Remotely One - A remote work podcast
Remotely One - A remote work podcast
The Rise of Morales HR: Shelly Morales on Building a Values-Driven HR Community - ep. 099
In this engaging podcast, Shelly Morales, founder and CEO of Morales HR, takes us on an inspiring journey—from her early days working at her family’s hot dog stand, “Sandy’s Happy Hot Dogs,” in the Bay Area to holding influential HR leadership roles in top tech companies and ultimately establishing her own HR consulting firm. Shelly shares how grit and determination fueled her path from a receptionist manually tracking resumes to impactful HR leadership positions at companies like LinkedIn, Quantenna, Atlassian, and Cadence Design Systems. Reflecting on her growth from an HR generalist to a strategic business partner, she discusses how her dedication to connecting people with meaningful work, improving employee experiences, and advocating for flexible employment practices has shaped her career.
A pivotal chapter of her career was at Atlassian, where she saw firsthand the power of technology in building connectivity and engagement within remote teams. Atlassian’s early commitment to remote work, long before the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighted the essential role of tools like Confluence, Slack, and the now-retired HipChat in fostering team cohesion and a strong company culture across continents and time zones. These tools not only allowed dispersed teams to stay connected in real time but also encouraged personal storytelling that bridged physical distances. The onset of the pandemic accelerated the acceptance of remote work and highlighted how blending work and personal life could enhance productivity and work satisfaction, shifting companies’ focus from rigid office hours to outcome-based performance and helping establish a more human-centered work culture.
Through Morales HR, Shelly aims to create a supportive network for professionals seeking roles that align with today’s flexible and dynamic work environments—from remote and fractional engagements to gig work opportunities. Her firm connects members across industries and roles, from CHROs and CFOs to customer support, without relying on traditional job postings.
Kindness is at the heart of Morales HR’s intake process, where prospective members engage in a personal interview to ensure alignment with the company’s values. Shelly firmly believes that kindness and inclusivity are essential yet often overlooked qualities for creating a supportive workplace. By working with companies that value these principles, Morales HR builds relationships that uphold professionalism and empathy, benefiting both employees and employers.
Shelly also highlights Morales HR’s role in the expanding gig economy, a trend she has championed for years. While not all early predictions around the gig economy and digital currency came to fruition, Shelly notes that the demand for flexible, project-based roles has steadily grown.
Shelly Morales’s story is one of resilience and transformation. Her career represents the evolution of HR from administrative support to a people-centered, strategic practice that embraces flexibility, kindness, and the power of technology. Her mission is clear: to build connections between employees and employers that prioritize human connection, work-life balance, and mutual respect, setting a foundation for a thriving future in HR.
Learn more about Shelly:
- Shelly’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shellymorales/
- MoralesHR’s webpage: https://moraleshr.com/
Just so you guys know, my mom owned a restaurant called the happy hot dog.
Kaleem:Wait. So the hot dog experience was happy hot dogs. It's that's so cool.
Shelly:Yes. It's called the happy hot dog. Um, that's correct.
Kaleem:So what did the happy hot dog look like?
Shelly:looked like a hot dog with hands that were happy. That was the
Rick:That's amazing.
Kaleem:Do you watch the hot dog eating contest with the dude? Dips, dips the hot dog bun in the water and like shoves up. Well, have you ever
Shelly:but that kind of makes me want to vomit. Like, why would I
Rick:I can't even think about
Kaleem:So you've never, you've never seen the hot
Shelly:I know. Of course I've seen it, but I don't like, I don't like, well, let's stop on that and watch it.
Rick:Oh my good god.
Shelly:Yeah.
Kaleem:thank you. That's
Shelly:you. Like my mouth is actually watered for, um, um, happy hot dog with mustard, tomatoes and onions. Like it's just like my mouth is watering right now.
Rick:Welcome back to Remotely One. I am your co host, Rick Haney, joined by my esteemed colleague and co host, Kaleem Clarkson. What is happening, my brother?
Kaleem:Oh, my brother from another mother, nothing much, man. I'm just enjoying life right now. We're on the pod, right? We're not doing work. We're going to talk to some, some cool people. So I'm enjoying it. How about you, man? What you up to?
Rick:I'm digging it. Life is good. Right now, it's Friday. The sun is out. It's about 90 degrees here in Charlotte. I can't complain.
Kaleem:Let's do it. Let's do it. That's
Rick:Hey, everybody. Everyone out there, viewers, listeners, since you know how to find us now, do us a huge favor. Go to RateThisPodcast. com forward slash RemotelyOne and just leave us a review. Again, RateThisPodcast. com forward slash RemotelyOne. If you could do that for us, we would be ever so thankful. Since 2015, RemotelyOne is one of the largest communities of remote work professionals. With over 3, 500 Slack members, RemotelyOne. com And over 5, 000 email subscribers and those numbers are going up by the day. That is amazing. It's free to join. So go check it out at remotely one. com. And with that out of the way, Kaleem, please, if you would give us a teaser to about today's guest.
Kaleem:Whoo, Rick, you know how I get man with these guests, you know what I'm
Rick:You know what the word is, right? You know what today's word is. You love so much. The word is doozy.
Kaleem:we love
Rick:got a doozy.
Kaleem:We love a good doozy our guests today Rick They're intimidating because of how many great things they've done But you know what? We're gonna we're gonna I'm gonna calm myself down I'm gonna try to bring my stuff up to their level. So the first thing Rick Is our guest today. They are originally from and currently reside in the bay.
Rick:Oh, San Francisco. Go.
Kaleem:Come out and play. Yes. The bay, the bay. Let's see. Um, oh, their, their HR career kicked off in 99 as the director of human resources for the whole bunch of software companies in the bay area.
Rick:Oh, that was a good time for software companies.
Kaleem:course, of course. Well connected. Well connected. Our guest is for sure, for sure. Oh, Rick, I just love this. This is probably the highlight of my week. Okay, our guest, our guest, they got their career. They kicked off their career at a happy hot dog. Sandy's happy hot dogs back in the day.
Rick:There is no shame in a good hot dog, I'll be honest. It's one of my favorite culinary items.
Kaleem:some reason the hot dog mascot
Rick:Makes you want to do that hot dog strut. Do that hot dog
Kaleem:guess how many hot dogs have you eaten? Guess. Just tell us the truth. How
Shelly:goodness. I I don't know. Like back in the day, I probably ate a lot of hot dogs. I would say today. You know, it's a different day, we're mindful of our nutrition, you know, like, not so many hot dogs today, but the Costco hot dog is a good competitor these days,
Kaleem:Oh, wow. Wow. So, you know, Rick and I are both from Maine. Have you ever tried a red snapper? As we would say snapper. Have you tried one?
Shelly:I would say, I would probably, if I read the sign, call it a Red Snapper, like that's probably what I would call it, but no, I have not tried a Red Snapper hot dog.
Rick:That's okay.
Kaleem:there's no Oz, there's no
Rick:you got the dialect down and we respect that. Thank you.
Kaleem:That's awesome. Awesome. Rick, something else about our guests, right? They had a great early career, but then they just kept going higher and higher. Our guests, they worked at linked in and remote work, giant Alassian guests. Did I say that right? Is it Alassian? Yeah.
Shelly:Yes. You said it Alassian correctly. I went back in the day that is, I almost feel like that's back in the day. It's not as back in the day as the happy hotdog, but it was a minute ago. And I actually, the funniest thing was back then I thought the name of the company was Jira. I was wrong. It was Alassian and then there was a lot of amazing products underneath that.
Rick:Oh, that's wonderful. And Kaleem said it right. That's crazy. He's notorious for misspeaking.
Kaleem:I used to call it Alagian, you know, and I was like, I don't even know why Alagian. I don't know why. Rick, Rick, our guest. It's currently the founder and CEO of Morales HR, which connects talent to opportunities. Rick,
Rick:Okay.
Kaleem:please give a warm welcome. To Shelly Morales!
Rick:Oh yeah. Welcome to the show, Shelly.
Kaleem:Yeah! Let's go, baby! Shelly Morales! Woo! Settle down,
Rick:Okay. All right. Take it down a
Kaleem:Down Shh! Shh! Woo!
Rick:to be professional here.
Kaleem:Shelly, Shelly. They're excited to hear from you, Shelly. They're excited to hear from you.
Shelly:Lord have mercy. That's all I have to say. Lord have mercy. I am pretty excited that it's Friday, but I will tell you that most times, by the time we get to Friday, which actually is today as well, I go, Oh, it's Friday. Oh, shoot. It's Friday. Like I still have so many more things to do. I think the one fun thing for me, honestly, is that not only am I the founder and CEO of Morales HR, but I'm also a city, uh, sitting. Um, and so I kind of live in both worlds and I get a big exposure to what are we doing around remote work. And in fact, this company, which is called Snapdocs is phenomenal mortgage tech company is a fully remote work environment. So I have the best of both worlds. I'm have this opportunity to connect people to opportunities and I also get to see every day what it's like to be in the inside a company.
Rick:Well, you're very busy and we thank you so much for taking the time to spend with us. We appreciate it.
Shelly:I'm so grateful to be here with all of you. And the crowd, it's such an amazing
Rick:I, well, you know, they are hard to deal with. So you got to kind of smack them around a little and
Kaleem:tell them, we tell them, no,
Rick:You know, you got to set them straight. Yeah, we got to set them straight, but you know, we did that and you know, they're calm now, but you know, if they get out of line, you just
Kaleem:We'll tell him to settle. We'll sell, settle down, settle
Rick:Yeah.
Shelly:I will.
Rick:So Shelly, I I'm fascinated by your story. You've worked with so many wonderful people. How do you go from hot dogs to running an HR company? I know it's been a long time, but kind of walk me through, your experience and, how you started out and, and how you got to where you are now.
Shelly:So I will answer the question and then I will tell you about how, uh, the way that I've done it is through pure grit and determination. So, the early story is that I was, um, I grew up here in the Bay Area. Literally about an hour from where I live today. I live in San Jose, California now. I have four kids, two dogs, a cat, a lizard, a husband. It's like Wally World going on over here, you guys. I mean, I'm talking about never ending fun, drama, something happening. But back in, like, when I first graduated from high school, my mom owned these stores called Sandy's Happy Hot Dogs, and that was the plan. I was going to be a hot dog shop owner. So I didn't go to college. All my friends went, I did not. And then my mom sold those stores and I was like, wait, what? Like, no, what am I going to do? And so I got super lucky. I fell into lucky. I fell into a receptionist job. And I was like, this is a great, but what else can I do? Cause this is boring. And so I just like. Kept saying, what else, what else, what else? I happen to be able to take on some HR related things in that company where I was a receptionist. And this is back in the day when we had to track every resume with by hand that came in. That was the beginning of my HR career. That evolved over the years to becoming a business partner, to leaders, to driving, different programs and initiatives, which then just gave me more of an insight to. Gosh, this function of HR. Really has the ability to impact people's lives. And so I was blessed with an opportunity to work at some amazing companies. You've mentioned a couple of them. I also worked at Cadence Design Systems. I worked at Juniper Networks. I got my first head of HR gig in a publicly traded company Called Quantenna, which was in the Wi Fi semiconductor space. And from there, I did a few pre IPO startups and about, gosh, almost two years ago now, decided in house was not giving me the opportunity to affect as many people's lives in a positive way. I decided to start this fractional gig, which is what I do today, is fractional CHRO work, but at a different level now. That work plus connecting people to opportunities across all professions and all industries and all levels of professionals. And so that's how I got started. And along that journey, there's been this in house was the way it was. And now not in house is the way it is in many cases. And there's a big push to, should we go back to in house? And the reason for that is really about the connection that's lost sometimes. And so you have to find these really unique ways to think about remote work that keep your employees engaged. And so that's what we talk about all the time.
Kaleem:know, looking at some of those companies that you worked at, I can't, you know, as we're on the remote work podcast, you were talking about remote work, you know, when you have somebody that works at a company like Alassian, That is worldwide known for being a remote first company. Everybody. I believe Annie Dean is now there. She's talking about how, you know, she's, I think they had her roles ahead of remote work, like, like they're all in on this idea of being fully distributed. So can you talk about what it was like working at that company at that time? And this was what, six years before the pandemic, roughly, what was the timeline just so that our listeners and viewers understand remote work has been around long before 2020. So can you talk about that experience?
Shelly:absolutely. It really has been around for a long time. And you could see the evolution. You could see it headed this way. Atlassian is phenomenal. I mean, Mike and Scott, who founded Atlassian so many years ago, have done such an amazing job of thinking ahead about what remote would be and could be. And so working there was fabulous. And not only was it remote, but we're talking Australia to the, to California. Yeah.
Kaleem:So Alassian, so audience, just so you know, Alassian is an Australian based company.
Shelly:Yeah. With a large presence in the U. S. obviously, and even more so, like you mentioned, I was there a long time ago. But I know so many people who are there today who have been there for years or come and gone from Atlassian. And the story is always the same. It's a phenomenal company to work for with great values that really does think about remote and how to enable talent. A really quick, funny story. When I joined Atlassian. Want the first thing that they have you do. And I don't know if this is the, I imagine it's the case today is to create your own confluence page. And I can remember going, Oh my gosh, like really? Like what is this confluence thing? And I have to tell everybody about myself. Oh, like it just kind of made me like, I didn't even like Facebook. This is a long time ago. And so I did my confluence page and I remember that day thinking. Oh my gosh, this, there's so much potential to this. And when I left, I thought, oh my, how am I ever going to live without confluence, which is a, it is such a tool for connecting across all boundaries, right? When I went to cadence, something came across my desk and I was like, that's confluence. I can tell like the link, I could tell the link. And I was very excited. I use all those Atlassian products today in Morales HR. And I fundamentally believe they are helping us be a remote work. We're also an entirely remote community as
Rick:huh. Cool. While you were working with, with Atlassian what are some of the challenges that you were presented with and helped resolve that, that so many companies might be dealing with today?
Shelly:Oh, gosh. I think, Rick, I think I would expand that to the time that I, from the time that I worked at Atlassian, even to today and the clients that we work with and the challenges that they face and the things that we face with Snapdocs. Working remotely is So we all know that the pandemic has, was terrible in so many ways. It really negatively affected people's lives. And if you are like me and the glass is half full, what you do is you think about the positive things that come out of. of events or things that happen. And in my mind, what the pandemic did for all of us is how to think about work differently. Had us be more, you know, what is the word I'm looking for? More tolerant of, you know, it used to be, I'm sure you can all remember this, right? Like life, right? If you were, if you were an in house employee and you had somebody on the polycom, which was the way it was,
Kaleem:the polycom. What's the
Rick:the video conference,
Shelly:Holy calm. Like the big thing that sat, come on man. Like the big phone thing that no video. And you, you know, if you're on the other end of that, you want to like poke your eyeballs out because you're just like, you can't hear anything. And if your dog barked or your kid cried, people thought you weren't paying attention. I mean, so terrible. Roll forward. Everyone's at home. The kids are crying. They're on their people. They're, you know, the laps. And of course those are distractions, but they are distractions that made you be able to be more invested in getting your work done. And so we've
Kaleem:empathy.
Shelly:of that. Yeah.
Kaleem:Right? Yeah. people are basically like, wow, you're a human being CEO. I've never seen. Now I'm seeing the C, even if I'm on a company wide call, the CEO is on a company wide zoom call. So the whole company scene, The house of the CEO, the visual. So I love what you said. It just, it allowed it to be more human. I'm sorry. I just, when you were just saying that, it just really, really stuck with me. Was there something that you feel like Alassian like solved that people are like still, you talked about confluence documentation. Are there some things that you feel like most people are still having challenges with today?
Shelly:I think that, Collaboration is the biggest thing that Atlassian solved for early on. And it is the biggest thing that we still have challenges with is how do we collaborate? What, there's so much technology out there. Right? Like people will say, Oh, you should use SharePoint. Well, SharePoint is a document repository. SharePoint is not a collaboration vehicle, but Microsoft has lots of collaboration things now. So everyone is like finding their way. And I do think too, it's, there's. The biggest thing that we have to think about in remote work is how do we effectively collaborate as a company. And sometimes it's about collaboration inside your company and sometimes about collaboration outside and bringing it in. So tools like Slack have been phenomenal in this remote work environment because you almost can't get your work. you need a couple of different like mediums.
Kaleem:Mmm,
Shelly:to be able to get a hold of somebody quickly. I cannot walk next door to the other office. I have to say, Hey, do you have a second on slack versus. You know, just like real time things. So I think it's about collaboration. I think it's about, quick response time and you get those from tools like slack and you, and actually the funniest thing is back in the day, Atlassian had a tool called hip chat, I think. Yes. Do you remember hip chat? Yeah. Which is, and I can remember like Slack was this competitor to Hip Chat and I think Atlassian long after I was gone, I think they divested in hip chat. But it was this like, that's where my first like real exposure to how to be able to tie things together, right? So you can tie, these are the documents we're working on that are actually embedded inside Confluence that we're actually using for the conversation that is. Both could be both internally and externally. And so I think those are the things I'm seeing.
Kaleem:Async. That's what it was.
Shelly:Yeah. Async without, at first when people started saying async, I was like, what the hell are they talking about? Um, so, yeah.
Kaleem:Me too. Me too.
Rick:Took me a while as well.
Kaleem:was Tammy B. Allen who from workplaces was like, why does everyone keep saying async? I don't know what that is. And there's like, oh, they're talking about asynchronous. I was like, oh, asynchronous. That makes sense.
Shelly:You know, the other thing that I'll tell both of you are just, are listeners as well, that I see as there's a little bit of a generational push and pull, meaning folks who are used to being in the office five days a week really like that folks who are younger generation. Those folks who have spent five days a week, Monday through Friday, 8 to 5 are typically older than the, you know, that's they enjoy that connection. Folks that are younger. Oftentimes, and I have, I can't remember if I said in the beginning or not because I say it so often, four kids, two dogs, a cat, a lizard, a husband, like I have been married for 30 years. So I've seen like this flow and my children, my older children are older. They're out of college already. So I've watched them actually go into the workplace and they have a different desire, a different need of what, how they collaborate. They are used to remote workplaces. It is what they know older folks were forced into, I should say more seasoned professionals who were kind of forced into work from home. Some of them
Kaleem:CHRO.
Shelly:cheap anyway. So, I think that there's a, uh, when I think about the generational divide, when it comes to that, I think the magic is in the middle. Remote work is never going away in my opinion for a lot of jobs. Some jobs, there is no remote work, but there's still this desire to cross functionally collaborate. And so it's about how do we pull all these things together and how do we appeal to all workers? That's what's important at the company level and the things that I'm seeing the most push and pull on remote work now.
We'll be right back after these words. 2020 was no joke. It changed the game for everyone. Workplace flexibility is no longer a perk, but an expectation. In fact, a recent study showed that a flexible schedule is more important than salary. Yeah, you heard that right? Employees want choices over cash. If you're a startup or a small business that doesn't have a remote work strategy, stop what you're doing right now and complete our free tree assessment at blendmeinc. com. Since 2013, BlendMe Inc. Has been helping small businesses improve the remote employee experience. Let's stay local, but compete global. Visit us at blendmeinc. com. That's blendmeinc. com. Ever wonder how certain ads catch your attention or get stuck in your head? It's because the person voicing it knows how to tell the story. Maybe they're telling you to stumble over to Sullivan St. Patrick's day for green beers, Irish car bombs, and corned beef. Oh. Freakin day. Or maybe Don't miss the deal of a lifetime this President's Day at Callahan Ford. Savings like these should be unconstitutional. Or maybe Come wash away your troubles here at Cooter's Car Wash. We ain't no soap opery, but you'll be singing high praises. Hoo wee, Cooter's! Or Here at Brooks Brothers Mortuary, we put the fun in funeral. Everyone is just dying to join us. Alright, well that's a bit much, but for you, I'll do it. I'm Rick Haney, and if you're a business owner looking for a creative voice in your marketing, look no further. I'll tell your story the way you want it told. Follow along at Remotely We Are One, or visit my website at rickhaney. me for more information. And now, back to the show.
Rick:So now. you've created your own company, Morales HR, excuse me for mispronouncing that. What was the spark that kind of led you to where you are now with creating Morales HR? Was there a moment like, ah, aha, this is what I need to pursue.
Shelly:Yeah, there were a few factors that led into that. One was the, when you are an in house head of HR for one company, you can only affect people's lives positively at that one company. And my aspirations are much larger than that. And so that's one factor. The other factor was that, I love being in charge of my own destiny and being able to influence how things are going. Developed how people are treated like if I'm leaving the business, I have influence over that. So those were the two biggest factors. And I, it started out small and it's just gotten very large where, you know, anyone who joins the Morales HR community, which is literally just a community of professionals. There's no fee. It's just like, be part of the community so that we can potentially help you or your spouse or your, you know, Family in the future. And now it's about like, what is that experience of getting employment? So the nature of employment is changing. This leads into the remote work, like how people get jobs, how people want to work. All of that is changing. We've moved so much to like, What is this gig economy thing? What is this fractional work thing? And so you see a lot of people are moving towards that. Some do it because they want flexibility. Some do it because they want to engage with companies before they commit. Some do it because they're like, I am a more seasoned professional. I don't really want to work 75 hours a week anymore. I would choose to work 30 hours a week, I can do that fractionally. So we're seeing a big movement there. And some people are saying, I only want remote work. Therefore, I will only go to companies that will be, allow me to be flexible and remote. And maybe that means 10 or 20 hours a week instead of 40. So I'm seeing a lot of them. So what drove me is, ability to impact people's lives and more flexibility.
Rick:Wow, that is so concise and wonderful to hear. I love it that way. It's great.
Kaleem:She wants to save the world Rick. She wants to save the world is basically what she said. I want it's for the children. She said it's for the children. Yeah,
Shelly:It's for my children. No, I'm just kidding. No, it is. I think it is for, it does make a difference. I wish I could save the world, but I can at least have a big impact on them.
Rick:You certainly can. Well, you mentioned the community. Can you explain a little bit more about How the community works and are you interviewing people and then connecting them with companies or is this just kind of like a, an open forum for people?
Shelly:Uh, it's a little bit of both. So we've launched, the, I didn't actually launch Morales HR as a, as a, as a, External company until August of last year, and we tried a few different models. We tried kind of like managed services where we would hire people underneath and then we place them out. And to me, I was like, this is also not scalable. It's not big enough. It doesn't have enough impact. And so where we leaned is let's create a community where people can. Everybody has the opportunity to speak to somebody live. They join, they talk to our intake person, our recruiting coordinator. As long as they're not a jackass, they can go forward because I choose to only work with kind people. It's the biggest, like, be a kind human is my number one value. So, as long as they, when they join the community, and sometimes they're looking and sometimes they're not. Sometimes they're just like, let me just be in that. But we know about them, what they want, what they need. And then when we find the roles, we push them out to our community. We don't post on LinkedIn. I don't put things in the websites and nothing can be scraped. It's all about that true value of that community and connection. So people join there's, we just created a Slack channels. We have about a thousand professionals. I'm totally going to come be part of your community too. I like the 3000 number better. So, we have about a thousand professionals inside the community, all roles, all levels, all professions. So from CHOs, CFOs, heads of product engineering down to customer support, benefits operations, people like the gamut, they come, they join and then they just get to see those opportunities as they come. There's about four, five to. Five or so. Come eat in and go out each week.
Rick:Hm. That's great. That, that's really wonderful. Let's hit the rewind button real quick, if you would. You mentioned something a moment ago that is, is very, to me, it's sacrosanct. I Feel like it's so important, especially these days. You mentioned, the importance of being a kind human being. And I really would like to know, like, you know, what does that mean to you? And as a value why is it so important?
Kaleem:Straight to the heart. Straight to the heart, Shelly. Straight to the heart as we'd say.
Shelly:That's very New York ish of you. Uh, so, you know, for me, I have in my career, I have had the opportunity to work with amazing humans. I have also had the misfortune of working with. It's very unkind humans and the more, yeah, yeah, jackasses, assholes pick your, pick your
Kaleem:Some bitches.
Shelly:Yeah, exactly. And I just choose not to be around those people. I get no energy, I get no joy and I have no time in life for anyone who is not a kind human. I have worked for CEOs who have said, I care about diversity, but only hire from Stanford and MIT. I'm like, dude, like, do you really? Like, come on, man. You know, I do think that it's, um, you know, treat people as you want to be treated is so true. I want people to treat me with kindness and grace and give me the benefit of the doubt because my intentions are always pure. Do I sometimes do things that don't come off? Yes. Just tell me. And that's the kind of humans that I choose to be with. I will tell you that sometimes. Sometimes you guys like there's two things that happen with Morales HR So we have a very like it is very my team is like, okay, we get it. We get it We know like if you are not kind I do not want you in this network I will not refer people who are can't have a decent conversation with the intake person. And senior people, sometimes they're like, I'm too good to talk to this junior person. I'm like, you're not good enough for us then. And by the way, not only are you not, you should be nice to everyone, right? Like that at the core, but secondly, you actually are not very intelligent either because the person that's the, well, that, and honestly, you guys like, The person who does the intake, her name is Camille Morales. If you can't figure out that you should, you know, not be unkind or be a jerk to Camille Morales. Like that's not like, come on anyway.
Kaleem:Same last name. Get it.
Shelly:last thing, get it, let's get it. But, but more importantly, it is about how you treat somebody. It's like, I think everybody should be a server at one point in their life. Okay. You can't be a waitress server. Like how do you watch your bus tables? I, by the way, have done all those things, you know, and so I ran a happy hot dog. All right. We talked about that, you know, so I just think it's about being a kind of human. So when you ask me, it is at the core. It's just, I just know, and my gut is usually right. And now I've seen that my team's gut is usually right. And I also say, but make sure you're having like show them grace to like sometimes people just have a bad day. You never know. So this is one of like my biggest learnings as an HR business partner in my career. And this is what I take forward all the time is you actually don't know what's happening in somebody's life.
Kaleem:Yeah. You gotta dig a little. You gotta dig a
Shelly:You've got to dig. And this actually is so like, think about this from a remote work perspective. We went from, you could leave your house at any time. 7 o'clock in the morning. You could de like completely separate yourself from what was happening at home too. And then you came home at seven or eight and maybe the kids were crying all day, but you didn't know. Or maybe the dog was like throwing up, but you didn't know until you actually got home. Now it is so It is integration. It is all mixed in. And so that grace and yeah. And so I always say, even though we see people on zoom, you actually, cause zoom actually cuts out a lot of the background noise now. So you might have like the kid crying in the other room. They don't hear it, but you hear it. So that's the thing I always talk to people about, even though it is, um, there's a better face of it now. It's something to watch.
Kaleem:So earlier you were talking about why you kind of created it and you wanted to have more control and I guess this is kind of more of a comment and I'll follow up with a question. I totally feel for a lot of HR professionals right now, because, you know, we're kind of caught in the middle, right? We're working with the executive team. But then we're also working with the employees and with a lot of these return to office policies, and you even mentioned kind of like, Oh, you care about diversity, but you only want to hire from there. Gosh, it's really, I feel for all of us trying to implement these return to office policies when in fact, many of us probably don't even agree with them, you know? So I just kind of wanted to state that's a challenge, but, um, on the fractional. Like this idea of fractional, you have a great set of clients that are listed on your LinkedIn that you're working with. Can you just kind of talk to our audience a little bit about what fractional is? And then where do you see fractional heading? Because we're also in the same kind of space. So I'd love for you to talk about why fractional, you know,
Shelly:Yeah. There is, um, a lot, I think that is great to articulate what fractional means to me, because it doesn't mean the same thing for everybody. To me, fractional is a non in house, non full time role. So that could be 10 hours, 20 hours, 30 hours a week for a company. To me, it does not mean a, it is not reserved for executives. Some people will say fractional is just for executives. So to me, fractional is just that non in house non full time engagement.
Kaleem:And when you say non in house, are you saying they are not hiring the person, they're contracting the person. Is that
Shelly:correct. Correct. They're not an employee of that is where this, like, you would see this kind of like blurriness of part time. Isn't it just part time? It is not. There are part time employees. Of course they work less than 40 hours a week and they are paid by the company as an employee. Fractional is that non in house engagement
Kaleem:Okay.
Shelly:paid for by the company or sometimes a third party, like sometimes there's a third party person that is, that is bringing the fractional leaders in. I will tell you that I think it's 15 years ago. And by the way, why on earth would you tell everybody that I started my career in 1999? Like, are you trying to make me look old? Like, come on, man.
Kaleem:Hey, we're pretty close to the same age.
Shelly:Jiminy Christmas. Okay. Anyway. Yeah. 15 years ago, I was at Juniper Networks. I ran employee relations, HR operations globally. I had maybe 15 people on my team, big team. We had, of course we had, it was Juniper was 10, 000 people back then. Right. And so we were having this offsite for HR leaders. So, and there was probably actually, I think it was all leaders, about a hundred people, and this woman who ran a big piece of learning and development for us, her name is Courtney Harrison. She, said three things will be true in the future. You'll be able to smell from your phone. We will exchange goods via digital currency
Kaleem:that's a check.
Shelly:and the gig economy will be real. And I said, I say to her now, she's so very dear friend of mine. I'm like, well, two out of three, my friend is not
Kaleem:Hey, smelling from the phone is going to be amazing. I can't wait.
Shelly:So we are seeing, I am seeing fractional in more than just HR. I think it is popular at the executive level in HR because the role itself has gotten so broad that people are like, I actually, I can't be a therapist and an operational genius. and a talent acquisition person. Like I can't, I don't have it. I don't have that skill set. So I'll go be a fractional leader in what I love and what I'm really good at. And what if we had two? What if we had somebody who was an operational genius and we had somebody who's like talent partner, who's a thought partner to the CEO, those types of things. So I'm seeing a lot of that. I see, in the more senior roles as people get older, they don't want to work 60, 70 hours a week. So there's a fractional. They're the flexibility. They're not done, but they're not willing to do that for a host of reasons. I also am seeing it in people want to try engagements before and they feel like the fractional is a good way to test the waters and then also sadly, some people are doing fractional out of pure necessity and that is because they couldn't get a job. I mean, they haven't been able to get, they got, let it go and they haven't been able to land their next role. So they say, I'll just try a fractional. So there's some of that, and then the folks who have been really burned in layoffs, are like, I could have two fractional roles, make the same or more and not be so nervous about losing one.
Kaleem:That's, that's a really good point. You know, um, filling the gap of, Maternity leaves or, you know, like when some, when someone goes on a maternity leave, sometimes companies are like, well, we have too much work. We still need to have this done, but we don't want to hire somebody, you know, full time. I was like, wow, I didn't even think of that.
Shelly:Yeah, that one I'm seeing as interim. So I, it is like, but they do blend. And so. Snapdocs is a phenomenal example of that. I was contracted to be a fractional interim coverage. So the person who was there before me, it's kind of a blend of what we just talked about. The person who was there before me, she was a full time employee. She was going on maternity leave. They said, we need somebody, how about 30 hours a week? So I was a fractional interim, I've seen companies that are like, we're going to hire a full time person to do this person's full job while they're out on maternity leave or short term disabilities are very, very popular because they are, it happened for us in particular because it happens, oh my gosh, so and so just got, you know, cut their leg, they can't come to work, whatever the example is, and they need somebody right now with the skill set that matches this. And we have that, those resources already vetted because they joined the community and we already know about them. Yeah. We have everything honestly from those engagements where they want the interim, they want to, they actually are going to do full contract to full time that they're hired in less than a week because it's they're trying, they're actually doing on the job interviewing by full time, by doing an interim or a fractional person first. Oh,
Rick:That's really cool. So uh, Shelly, do us a favor. If you would, share with us a comical or inspiring moment you might have had while working remotely.
Shelly:I don't know. Kaleem looks too excited about this. I'm not sure I can. Okay. So
Kaleem:it's my favorite part of the show.
Shelly:know, right? Okay. So, um, I told y'all that I have four kids, two dogs, a cat, a lizard, a husband, live in San Jose, been married 30 years. And I will tell you. I know, right? My husband, I have to say really fast, like people always say, why is he last? I go, Oh, he's made a big joke out of it. Like he says, I saved the best for last, but you know, when you have been married 30 years, that kind of does go back to that, you know, whatever. So, um, the funniest thing was like, when we stood there, I was probably not the funniest. There's so many, but if I think about, we had a fourth grader. So my kids are 14. So think about the pandemic. We started, we had a fourth grader, we had six of us in my house nonstop. Let me just tell you, it was cray over here. And we would be literally fighting for internet space.
Kaleem:All right. Okay.
Shelly:And I would be fighting for these kids to stay out of my office. Okay, so here they come you guys and it's like they're trying to talk to me I'm on a board meeting in my flip flops and
Kaleem:Okay. Okay. Okay. What's the board meeting for? How many people on the call? Give me
Shelly:Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, board meeting, they're VCs, they're bankers, they're for one of my companies that I worked for, I'm in my flip flops and of course a cute shirt like I have on today, but I have shorts on and flip flops and they're like these kids, like they just keep coming in, they're bugging me and I'm like, Oh, like I, I'm trying to do that, like the hand up mom thing and they are not bugging me. They're not biting. They're not understanding. And I'm like talking like I'm talking to you right now. And I finally like there's a break and I can just put the thing on the, I can close the camera and I can just quickly like tell them to get out.
Kaleem:A quick curse out. Basically a quick curse out. You can curse them out.
Shelly:Yeah. And like everyone else has done, I'm sure at least once I didn't actually click the button and therefore I'm on running to the door telling my Children. I'm yelling at my Children and the dogs are barking and I come back and I'm like, Oh my God, I'm so embarrassed. Like, I cannot even tell you that. And you know, it goes back to what we talked about earlier, like
Kaleem:Right? That is great.
Shelly:I'm like, don't you guys see me? Like I am on a very important call. Oh, dude. I
Rick:I mean, it sounds to me like it was it was a human moment while being a parent.
Shelly:It was a human moment while being a parent. The challenge that that one at that time, you guys is that was early days. That was like, you know, the first board meeting two months into COVID. It's like, oh my God, I'm so embarrassed. Anyway, they're like, it's all right. They really, we didn't have people who didn't give enough grace yet, like at that one, but they're like, yeah, yeah, we get it. It's fine. So, I mean, those stories, they're plentiful.
Rick:it's funny. Yeah, those are, you mentioned it earlier. Speaking of the early days, when you threw out Polycom, it threw me for a loop because I was a Polycom video conference technician at the University of Maine. And I only know the, I only know the video conference aspect of it. I never did anything with the teleconference part, but we did have those giant, they were like hexagonal speakers that just laid flat on the table. They were so unnoticeable and I was like, man, I totally forgot about that. So that's why it threw me for a loop.
Shelly:I do want y'all to know, let me just say one other thing really fast. So I do want you to know that I went from working at Atlassian, which was super cutting edge, super remote, like all these things, the two cadence design systems, which is a 30 year old semiconductor company, it was a little bit of an adjustment, but they have come like they're phenomenal. And you know, they have cornered the market on so many things and Tina HR there is a phenomenal mentor and friend of mine. And so I feel very grateful to be part of that, but that was a little bit of a shift.
Kaleem:awesome.
Rick:would imagine. So, yeah. So where can our listeners and viewers find you?
Shelly:It's a super hard, um, URL, moraleishr. com and, um, there, I was joking, obviously. So yeah, moraleishr. com can learn about what we're doing and how we're doing it, how we're thinking about that talent, bridging that talent gap differently. You can join the community there. There's a link just to straight to join our community. Um, It's free, a hundred percent free. And then from there you get the link to join slack and do all those things. And then like, you know, you can find me on LinkedIn. I love to connect with folks. I do a lot in the Bay area. I do a lot in, events and different types of bringing folks together. And I would love to be connected to anyone who wants to be part of our community. Oh,
Kaleem:Thank you so much Shelly. I appreciate it. You've been an awesome guest Can't wait for this episode to release. You've been so happy to talk to you. Can't wait to see you again
Rick:We, certainly appreciate you tolerating us for the last hour. But I just wanted to say thank you for your kindness. It shows you are changing the world, whether you realize it or not. So thank you for your contribution.
Shelly:you two are amazing. Have a beautiful day.
Kaleem:All right, you too.
Rick:See you next time.
