The Three Questions HR Should Ask Finance: A People Leader's Playbook

Most people leaders have sat across from finance defending a budget line, feeling the room already treat their programs as a cost to control rather than value to fund. RyanMae McAvoy, Director of People Operations at Blackthorn, a PE-backed SaaS company of roughly 800 people, has spent four years unwinding that dynamic with the same finance leader. Her case is that the standoff is a choice, and the way out is a shared language rather than a better spreadsheet.

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Why do people teams keep reporting to finance?

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Anything G&A and essential tends to get lumped together, and payroll is usually the largest line a company carries, so finance wants a close watch on it. That logic is sound, but it also primes both sides to distrust each other by department and title before a word is spoken. "Payroll is going to be your biggest expense at most companies. Probably soon to be overtaken by Claude usage," McAvoy says. The cost is easy to see. The contribution is the part finance rarely gets shown.

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What is the first move to fix a broken finance relationship?

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Ask finance what their three biggest priorities are right now. It is a habit a mentor taught McAvoy years ago, and it does two jobs: it hands you real insight into the business and frames every ask that follows. "Go ask finance what the most three important things are to them." Once you know the target is positive EBITDA or a specific growth multiple, you stop pitching a tool on principle and start tying it to the number finance already watches.

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How do you get finance to approve a new tool?

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Frame it in finance's own numbers, and put a figure on the costs that never reach the spreadsheet. A comp benchmarking tool is hard to justify by itself, especially when it says to pay people more. Tie it instead to retention, cost of hire, and the months of lag when someone leaves, and the case reads in finance's language. "I'm a huge proponent of time is currency." McAvoy makes it concrete: she pays someone to clean her house because those hours are worth more elsewhere. Turnover runs on the same math, and naming its hidden time cost turns a soft worry into a number finance can price.

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How does HR earn the trust to skip the justification deck?

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By learning the business well enough to be useful inside it, then building trust over years instead of pitches. McAvoy has worked with the same finance leader for four years, and the payoff is that she now walks into budget talks with three options rather than a thousand-point justification deck. The credibility comes from range: she can read a sales tool and speak enough product to be useful well outside her lane. "I know enough to be dangerous." That is the shift that moves a people leader from service desk to partner.

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What does a fair employee experience look like across a global team?

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The goal is equity, which looks different from treating everyone the same. Across a distributed global team, McAvoy sets a common floor and lets the specifics flex by market: a standard 12 weeks of parental leave as a global happy medium, and pay set to local cost of living rather than a flat San Jose number. "It's not fair, it's equitable." Identical pay across markets that differ by 10 times on cost of living is its own kind of unfair.

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Underneath all of it sits a caution McAvoy repeats to her own executives: "I can make data tell any story I want." The seat she earned with finance rests on that honesty, the trust to be believed when the numbers alone would not settle it.

Logan (00:00): I'm here with RyanMae. RyanMae, is there anything you would like the audience to know about you before we jump in?

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RyanMae McAvoy (00:07): My gosh, I don't think there's anything in particular. I definitely lean into the weird. If you've ever met me in person or follow me on LinkedIn, I tend to love the default weird stuff. Currently we were just small talking about the house. Everyone's like, your decor style. And I'm like, I want it to be very spooky, dark and gothic-y, with that like, does some witch live there? But maybe, maybe not. So I'm definitely a fan of the weird. I come from a really small town, which is where you and I kind of bonded the first time we met.

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And that's always like the draw for people who are like, what was that like? I'm like, there's a reason I live in the Bay Area now, because I can't say that it was for me. No offense to small town living, people who do it, you're tougher than I am. I love same day delivery on most things. So it's just knowing who you are and kind of weird and good with it.

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Logan (00:38): How do you lean into the weird on LinkedIn?

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RyanMae McAvoy (00:52): Love a hot take. There's so many content creators on LinkedIn that just love to post spicy takes. I don't consider myself one of them. But I always have joked in multiple conversations, if someone threatens to send something to my CEO, that I've hit gold. I think I was about black history one time, and somebody was like, well, does your boss feel okay with that? Like, what did he think?

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I also am a bit of a smart ass, so it took everything I have not to be like, well, you know, we also have black people who work in the office, so I don't think so. I didn't, but that's when you know you've hit a nerve. I'm also a big believer in non-traditional workplaces. I think my big hot take is I'm not team remote, team return to office, team hybrid. I think humans are different across the board, so I'll defend each position. I also get a lot of comments like, well, you're not a parent, so you don't understand, because I'll talk about disparity with moms, how they carry the mental load, what should parental leave look like, how are we supporting our parents? And it's really funny to have people challenge you on that. Not saying I'm an expert, just saying I can support it. I don't need to be in the trenches of things to be a supportive human.

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So I think that's where I get a little weird, is I'll speak on things people think I shouldn't. I've also really gotten to my voice of just talking to them for the privilege. People in general get really uncomfortable when you talk about that, and I'll just call it out and be like, hey, I'm wildly uncomfortable uploading this, here we go guys.

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Logan (02:13): Yeah, it's interesting, like the remote, in-office, hybrid. That's a good example of, everyone's like it's black and white. You know, it's this or that, like you can't possibly have this gray zone and be a dichotomy of holding differing views at the same time. Very difficult.

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RyanMae McAvoy (02:35): And it's crazy to me. Because, again, I mentioned I'm ADHD. I joke that I'm the meme from the office where he's like, this has been my dream since lunch and I'm not giving up on it. And one week I'm like, I'd love to go into an office three days a week. And other weeks I'm like, I haven't left my house in 10 days and I'm totally okay with that. I think it's just having an understanding of your position. I believe every person is different, and I think we can build workplaces to meet people where they're at.

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We talked a lot about equality when we were chatting before, of like, well, if they get to not be in office and they don't, that may work for some people, that may not work for other people. And how do we work harmoniously and remember it's all same team, even if it doesn't look the same.

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Logan (03:11): Yeah, and also depends probably a little bit on the type of work. Certain types of work are easier to collaborate in person. Other times, it's just, it's a weird thing that you have to be one or the other. Like I have the same feeling too.

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RyanMae McAvoy (03:24): And people get crazy about it, they're like, you're wrong. I'm like, okay.

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Logan (03:27): It's like I would enjoy hanging with my colleagues every now and again, kind of a thing.

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RyanMae McAvoy (03:31): And that's something that Blackthorn and I've called out before. A lot of us, when we go on vacation, if someone's close, we'll meet for lunch or coffee or something. And it's not because it's our boss or anybody was like, well, you guys are in the same area, you should get together. It's a genuine, I'd love to say hey and just connect that way. So we think it's, again, meeting people where they're at and building relationships that work.

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Logan (03:38): Yeah, that's good, we're gonna talk a lot about that theme throughout. I think every topic has a piece of that. But I wanted to start because this, for some reason, and I say for some reason because I've talked about it a lot with folks on the show, is HR and finance, or HR and EBITDA, and tying people programs to P&L and profit and loss. And I don't know where it comes from. I was thinking before this. At first I was like, that makes sense that everybody struggles with profit and all that stuff. But where does this dichotomy come from, that it's an assumption almost that people programs aren't profit to start with?

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RyanMae McAvoy (04:28): Oh, I mean, we could talk about this for three hours. I think there's a lot of outdated stereotypes about HR. One is that we're mean, we're only there for the company. We often get treated like we're robots. I've had people be very shocked that I have a whole life outside of work, and you're just like, did you think they roll you into the closet? They're like, oh, five o'clock, HR is off. So we think that really ties into it. And I think because we're just now understanding what people operations itself brings to the table.

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So historically it's gone under finance. And if you don't have people who are in tune with all those numbers and what they mean, payroll is going to be your biggest expense at most companies. Probably soon to be overtaken by Claude usage, but payroll is going to be your biggest expense. And if you don't categorize that into anything other than, well, people runs payroll, you're losing the battle. And previously the narrative of like HR and finance can't get along, what does that look like, is because HR is really only kind of blossoming right now in the executive space, I would say. We're seeing a lot more CHROs, CPOs. Claude Silver, the Chief Heart Officer of Intermedia, we're seeing that now where we didn't maybe 10 years ago. And I think that Claude Silver, she's amazing. She is 10 out of 10 someone I am totally obsessed with. And I think that's where we're seeing the change in the narrative now is I've never reported to a female...

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Logan (05:34): Who is that? Sorry, who is that? Claude, the... okay.

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RyanMae McAvoy (05:51): People space is predominantly female, just statistically. So you have that breakdown. If you report into finance, finance's initiative is to keep the lights on, keep the P&L looking good. How do you translate, live, this human being? And I think that's where it's come from, is we haven't had candid conversations. We haven't had teamwork conversations. And I think when you come into a discussion where you're primed to, you two aren't gonna get along because of your departments and your titles and stuff, you're already in the negative. You're starting with kind of a fractious assumption.

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And I think a lot of people are now trying to break this down. And this is a contra, again, we're talking about hot takes. I don't think people should report to finance. Personal take, some people would disagree with me. But on the flip side, I've worked with a couple of finance leaders where if that was the model, I wouldn't kick and scream. I've also worked for finance leaders that if it was, you're going to be like, this was enjoyable, thank you for your time, we did some good work and I'm going to go find my next thing.

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So I think, again, it goes back to the human element. It's taking the heat out of it. And something that we really talked about when I think we first chatted about this is having conversations. If I don't understand what finance is doing, and I don't know what EBITDA is, and finance doesn't understand the human metric that I can tie to dollars with benefits, payroll, retention, cost to hire, we're never gonna speak the same language. So it's finding what works in my language, what works in their language, and kind of developing that joint language.

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Logan (07:12): Yeah, so the HR or the people function reporting into finance is always kind of an interesting one, like why that's a default. Why do you think sometimes companies just default to it?

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RyanMae McAvoy (07:23): I think finance and HR, anything G&A and essential, kind of all just gets lumped together. You find a lot of ops roles, a lot of HR, myself included, we started with executive assistants, things of that nature, so it's just kind of a catch-all. I also think because payroll is such a big cost, it does make sense from a lens to be like, we need finance having a really close eye on this cost center.

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Logan (07:28): Yeah, okay. That ends up making a lot of sense, looking at it as the cost center.

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RyanMae McAvoy (07:51): It also feeds into there's the whole who should run payroll. I think HR should be involved. I know HR practitioners that are like, that is strictly finance, I'll bless the numbers, but I don't have nothing to do with it. So it could be different in every organization. Again, there's no perfect science to it, but I think that's also part of, what is working for your team? What works for your org? I have close friends that are like, I would never touch payroll. I'm like, I love to get in there. I love to see what's going on. I love to make sure it's right.

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Logan (08:14): Yeah. And I do want to also comment on the finance piece of speaking the same language. It sometimes seems to me, I talk to HR folks, I sit in marketing, so I talk to marketing folks about this as well, and they have the same kind of take, it's like, finance is like this enigma almost. And when I've talked with them and worked with them on stuff, it's always super awesome because they'll teach you about how things operate. Like I had a CFO at one company that took it upon himself to teach the company how SaaS is reported, so that you understand multiples, all this stuff. I don't think it has to be quite like that.

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RyanMae McAvoy (08:57): And I think that could apply to every department. You hear HR doesn't like sales, no one likes HR. Okay, broadly maybe, but I love our marketing team. I posted on LinkedIn last week, our marketing team was hired, and I was like, if I ever gave up this whole people gig, I'd go work for Lauren because I adore her. I don't know anything about marketing, but I figure it out. It's just one of those things where the labels, anything that happens to you, you have women in the workplace and moms and all of this. Okay, let's take all the labels off. But if we were just two people working on the same project, what would that look like?

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Logan (09:26): And if you're two people working on the same project, not classifying in groups, you probably just work as two humans would work. I mean, at the end of the day, and probably have a good time doing it.

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RyanMae McAvoy (09:36): And I find myself in a lot of calls saying, like, same team, hey, we're all on the same team, let's figure this out.

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Logan (09:42): Yeah. So we're meandering a little bit. We are going to talk specifically about the finance relationship, and we're going to talk about how to work with other departments. But I do want to get back a little bit to the EBITDA conversation. So we asked a little bit about why we get these stereotypes about HR and EBITDA. But knowing that everybody wants the business to do well, and people programs, or programs in general in the business, I shouldn't even say people programs, business programs need to identify the business outcomes. How are you thinking about your people programs and tying those to business outcomes? And what advice would you have for listeners to just shift their mindset about how they're thinking about their people programs?

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RyanMae McAvoy (10:27): I think first, step one, is have a conversation with finance. Even if you loathe it and it's fractious, go to finance. And something I have said, and was taught to me a while ago by a mentor, is go ask finance what the most three important things are to them. Us to be profitable, us to be positive EBITDA, us to get more sales. What are the three things they're looking at? Because that's not only gonna give you insight into the business, which I know we're gonna touch on, it's also going to give you kind of your framework of how you're gonna come at things.

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If we're looking at an EBITDA positive model, I'm looking at a comp tool. It's hard to tie an ROI to a comp tool to show what we should be paying people, especially if it's telling people we should pay more. Well, I know that we're trying to be profitable, 5X in two years, whatever that goal may be. I'm gonna frame it up as, hey, if we invest X dollars, it's gonna allow us to do total comp statements, it's gonna allow us to level set, it's gonna allow us on the human side to make sure people can pay their bills. And in the long run, retention is going to stay here if we have happy employees, we're going to see this, and if we lose all these people, here's just a rough estimate on cost of hire and cost of lag time.

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Because you wanna speak in the numbers, and they don't have to be actual numbers, but you can look at someone and say, okay, someone leaves, what's the time loss? Six months. That's not great. What's the cost of recruiter time? What's the cost of applicant time? How much time are we taking for managers for interviews? How much time are we taking to get the onboarding? Do we have to buy a new laptop? Are they going from a single person to a person with family where there's fringe costs on the back? What does that all look like? And we don't know, those are unknown numbers. So you could give a range and say it could cost this, it could cost this. But also, what's the time?

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I'm a huge proponent of time is currency. And I look at this like, my husband and I, we don't have kids. Everyone's like, you guys have so much time on your hands. We still have someone come clean the house twice a month, because hourly what we make, quote unquote, us doing this is more efficient for our family than one of us. Yeah, we're capable, we have the skillset, we have a great person, we pay her fairly, we take good care of her, because we're buying back our time. And that's where I think you can have those conversations where it doesn't have to be like, if you give me this comp tool, I promise you the ROI is $7 million in 10 years. You can really frame it in a language.

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Again, it's the language. If I go to my finance person and explain that, it's usually pretty well received. I'm also blessed, I've worked with our finance person for four years now. We understand each other. He understands my objectives, I understand his objectives. We've gotten to a place where it doesn't have to be this continuing conversation where it's like, let me give you a thousand-point spreadsheet or deck or something, justifying it. We trust each other enough that I come to him and say, hey, what's my budget? Okay, I go back, I come back, I'm like, these are the three options. I could probably come with one option and say, this is what we're doing, because it's my program and it's my budget. I care about his input enough to see, is there something I may be missing? Is there something you know about? He also has a massive network, he's been around for a while. So when we're looking at vendors, we'll go to each other and be like, hey, can you ask your network about this? Because maybe there's something I'm not seeing on the people's side. If the finance person hates this tool and this is why, I'd rather know that before I sign up for it.

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Logan (13:21): Yeah, that's a good call. You said quite a few things in there I want to touch on. The time as currency is a really good one, because I don't listen to him so much anymore, but I was a Tim Ferriss fan back in like the early 2010s. And one of his statements was, time is the only un-renewable resource that you have. And that's a good thing to think about, especially in the context of your personal life. But even in business, you can decide, are we going to learn and take the time to learn something, or just spend the money and get the comp tool. And I'm assuming that when you say comp tool, you mean like a benchmarking type tool, so it's comp ranges, so that you can know all of that and then hire the best people, or get into the range that you want so that you expedite that process.

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RyanMae McAvoy (13:59): Yeah, like benchmarking market value. And the flip side to that, with my interest, is it's the human side. I wanna know if someone's so below market value it looks like they can't pay their bills. That's a huge red flag to me. We have a wonderful compensation philosophy at Blackthorn, and that's something I wanna track and I wanna know. And when I say pay their bills, yes, can they have health insurance? Can they feed their families? Can they have a little bit of fun? If it's so-and-so can't buy a yacht, I'm not gonna feel as bad about that, but I would like to have at least a pulse on that.

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Logan (14:17): Come on.

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RyanMae McAvoy (14:38): I know, I'm so mean. That whole HR is mean thing. We're just not out here handing out yachts yet.

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Logan (14:42): I mean, but that's gotta be a tough one, because living in the Bay Area, there's slips available in marinas, like, I don't know.

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RyanMae McAvoy (14:49): But that's a really good point to the conversation too. I live in the most expensive market in the US right now. You will consistently see San Jose, California, you have to make $300,000 to afford a single family home in probably not a great neighborhood. I could benchmark myself to a Bay Area salary. That's not how we do it, because we're really big fans of equity. And I always say, when I speak through that, I don't have anyone at Blackthorn that forces me to live here. My boss wasn't like, better sign that mortgage and go do all that. That's a personal choice.

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Could I go look at the big four? Maybe. That's not my style. And additionally, there are things outside of the cash itself that Blackthorn offers that work better for my life. I have a lot of flexibility. We've always prided ourselves on great healthcare. I have a lot of autonomy in programs and exploration. That to me is worth more than that salary you see at the Metas of the world. And yeah, that looks great on paper, but what are you giving up?

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Logan (15:18): Yeah, that is a good point, because the cash isn't always there. I don't know if this example works here, but I had looked at companies at one time and they would offer lunch and dinner for you at the office. And I was like, think about it. My wife was like, well, they're offering those two things, they expect you to work through both of those, and that's why they're doing it. So it is a perk, but you're going to be working late, and it's like a signal almost. But then those are perks, and then you get the cash on top of it. But you also have to decide if that's what you want to spend your time doing. And it's perfectly fine too. There's periods of life where that is, you really want to do that.

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RyanMae McAvoy (16:18): And I think there are weeks where, because we're pretty flexible with our quiet Fridays, which we've talked about in the past before, it's pretty flexible. I use that as kind of a vetting tool when we're talking to people. If somebody's like, oh, Fridays off and I never have to do anything, I'm like, ooh, so that's not exactly how that works. And I frame it up as, yeah, some weeks maybe I put in 32 hours, another week I'm putting in 60. It's not consistent, it's dependent on my tasks. My boss isn't micromanaging my hours, he's making sure I'm hitting my objectives.

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And it's the same thing, unlimited PTO, this is the new thing right now, I was like, it's a scam. In a lot of ways, yeah, I don't disagree with that. We have a PTO minimum requirement. And when people weren't taking it, we instituted a holiday shutdown. Because you can say you have unlimited PTO and it's this great perk, if it's designed so nobody goes on vacation, again, red flag. Whereas if we say, hey, we have this unlimited PTO, we encourage you to take a minimum, if you don't do that, we're waving the magic wand and kind of making you do it anyway.

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Logan (17:11): Yeah, that's interesting. I had a follow up, but now I can't remember, I sometimes get these. But okay, so the three things I do want to talk about. You've mentioned the three things now two or three times through this, in relation to asking finance the three things they care about. What is your philosophy around asking the three things to kind of get a better pulse on the business?

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RyanMae McAvoy (17:15): It'll come back, I'm sure. Very direct, so I'll just ask. And I actually do the three things with most department leaders, especially when new leaders come in, because, especially being kind of one of the longer tenured persons, you know things they may not know coming in. So if they're like, my goal is to flush everybody and bring in my own team, one, that's a huge red flag and I would hope we would catch that before they joined. But if they didn't, I could have a conversation and be like, I get it, you've probably worked with some great people, I'd like to kind of paint you a picture of what you already have, because you probably have some resources you don't know.

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And so I think the three things applies not just to finance, across the board. And I know you and I had bonded at a conference. I did a course where they talked about learning the business. I don't write code, I'm not on the product team, I don't actually go in Salesforce, which is a huge element of our work. I understand the fundamentals of our business. And you and I were at a conference, I was texting the sales guys, they're using these and it's terrible, like we could do so much better. Because I know enough to be dangerous. And I think that also makes those relationships beyond the three things.

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Like my sales guys know, if they're pitching an HR tech company, I'm gonna tell you everything I know, I'm gonna help however I can, and I might be like, we don't wanna do business with them. So it's building those foundations across structures, and it doesn't just apply to finance, because I can show my value in that way. If I can explain what our product does, and HR at most companies can't. And I've had my moments. I worked at a company for the first two weeks, I was walking around saying, I did one thing, and my husband's like, you have to stop saying that, it's like completely not what they do, and you kind of sound like a dumb girl right now. So let's reframe, I'll teach you the basics and then you can figure it out. So I think that's where asking the three things is important, and it also starts to organically, people come to you and ask what your priorities are.

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Logan (19:13): Yeah, that's good. And I want to frame that a little bit, because I've talked to a few people and there's a lot of advice, learn the business, learn how the business makes money. And when you had mentioned going around asking departments their three priorities, all of this seems like a very tactical way to start understanding the business really well. Like your sales example about being able to text your sales leader, hey, this event is using XYZ product, you should hit them up. That seems like a very tactical way to take the vague, learn the business, and go out and do it. And I would imagine it could be coffee conversations, water cooler stuff, however you do that at your company.

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RyanMae McAvoy (19:41): And here's all the things everybody's complaining about, so here's your in. It very much is, and it starts to happen organically when people realize you're invested in not just what you're doing. And that's where, at my last company, my husband were in parallel things, and they're like, he should come over, this would be great. I was like, that's never going to happen, him and I should never work at the same organization. I believe there's a separation of church and state, or whatever you want to call it. But because of him being around me and speaking engineer, which I don't fluently speak, I learned enough that I was an asset to that place, short of hiring someone that would have been a great candidate for them, because of selfish reasons. And I think that's where, when you can repeatedly show you are invested in every step of the business, it builds that trust that people teams don't usually have.

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Logan (20:37): Yeah, and that's probably one of the reasons why, there's probably many reasons, I don't want to single it down to one, why you and your finance team have such a good relationship, so that you're able to run the programs that you end up wanting to run.

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RyanMae McAvoy (20:50): I think so. And I think he also appreciates, I'm pretty candid. I don't run the finances in our house, I'm the spender one. I'll buy it, I love it, add to cart, great. I will be open about that with our finance guy. Like, hey, I'm spendy and I know that, so I kind of need you to guardrail me on things if we're getting a little out of control. I'm also one who loves the deal. I'm the first one to be like, girls being like, it was $5, thanks, I love this dress, I have no problem with that. So our finance guy knows, sometimes he's like, hey, did you look at an alternative to this? Because I'm so fascinated with the product or whatever it is, that I have that gut check.

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He also knows, when it comes to contract negotiations, I have no problem being like, yeah, well, your competitors said they would do this, so are you going to match, or am I going to go there? And again, it's just building that trust and coming up with, where are our gaps? Our finance leader, Eric, he'll tell you he forgets the human element, because I'll spout off facts about people as we're going through roster, and he's like, definitely don't remember all of that, glad we're having the conversation. So we work on each other's weaknesses and strengths and make it kind of a holistic approach.

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Logan (21:45): Yeah, and I would say you could probably take that playbook of working together across all sorts of departments, for everybody listening. It doesn't have to just be finance. So I wanna shift gears a little bit. And actually I remember what I wanted to ask you before, when you had mentioned the quiet Fridays that you have. And I'm going to use this to lead into creating similar experiences for employees. When you had the experience, I think you said somebody says, I don't have to do anything on Fridays, and you're like, no, no, that's not what we do. It's probably a really good filter for who you end up hiring, if they identify that. I mean, maybe, I don't know.

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RyanMae McAvoy (22:26): Very much, very much. We have an amazing talent person at Blackthorn, and he kind of runs all of it. I usually don't enter the conversation until the offer is getting signed, but we all kind of know in the back of our head. It did start as Fridays off. It's been an ever-evolving process over the five years, and now it's not a full work day. It's no meetings, unless the customer, it's going to blow up, whole app is down, yeah, probably somebody needs to step in. It's, hey, there may be a few Slacks and email, I encourage people to do heads-down work. I love data. We met through Cole, who is also, he's like the guru of data, but that's when I do my deep work, because I don't have Slack going off constantly, I don't have to rush to a meeting. And it also then ties to the other part of, I can go to the DMV, I can go to the doctor. I have a doctor's appointment this Friday. I didn't have to put in partial PTO or anything, because my boss knows I'm gonna be on later, I'll probably be on earlier. It's balancing both of those things.

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And it's again the same thing, where if you have unlimited PTO and somebody's like, yeah, by the way, I'm going to Europe for six weeks and I expect you to pay me even though I started a month ago, those are kind of things you use to understand. And maybe it's a one-off, maybe somebody's getting married and this isn't planned, okay, that's different than, I heard you had unlimited PTO so I booked all of this the second my offer was signed. It's kind of gauging situation by situation.

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It's very consistent on the quiet Fridays, people are online, some more than others, and that's okay, as long as they're not pulling people in, and it's establishing boundaries. I will say consistently, what are my stop everything, drop what you're doing? Did someone not get paid? You don't mess with people's money. Is somebody in a crisis where they need the EAP, they can't find their insurance card, they had something catastrophic happen in their life, and we're gonna need to jump in and support, whether it's bereavement or a temporary leave, what does that look like? Is somebody doing something harmful to other people in the company, and creating an unsafe environment or an illegal situation? Those are my drop everythings, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, I'm gonna stop what I'm doing and assist you. If you Slack me on Friday and say, I can't remember my password to the HR system, okay, what do you need it for, leading question, I just wanna listen, cool, talk to you Monday, have a great one.

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It's just balancing, and yeah, I could probably answer that question really quick, but I don't want it to seem like that's what I do, is jump every time. And I encourage other people to do it too. I meet with every new hire on day one and say, hey, we're in time zones, we're all over the place, we have crazy social channels that sometimes on weekends are just, if that's not good for you, establish your boundaries. And it's not even saying, this is when I work, take it or leave it. I'm a West coaster, our population's predominantly central, Eastern, overseas. I tell people if they're in the West coast time zones, talk to your boss about kind of expectations of availability, and then get your DND game strong. Because my Slack from like 5 a.m. to 7 a.m. Pacific is popping. I'm not getting it, because my Do Not Disturb is on. We have that established, we have a protocol if there is an emergency. But I think it's also giving people the power to set those boundaries.

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We talk about, our calendars are public. Mental health is a big thing that we talk about, I talk about it a lot personally. I put therapy on my calendar. And it says, therapy, do not book over, all caps. And that is me telling everyone, you're not getting a response during that hour. It's also me trying to set the precedent of, you can be a human, you can go to therapy, you can have these moments. I also book therapy at the end of the day, because my pings are a little bit quieter at the end of the day. If I was like, I'm seeing my therapist at 8 a.m. every Wednesday, that would probably be inconvenient for a lot of people. I don't think anybody would say anything, but it's also observing the workflow, the cadence, what's best for yourself. It's also gonna stress me out to try and be in therapy and know that I'm coming back to a Slack bubble that's like 60 messages later.

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Logan (26:01): Yeah. The time zone thing, I'm a West coaster as well. And I've worked for European-based and East coast-based, and the morning flurry is always interesting when you wake up to it as a West coaster. And when I would travel back to Europe and nothing would happen until like nine or 10, I'd be like, this is almost kind of like vacation, because you're not waking up to just this barrage of stuff.

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RyanMae McAvoy (26:26): 1000%. My best friend moved to the Poconos a couple years ago, I work out there a week a quarter usually, and I joke I have a whole day before my work day starts. We get up, we usually have coffee, we go for a walk, my Slack doesn't start usually popping until like 8:30 or nine, and I'm like, what is this, this is amazing. On the flip side, when somebody in Australia maybe needs me, I'm like, so it's now eight o'clock at night on the East coast, and yeah, I'm hopping on a call, where is it, maybe four or five here. So it's finding the balance, I can speak to both. There's pros and cons to both. I'm a morning person, so this schedule works for me.

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Logan (26:57): Yeah. So in all of that, like balancing time zones and having everybody across, how do you think about creating a similar experience for everybody across your organization?

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RyanMae McAvoy (27:11): I think it's consistency, and I think it's calling out when we miss the mark. I'm infamous for head to paper, so I'll fire off a Slack and be like, I should have put schedule send on that. So I try and start with that when I talk to people, like, hey, if I Slack you on Friday, it's probably not urgent. If I at you five times and then pick up the phone and call you, then it is urgent. I just sometimes move so fast I forget to schedule, so please don't take that as a sign, because we do have the option to schedule Slacks, to schedule emails.

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It's really easy to forget to do that. And so it's giving grace. And I'm also really clear in trying to say, hey, if you're not sure, you again have the power and the autonomy to ask. If your boss is sending you 10 things on Friday, ask them, hey, is this the drop everything, or is this just you kind of clearing out your week and setting us up for next week? What does that look like? And additionally, if you're not comfortable having that conversation, you can come to me, you can come to someone else on the people team, you can skip level and just be like, hey, I'm kind of not following the cadence on this, what does it look like?

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Logan (28:05): Yeah, I really like the schedule send stuff. When it was starting to become popular, I was like, that seems whatever. But it actually is kind of nice, because then it's like, well, then I can get it off my plate whenever I think about it. And if it's for the East coasters midnight, they don't have to wake up to it, it can come in right after.

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RyanMae McAvoy (28:22): I have started putting scheduled in front of the subject line, or in my Slacks, especially if I'm scheduling it for nine o'clock their time and it goes to them. I don't want them to expect me to respond right away, because it's still six o'clock my time. So I'll be like, scheduled, hey, when you get this tomorrow, this is kind of what happened, I'll be online at blah, blah.

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Logan (28:31): Okay. That's a really good tactic, especially because the time zone thing's crazy. I think COVID really put that on steroids, with everybody moving around and stuff. But I like that, that's a really good tip.

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RyanMae McAvoy (28:53): And we encourage people to use their Slack statuses and stuff too. You'll see some really funny stuff in there. Hey, I'm having a workout. I did actually have to go to the DMV during the middle of a work day last week, and I had put like a sad face and was like, at the DMV, not having fun, be back at this time. And I think you just, again, just showing that you're human, giving people expectations. Something we've been trying to implement is, most people are in each time. Every time I put up a Slack status, it's, I'll be back at 8 p.m. EST, I'll be back at this time EST, it's just easier for people if it's all kind of aligned.

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Some people, I mean, we all struggle with it. I have Eastern and Pacific on my calendar, so I can go and say, hey, I can meet you at one o'clock Eastern, so I know I'm not double booking myself. I now don't change my time zones when I take my computer out of Pacific, because more than once I've scheduled myself a 5 a.m. meeting when I come home, and I'm like, oh, that's cool. So really making sure that you're just aware of what works for you, and also finding the tools. I fully encourage people to work for what works. I'm a list taker, I love pen and paper, I use electronic things, I have a calendar, that works for me. I don't expect anyone else to do that, but that's just what works for me.

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Logan (29:51): Yeah, I actually for these I now do a notepad, because I have to take my notes, because I would find that the click-clacking would hit recordings. And to be honest, there is something about writing it down that you end up remembering it. That's completely irrelevant to the company.

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RyanMae McAvoy (30:09): And that's a learning style. There's a learning style. It's, again, some people learn from listening, some people learn from writing, some people learn from seeing. As people leaders, we have to be able to ask and identify and go, okay, so I need to do a loom for this person, because my email's not gonna land.

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Logan (30:24): Yeah, a lot of different styles there. Okay, we covered a lot of ground. And actually, for the listeners, I had this whole agenda and we just started going down the list. And that's one of the things I love about these conversations, because you don't have to have it be scripted. And I think there's tons of value in here for everybody. RyanMae, I wanted to see, is there anything that we didn't cover that you would like to leave the audience with?

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RyanMae McAvoy (30:49): I know we chatted on kind of the downside of the financing, and we didn't really deep dive into like, hey, we have to do budget cuts, we have to do a layoff, what does that look like? And I think this is where those relationships we talked about building are gonna thrive. Because the common misconception is, if I stand up and say, hey, we're doing a layoff, hey, we're cutting X, Y, Z because of this, there's a general assumption that I just like pulled out my cauldron, which cackled, and said I was gonna ruin a bunch of lives. And it's not actually true.

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It's an executive meeting, there's data and metrics behind it. So how do you pair those? One, because most HR people are on an island, and it's not fun to be on an island and then have everyone hate you, or feel like everyone hates you. And two, have a lot of buy-in so the message lands, that this was an executive decision, this was a team decision. And I think that's the offset of building that relationship. If we have to make a cut, I know that finance can speak to a part of it, so it's not just me rambling for 20 minutes on some bad news. I know that I can go to my exec team. We actually had this conversation recently with some changes, where I was like, I need help, I'm gonna write it, I'm gonna do all this, but I can't stand up and just spout this off or go through it, I need some support, and our exec team is open to it. So that's where I think you can use those foundational things to also go through the bad times.

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Logan (31:45): Yeah, that's a good call out. That, like, outside of just working and making sure that the team, everybody knows that it's a company decision, there was data and backing. Do you have a prioritization framework that you go through when you're having to think about these things and you're working with the team?

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RyanMae McAvoy (32:21): I do. And I know that I have said publicly, there's a couple of podcasts where I've been like, salespeople hate me, because, if you're like, this works for 99% of people and not the 1%, I'm like, this was great, have a wonderful day. And I think it's more than that, I think we play to our strengths of, what's important. I will look at a human roster and do an analysis of, how does this affect every name on this list. So I know, and I wanna prepare it, and I'm gonna talk to that manager and be like, hey, this isn't gonna be great for so-and-so, I'm gonna talk to them, I'd like you to be available for support for them. I want them to have an understanding of the decision.

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We really do try and, if we're taking something away, we try and take it away across the board. We very rarely take things away, but if we have to change something, or change a structure, or what that looks like, we try and do it equitably across the board, because it's just hard to be like, well, only this set is having this happen. And that's where, I know we had talked about when we were chatting at Transform, our parental leave. It's a standard 12 weeks. There are states and countries that require more, there are countries that require considerably less, that was kind of the happy medium of all of that. And yes, there's still a portion of, if you live in a country that has generous parental leave, take it, I support you, I am jealous, I wish all of the people in my life that are parents had that ability. I can live with myself at the end of the day knowing we do more than most.

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Logan (33:36): Yeah, and it is hard to come up with, because sometimes the impression would be like, it's not enough, or what have you. And it's like, it is hard to come up with something. But as long as you're setting the same framework for everybody, then it's hard to fault people for that.

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RyanMae McAvoy (33:53): And that's where we really lean in on, it's not fair, it's equitable. Healthcare in the US, it's a market, there's cost, there's not a socialized system like there is in other places. So maybe it seems really cool, we're having the super secret open enrollment meeting, you're gonna pick, pretty sure most of the people on this end will be like, yeah, and it goes up every year, and sometimes you can find a provider. Just the same as we're all like, oh my gosh, socialized medicine, that would be great, and people on that side may be like, well, there's this and this. So are we offering the same to everybody? No.

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Are we making sure people have coverage, that if there's a catastrophic incident they're not gonna be bankrupted for medical debt across the globe? Yes, that's something we factor in. And I think that's why I love the word equitable. I had given you the example of somebody from one of the other countries saw a US salary, and was like, well, I should make that, that would be fair. And you could argue that, and I'm a data nerd, I think that's where Cole and I bonded, is the data said, okay, well, they're using this percentage of their salary for cost of living. Mine's 10X that, so am I getting a 10X raise? Because that feels fair, my data says I should be making this. And my boss was like, well, I was like, so it goes back to being equitable. Your salary covers these things, and it's not going to be dollar for dollar.

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Logan (34:59): Yeah, and that's back to kind of where we started, with a comp tool and things like that and how that stuff looks, because often it looks at cost of living and all of that. And you can argue in certain places that the cost of living is better and all of this stuff. It really is a tough conversation. I would probably just leave it at that.

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RyanMae McAvoy (35:17): It's a very tough conversation. And I think something that we really need to remind people, I can make data tell any story I want. So can you, especially with Claude and these models and stuff that we can all produce. And so when I present to our exec team with data, I remind them, this is one piece of the story, here's some other pieces I may have found. Have I tried to get as much of the story into this data model as I can? Absolutely. It's not gonna tell the whole story. So most of my data comes with a RyanMae note section, and I write a novel about something that they need to consider in addition to this.

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And that's where I really want people to know, as HR leaders, data is your friend, data can also be your enemy. Because people are gonna use your data. We had somebody ask about, I had posted an article about pay disparity, and they were like, hey, I saw this, and it just seems like it's differing, and it kind of got a little political. They talked to me one on one, it was a very wonderful conversation, and when we looked into it, I was like, so my article and your article are citing the same research and saying completely different things. So where's our take on this? And we talked about it. I don't know if we're ever gonna be 100% aligned on things, but it was a pleasant conversation, nobody felt slighted. And it was a very glaring example of, you can make data tell any story you want. So what you need to do is make sure your data is equitable across your people, keeping you out of any kind of legal trouble, and not the only thing you're focusing on.

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Logan (36:32): Yeah, and that has been true, the you can make data tell whatever you want has been true forever. I don't know if it's forever, but for very long. And that's the whole point behind it, and the measurement of it.

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RyanMae McAvoy (36:40): And people forget that. Like, well, this is what the data says. When I joke, it's the girl math equation. I can make your data say anything you want. It's the same as if I go, well, I returned this many things, so now I have this much money. My husband's like, that's not exactly how that works. I'm like, well, girl math says it is.

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Logan (36:58): Yeah. Maybe I'll have to have Cole's take on data fallacies. I worked with a data fallacy while back, I did a podcast with her, and we went through three big mistakes you make with data, and talking through it. And I love that stuff, because it's like, here's where you're wrong in your data, your data says it, but here's all the things that you're wrong.

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RyanMae McAvoy (37:02): Oh my God, I would love that. As soon as you start modeling data, there's a human bias to it.

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Logan (37:24): So it's just fun, at least I find it fun to go through that thought exercise. So, well, good, RyanMae, I appreciate the time, this was a good conversation, I hope everybody got some really great nuggets through here. But for the audience, RyanMae, where would you like the audience to connect with you?

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RyanMae McAvoy (37:30): Agreed. Same. LinkedIn is the best place, it's usually where I'm the most vocal. Lots of pictures of my cat, he's my favorite content, but that's usually your place. I also try and keep up with messages, especially newer HR people or people who are alone. That's really where I love to chat and connect. If somebody's like, hey, I'm new to this, what do you think I should do, or, hey, I'm a person of one and I don't have any resource, here's the communities I'm in, here's who I talk to. Also, I'm happy to just grab a coffee and listen, because it's hard to be alone.

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Logan (38:12): It is. So I would encourage people, not to bombard your inbox, whether it's RyanMae or anybody else, just talk.

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RyanMae McAvoy (38:17): Find your community, find your network. And I think that's where, on Transform, we saw it, everybody kind of connected with their people. And it's also good for just your wellbeing to have people who get it. It's also good to have a resource. I have things I'm good at, I have things that I call other people for. And if you came to me and said, hey, I need your help on this, I'm like, actually you want to talk to so-and-so, let me get you an intro, because I'm not gonna give you the best advice on that.

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Logan (38:41): Yeah, and that's often a good place to start, is just having somebody or people to talk to. We do a Friday night dinner with our neighbors, and I always kind of say, it makes us better humans afterwards, because you just get to chat about the week, and it's your close friends or close people. And yeah, having your community is a good thing.

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RyanMae McAvoy (39:03): And it leads to connections like this. Like Cole was like, you two need to connect. And it's been super enjoyable getting to know each other. So I think that's where fostering those relationships, having conversations you wouldn't normally have, is helpful, because you will find people in your community and network that you may not have thought would fit.

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Logan (39:06): Exactly. Well, that is good closing notes for this episode. Thanks everybody for joining, and thank you, RyanMae, for taking the time to talk us through how to become better HR professionals.

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RyanMae McAvoy (39:29): Yes, was super fun.