Interview with Natalie E. Norfus

Natalie E. Norfus, human-resources expert and owner of the Norfus Firm in Miami, discusses the important role of an HR department and provides insights into how leaders can prevent workplace issues.

How has your field changed since you began?
While the main discrimination and harassment laws haven’t changed drastically over the past few decades, the demands of HR professionals have. Back in the day, HR was heavily compliance based: making sure I-9s were filled out, people were onboarded properly, and correct answers were given for how to deal with workplace issues. Today, it’s not just “Do this because the law says to”; it’s also “Let’s work together to build peoplebased strategies that are responsive to the business’s needs.”

What misconceptions about HR persist?
There’s a surprisingly significant number of them, primarily ones about HR’s role. For example, many people believe that an HR person has the power to hire, fire, and discipline, but we are primarily advisors. This means that if I receive a complaint about someone, it’s my job to investigate and see if there’s problematic behavior. If there is, then I advise leadership to get coaching for that person or possibly part ways with them. Ultimately, though, I can’t pick the path. That can be really frustrating for employees who feel like HR’s not doing anything about a problem.

One misconception that some HR professionals have is about the importance of responsiveness. So many employees have told me they have raised a concern, even a small one, but have never gotten a response from their HR representative. I always say that being in human resources means you’re a resource to humans, so if you’re not responding to them, you’re not going to build the trust needed to help them. In fairness, though, this problem usually harkens back to the HR-staff-to-employee ratio being off, which makes it difficult for HR to respond to everything.

How can business owners build trust with their employees?
It’s all about frequently interacting with your team and getting to know them in authentic ways. When you own a business, your people are continually observing you, even when you think they’re not. One conversation won’t earn trust, either; you have to build it in little pieces. For instance, my firm is in Florida, but we have employees in other states, so we try to have a team-building exercise in every meeting to help foster that important connection.

Communication is also crucial. When I did employment litigation, around 90 to 95 percent of the cases I handled boiled down to miscommunication. Leaders aren’t always great about having direct conversations with people, a problem that has only compounded over the years, especially since COVID.

What common mistakes does management make when it comes to hiring?
There’s a lot of reactive hiring: your best employees complain about being overworked and tell you they need help, so you simply hire more people. This tends to create situations where HR has to take job postings down because they start getting candidates who aren’t close to what they need. You’re going to be in a much better position if you take the time to think through it. I love how a recruiter of ours, Theo Wright, puts it: “Hire slow, fire fast.”

Having inconsistent processes, such as merely scanning someone’s résumé five minutes before their interview, is also problematic. Unprepared interviewers often don’t ask questions that help them understand the candidate’s ability to do the job, which can result in the hiring of employees who do not fit the company’s need.

Do people still make assumptions simply based on résumés?
Yes! At our firm, we tell our clients that a résumé is only a snapshot of a person—there’s no way they can express everything they’ve done in a page or two. We also encourage clients to think broader than their résumé bias. For example, if a candidate was out of work for two years, leaders shouldn’t assume, There’s no way they have the skills we need. That really depends on why they were out of work; after all, they may have acquired skills through a nontraditional path.

Ageism in the workforce has been a hot-button topic in recent years. Is it still prevalent?
Yes, on both ends of the spectrum. Regarding the idea that younger candidates are preferred, I’ve heard the term “young and hungry” so many times from higher-ups in a company, which is unfortunate. Seasoned workers may not be up on some of the trends that younger ones are, but there’s something to be learned from them since they have seen things we’ll never see and accomplished things in ways we can never accomplish.

On the flip side, a recent Intelligent study shows that employers can be hesitant to hire Gen Z candidates for reasons ranging from higher salary demands to being unprepared for interviews. Ultimately, both extremes highlight a great lesson—we have to be mindful not to discard people simply because of their age or career stage.

Quiet quitting, bare-minimum Mondays, and lazy-girl jobs are all trending terms. What’s fueling them?
These all center on the same thing: insisting on doing only what the job description says and not tolerating being handed three jobs in one for the sake of “development.” After the pandemic, it became clear that many folks don’t care about getting promoted; they just want to make sure that they can pay their bills and live their lives. They want to work to live, not live to work.

It’s important for business owners and other executives to understand that people doing things differently than before doesn’t mean they’re wrong. They need to be thoughtful in that respect, or it could easily go sideways. For example, more and more people are willing to screenshot their boss’s texts and emails or record an all-employee meeting and, if work expectations seem unfair, put them on social media. Rather than simply reacting to apparent issues, get help from an HR expert about where your people are coming from so you can lead them more effectively.

What can a business leader do to be more flexible?
A lot of leaders have stayed in the same situation for decades and work mainly with people they already know, so certain aspects of the business world have passed them by.

To break them out of their “my way or the highway” thinking, I challenge them to leave their comfort zones. A great way to do this is to find a circle of other business owners and have a Vegas moment—whatever happens there stays there—where everyone can bounce ideas off each other before putting them in front of their teams. It’s important to have cohorts you can trust and who will open you up to different perspectives.

How can HR experts help a business thrive?
Mainly, we can help leaders understand the pulse of their organizations. Most reach an ivory tower where they think they know everything that’s going on. I always tell them, though, that if your team isn’t giving you feedback, that’s a problem; “no news is good news” is definitely not true for a leader. This is why we’re big on regularly collecting data on employees’ views through surveys and listening sessions.

The reality is that your employees are unlikely to be real with you, even if you’re the most effusive leader who makes time for everybody. It doesn’t matter how cool you are or how open you are; you’re still the owner of the company and write the checks, so employees aren’t always going to feel comfortable coming to tell you things. And that’s OK. But it’s also why hiring people who they do feel comfortable talking to is key to staying on top of what’s happening in your workplace. Ultimately, that’s the biggest benefit of HR.

For more info, visit thenorfusfirm.com

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