Mason: Welcome back to another edition of Small Business Spoonfuls. My name is Mason Merrell, and joining me today as always is my co-host Lisa Smith. Lisa: Hi Mason. Mason: Hey, Lisa. How are you today Lisa: Oh, I'm doing pretty good. How about you Mason: Doing good. Doing good. We've had, we've had some interesting topics that we've been, we've been really enjoying getting into in the last few weeks, and we've had some feedback and stuff, so we've really appreciated that feedback on, on, you know, some of our episodes that we've put out recently, and we've seen that we've had some new listeners, so we wanna welcome all of our new listeners to the show. Lisa: Yes, welcome and thank you so much for tuning in. And you're right, we have had some great feedback, so keep those, you know, emails coming because we wanna hear from our audience. Definitely. Mason: Yeah. No, and we love the conversation and you know, as long as it's respectful and not hate email, we, we will ignore the hate . But like we, we got, we got a message recently, and I'm not gonna get into it, but it was a very re respectful and nice message, and we really appreciate that kind of thing, even if you don't completely agree with what we're talking about. So thank you very much on that. Okay. But we do, we do have a pretty fun, another fun topic to talk about today. you know, we are now past the holidays, we're into the new year, and, so that's when all the fun holiday party questions start rolling in. And this is from a while back. So, this question, but, why don't you go ahead and tee us up for a topic, Lisa Lisa: . Okay. Yeah. This is great. And it is, it is interesting. You know, everybody comes back in January, so we, we, we received this one in January. HR had a report, and the question basically says, we had some employees leave our Christmas party and go elsewhere to continue to drink. They ended up at a strip club with one of our female employees getting up and dancing, including taking off her clothes. Is there anything that needs to be done or said to these employees Mason: Yeah, Lisa: So, boy, Mason: Initial reaction here for me is just like, sounds like everybody had a good time. . Like why would, where was my invite Was the, no, I'm just kidding. I'm completely kidding. We're having fun here. We're gonna talk seriously now. , Lisa: . No, I know, right What party were you at no, but, but, right. And so, you know, this is a, this is a legit question. This is valid. Like, HR gets this report, and so one of my first things, you know, to, to examine on this was how was the report made Was it someone who said I was sexually assaulted Was it someone who said, you know, I was taken to a strip club against my will and abandoned there, or, you know, I couldn't leave and I was basically forced to, you know, endure this or, you know, like what was the nature of the report And then that came back and it was like, no, they just all were a group of buddies and they just went, they left the Christmas party that we had for work, and they decided to go out for the night on their own. And that's where they ended up. And this is what ended up happening. Mason: Got a little sauce and had too much fun. Lisa: That's right. That's right. And I mean, Mason: And thankfully, yeah. Yeah. And thankfully it didn't get outta hand and turn into one of those other situations. And we don't joke about those things. Those are very serious, serious situations that do happen. Yeah. In this case it was not that. So Lisa: No. And the person, and then also who was the person complaining Was it, you know, one of the, one of the men, or maybe there were other women there who, you know, saw the, the female employee strip. I mean, like, we don't, I didn't really know. So we had to go back and forth and get a lot of details. And it turned out the person who made the report was reporting on office gossip. Mm-hmm. , that was basically true gossip, but still, you know, definition of gossip is not necessarily untrue. Right. So it was something that had been confirmed, but nevertheless, that person felt like HR just needed to know. Mason: Right, right. Which is fine. Which is fine. Yeah. And which is fine if you, if you hear something like that and you need to report on it and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. It's not a, it's not the the person reporting this was, you know, not outta line at all in the situation. Lisa: No. And so in further exploration, you know, the, HR professional who wrote me said, yes, I sat down with the person who made the report, you know, said, were you there No. do you know anyone who was there Well, yes, I know who the people were. Have they voiced to you that they were upset about it No, it was all basically just an account of everybody having a crazy night, you know, after a Christmas party. Okay. So do you know of any reports that anyone was assaulted or any, you know, anything like that needed to be addressed No, didn't hear any reports like that. It was basically, again, just a bunch of people having fun that like, I personally maybe wouldn't have had fun that way, but, but I'm just feeling like you need to know hr. Okay. Yeah. So, so that was good. So HR took down all of the details, all of the comments, and then said, what do I do with this Do I need to call all of these people in And my next thing was to ask hr, do you have any form of proof or knowledge of the condition of the employees when they left your company Christmas party Like, did they leave drunk Or like, how did you, basically, how did they leave your care Mason: Right. Lisa: And that was the next thing to look at, because, you know, strip club aside, really that's the least of your worries if you got a bunch of people sauced up at the Christmas party and then they took off Mason: And get into their cars and drive away. Lisa: Right. And not in an Uber, or, you know, something like that. Right. They get in their cars and they drive away. Now we're talking about bigger problems, right. That have nothing to do with stripping, you know Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And so we worked through a lot of those questions. Well, it turns out they had been very smart at their Christmas party and they had used the wristband thing, and a lot of people use the drink card or whatever, but so they come and they, every time you get, you're allowed three drinks and you know, they click your, you know, your wristband, and so the bartender can see once you've had three hole punches, basically, then you know no more for you. You're shut down. Yeah, yeah. Right. And you have to go literally to another location. You can't drink anymore at this location. Right. And so all that was prearranged. It was all fine. Everybody was sober, you know, when they left, they hadn't been overserved or anything like that. Ubers were called if someone did feel like they were a little lightheaded, you know, like they touched base with everyone, right Yeah. And so she said, we can document this. These are the steps we took. Like, it was very well controlled environment. Mason: Right. Lisa: And so basically, you know, the next question was, well, did you tell them there's a great strip club down the street if you guys wanna continue the party down there, She's like, no, Mason: obviously Lisa: Not that there's anything wrong with that. No . But anyway, did you tell them No, didn't do anything like, okay, fine. So nobody was hurt. There were no sanctioned after party activities. No member of management or leadership went with these people from the company party No. They were a bunch of coworkers, no leaders, no managers. Okay. So basically thank you for reporting it. You know, we really appreciate your diligence here. We're gonna make all the notes. Mason: Yeah. We'll document it, and then if something ever comes a bit, we can refer back to this. yeah. Other, otherwise it was just off, off company hours, people having fun. So Lisa: That's it. So, so there's nothing else to be done here. She was really relieved to hear that she didn't have to follow up with anybody Yeah. You know, or anything like that. And, and so, you know, she came back and she goes, but there wasn't any problem with this, with this female employee just getting completely naked in front of this mixed company of coworkers. And at the end of the day, you know, no, I mean, your morality, my morality, right We can debate that all day long. But this isn't a morality question. This is a company liability question. Right. And we wouldn't be commenting on morality questions anyway. Mason: Yeah. In what she chose to do in her own time. That's, that's her prerogative. And, you know, I like, we're not advocating for either side of this situation and what the after effects of doing some kind of action like that on your own time could be. It's just what the company is liable for in this situation. And, what, what it all ends up, you know, what, what could end up coming back on the company in, in, in those scenarios. Lisa: So Yeah. Right. Because, you know, we always say this time and time again, but you know, hrs responsibility is to protect the company. Okay. And so when you take these, you know, notes, seriously, you know, the reports you make, the documentation, you're protecting the company. You know, we walked you through all the steps of the party and what you should and should not do, and blah, blah, blah, you know, so that you can protect the company. So if someone, you know, goes out and they do something, you know, on their own time that you may or may not approve of, or you may think is shocking or, you know, whatever it may be, that's, that's their situation. And it has nothing to do with protecting the company unless the company was involved in some way. And that's why we ask about, were were there men members of management who went out with these people Were there leadership, you know, did the owner take everybody to the strip club You know, I mean, then we may be talking about something different, right Yeah. But, but we, you know, she was really concerned about like, do I address this with her because she got naked in front of several coworkers Mason: Absolutely. Yeah. Lisa: No, it none your business . Yeah, yeah. You know, at that Mason: Point, and you know what, you know, what in the person reporting is, was totally in their right to do so like that. Yes. That, and those situations are shocking to hear sometimes, you know, for people with different, you know, beliefs or whatnot, it can be shocking. And, and a lot of those situations turn out very badly. So Yes. It, it, when, when a situation like that goes down, like just generally, I, I don't know any, I'm just speaking generally, but a lot of those situations can turn out poorly. You know, I, if you Yeah. Like paint that picture in any other scenario with, a, a guy in this scenario who might have been think in with the company thinking a wrong thing ends up sexually assaulting this person. and then it turns into a whole different story. So it's not out of, if you hear something like this, the person reporting's not a snitch, you know, quote unquote snitch, you know, it's, it's absolutely the right thing to do and all the situations, but thankfully this was a situation that w that all the bases were covered, everything was good, nothing's coming back on the company. Mason: And as far as we know in the details we have, it didn't affect anyone in, in that situation, personally, sexually, anything like that. So, Lisa: Yes. And that is so true, and thank you for making those points because, because we don't want to discourage bystanders from reporting, right. Even if we get the information like they did in this case, and there was nothing to act on, you know, and the HR person was writing to me saying, is there anything here that I am missing You know, no, there was nothing. We went through all the details, everything was good, but we still always wanna thank the person for reporting. We want them to know that we take them seriously. And that, thankfully in this case, it all seems like it was, you know, off-duty conduct that it was legal and, you know. Yeah. Like, none of our concern here, agree with it or not, none of our concern. And so we're gonna let that lie. And, but we have good notes in case in the future somebody says, well, actually that night I was assaulted. Right. You know, like, then we have all of the details to that point. Yeah. And we don't have to go back and try to remember things, you know, so documentation is key. Yeah. And, but at the end of the day, we always want to encourage bystander reporting. Yeah. And even if it's not a report that, you know, technically needed to be made, we don't want to discourage that person from coming in the future, because in the future it could be a report that does need to be made. Mason: Right. Yeah. I'll, I'll go off on a little tangent here. My wife, sh when she was in the workforce before we married and things like that, she had a situation at work where they didn't go af out after a Christmas party, but there was a predatory person in the workplace, and this guy was coming out, started inviting her to lunch and all this, and it turned out she went to lunch with him one time, and then that turned in and he was, he was a higher up, so he was above her in this situation. He ended up propositioning her at lunch saying, Hey, we can just go do this or that, you know, and then go back to work. And that made her feel very uncomfortable. And, you know, she went and reported that to HR and things like that, and she ended, she didn't, she didn't stay there for long, but all they, they moved the guy and he denied everything and wouldn't talk to her. Mason: And it turned into a workaround situation. And it, you know, so there are, what I'm trying to say is like, not everybody's predatory, but there are certain people that act that way in the workplace, in the workplace. And it does need to be reported. If you, we always hear the thing. If you see something, say something, you know, so like, you know, reporting things is not, is not a wrong thing, it's just where are you coming from with the reporter Are you trying to, are you trying to, you know, mad you weren't invited and reporting this because you're mad, or like, or are you concerned about the situation or whatnot But you know, no matter what it is, you know, seeing something saying something's never a bad thing. So, Lisa: Yeah. Absolutely. So I think that Mason: We, sorry for that tangent, . Lisa: No. Hey, that's good. And it's a, it's a great, you know, personal, like true to life example of sometimes when it is a problem, you know, and things do need to be reported and HR does need to address even sometimes things that happen off company time, off premises. Yeah. You know, and this just didn't happen to you, one of them, but your example was perfect of something that would need to be addressed. Yeah. So yeah, we definitely want to never, never, never discourage bystander reporting or reporting from the victim or from anyone, you know, involved. So definitely. Mason: Yep. Yep. Okay. Well, I think we covered that topic pretty well. just at the end of the day, if you get a report, document everything, , I mean, we can't, like everything in writing, whatever. You can have to document it, make sure it's documented. Lisa: So Yeah. And I've always said if you've ever had to fill out a police report, which I hope you never have, but if you ever have, they're going to tell you document exact words, exact times, even if the words are really naughty and they're words you would never say out loud, Mason: Write it down. Lisa: Yep. Write it down anyway, because the details matter. The facts matter. Not your sugar coated version of the facts, but the, the deep dirty facts. So hr, don't be afraid to write down exactly what is reported. Don't put your opinions in, don't sugar coat it. Don't make it sound nicer than it was. Write down the actual situation, because in the end, that could be the difference between you protecting the company and not so, right. Mason: Yeah. So, okay, cool. I think that pretty much wraps that. Do you have anything else you wanna say on that, Lisa Lisa: No, I think we've covered it. And, that's no pun intended to the woman who stripped, so . Mason: . Yeah. Right. well as always, this podcast is sponsored by help desk for hr. We have a little thing that plays after this if you wanna learn more, kind of breaks down what we do, our services and things like that. And then you can always find us at help desk for hr.com. if you want to engage with the podcast, you can follow us on, Twitter at help desk for hr, and we post our episodes there as they post. And if you wanna leave a comment or your experience or anything like that, we, we will read those on the show too, if we get some of that. So, we would love to hear what you say. If you want to email us privately, that's also fine too, and we won't share those things. But we appreciate the conversation as we brought out in the beginning. So Lee said, tee us up for our topic for next week. Lisa: Okay. So our topic for next week is, is getting down to some recent, opinion letters that came out from the Department of Labor regarding teleworkers taking breaks and moms who are breastfeeding, being able to take breaks to pump milk and so forth. So we're gonna talk about some of those and nothing earth shattering, but some information we need to be aware of. And yeah, I think you're gonna really enjoy it. And this is gonna apply to businesses of all sizes, so please be sure and tune in. Mason: Yeah, no, so it, it, we've been doing our Ask HR support series, which was what this was. So this is gonna be more of a generalized topic for the next couple weeks we're gonna talk about. So look forward to some of those things coming up. So take us out, Lisa. Lisa: All righty. Well, you know what we always say, you can't be audit proof. There's no way if an auditor investigator litigator comes in and starts asking you questions, they're gonna find something because nobody's perfect. But if you do the things you should, you follow the steps, you listen to the advice and the best practices, you can feel secure when they walk in. And so that's why at the end of every podcast we always say, be audit, secure.