The Talent Forge: Shaping the Future of Training and Development with Jay Johnson

From Policy to Practice with Legal Insights from Taylor Crabill

• Jay Johnson • Season 1 • Episode 27

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Unlock the complexities of legal and compliance training in the workplace with insights from our esteemed guest, Taylor Crabill, an accomplished employment lawyer. This episode of The Talent Forge promises to transform your understanding of sexual harassment and discrimination training. Discover how to make these crucial topics not only engaging but also deeply relevant to all employees. Taylor offers a wealth of experience in representing employees in cases of unlawful conduct and shares effective strategies for embedding current events and relatable examples into training sessions. Learn the art of clear communication of company procedures to managers, mitigating potential legal issues, and minimizing liability.

Meet the Host
Jay Johnson works with people and organizations to empower teams, grow profits, and elevate leadership. He is a Co-Founder of Behavioral Elements®, a two-time TEDx speaker, and a designated Master Trainer by the Association for Talent Development. With a focus on behavioral intelligence, Jay has delivered transformational workshops to accelerate high-performance teams and cultures in more than 30 countries across four continents. For inquiries, contact jay@behavioralelements.com or connect below!

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayjohnsonccg/
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Speaker Website - https://jayjohnsonspeaks.com

Jay Johnson:

Welcome to this episode of the Talent Forge, where we are shaping the future of training and development. Today, my special guest is

Jay Johnson:

Taylor Crable

Jay Johnson:

. Welcome to the show, Taylor.

Taylor Crabill:

Thanks, Jay.

Jay Johnson:

Nice to be here. So your background is in law and one of the things that you do and let me just preface this from the talent development side In the history of no one were they assigned to go to a sexual harassment training or some other kind of safety protocol training and they were like, yes, this is exciting. So I'm excited to talk to you about this and in our brief conversations before. That doesn't have to be the case. That doesn't have to be the case. We've got to be able to deliver content and knowledge around some of these legal issues or challenges in a way that's meaningful for both the employee but also for the organization. So why don't we start by getting our audience a little opportunity to know a little bit about you? Why don't you tell us a little bit about your background and how you got into this space, taylor?

Taylor Crabill:

Yeah, sure. So I am an employment lawyer and I represent employees who've suffered some sort of unlawful conduct at work or a connection with work right, whether it's age discrimination, sexual harassment, sexual assault, race discrimination. You know other protected characteristics as well. I represent people who've experienced that at work. When people make complaints about those sort of things and they suffer retaliation, we deal with a lot of those claims as well. Sometimes they go hand in hand or they usually do with the discrimination cases. I also represent people who have been paid their correct wages, whether it be overtime, other compensation that they've earned in connection with their job. Also whistleblowers right, people who may feel that their employer might be doing something that's unlawful and people who have called it out, whether internally or externally. We've handled those sort of cases as well.

Jay Johnson:

Okay, so, as a learning development specialist, one of the things that I know is we've got to be able to educate our teams, our people, our managers, our leaders on some of those different aspects that could create the conditions for lawsuits or could create the conditions for you know, obviously, litigation. You know, obviously, litigation. What would be some of the things that you would advise? You know, from a trainer's perspective or from an HR perspective, how should we be communicating that knowledge or that information to our audiences?

Taylor Crabill:

Yeah, fair enough, and I think you kind of hit it on the head when you know stating that no one's really excited to go to these sort of group trainings or anything like that. But once they're there, you know trying to grab their attention. Obviously you know current connection with most trainings using simple language or relatable examples. So I would suggest you know working with if your company or employer does have a legal team working with them to maybe find some relevant cases. Right, there's a, if you're talking about the sexual harassment situation, blake Lively has a very public sexual harassment claim going on right now. That might be something that other people are aware about outside of you know typical legal world and so it might be something that they're easily able to relate to. So either you know, yeah, working with, you know seeing what's going on in the world, working with your legal team to maybe come up with some recent examples to be able to make it relatable, and not, you know, some boring kind of hypotheticals. I think could be a good way to do it.

Taylor Crabill:

Another thing that I would highlight is what are the potential consequences? Right, you know, if you're sitting in a training, let's say, about sexual harassment, and you're learning about. You know ABC conduct is wrong. Maybe that's very obvious to you, but of course these things happen Right and they happen everywhere Right. Part of it is just human nature and you know, unfortunately these situations are going to happen. Hopefully, over time they happen less and less, but you have to be ready for them Right. Are going to happen. Hopefully, over time they happen less and less, but you have to be ready for them right. In the sexual harassment situation, if you're training, for example, managers, you're going to want to make sure that they understand the company's procedures, who they have to report to you know immediately after they learn of an incident of sexual harassment, because it would be on the employer to, once the employer learns about this, to do something about it right To take action, otherwise they're going to find themselves even more liable, for you know issues, I'm sure.

Taylor Crabill:

Yeah, and that can then fall on the manager that you're training, right, let's say you're training someone and they maybe don't fully appreciate like, oh you know, maybe I don't think subjectively that this was too serious or you know, I'm going to hopefully this just kind of goes away. Being able to relate to relay, the severity and that you could be creating liability for for your company and you know what that ultimately might might come back and impact you on, is something to certainly highlight and I would stress to to definitely consult with either internal or external legal authority to be able to communicate that effectively.

Jay Johnson:

Well, and I like a couple of things that you said there. First, is that relevancy right? Because, you're right, a lot of people that are walking into these like, okay, I already know what sexual harassment is, I already know what I'm not supposed to do, so it just doesn't necessarily feel relevant. But then when you bring in something that's maybe a part of pop culture or you bring in a situation where you're like, oh, maybe I didn't necessarily think about that or didn't think about you know that these things are happening and probably happening way too much still, even despite our knowledge and understanding of these. I like that concept of sort of making it relevant with a case that's out there or something that is maybe not necessarily embedded, because I think a lot of companies that are running things like safety or sexual harassment or even fairness or biases trainings are probably being a bit proactive and maybe not necessarily have had a situation like that pop up internally, so kind of relating it there.

Jay Johnson:

But the other thing that I think was really interesting and I'd like you to dig in on this a little bit Whenever we're doing a training and any of the coaches, trainers or HR people that are listening, we know, whenever we're doing a training and any of the coaches, trainers or HR people that are listening. We know that we've got to make it relevant to the individual that's actually listening. Now you mentioned personal consequences, which I think is an interesting concept, because a lot of times we think you know the consequences might be from the organizational side or anything else like that. But talk to me a little bit about sort of making it that relevant towards personal consequences. What do you mean by that per se?

Taylor Crabill:

Right. So, depending on where you are, let's say in New York for example, right, new York has personal liability. So, very simply, let's say, you know, company ABC gets sued by an employee claiming they suffered unlawful sexual harassment, right, not only could the company be liable legally and be on the hook for monetary damages, maybe some other sort of relief in connection with the lawsuit. You know committed the sexual harassment, or a manager who maybe failed to take the appropriate action. Or, you know, in the unfortunate case where maybe someone in a position of power you know retaliated in terms of, like firing or, you know, some other sort of adverse action against the person for maybe coming forward, then that person, at least in New York, could be liable individually. Right, so not just the company having to potentially pay for damages, but you personally as well.

Taylor Crabill:

And there are other jurisdictions that have personal liability, some don't, but that's a clear example of where there could be some personal repercussions and, of course, outside of the legal space, if you're just thinking about your job. And of course, outside of the legal space if you're just thinking about your job and it gets back to you that you weren't following the procedures, the protocols, or you didn't immediately report something that you maybe subjectively felt, that maybe that leads to the end of your employment or leads to some sort of discipline. Maybe not something that you might immediately think of in these sort of situations, but those sort of things can happen.

Jay Johnson:

Okay, so making it relevant in terms of hey, this is important to you. Now I want to dig in a little deeper on something that you're talking about here because, as you mentioned, there are some people that are going to go well, that's not sexual harassment, and other people would be like that's blatant sexual harassment. So this, this concept of the audience having maybe a different interpretation or a different set of we'll call it standards for what would be tolerable and what would be not tolerable, how can we, as trainers or as as talent development teams, make sure that everybody's kind of on that same page? You know, especially because you know if, if, if I called you and I'm going to say this and just kind of ingest, if I called you a doo-doo head, right, somebody might be like, oh my God, that's the worst insult ever. And other people are going to be like man who cares, so, right, you know, I use that as a as a little bit safer understand, you know, to understand something that maybe has that sort of subjective nature to it in interpretation.

Taylor Crabill:

Yeah. So the easy answer there is that, while there may be a subjective sort of understanding of what sexual harassment might be, there's a very clear legal definition of what unlawful sexual harassment would be right, whether it's inside, or if you're hiring an outside firm to help you do the training, prepare the materials or even possibly deliver the material with you highlighting that, highlighting what are these. When does it become unlawful sexual harassment? For example, the law provides that sexual harassment becomes unlawful if it's severe. Right. If someone touches a private body, part of another person, even just one time. That's likely to be severe enough to be unlawful sexual harassment. Right.

Taylor Crabill:

If someone makes an off-color joke, you know, disparaging women one time, maybe not right. Maybe it doesn't rise to the level of unlawful sexual harassment. Someone does that every day over months. That is now sufficiently, you know, pervasive. It's happened enough over an extended period of time to now that the law will recognize okay, you know you have some rights here to pursue that. So very, very important to work with legal counsel to understand that. And you may even want to just reiterate to people hey, even if you don't, even if you do understand that legal definition and you think maybe it doesn't rise to that level, like go through the reporting procedures anyway, right? The very worst thing that happens is that you're you know you brought something to someone's attention that you know ultimately doesn't need to be addressed, or you're passing it on to the proper people, whether it be HR or legal, to do what they need to do to address it. So always erring on the side of caution and making sure you're following your company's procedures is, I think, very important.

Jay Johnson:

That makes a lot of sense. So let's switch gears here, because you know we've been talking about what does it mean to educate, you know, our workforce on what could be considered sexual harassment or anything else. Let's talk about, though hey, uh, how do we train our teams that, in the event that they experience, or they feel like they've experienced it, how do we train them to a speak up? And you know, because there's a lot of fear that comes along with that, right, like getting somebody to say, hey, speak up, whether that's, um, you know they're worried about retaliation or they're worried about, uh, their reputation, or maybe they feel shame and guilt. You know from that behavioral science, you know people who generally are harassed tend to feel some level of shame and guilt and they don't want to bring it out to the surface. How can we better train our teams and our peoples to feel safe in reporting or in bringing up an issue? Is there anything that you would advise, you know, from that sort of perspective?

Taylor Crabill:

Yeah, certainly.

Taylor Crabill:

I mean, you're obviously going to want to be aware of your company's reporting procedures.

Taylor Crabill:

But one thing that I see from the ground level is, you know, let's say it's a person experiencing the, the sexual harassment they maybe feel like I have to go in on my own right. Obviously there are, you know, great hr people training people, um, all over different industries that help employees in many different ways but ultimately, you know, do work for the company, um, so an employee could proactively reach, you know, have their own sort of advocate, have their own, you know, reach out to an attorney in sort of a low stakes or no risk environment just to get some advice on. You know, hey, this happened to me, these are my company's procedures. I want to make sure that I'm doing this right, like can you help me and so that you know a legal expert like that lawyer might guide you through that sort of process? Can you help me and so that you know a legal expert like that lawyer might could guide you through that sort of process, maybe even help represent you in connection with with any sort of investigation or anything like that?

Jay Johnson:

Yeah, okay, that makes a lot of sense, because when we're thinking about maybe getting people to follow a process or to, you know, to go through some of those different things, especially when it's hyper personal like that, or when it's something that you know, if I, you know, when we think about even something like age discrimination or racial discrimination, you know, a lot of times can feel very, very lonely for somebody to speak up. You know what are some instances or opportunities, because training is not always sitting in front of a classroom, right Like. Sometimes, training literally can be the process documents or the policy documents. Training can also be, you know, coaching or any of those types of things. What are some other ways that you advise, maybe organizations, to help people be very, very clear or to reinforce some of that sort of knowledge of the policies, procedures?

Jay Johnson:

Is there ways that you would say, maybe follow up. We know that, like, a training by itself generally doesn't yield any kind of behavioral change, doesn't yield any kind of behavioral change. It's usually the follow-up, the nudges, the extended or continuous education that ultimately gets people to act in certain ways. What might be some ways that we could empower our teams in an ongoing way where it doesn't get them to go. Oh God, not another email about discrimination or harassment.

Taylor Crabill:

Right, I mean, one thing that comes to mind is using sort of awareness days, If you have. You know there's February's Black History Month, right? Maybe that's an opportunity to reiterate if you're feeling you're being subject to race discrimination, to do that, right, there are specific awareness days, maybe you can tie that into. Hey, here's a reminder. You know, refer to our handbook if you feel like you've been experiencing anything. You know we're always here to report and listen to you, try to understand what you've been going through and trying to fix that. And you know, having different, maybe different avenues for a person to complain to, right, You're dead on that.

Taylor Crabill:

These sort of situations are very personal, they can be very emotional and they can often cause people to suffer from emotional distress. In fact, that's one of the categories of damages that the law provides for recognizing how difficult these situations can be to deal with. So, whether it's complaining, if you're not comfortable complaining directly to HR, at least initially going to a supervisor, right, Reiterating that there are there are different channels for you to be able to, uh, to be able to go through to make your complaint and have something addressed.

Jay Johnson:

Right, that makes a lot of sense. Now, taylor, we've we've talked a little bit about, okay, how can we train some people to not engage in behaviors that would be questionable Talked about, how do we train the people to be able to follow reporting guidelines or to be able to speak up, but what about that manager or that HR person that ends up getting the complaint or receiving the complaint? They've made themselves a safe person or created the safety that somebody does come to them and say reports to them. How can we best train maybe our managers or our HR people in navigating these conversations or even navigating these policies and procedures in a way that still dignifies the person who has had the situation occur with them, because not everybody's comfortable in sort of creating that open space. So how can we best train people to field these types of challenges or to create that safe space?

Taylor Crabill:

Yeah, that's a good question. One thing that immediately comes to mind in this sort of situation is you know, a lot of people might not come, a lot of people don't come. There are statistics, right, that that a lot of people who experience, maybe, discrimination, sexual harassment in the workplace don't come forward, right, for various reasons. Right, I'm comfortable doing it. Um, you know, you know, whatever reason they decide not to come forward, um and so, and and. Then there are situations where people come forward and then maybe ultimately don't pursue something. Maybe they go through the internal processes but don't ultimately decide to pursue litigation or a lawsuit or anything like that. And I'm sure that HR employees deal with that regularly, right, it's probably one of the primary things that they're dealing with, and so they may be. You know, maybe most of the time they're dealing with this situation, oh, it never turns into something bigger, it never turns into some sort of lawsuit. You know, we go through our investigation, we make our determination, that's sort of it. We move on, right? No-transcript.

Jay Johnson:

Okay, that makes a lot of sense. Now I'm going to ask you to play a little bit of look into the crystal ball here and kind of get your opinion. We know that for a long time a lot of organizations invested heavily in diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, safety, training as it relates to different intersections, whether that's race, culture, age, gender, et cetera. Sexual orientation, some resistance to that obviously, and I think it was just recently McDonald's has just pulled back on its DEI initiatives and are kind of pushing back on that. What does that mean in terms of some of these legal challenges or legal issues? Do you feel like in the future it's going to be harder to win a discrimination type thing with some of this kind of pushback or resistance against DEI or DEI type training?

Taylor Crabill:

I don't think that it'll make cases any less or harder to prove.

Taylor Crabill:

The law is what it is, right, and unless the law changes, what a company does with its DEI doesn't impact your ability to prove it or what you might be entitled to under the law, right? So even if your company is making those sort of changes, moving away from that, it doesn't mean that now discrimination evaporates, right? It doesn't mean that, you know, no one is experiencing sexual harassment in the workplace, right? Those sort of situations should be treated with the same level of sort of respect and seriousness, right? Because they are and you want to make sure, obviously, that you're providing an environment for your employees that is safe and they're able to be productive and ultimately, you know, be a positive influence for the company.

Taylor Crabill:

But also because of you know, potential liability, right. If there's sort of a relaxed attitude about these sort of complaints or this sort of conduct going on in the workplace, then maybe you're creating a situation where your company experiences liability for unlawful conduct or it makes it more egregious or easier to prove, based on how the company is handling it, how the professionals are handling it internally. So I would be very cautious of sort of seeing this as like oh, you know, maybe we're accepting different types of behavior at work and continue to give it the same sort of respect that it deserves, to give it the same sort of respect that it deserves.

Jay Johnson:

Well, and I would agree with that 100%, because when I look at it and I see this message or, you know, I see this message of backing away and maybe comment on the fact, do you think that this potentially leads to?

Jay Johnson:

Do you think that this leads to more discrimination or more acts of discrimination? Because I'm not even talking just about the company or the corporate or the executive side that says, hey, we're pulling back on these initiatives. I'm talking about the ground level people that say, hey, you know, my employer, McDonald's, just said that they don't, they're not interested or they don't care about DEI and I'm not saying that McDonald's does, I'm just using that as an example that, hey, this is not going to be their focal point or this is not going to be I'm not even, you know, making a judgment statement on that, but the message down to that sort of like first level employee or even first level manager, that could be a really confusing message of like, oh well, now my employer just doesn't care about these things. And do you think that that could lead to, you know, more instances of people just kind of not taking something like discrimination seriously, or you know even something like sexual harassment seriously at that ground level.

Taylor Crabill:

Yeah, yeah, it certainly could and maybe feel maybe like a bad actor, feels so sort of emboldened to to continue or to start engaging in that sort of behavior, um, but that's where you know, managers, trainers, um, hr professionals, um, you know, maybe take on even more of a responsibility in, in making sure that the seriousness of the situation is still communicated and, uh, still, you know, understood at that ground level, like, hey, listen, you know we're doing, we're pulling back DEI for ABC reasons, right, whatever they might be, and but even though we're doing that like that, you know that's not a license to engage in any sort of discriminatory behavior and really, really emphasizing that and, you know, maybe doing it in a way that you know grabs attention, like you mentioned before, maybe at certain points people you know drift off, but really, you know, using different techniques that I'm sure you know different, you know trainers have for grabbing attention, to really highlight those sort of those areas.

Jay Johnson:

Well, and to kind of reiterate that, and I agree with that, I think that that probably provides an impetus to even more focus on making sure that there is good knowledge being shared about discriminatory practices. You know, in the event that an organization is kind of shying away from the DEI. So let me ask this kind of final question to you, Taylor If you were to, if you had a magic wand and you could advise a talent development team, an HR team, about things that you would want to see them do to educate employees across that field, what would be some of the things that you would tell them to really kind of give attention to, to consider, to focus on in the larger context of discrimination or harassment in the workplace?

Taylor Crabill:

Yeah, I think, just to go back, making the examples relatable, I've sat through some like sexual harassment trainings where the examples examples are just, you know, very dry, uh, not relatable. Um, people, you know, I'm sure a trainer, a trainer could say this probably, and probably knows it better than I do. But uh, people relate to stories and people are going to remember stories more than hey, look, this was this. You know this is discrimination, that's discrimination and you know this is also discrimination. But if they hear a personal story like hey, this person just filed a lawsuit and this happened to her, these text messages were sent. The Blake Lively example is a very current example that could be used that people are relating to. There's been high-profile examples in the past. There's been high profile examples in the past. So really making storytelling an element you know is going to help minimize your employer's exposure to liability.

Jay Johnson:

And I think that's so smart. The concept of storytelling I don't think a lot of people really think about delivering sort of that legal training or even some of the harassment training you know through the context of storytelling, because, quite frankly, there's probably a little bit of fear or a little consideration of, well, I don't want to get into stories or anything. So even being able to use those outside situations like Blake Lively or something else, that can be really smart, I really like that. And then the collaboration with a legal colleague to make sure that there is sort of that, making sure that you're dotting the I's and crossing the T in that space can definitely be important. So, taylor, if our audience wanted to get in touch with you because some of our audience they may not have a legal team to consult with or maybe they do and they do just need that outside support how might our audience be able to get in touch with you or reach out to you in the event that they wanted to?

Taylor Crabill:

Yeah, sure, so you can feel free to give our firm a call. Our number is 727-335-1030. You can email me directly at tcrable, that's C-R-A-B, as in boy. T Crable at C-R-A-B, as in boy. I-l-l law firm T Crable at crablelawfirmcom. Those are the. Those are probably the two easiest ways to get in touch with us and, yeah, if we're able to to help, we'll certainly look into that.

Jay Johnson:

Awesome. We'll make sure that that's in the show notes. So, taylor, thank you so much for taking the time to talk through these. You know, when we think about training and talent development, we don't always think about. We don't always think about, like, the actual logistical pieces that we need to know, both as leaders, as trainers, as coaches, as HR practitioners and you know we're responsible for educating the employees in a wide variety. So I really appreciate you being here to share your insight and knowledge on this topic area.

Taylor Crabill:

Yeah, happy to be here. Thanks for having me on and hopefully some people will get some advice out of this, some help.

Jay Johnson:

Excellent and thank you, audience, for tuning into this episode of the Talent Forge, where we are shaping the future of training and development.

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Jay Johnson, CEO and Co-Founder of Behavioral Elements

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