Meta, Rehire Blacklists, and the Quiet Power of HR

[00:00:00] You're listening to Work Wire, sponsored by Career Club and SHRM. Career Club has a range of services aimed at job seekers with an empathetic approach. Whether you are a job seeker yourself, know someone who is in job search, or an HR professional looking to bring a more empathetic approach to transitioning employees, check out Career.Club. If you are an HR professional seeking to enhance your skills, subscribe to SHRM and explore their extensive resources. Visit SHRM.org. That's SHRM.org.

[00:00:31] Hey, everybody. This is Bob Goodwin, president of Career Club, joined by my good friend, the president and CEO of SHRM, Johnny C. Taylor Jr. Johnny, welcome to another episode of The Work Wire. Another episode of The Work Wire. Let's go for it. What's up, man? What's on your mind with everything going on today? Well, there is no shortage of topics, as you know. And today what we're going to talk about is a repeat guest, if you will, on The Work Wire, which is Meta.

[00:00:58] Yes. So we met a few weeks ago was in the news for doing layoffs, and you're calling them low performers, and people are like, wait a minute, I'm not a low performer. Got it. We've done that one. Right. Well, the next iteration of this is Meta now has do not hire list, do not rehire list, or non-regrettable attrition. Right.

[00:01:25] And the people who are being affected by that are having issues as they go and seek new employment, which we'll get to in a minute. But, you know, it's something that I personally haven't seen before. You've got more experience, obviously, as a former CHRO and in your capacity as a lawyer, and obviously the purview you've got at SHRM.

[00:01:48] I guess just sort of starting off, like, tell me about what you know about do not rehire lists. Is that even common in practice? Yeah. Actually, it's a lot more common than you think. We often, companies, not all, but have a check, a box that you check that says this person is not eligible for rehire. Right. And I tell you why. Back in the day when I was at Blockbuster Entertainment, hiring decisions were made all over the country.

[00:02:16] When you're a large, far-flung organization, what if someone stole from you as an engineer, embezzlement in Florida, where we were headquartered, and then we had regional offices all over the world, and that person just popped up and the resume says they used to work at Blockbuster. They're a great interviewer, interviewee, and so then they go through the process, and guess what? They get the job because the right hand didn't know what the left hand knew.

[00:02:44] So for years, we have had people who were on the do not hire list or not eligible for rehire. Yes. So worded. It was typically, though, people who had done something really bad. You were a sexual harasser. You were an embezzler. You stole from the company. So, yes, that occurred, and I think it's a very good practice. Let me be clear. In those limited circumstances, I think it is a really, really good practice.

[00:03:11] What you're seeing now, which is a little newer, and we've sort of – I think this is what you're getting at – is when someone's a low performer to say that. Because what we've done in the past is say, because here's the problem with it. A subsequent or future employer calls you and says, give me a reference on Johnny. Nine times out of ten, it's name, rank, and serial number. He worked here. This was his title. If you want salary, and it's okay, we'll give you that.

[00:03:38] Then the question is, would you hire this person again? And you've had that, right? Yes, 100%. I've been on that call. That's right. So, whether it's on the box, formalized, or the question is asked, would you hire them again? The process is real, and we effectively have transferred that information in the past anyway. So, something to me says, well, at least they're being honest. Now, here's the deal.

[00:04:05] What they're really saying is not that you shouldn't hire them, but that they can't come back here. Right. So, where it's gotten kind of, this is in slippery slope territory, is that the cases that you describe, sexual harassment, embezzling, whatever, aggressive behavior, whatever it might be. Like, yeah, because they worked in Hialeah, we don't want them working for us in Wichita.

[00:04:32] So, yes, that totally makes sense. Where it's getting a little weird, and there's a little anecdote here, of a senior engineer at Meta consistently rated to top performers laid off in 2022. They later applied to nearly 20 positions at Meta. Despite initial interest, communications suddenly stopped. Former manager eventually disclosed they've been marked ineligible for rehire with no reason given and no way to appeal.

[00:04:57] And this is someone who had consistently had exceeded expectations types of reviews. And it just sort of is in this black box. And I guess maybe that's my next question for you, Johnny, is the company, should they be, are they required to disclose to the employee you're not eligible for rehire? And here's why. Right. No. And there is no appellate process. The company doesn't have to.

[00:05:24] The company could have a process for appeal, and they could disclose to you, but they don't have to. And that's really at the core of it. It's fundamentally, it doesn't feel fair. But you've now, someone's left my organization. I'm going to create an entire process for them to appeal. To what end? Like, I just don't want you back here. You know, and here's the deal.

[00:05:50] We've all boxed ourselves into this stuff because you don't want to create information, data, points for plaintiff's bar. Right? You're just not eligible. Right? So I'm worried about, okay, so if I tell you all of this stuff, you then go take it to your lawyer and you sue me. So I'm just not, you can't work here anymore. We'll stop. That's it. You're not, and it could be your performance is low. It could be you're not culturally aligned with us.

[00:06:18] It could be you just don't innovate the way, and you don't collaborate well with people. You know, when we talk about organizations who have guiding principles around collaboration. You and I have met people, and I'm going to give you no names mentioned, right, recently, who could never come back to Sherm if we, once they're done. And that's fact. That just has to be fact.

[00:06:47] So I don't know, and I don't have to explain it because why? I'm only going to put myself and the company at risk. That's the thing. So trying to sort through, I don't know. On one hand, I'm bothered. I empathize with the person because if I were on such a list, it's like going to TSA and you're on the do not fly list and you don't know why. Yes. You're right. I totally get how that doesn't feel right.

[00:07:13] I think public accommodation, the right to fly is a little different than working for a private employer. You just don't have a right to work there. You do have a right to have accessibility to public transportation like airports. And so you do have a right to know why you're on the do not fly list and you have to have an appellate process that doesn't apply in the private sector. Where it gets pretty murky for me.

[00:07:38] And this is another topic that we've covered previously is what I feel is like the undue influence a past employer has on future employment. And what I'm talking about is like non-competes. Yes. Now, you know, I've called the company. Hey, you know, name, rank, serial number, all the stuff you said. And, you know, would you rehire this person? And they say, no, we wouldn't. Can you help me understand why? No, I can't.

[00:08:08] Right. So it could be everything from they just didn't play well. They weren't a cultural fit, which as we've talked, I'm going to now mix three work wire episodes into one. Just because you're not a cultural fit at one place doesn't mean you're not a cultural fit somewhere else. That's right. Culture is kind of in the eye of the beholder. Right. Right.

[00:08:27] And so if I don't know why it was that this company is essentially giving me a bad review to a future employer coupled with non-competes, it's like, let me go. Like, why am I being so shy? I just want a job. And like at every turn, it feels like my former employer is keeping me from getting my next role. Bob, let's separate.

[00:08:51] So there's the question of should you if you're on the do not hire list or rehire list and you want to reapply this guy, feel for apply for 20 jobs to get back into Google. Fundamentally, why would you want someone or an organization that doesn't want you? If you left there and they said they don't want you back and you've reapplied for 20 times, the real question is, why are you doing that? Right.

[00:09:21] You know what I mean? So that's a that's a question that I mean, my response to that, Johnny, would be, you know, I don't know how many employees meta has, but let's say 100,000, several hundred. Whatever. But just make the math easy, 100,000. And I work on one team on their VR stuff and it's not even their main business. And, you know, I'd like to go work on the Instagram team or the WhatsApp team or the Facebook team. Right. Because I like what we do. I'm a believer. The benefits are great.

[00:09:51] I was just kind of on the wrong team working for the wrong person. And I love the company. I just I wasn't in the right role at that company. But the company has decided it doesn't love you. That's it. These things have to be mutual. Like, I want to marry you. But here's my point. Did the company decide it or did a manager decide it? And now I have no visibility into why Johnny doesn't like me. I don't know if he was threatened by me.

[00:10:20] And so he's decided to check the box that, you know, I'm not eligible for rehire. And it's really kind of feels vindictive to me. Now you're on to something. And I don't know. It took a while. Yeah, but I know. I think that's the crux of it. I don't know that. I don't know Meta's processes. And it may be. I would guess in all the companies that I've worked, no manager could put you on the do not hire relist. That ultimately the manager may suggest this person is not eligible for rehire.

[00:10:49] But there was an internal process where HR had to make the show. That's what I want to hear about. That's what I want to hear about. Because we do know there could be an IQ could be a racist and therefore your manager could could therefore the manager could be racist, to be clear, or a misogynist and could decide no woman is eligible for rehire here. So we would not, that idea that my manager decided, yeah, your manager likely can say, I don't think this person's eligible for rehire.

[00:11:19] They typically have to make this case to someone in HR to make sure there's a legitimate reason. This guy, I don't know him or her, but all of us have worked around people who were so disruptive in the workplace that I don't want them in any of our divisions. I don't want them in any, not enough to, you know, they were great performers, right? Don't knock their technical, but they were disruptive. They were negative. They were, you know, they just, when they walked in, that dark cloud came into a bright room.

[00:11:49] And so the company, someone in HR presumably heard this, did their homework and determined, yeah, that manager's right. I'd like to think, and again, I don't know this, but I'd like to think meta is smart enough not to just let managers guard around and put do not hire because that puts them at risk. If they're, if at some point there's a pattern in practice case where the EEOC comes in and says,

[00:12:17] gosh, there's a lot of women on this thing. There's a lot of men on this case. And I don't know how you all arrive at this. And it seems to adversely impact one group more than the other. So I think meta is a sophisticated enough organization from an HR standpoint and legal standpoint that like we were at Blockbuster, like I was at IEC when I was the head of HR, we check to make sure that what you're describing doesn't happen.

[00:12:40] This situation is, is, is I've seen this before and in other companies in which I've worked someone who we let go. And that person then subsequently becomes a serial applier for position. They just want to come back. And we're like, no, no, no, no. And when you look at, Oh, I applied again for this job. I applied again. You're like, gosh, I don't know how to tell the person.

[00:13:10] You're never going to get a job here. The determination was made that you simply are not aligned with our culture and, and no one's going to take the risk on hiring you again here. Now the real issue. So I said, separate the internal hire from the conversation about, okay, it's impact on your future employment. Let me give you some advice. If you're listening and you are one of these people who's been impacted, and this is what I'm going to say to the guy from meta, get on the offensive here, as opposed to playing defense.

[00:13:40] If you apply for a position at another company, tell them upfront, listen, I worked at meta. I don't use a lot. I don't think it's a good idea to trash your employer, but this was what my experience was there in an sort of objective play. And as a result, I wasn't a culture fit. So, you know, if you think I'm right for this job, what you're going to see at ultimately when you go do background checks is that I was not eligible for rehire.

[00:14:07] I've given the same advice and you've heard it talking about merging topics on the work wire to someone who's formerly incarcerated. Yeah. Right. I've said to them, if you know, at some point, this data point is going to come up. I'm not eligible for rehire. I'm not, I have something in my background that makes me not then get in front of it. Explain it. If a manager came, if an employer, a prospective employee count in front of me before background

[00:14:35] checks and said to me, listen, I used to work at X company. I didn't like the manager. They didn't like me. Look at my performance evaluations. I did really well, but we just were oil and water. I think this is a better place for me. I'm interviewing you as a manager. You should interview me as employee. And if that's right, I can do the job. Let's just make sure we get along. You're going to find that in this case said they would not rehire me. This is why that's what I would do.

[00:15:03] Cause meta in short, I believe has the right legal right to do what it's doing, whether you morally agree with it or not. And if that's the case, the real question is what are you going to do since you know, this could come up in the background check process. Okay. So, so first of all, I really would echo the advice. I know that it's very hard for candidates to do this, but the advice is sound narrative, right?

[00:15:32] You coach people on this, right? Talk about it. No, I like weekly. I coach people on, on this kind of thing. And what, what, what candidates need to understand is this is an adult to adult conversation. This is not a parent child conversation. This is mutual due diligence between two adults. And that's one. Two is that the candidate should always be controlling the narrative. Always. Always. And this is their personal brand.

[00:16:01] This is their story to, to own and to communicate effectively. I would agree with you that, um, I mean, the good news too, is Canada only needs one job. They don't need, it's the whole world of anything. They need one fit. And so, you know, I, I can totally see him probably even projecting my, my own personality into this said the right way. I'd be like, I really respect that. That you, you nailed it. I was just going to use the word respect.

[00:16:29] You can actually position this in storytelling. It's narrative, but you could go in and say, God, I actually respect that candidate. Now, again, how you can't come across like a scorned lover, like ex lover. You got to be really careful in how you articulate it. But I would immediately disabuse them of the notion that I was fired for something bad, or I'm on the not eligible. And I would say that, listen, I didn't text your resume. I didn't use a racial, like let's dispel.

[00:16:59] I'm just going to tell you, you have to drive that narrative. Yep. So I do want to super great advice. You brought up, and I wanted to go into this, like protected classes and things like that. And, you know, it seems that there still should be, it's almost like a trust, but verify. You said earlier, like, you know, I want to believe that meta's got enough sophistication and, you know, mechanisms around things like this. They've let go of a ton of people.

[00:17:29] I don't know how gutted their HR department is in all of this. And if they've got, you know, some young person that's been in the role for a year, and they've got a strong vocal person saying, look, I'm just telling you, put Bob on the not eligible for rehire us. Yes, Mr. Taylor. Right. You know, and it's done. Right. It just, I don't know, there's something that feels just profoundly, I'm probably overreaching

[00:17:57] here, but kind of in our judicial system, it's like not being able to face your accuser. And like, but what am I being accused of? What is it? You may be right. I may disagree with it. We may agree to disagree. I just want to know what it is. I think a best practice would be to tell that individual. I mean, by the way, it should have shown up in his or her performance evaluations along the way. So, right. Let's start with that.

[00:18:24] No one should be surprised about what it is. You've left a job in your career. Maybe you haven't, but some of our listening audience might, where you know that manager, if I'm asked to give you three references, don't give that person's name because that person is not going to say good things about me, right? Just because we don't get along. So, you know what I mean? And that is, that happened even before this check the box thing is effectively you've run across a manager who will not give you a good reference.

[00:18:53] Your job is either get in front of it since it's now memorialized in writing or, you know, or not. But I sure as hell, let me tell you, there's no way in the world I would read, just me. This is just us talking, right? There's no way I'd reapply 20 times to a company that told me you're not, we don't want you here. I can't get back to that. That's just insane.

[00:19:16] In your capacity as a CHRO, would you have firm rules of exactly what qualifies for the not eligible to rehire? Well, so by definition, much of HR is great. I don't know that you can have firm rules because you can't. People and processes, if they're just, what I would have is guardrails. Okay. Fair enough.

[00:19:43] There are things that we just have to be aware of. Let's say you get a guy. We, we've not here at CHRM, but in other places, I've worked with a manager who never engaged in sexual harassment or anything like it, but is clearly not supportive of women in leadership. Sure. I know it. You know, conversations that we have over the water cooler or whatever, I just know.

[00:20:11] And we ultimately decide I've got to reduce headcount. This guy gets caught up in it. And the question is, would I want him rehired here? Am I going to put in writing, well, he actually doesn't like women. Am I going to tell him? That's a lawsuit in the making, right? Because every woman who's worked for him now says, Johnny Taylor said it as his leader. We know what, this is what I was feeling. I mean, so you get what I'm saying, Bob, there's some practical realities here where

[00:20:41] information and you've got to verify it. You're right. You don't want some person just making this up. But in practice, if I were the head of HR at Meta, I'd have an experienced, not an entry level HR journalist, an experienced person essentially kick the tires. And someone's on the list. And kicking the tires means out of all of my years of experience, does this qualify? Does this feel like someone we never want to work here?

[00:21:10] Because it could be, to your point, even within Meta, this person just couldn't work for that boss. But they could work with someone else in another part of Meta. So, and HR people really do a good job of that, in part because we still have a shortage of talent. No one wants to pull someone out. And like, I move people all over the organization because, yeah, you may not get along with that person, but you get sometimes personality. We know that.

[00:21:36] So what I would say is optimistically, HR and practically, HR people don't just put people on these lists or allow managers to just put people on this list because we need to fill these darn jobs. If I can get you away from here, move you to another division where there's a better fit, I take a number off of my TA list, talent acquisition list, open jobs. So I don't know that. I want to believe that in practice, something else is going on in that particular situation. Got it.

[00:22:08] If you were coaching an HR professional who didn't agree, like Johnny was a good performer. Like, I know that y'all don't get along and I can see that like, this isn't going to work out with this company between Johnny and you, but ineligible for rehire, really? That seems a little strong because that probably will come out in a reference on another day.

[00:22:37] And I'm not comfortable right now with that being my answer to that question. Right. That's, you just said it, that would be the conversation. And then that person would respond if they put the check mark, it may be, you know, Johnny, you're right. It may be that they push and say, yeah, let me tell you these things that I've observed. And so the HR person really has to be consulting.

[00:23:04] You're an answer person, but it's a consultative kind of conversation, keeping your mind open. And ultimately, like you said, there's always a power dynamic. So if I'm a mid-level but seasoned HR person and I'm up against a department head or someone who's running the unit, because there are power dynamics. That's right. The right, if I'm coaching you as an HR manager or director, then you escalate to your, ultimately, your CHRO.

[00:23:31] Because that's what you, there's always a power dynamic in everything. So what you got to do is make sure that if divisional head is the problem, then I've got to get to my divisional head of HR, his or her counterpart, if you need to escalate it. Because I think this is an important part of our work. We don't want to, you can destroy someone's career. Or that, yes. And the, you know, replacing the, we talk about the H in human resources that really is about humans.

[00:23:57] And so I think if you can't be convinced as the HR leader, if you can't convince that person to change that or get them aligned with your decision, I don't know who's in control here, but I would escalate. I really, really would. And, and in most organizations, if the HR person has a defensible, not kind of, you know, I'm the only person in Rome who can make, but like can argue why this is not good.

[00:24:25] I think the HR person wins. They do. I've seen, I've seen it time and time and time again. Listen, I've seen in the context of, we talk about this, the formerly incarcerated, the manager's like, I don't want that person. HR person's like, why? What are you talking about? They meet every one of the criteria. These were the other candidates. Then they started selling. Come on, give them a chance. Da, da, da, da, da. We have 45 openings right now and you can't get work done. And I had now have you a candidate. Give them a shot.

[00:24:53] Everybody's 90 day probationary period here anyway. So in the 90 days, if it doesn't work, different story, but give them a shot. In other words, use, as you asked me about coaching, use your persuasion skills, use your analytical skills and, and storytelling and narrative building skills. You can win it if you want to. That's why this, I'm so glad you brought this story up because I think what we've concluded is yes. Let me just tell you, medic can do what it's doing.

[00:25:19] I don't see any, now California may change the law at some time, whatever, but, but they can do what they're doing because they wouldn't be doing it. Then the question is HR. Let's keep everyone honest here. Let's keep our organizations honest and be involved in that process to ensure that someone's ability to earn a living is not negatively impacted unfairly. And unjustly, I'm going to use the term unjustly, although it's not a judicial issue, but in

[00:25:49] the sense of fundamental fairness that, and, but there are some people by the way who should not, and can I want to be clear. I would never want them to work in any part of my organization. Yes. And I have to find a way to tell them that I, they'll push a lot because they should know that performance reviews should not just, annual performance review should not just hit the,

[00:26:16] your, your, your, what you do technically. It should also more broadly deal with what you, how you perform and how you align, how you are or not aligned within the organization. Yeah. Cause part of what I was thinking about Johnny, like when I was asking earlier about like firm rules and like, well, that's hard to do, but somewhere around the lines of like, is it illegal?

[00:26:43] Like, is this person a, um, uh, chronic offender of policies or procedures? Right. And is this person clearly, and again, you know, kind of consistently out of alignment with one or more of our values? Right. Right. Was there a question? I mean, that, that, that would be kind of the rubric in my mind is, you know, is there one or more of those elements that we could look to that would indicate that this person

[00:27:14] there it's illegal, illegal is illegal. Like, dude, we, we've asked you 15 times to comply with this policy and you won't. Right. And then lastly is, you know, we have six core values here and you are very out of step regularly. And it's, and this is the kind of thing that, you know, should be at your earlier point should be in the performance review. That's right. It's not just about hitting your number. Did you hit your number in the right way? Yeah. That's right. That's right. That's right.

[00:27:44] So one last thing I wanted to ask you about, and we'll wrap this one up is this story is out in the public business insider, I think broke this story and cause you know, they got access to something or they're talking to people that are on the other end of this action that meta took. What effect, if any, do you think this has on meta's brand as an employer? Listen, there are, first of all, it's a, it's a tight job market. Let's just be honest. Right. It's a very tight job market.

[00:28:13] And meta is a premier and plum employer. You know, noise. Yes. But if I, this guy who's been, who's been, who's departed meta wants to come back after being told no 20 times. So do I think this impacts the ability to recruit talent? No. You have the guy himself who's impacted by it, who says, yeah, but I still want to work there. We got to be honest. Right. So when I hear people say, oh, this is going to impact it.

[00:28:43] Some things will not so sure this will. Yeah. I don't know. But I think the cumulative effect of a few things, you know, you know, masculine culture, I'm thinking, I'm thinking on metaphor just to say, but masculine culture, you know, also aligned with Trump when he wasn't in DEI kind of rollbacks, the rank and yank, you know, a low performer thing and now a ineligible.

[00:29:12] At some point I'm like, do I really, I mean, this guy clearly does, but at some point I do wonder if it does impact meta's brand on another day. Like, I don't know, man, like. Maybe, maybe I'm, I'm struggling with it. There are 168 million jobs in America. If I'm an employer and I, I hire, call it a hundred thousand employees. There are a hundred thousand people who do want to work. It's a fact. Just. Well, okay.

[00:29:40] So, so then I'll be Johnny Taylor for a second. That means meta's culture works for enough people that they can fill their seats. That's all. Last, last thing that I do want to say on this, and I'm going to quote a good friend of mine, Johnny C. Taylor Jr. This is still red carpet in red carpet out. Right. Because we do want to treat people well back to the H and HR. That's right. And this does, you know, everything at some point impacts employer brand. That's right.

[00:30:10] And then there's just kind of the integrity aspect of it. Right. And we do want to treat people well. Yes. So, you know, one of the things I love about what we do here, Johnny, is these, these are not black and white, easy. Right. Cut kinds of things. And, you know, just helping, helping the listening audience kind of think around the entire issue to help draw their own conclusions.

[00:30:35] But I do hope too, that for the employers, for the HR professionals who are listening to the podcast, that it does, you know, help them just reflect a little bit and maybe give them some practical, tactical advice that they can use to make the best decision for them and their companies. That's right. That's right. And that's why you and I try to, like, it's just practical. What we're describing is not theoretical. HR professionals, whether formally through a process where you check a box and someone's

[00:31:04] not eligible for rehire, or if informally, this is the practice of the organization. And when someone leaves here, the word is they can't come back. Right. What we're trying to do is help HR practitioners think about the impact on the individual and future employment, but also think about the human, just the idea that humans need to work and we can't have someone in a position where, unfairly, they never can work because essentially we've blackballed them or blacklisted them. So I love it. I love it. Awesome. Johnny, great episode. Thank you.

[00:31:34] Thank you for dialing into The Work Wire. Johnny, you're the man. And I will see you and our listening audience on the next episode of The Work Wire. See you on The Work Wire. Thank you, sir. Check out career.club for personalized help with your job search. Visit shrm.org to become part of the largest human resources organization worldwide. Thank you, sir.