Toot or Boot: HR Edition

Anticipated employment law changes, soft quitting, and the new deputy labor secretary

Season 2 Episode 5

This week we kick it off with some anticipated employment law changes that could impact your workplaces. We'll unpack 5 laws expected to impact businesses in 2025, from pay transparency mandates to revamped contractor rules. We'll also analyze key leadership changes in Washington, as we discuss Keith Sonderling's appointment as deputy labor secretary. Plus, we'll explore the latest of buzzphrases, "soft quitting."

Whether you're a business owner, HR professional, or employee, this episode equips you with insights to navigate 2025's evolving workplace landscape.

Connect with Aubrey
On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adblanche/
https://aubreyblanche.com/

Connect with Stacey
https://www.linkedin.com/in/staceynordwall/

Articles
5 employment law changes set to hit the workplace in 2025
Trump names former EEOC Commissioner Keith Sonderling deputy labor secretary
Why Soft Quitting At Work Could Be More Dangerous Than Quiet Quitting

Stacey Nordwall (00:01):

Welcome to Toot or Boot, where each week we talk about news related to HR and the world of work. We toot the news we like and we boot the news we don't like. I'm your host, Stacey Nordwall, a serial joiner of early stage tech companies as their first in or only HR person. And joining us, our tutor boot this week, we have Aubrey Blanche. Siriano, welcome back.


Aubrey Blanche-Sarellano (00:23):

Thank you so much. I'm so happy here to talk about some more news.


Stacey Nordwall (00:26):

I am excited you're here. For anyone who didn't hear your previous episode, could you tell us a little bit about yourself?


Aubrey Blanche-Sarellano (00:33):

Yeah, absolutely. So I'm Aubrey, and my day job is that I'm the vice president of Equitable Operations at Culture Amp. So I look after people, ops, equity and inclusion, sustainability and the corporate foundation. And then I'm also a consultant who works on issues of equity, ethical and responsible AI, DEI strategy, climate equity programs. So equity is the through line of everything I do, and I do that kind of in my side hustle in my full-time gig.


Stacey Nordwall (01:03):

Awesome. Which is why I'm super excited for you to be here today and talk about some of these articles because I know you're going to bring an equity perspective that I might not have fully honed yet, and I'm really looking forward to learning. We're going to start with our first article that's from Inc. This one is Five Employment Law Changes Set to Hit the Workplace in 2025. The recap for this article, they cover five employment law changes expected to come in to effect this year and that will likely affect most businesses, businesses of all sizes. They say this will take extra effort to stay in compliance with and stay aware of, especially because some of these are still kind of up for grabs or going back and forth. The five policy changes are related to pay transparency, higher minimum wages, simpler contractor classifications, workplace safety standards, and the overtime pay salary threshold. I feel like we kind of maybe have to go through these one by one, but what did you think? Maybe should we start with pay transparency?


Aubrey Blanche-Sarellano (02:10):

Yeah, so, I would give the article a toot, and the reason I would do that is because I think especially for really small teams, even if you really intend to operate in compliance with the law, because the US has so many federal but also state changes, especially for companies that are remote or have entities in a bunch of different states, it's actually incredibly difficult to stay on top of all this legislation. So I think these compilation articles are really helpful where someone can quickly skim and say, oh, these four things apply to me. I need to go learn more. So I really appreciate someone who's done the pre-work to help well-meaning folks speed up a little bit because it's really fucking challenging.


Stacey Nordwall (02:49):

Yes,


Aubrey Blanche-Sarellano (02:50):

Yes,


Stacey Nordwall (02:51):

I agree.


Aubrey Blanche-Sarellano (02:53):

I controversially have mixed feelings about all the pay transparency legislation. So basic pay transparency is a good thing. That's my statement. But I think it goes back to there isn't sort of a standard structure of legislation for this law, and so it makes it really, really complex to implement for businesses. And so I wish there was more consistency in what was required in the laws. And that's the spicy thing is that I think the intention's, right? But the implementation recognizes that we're having to do this at the state level because the federal government is not going to do this. But anyway, that's my opinion. I thought the article gave a really good strategy for this, which I agree with, which is kind of pick the most stringent law you're accountable to follow that one, and you kind of get compliance with the rest of them for free. But I think you need to be able to make the case and you need to have leadership that says, yes, we will go above and beyond our strict compliance requirements because you're going to be doing more in some jurisdictions than you technically have to. Yeah,


Stacey Nordwall (04:03):

Yeah, I agree with that take as well. And I think one of the things they mentioned in the article was thinking that because of this needing to be compliant across a bunch of different laws, maybe that will actually make people abide by them in a better way instead of putting these salary ranges where they're like a hundred to $300,000. It's like we know that is not an appropriate salary range for a job. Let's be real about what the range is.


Aubrey Blanche-Sarellano (04:41):

Yeah, absolutely. So full disclosure, I used to work here, but so at Atlassian, but I actually really appreciate the way their job ads are structured for pay transparency. So folks are looking for someone who's doing it really well. I think they're doing it in a rad way where they give the range, they talk about the different zones that they pay, so they do pay by geography, but when they give the range, they also specifically say, we tend to hire in the bottom of this range. And so I think that's really great, not only because it gives an actual number amount, but because I know a lot of recruiters will say, oh, we can't put the whole range because everyone will want at the top literally just tell people you're not going to do that as baseline and if people opt out respect to them. But I just appreciate the way that they've dealt with those nuances of the operational challenges and the transparency. I found it really high quality.


Stacey Nordwall (05:38):

Okay, that's great. That is a great tip. I have not looked, I haven't looked at their job ads


Aubrey Blanche-Sarellano (05:44):

Anyway. It's a good model and it works for them. They have an ultra remote culture, and so they've had to solve a very specific set of paid transparency challenges in a number of entities and more. It might not be relevant, but


Stacey Nordwall (06:00):

Right. Well, and to your point, that's part of the thing, particularly if you are hiring a lot remotely, if you are in a number of different cities or states within the US or even abroad, you'll have to think about this and develop a strategy for what that looks like. And I agree that just for the sake of ease, it's generally best to just adhere to whatever is the most stringent and make that your policy.


Aubrey Blanche-Sarellano (06:31):

Yeah, that's generally good. Compliance advice.


Stacey Nordwall (06:34):

Yes. Advice. What did you think about the conversation around higher minimum wage? This is another one where it's like, we'll cobble it together by city and state and locality and it'll be different in everyone.


Aubrey Blanche-Sarellano (06:49):

I mean, again, I don't love that that is the tactic we have to take. Hands down, pay people more. You're getting no argument from me. I think that in my analysis we have this systemic devaluing of service-based labor that's disproportionately done by women, by people of color. So I think that's really important. One thing to note that wasn't in the article, but is a big thing of mine is there's a push to get rid of the clause in the FLSA that allows disabled people to be paid subminimum wage. And so that also feels relevant to bring up here that I'm like, yeah, get rid of that. That's horrific. That is I'm paying people at the bottom of the pay scale. Absolutely pay them more. That has not moved since the seventies, and we know that cost of living has gone up. We also know the other thing is it really frustrates me because a lot of the jobs that are paid at that are actually quite high skill, high emotional intelligence required jobs, and I think we should be specifically compensating for that type of skill.


Stacey Nordwall (07:58):

Yeah, absolutely. And I looked just to see it's like, okay, the federal minimum wage is still $7 and 25 cents an hour, which if you worked full time, you would still be below the poverty line at that rate. And with some of the rates they're saying is the new minimum wage, which would be $15 an hour, and some of these 31,200 a year, which at full time is just below what the poverty line is for a family of four. So when you're thinking about what these minimum wages are, it's great to increase the minimum wages, but you have to also put it into context because as you said, the cost of living has gone up, the skills that people are using have to be translated into this as well. And it boggles my mind really that the federal minimum wage is $7 and 25 cents an hour just,


Aubrey Blanche-Sarellano (09:02):

And that's for non tipped


Stacey Nordwall (09:05):

Folks, right?


Aubrey Blanche-Sarellano (09:07):

I might be misspeaking, I have not Googled this, but the last time I checked, unless you're in one of these jurisdictions where a minimum wage has been hiked, I believe that the tipped minimum wage is something like 2 35 or 2 85. It is a truly unlivable amount of money. I think that's terrible because we also know that means, and there's lots of research that shows, for example, servers and service workers are at significantly higher risk of things like sexual harassment and abuse because they are dependent on the largesse of their clients to pay their damn rent. And I think that's absolutely a human rights violation. I think if your business cannot survive paying someone enough to have a decent roof over their head, your business maybe doesn't need to survive.


Stacey Nordwall (09:53):

Yeah. Yes. I think if you are relying on not paying people in order to have a business, you're not doing your business plan. That's not a successful business strategy


Aubrey Blanche-Sarellano (10:05):

Human beings being paid so that they can eat is again, the bar is in hell.


Stacey Nordwall (10:18):

Oh, it really is. It really, really is. Okay, let's go on to the next one. This one was really interesting as well. This is about contractor classifications, and it seems like this is one where it's been kind of bouncing back and forth for a while. I think because of gig economy for sure, there must be people lobbying all over the place, and there are to get contractor to get people classified as contractors, so they're not considered as employees. But yeah, what was your take on it?


Aubrey Blanche-Sarellano (10:53):

Yeah, so I think this is perpetually an issue that people look at. I think the idea of the six factors that are weighted was obviously meant to be encouraging people to become employees rather than contractors, because that comes with more benefits. That's just more labor friendly. That said, my honest advice is don't spend too much time worrying about complying with that. No chance that it survives the change in administration on this prediction. So yeah, I do the idea that people aren't using contractors in places, they should be hiring employees, but I think this is one of the places where it wouldn't be front lines on my fight. I'm much more on the let's push for unionization as pro-labor things, because if people can get those kinds of workplace protections anyway, not to say it's not important, but there are some better tactics that we can use and we might just let this lapse.


Stacey Nordwall (11:57):

Yeah, no, I mean that makes sense, right? Because there's going to be a lot to potentially prioritize. A lot of things are going to be happening, and you're really going to, as HR folks, really have to focus on what are the things that are going to be most impactful, the things that you really have to react to because you can't and probably shouldn't react to everything.


Aubrey Blanche-Sarellano (12:28):

That sounds a little dismal. But again, I think if you're prioritizing where you think the biggest impact can happen, I think that's not going to be the biggest area of change for workers.


Stacey Nordwall (12:42):

All right. And here's another one, the New Workplace Safety Standards. So this is one where they were predicting, this hasn't happened yet, but they were predicting that the Trump administration would overturn two OSHA rules. One of the rules was one that allowed employees the right to appoint a representative to accompany OSHA officials on workplace inspections. And the other was requiring employers nationwide to create and implement heat safety plans. So they're predicting that the Trump administration would overturn these two rules.


Aubrey Blanche-Sarellano (13:17):

And I'm not as familiar with the debate and the action around someone accompanying the OSHA official, but I think given the fact that in general employers don't like it tells me I should support it, I tend to be a pro worker workforce. But I think the heat safety standard thing is actually deeply upsetting


(13:45): In the sense that climate change is ravaging the planet, and heat safety is becoming more and more relevant to people in high skill, but low wage roles. And so I can see this really affecting the most vulnerable people, especially when you think about the intersectional injustice kind of angle of this. So we know that people of color, for example, tend to live in places that heat up disproportionately compared to that because they're often pushed into places that have less green space, et cetera. And so workplaces also tend to be that way. And so this is in general a problem that we know will disproportionately impact immigrants. This will disproportionately impact people of color. And so I think there's multiple reasons to actually be really concerned about this change.

Stacey Nordwall (14:35):

I mean, I'm in Phoenix and the idea of people working basically six months out of the year where it's over, it's near a hundred or over, thinking about people who are doing construction or whatever that I'm like, it's a must. It is a true health and safety issue for those folks. And yeah, I'm not particularly familiar, but I had the same kind of response of like, oh, if the employers didn't like it, then I probably should be, should like it. And I think also it's interesting too, right, because there are always ways, if they didn't like the rules around who could accompany the OSHA officials, they could update that. They could lobby, they could email, they could write the OSHA people and say, Hey, we actually think that someone who accompanies the OSHA officials should be required to do X, Y, Z or have this relationship or whatever like that. They could do that, but they're not doing that. They're just saying, no, we don't like it. Get rid of it. So I think it's always interesting too when you read about these things, what the reactions and responses are, and they're not looking to make a compromise there. So that tells me something.


Aubrey Blanche-Sarellano (15:53):

Right, exactly.


Stacey Nordwall (15:56):

All right. So we'll move on to, is this our last one of the five? It is the overtime pay salary. So this is something I've been watching because we've seen it was enacted, it was rolled back, Texas overturned it. So it's been kind of back and forth for folks. I think this is one people are going to have to continue to be paying attention to because it seems like it will continue to be disputed. But what was your thought on it?


Aubrey Blanche-Sarellano (16:23):

Yeah, I mean, this is an example of where my thought is I'm pro the more pro labor perspective.


Aubrey Blanche-Sarellano (16:33):

That said, this is one of those things where I think it's a reasonable assumption that these things that are rolled back are going to stick because not necessarily Trump can't change this threshold with an executive order, but knowing the particular court in Texas that it comes out, which tends to have very conservative rulings in general. So people tend to use that court specifically because they will get employer rulings. But we also know the percentage of the judiciary that was appointed during Trump's previous term is like, I'm just not optimistic. I think that that decision in Texas will be upheld by higher courts if it's challenged. And so obviously talk to your attorneys if you have outside counsel, stay on top of this, get news alerts, whatever you need to do to stay on top of it. But my prediction, which I don't love, is that the threshold's going to stay.


Stacey Nordwall (17:31):

Yeah, I thought the same thing. And it was again, interesting to me that the salary exemption threshold is 35,568. That seems so low to me. Yeah, it seems very low. But to your point, given the court that it came out of the administration, is that likely to change in the next four years? Probably not,


Aubrey Blanche-Sarellano (17:59):

But this is where I kind of gently nudge a business and I'm like, you can do more than the law dictates.


Stacey Nordwall (18:07):

That's true. Yeah, exactly.


Aubrey Blanche-Sarellano (18:09):

You were not legally prevented from following the previous threshold. And again, I think speaking as someone who spent her career in tech, this kind of law isn't as relevant for us just because we tend to have higher paid salaried workers. But I think that we're seeing more and more of this shift to, we would hope to see, especially this is horrific in the changes we're going to see in the availability of labor in this segment. I think if the new administration does start to carry out the sort of anti-immigrant deportation policies that they've threatened that we're going to see labor in this particular segment get squeezed in major ways. And so I can see that as potentially a counterbalancing force where employers are actually forced to offer better wages because there's a shortage of talent to fill the roles that they need filled. Not to say that's a good thing, it's such a horrific reason, but that is something that I'll be watching to see how those dynamics are playing out.


Stacey Nordwall (19:14):

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. All right. Well, and here's, this is somewhat related, this article also from HR dive, Trump names former EEOC Commissioner Keith Sonderling, Deputy Labor Secretary. So as it says in the title, he's named this person, Sonderling started his career as a management side labor and employment attorney. He worked for the Department of Labor during the previous Trump administration, notably as the acting deputy administrator of the wage and hour division, and later became one of the five EEOC commissioners. During his tenure, he dissented from the EOCs guidance that anti-bias laws cover L-G-B-T-Q workers, and that the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act also extends to abortions and the use of contraception. This one just made me laugh. He was also part of the WHD launching a self-audit program, which encouraged employers to self-audit their compensation practices for compliance with the FLSA.


Aubrey Blanche-Sarellano (20:25):

I find this a whole thing, super confusing. Did you, Trump's picks for DOL are just more pro-labor than I ever would've anticipated.


Stacey Nordwall (20:39):

Interesting.


Aubrey Blanche-Sarellano (20:41):

I'm not saying everything is sunshine roses, but I think my baseline assumption was that administration is going to be so hostile to workers in so many ways that choosing people who have supported any measure of worker policies is just like, I cannot figure it out. But that said, Trump has been strangely for him, not strange in the world and butting up to unions. And so I've been trying to think through what's the political strategy there? So anyway, I just think it's an interesting observation is it's looking at the short list. Neither of them were the people on the shortlist I would've imagined would be selected.


Stacey Nordwall (21:28):

Okay. Yeah. I mean, to be honest, I had no idea who this person was before I read this article. So I was kind of reading through and I thought, okay, well, at least he has kind of done some of this. He's been in this world before, so that seems an improvement over some of the other picks where who knows what relevant experience they have. So there was that, and I think, I guess, yeah, to your point, maybe it is a little bit more not as wild of a choice as one could envision being the choice. I still didn't like it though, but I guess in the things that I could have gotten, it's probably not as bad as it could have been.


Aubrey Blanche-Sarellano (22:28):

Yeah, I think it is my baseline, and maybe this is a lesson to me, is I start with the bar is in hell


Aubrey Blanche-Sarellano (22:35):

So bad, the bar is in hell. But when I think about how actively hostile this administration is to so many things, this just isn't, it's not what I expected. We'll see where it goes. I would say stay tuned, monitor the situation.


Stacey Nordwall (22:56):

Yeah, I think that's a good take. Yeah, especially as we said, there's potentially so many things that are going to be coming at us. We might as well reserve our energy for the real big stuff and hope that this is just a small thing that we can keep in the back of our mind, but not at the front. Okay. And this is our last article. It's from Forbes. It is titled Why Soft Quitting at Work Could Be More Dangerous Than Quiet Quitting. The recap is that soft quitting is a slow and subtle shift in behavior toward detachment and disengagement that even the most attentive managers may not notice. And it eats away at the culture because it affects team morale, productivity, and the organization companies can address soft quitting by engaging employees and fostering emotional connection, purpose, and growth. What did you think?


Aubrey Blanche-Sarellano (24:02):

Mega Boot. It's like some weird capitalistic propaganda I just cannot get on the train about. I love my work and I get a lot of purpose from it, and I'm kind of a workaholic, but I don't see that as some morally superior orientation. And I'm actually a fan of people being really clear about the expectations, delivering against those and going the fuck home if that works for them. I think that's a completely fine orientation to work. I'm into the culture, I'm into that, but I just don't necessarily think my way of doing things is better than someone else for whom their purpose and their meaning and their emotional energy goes into a different part of their life.


Stacey Nordwall (24:51):

Yeah. Yeah. I think I read it and at first I was like, what are you talking about? What even is this? It is very like the boogeyman hiding under your desk that not even the most attentive managers will know. And I'm like, well, what is it? And one thing they said was that soft quitting was akin to the concept of lying flat, which originated in China and is a rejection of the pressures of modern life, particularly the relentless demands of work and career progression. And I was like, cool. Great, what’s the problem?


Aubrey Blanche-Sarellano (25:31):

My ethic is it's a perfectly acceptable position to just want to be good at your job and not want the top job. And I think there's something uniquely toxically American, first of all, as an expat. It's a very different culture here in Australia, but I think that we've been socialized that the correct orientation is to want to climb a ladder, to want to be in charge. And I actually think it's super healthy that, and I don't think it needs to be this catastrophic trend. It's literally just starting to normalize that people have different relationships to work. And what I'm not saying is you're getting paid. You should do your job. I think that's the fair exchange there. But you don't have to be the world's best at a particular thing, or you don't have to be striving for that promotion. And I think it's also need to normalize that one person throughout their career might be in different periods. There are periods of your life where work isn't the center of your life, where is there periods where you might feel more ambitious? And so I don't think this is just between people. It's also recognizing that people have different seasons of how they relate to their jobs in their careers.


Stacey Nordwall (26:49):

Yeah, absolutely. I am a big fan of that. Having burnt myself out a number of times, I am a big fan of recognizing, in this moment in particular when I don't feel the need to be at work or striving, striving, striving, and all the time, that's because I'm just not in that era right now. That's not the era for me. And that's fine. And other people are still doing that and don't good for them. I don't feel the need to do it. I have done it.


Aubrey Blanche-Sarellano (27:21):

But I think this also comes back to, because I tend to think of what's the responsibility of the employer to start out with? And it's like the responsibility of the employer is to be clear about what's expected of someone. Yes, that should be reasonable and commensurate with, say if you're paying them for full-time, that the work can be done within the scope of a full-time role. But I think that's on the employer to say, oh, you're slacking off, but you have deep emotional connections with your coworkers. It's not a fucking reasonable job Requirement.


Aubrey Blanche-Sarellano (27:56):

I personally am really connected to my coworkers and I love working with them, but it's not appropriate to dictate something like that as opposed to, this is the impact that we need you to have in your role. And as a baseline, I need you to be respectful and kind to the people you work with. That is an appropriate standard. And so I just think about employers, if you're so worried about this, are you doing a good job of setting fair, reasonable, and clear expectations with your employees? And are you measuring them against those in it in a thoughtful way?


Stacey Nordwall (28:30):

Yeah, I agree. I think underlying this whole thing is basically an expectation that people always go the extra mile. And it's like if you have the expectation that people are always going the extra mile, then the extra mile is part of the overall expectation. You know what I mean? Then it's not extra anymore. It's just what you expect. And if you think that people, you are deserving of their extra mile, they don't owe you an extra mile. They owe you the number of miles you agreed to.


Aubrey Blanche-Sarellano (29:06):

Totally. And I think it's also really irresponsible. You've talked about burnout, and I might get in trouble for talking about this, I don't think it's been released yet, but Culture Amp has millions and millions of data points about performance and engagement in the workplace. And some of the early research that one of our research teams has done is they were kind of examining the question, how sustainable is high performance? So how sustainable is it to go that extra mile? And what they found is an absolutely minuscule percentage of people get the highest performance score, whatever that is, at a particular company, two cycles in a row.


Stacey Nordwall (29:43):

Oh,


Aubrey Blanche-Sarellano (29:43):

Interesting. So I think that tells us that performance is more like a sign curve or high performance appropriately can be episodic. And so I think it's just like, okay, that is true in the world. Whether you like it or not is not relevant, is not relevant. But the idea that, yeah, it's great if someone has an outsize impact in a particular six month period, but that can't be the baseline because you're going to turn through people


(30:09):

And there's an organizational risk to that. So I think it just takes a bit more, quite frankly, an intelligent talent strategy to say, I've had these periods in my job where I have to overwork to get something done critical or urgent or whatever. But my baseline is that, I guess this is the other responsibility on me as an employee, is I'm very open about to say, Hey, to accomplish these things that you put on my plate, this thing needs to fall away. Can we get agreement that these are the things that are going to be executed in the capacity that's available for myself or my team? And so it's a co-responsibility to get there, but I think the bigger share of responsibility sits with employers to not be unreasonable to their employees.


Stacey Nordwall (30:52):

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So I kind of had to sneak in a random HR trend because they keep coming up and I kind of just need to throw them in every once in a while to lighten it up and give me something to just drag to filth.


Aubrey Blanche-Sarellano (31:12):

I mean, it is just like, yeah, it's even the quiet quitting. I'm like, oh, so people, yeah, I just don't get it. I'm not into it. I feel like Gen Z, there's all this research that keeps coming out that's like pearl clutching, that's like Gen Z wants companies aligned with their values. Gen Z sets boundaries with their managers. And I'm like, wow, what emotionally healthy things that these young people are doing? Maybe the rest of us could learn something.


Stacey Nordwall (31:40):

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I like the perspective, especially now that you're an expat of okay sitting, sometimes you have to get an opportunity to sit outside of it and look back and say, okay, this is actually not healthy, or There are other ways to be doing this, other ways to frame it. So I like that you have the outsider view now.


Aubrey Blanche-Sarellano (32:06):

I mean, it is officially January 21st in Australia, and this week a bunch of Australians are coming back to work post Christmas. Very little in this country happens between Christmas and the third week of January, and the country has not fallen apart. It's fine. I was back to work on January 2nd, hashtag American, but that's just something to note is again, I really appreciate cross-cultural comparison because it shows you that the way that things are normatively done in a place is not necessarily the way they must be done. And so it opens up our imaginative possibilities of what relationships are possible with work.


Stacey Nordwall (32:50):

Yeah, absolutely. All right, Aubrey, thank you so much for joining and just dropping all kinds of knowledge on us. If people would like to connect with you or if you have any projects that you'd like to share, I want to make sure you can do that now. How can people connect with you?


Aubrey Blanche-Sarellano (33:08):

Yeah, so I think the easiest is folks can get me on LinkedIn. I've got a very specific name, so I'm pretty easy to find. But if folks want to have a conversation or are interested in working with me or things like that, aubreyblanche.com is a great way to get a hold of me.

Stacey Nordwall (33:22):

Alright, awesome. Thank you so much and thanks everyone for listening. 


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