-5:30pm, we have a flex-day, for afternoon or morning depending on how they want to use it. A lot of the departments are open, if someone doesn’t want to take a full flex afternoon, would allow someone to come in later in the day, or leave earlier and spread that flex time throughout the week. We have quite a bit of holidays that we get off, as well as earned leave. So, the flexibility is as far as the work hours, and having that afternoon off or using it throughout the week. However, we don’t, a lot of people would like to work from home or remotely, but we are a service-oriented organization, so we have to be here for our members, to take their calls and serve our members, probably 90% of the positions you have to be in the office.

Karen: And some people would just like to come and go as they please, and you can’t do that. We have to have some control, just because of labor laws, that we need to have, or your supervisor needs to have some type of control over how many hours you are working, and we need to know that you are working. So, you can’t just come and go.

Francesca: And we charge time to different sections and programs, so you know, you can’t just come and go as you please, or spend twenty hours working on something that should take you five hours.

Savannah: It is interesting because I have looked at a lot of the myths, and we want flexibility, but we also want people to be holding us accountable. But sometimes those two don’t coincide.

Francesca: Yeah, and in some industries, there probably is that flexibility. You go work for Google or Amazon or something like that, I mean heck, they even have a whole neighborhood within their building. So, it also depends on the type of work. But I think we do a pretty good job of accommodating people’s schedules – for people who have class and need to leave two hours early once a week, and they can make up the time with flex or however. So, we do have that in place for people to pursue their personal goals.

Savannah: What procedures do you guys have in place in regards to performance reviews, and accountability in general?

Francesca: When someone is first hired they are given a three-month performance evaluation and a six-month performance evaluation, which is kind of like their training period. And after that they are done yearly, and every supervisor assigns goals and objectives to everyone each year, and when the next evaluation period comes they are evaluated based on those goals and whether they obtained them or not.

Savannah: You kind of went over this before, but have you had anyone who has been a millennial that defied these generational stereotypes, and someone who has conformed to them?

Francesca: Well our millennials follows all the rules and procedures and policies, because she is in HR. I don’t see any stereotypes regarding to her. As far as the stereotype of millennials always being on their phones, which I think nowadays you could say that about everybody, but if I see that and the person is doing their job and meeting their goals, it isn’t much of an issue.