Biblical HR: Faith at Work

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello everyone, thank you again for joining me in another episode of the DOSUS show. Today's episode we have Phillips who has been an HR executive for Fortune 100 companies and led HR for one of the largest employee-owned general contractors in the country as well as the world largest service. He is the author of Biblical HR

Welcome And Guest Background

SPEAKER_00 0:34

applying applying eternal truth to everyday work. He has decades of proven HR leadership experience of establishing and aligning the HR function to a long-term business strategy. His HR strategy model quickly takes the stereotypical HR function from an administrative and transactional department to a powerful business driver of workforce selection engagement and development.

SPEAKER_01 1:15

Pleasure to be here, Dorsey. Thank you for asking.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Absolutely. How did you get started in in what you do now?

SPEAKER_01 1:24

What I do now is do HR consulting and strategic consulting for organizations. And how I got into it is that I was I I've been in human resources for about 30, 35 years. And when I was with Kraft Foods about 15 years ago, I started struggling with how to align my faith with my work. I became a believer a little bit later in life, about 30. But I grew up going to church. I grew up in the middle of Texas going to church, but I wasn't a believer. I just thought I was. And then but I became a believer about 30. And when I was with Kraft Foods, again,

Connecting Sunday To Monday

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I started struggling with how to align my faith with my work. And I would I would go to church on Sunday morning and listen to a wonderful sermon and wonderful music and worship, but but then dread going back into the workplace the next day. And I couldn't connect the dots between Sunday morning and Monday morning. And so I and I actually was becoming a little bitter toward the church about that they couldn't give me the resources to deal with what I was having to deal with on Monday morning. But then I realized that wasn't their job. That was my job. It was my job to connect the dots between Sunday morning and Monday morning. And so I started studying and reading and trying to find resources that would help me. And I could find a lot of high-level faith at work kind of theology of work, kind of resources, but nothing that would help me in the day-to-day trench work of what I was dealing with. And so I just started studying and writing on my own. And I would take, because we were designed and created to operate by biblical principles. We just were. And so as I look at what scripture offers, you you would read scripture, I would pull out the biblical principles of a particular passage, and then combine that with my HR experience, and then provide people with actionable steps before, during, and after any kind of situation. A situation could be something that they deal with on a daily basis, how to deal with a difficult boss, how to deal with a problem employee, how to interview people, how to do a performance review, all of those managerial issues that we struggle with every day. I just wanted, I wrote them for my own edification to help me deal with them from a biblical standpoint. And I was encouraged about six or eight years ago to put those into a book form. And I said, nah, I'll do that when I retire. But uh he said, no, you need to do that. So I did that. I put them into a book form and it was was picked up pretty quickly. That's how I got into just helping people in the practical day-to-day aspects of how to deal with day-to-day managerial position, those situations on a biblical basis. And it's uh I can not only uh do I want to train people on how to deal with those situations on a from a biblical standpoint, but also from a business standpoint, how do you how do you use HR and all the components of HR to help your business and to drive your business productivity? And that's those are those are two components that I that I'm doing now, and then I want to help people from a biblical standpoint and a godly standpoint accomplish both of those things.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

Okay. What what is the name of your book and you know what does it talk about? And you know, what do you hope people get out of it?

SPEAKER_01 5:11

The name of the book is Biblical HR, Applying Eternal Truths to Everyday Work. And it took me about 15 years to write, because I would only write it as I was dealing with issues. And so the first thing that I was dealing with was how to deal with a difficult boss. So I wrote, I studied scripture and wrote on how to deal with a difficult boss and then how to deal with a problem employee, how to do a performance review. So there's

Biblical HR Book And Framework

SPEAKER_01 5:40

different chapters in the book on how to deal with those. It's not one of those books. Most books are those that you just read all the way through, but that's not what it is. This is just a book that helps you uh that each chapter deals with a different subject. So you would just look at whatever chapter that you're on the the situation that you're struggling with and just read that.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

Is there was there a gap that you saw between the Birchner World and the church that you wanted to maybe break that gap and bring it together?

SPEAKER_01 6:11

Yeah, I did. Was and that's where, again, where I I struggled to connect the dots between Sunday morning and Monday morning. Most of the church is they're they're wonderful evangelists, wonderful at explaining God's truth, but the majority of them haven't been in the business world, haven't worked in for corporations or other organizations, and so they don't deal with the uh some of the situations that we deal with on a on a day-to-day basis. And so they don't have the um federal and state law that we have to deal with to deal with employees. Well, some of them do. But then they have policies and procedures on how to deal with from a corporate standpoint, a secular standpoint. But how do we deal from a biblical standpoint and just helping people, Christian believers in the church, deal with those things out in the secular world is not something that the church just really has any experience doing? So I I did that for just to help believers in the workplace connect their their biblical faith to what they're doing on a daily basis.

SPEAKER_00 7:27

And as you said, we spent decades in in that in that area. Their defining moment where you realized faith and 8CAR needed to be more integrated here.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

Yeah, it was it was probably with my time with Kraft Foods. So when I was with Kraft Foods, I was in Human Resource, they're a large public organization. And in the early 2000s, organizations started bringing in different programs to help people feel to find their identity in their either in their work or their organization, and really kind of capturing that language of here's your identity at work is this or your identity is that, and try to tap into people's desire for a community. So engagement surveys and other kinds of associations that that workplaces started bringing in to help people find their identity. But my identity is in Christ, not in the corporation or what I do. And that's when I started struggling. It was in the early 2000s. I said, this is not making any any sense to me because it's just it's all philosophical and it's all

Identity At Work And Balance Myth

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uh not focused on godly uh attitudes. Um it became more all of those searching for identity actually became more divisive than it did inclusive. And so as I that was pretty much the defining moment for me is that when I started realizing that I can't find my identity and what I do or who I work for. It's in Christ. And again, it's one of those things, too, that another type of concept that corporations started bringing into the workplace was work-life balance. And work-life balance is a myth. I mean, it's like you can't have a work life and you can't have a personal life. You have one life. If you're a Christian, you're a believer, you have one life. And how you live that is it has to be consistent and work and personal. So that was another defining moment, is that work-life balance is there's no such thing as work-life balance. It's a myth. And so, as I I think the early 2000s was when I started realizing that I needed to really find my identity in Christ and and really work from a biblical standpoint in my whole life, not try to separate the two. How do you define biblical human resources? Well, again, we're we're designed and created to operate by biblical principles. So biblical human resources is just using the concepts of biblical truth and applying those to every situation that we have in the workplace. Like how to I'll give you my biggest regret is when I was with Kraft Foods, I was working at the largest pizza manufacturing plant that they had. They made DeGiorno, Jacks,

Defining Biblical HR Through A Regret

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and Tombstone pizzas. And uh one of the policies that they had is that any damaged pizzas or pizzas that they couldn't sell, they would throw into a freezer in the break room and you could eat those for lunch. Well, but the policy was that you couldn't just, they weren't free. You couldn't just take a bag of pizzas home for you and your family because that would that would be considered theft. But I got a complaint that there was an individual doing just that. He was taking bags of those pizzas home every couple of weeks. And so I looked at the security camera, and sure enough, I saw him taking a couple of bags of pizzas home, and I brought him in and I terminated him for that. Well, this individual, he was a little older and he had had a stroke previously, a few years prior to that. And this job was a blessing to him. It was uh it was an opportunity for him to provide for his family, and he enjoyed working there. And when I brought him in and terminated him, he said, Well, I didn't I didn't know that was against policy, and uh, I still terminated him, even though technically he wasn't, he didn't know he was stealing. And his family called, or he even he pleaded, he pled with me to reconsider because he was a good employee. He enjoyed his work. But I I stood firm because I didn't want to be seen as weak. I didn't want to be seen as weak by the company or the other employees as to letting something like that slide. And his family called me a few days later and again pled to reconsider, but I held firm. And even the general manager came in and said, You sure this is the right thing to do? I said, Yeah. Um, but it wasn't. You see, if I had just extended grace and mercy to him and just said, it is, it is considered theft. Now don't do that again. You do that again, you will be terminated. We would have retained a good employee that was thankful for the job, that was glad to be there. Now, some would say, Well, you can't have a tolerance for stealing. Well, you're right. If he had intentionally stole and did it maliciously, then that while I would say, no, you can't have a tolerance for that if somebody's doing it maliciously. But if someone is not aware that they're doing something wrong, then there's grace and mercy and forgiveness there to extend. And so that was that's my biggest regret. So to bring biblical concepts into a situation like that, that is what biblical HR is about. Now, according to policy, I was right. But extending grace and mercy would have gone further than just sticking to policy.

SPEAKER_00 13:49

Yeah. For someone who hearing for someone hearing about biblical eight call for the first time, what does it m actually mean to apply scripture in the workplace?

SPEAKER_01 14:03

What does it mean to apply scripture in the workplace? I mean, it's if it's one of those where biblical principles, the application of biblical principles, are actually better for the organization. It actually is creates a more if I had operated in that previous example with grace and mercy, it would have not just, it would have created a healthier environment. So biblical, bringing biblical principles into your environment, it's it's healthier and it retains your employees and it gives you a guide on how to deal with things, these things from a godly perspective rather than just a policy or state law perspective. And so bringing those concepts in is refreshing to people because it treats people as created by God and creative beings rather than just an asset or a number. So, and when you do that, when you treat people as created by God, it creates a more productive employee, a more productive company, a more productive everything, but it also is God honoring in every respect. So bringing those biblical principles in, that's what that means. And that's what it it accomplishes.

SPEAKER_00 15:23

Yeah. There are a lot of Christians who may who may struggle with navigating secular workplace environment. What's your advice for staying grounded without becoming isolated?

SPEAKER_01 15:37

Well, it's it just comes to two things. I mean, you have to stay grounded yourself as an individual and being in the word, praying for daily guidance from the Holy Spirit and Christ. And number two, honoring people as created

Grounded Faith In Secular Workplace

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by God. And it's you do those two things. You keep yourself grounded and you honor people as created by God. Philippians 2, 3 and 4 tells us to do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but consider others better than yourself. Always considering others, applying that scripture is what makes a huge difference in staying grounded in biblical principles. And there's something to now we obviously have to adhere to federal and state law. That's the compliance piece of it, but you can do that and still honor God. Because I would tell people now, don't be afraid of federal and state law. I mean, there is a there was an individual that I know, a friend of mine, who his name is Kelvin Cochrane. He was he was the fire chief for the city of Atlanta. And he was appointed to that by Barack Obama, a strong Christian, strong believer. And he wrote a pamphlet for his church detailing that marriage was between a man and a woman. Well, the the City of Atlanta HR director got him fired for that, something that he was doing personally. And it was clearly discriminatory. So discrimination is defined, it can be defined both ways. I mean, if you have an HR director who says that claiming marriage is between a man and a woman, and you're discriminating against people who are not, well, she was discriminating based on his religious beliefs that were not affecting his work performance. So discrimination cuts both ways. So when I say that, it's just then there's a lot of organizations like Alliance Defending Freedom and First Liberty who understand that concept is that the law is when you say not to discriminate against individuals, that means across the board. You can't just pick and choose your what you're going to discriminate people against and think that's right. See, this HR director thought it was right for her to discriminate against this, my friend, for his religious beliefs because she felt like they were out of touch with the rest of the culture. Well, actually, you can't do that. So I would say don't be afraid of federal and state law because it can you can you can it it it protects all of us.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

And you say something and they don't they maybe they don't like your friend did the car of that company or that that state or that city doesn't agree with you, they they shouldn't have uh they shouldn't have fired him with what you're saying because it was outside of those hours of his workplace.

SPEAKER_01 19:09

Well, that but also it was was discriminatory based on his religious beliefs. So he had religious beliefs that he wasn't discriminating against people within the workplace. He wasn't doing he wasn't doing that. It was she was calling it discrimination for something he did on a personal level, which is clearly not something that you could do. And he wasn't he wasn't discriminating against people in the workplace.

SPEAKER_00 19:38

What convinced you that staying in corporate HR were kingdom work?

SPEAKER_01 19:45

Well, it's it's one of those things where everything we do is kingdom work. It doesn't matter whether we do it in corporate HR, or we do it in the church, or we do it in a nonprofit or any of those things, whatever God is calling us to step into, he called me to stay in uh the corporate environment and bring those biblical principles in. I mean, it's it's not a question of deciding to do it, it's a question of being obedient to where God has. Now, we all make mistakes in our obedience. I mean, it's but God covers that in his grace and mercy. But I would say that staying in corporate, the corporate environment was something that God wanted to use to bring that experience and bring that how to apply biblical principles to every aspect of human resources and every aspect of what a corporation deals with. So he gave me that experience to bring those biblical principles in. So that's that's why I stayed in corporate human resources.

SPEAKER_00 20:53

How do you handle a difficult work without becoming bitter or passive?

SPEAKER_01 21:00

Okay. I'll refer to here, I'm gonna a difficult boss relationship in the book. Number one, pray for your boss. Okay? You can't be mad at somebody that you pray for. They're just they're on a different path than you are. So trying to understand and pray for what your boss is going through, that's number one. Number two, understand your boss's expectations. You need to understand

Difficult Boss Playbook

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what they are expecting from you. And your goal as a believer is to meet or exceed those expectations. That's your to be a godly, excellent employee. Guard your speech. You're not taught, do not talk bad about your boss behind his back. That is an ungodly attitude. So you can't do that because God has put this particular boss over you for a couple of reasons. And you have to you have to respect and honor that. Don't complain. Don't grumble and complain. Philippians 2 14 2. Tells us to do everything without grumbling and complaining. So have a godly heart because that is what God has ordained in your current work situation. And then drop the expectations. Don't expect your boss to behave and do things a certain way because they're not going to meet your expectations. They're accountable to God, not to you. So expecting them to do, say, be certain a certain way, you're just setting yourself up for disappointment. Again, they're on their own path and you're on your path, and you can't control or expect other people to do and behave a certain way. Be selfless. Be the kind of employee that is a blessing to your boss, to bless them, not try to undermine them. Be humble and respectful. If you need to, if it becomes necessary for you to confront your boss, do it privately, but humbly and respectfully. If you need to correct something that's wrong. Again, you don't expect them to either take it or not, they may or may not take it. But you have an obligation to present in a humble and respectful way. Here's where I think we're missing it. And if if you can't do that, if you can't do any of those things and you can't submit to the authority that God has placed over you, then you probably need to resign and find something else. If you can't get your heart adjusted, then you probably need to resign and find something else. Or if your boss is asking you to do things repeatedly that are illegal or immoral, and you can't do that, then you probably need to resign and seek something else.

SPEAKER_00 23:46

You know, like you said, you know, we can't, you know, expect the expectations of our boss, you know, it's it's almost like, you know, we can't expect um our boss to be uh a faith-based person, you know, especially if we don't know where they stand when it comes to religion or when it comes to cr um serving Christ.

SPEAKER_01 24:10

Right. You can't expect them to operate from a position of uh godliness, if they're especially if they're not believers.

SPEAKER_00 24:18

Right. Can you walk through a firing, firing, where scripture reshaped your approach?

SPEAKER_01 24:27

I get calls all the time that this person's not getting it, and we just need to let them go. Well, number one, have you this is dealing with a problem employee. So as you deal with a problem employee, you make sure that you you don't ignore them. And number one, is because everybody's watching to see what you do. So you can't ignore the poor performer. You still have to address it. But

Problem Employees With Grace And Truth

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seek to understand the reason for the poor performance. So is there a reason for it? Did they lack the skills necessary to do it? Or is there something going on in their personal life that is their performance has dropped over this last year? Maybe they lost a child or a parent or they're going through a divorce or something along those lines. And confirm the disciplinary issue that needs to be handled. So if you're dealing with somebody's poor performance, what is it really? Okay, are they not getting these reports on time? Is their quality of work a substandard in this particular area? And you confirm exactly what the poor performance is, because that's the only way that you can deal with it specifically. And a lot of times this is something that we as Christians struggle with. We don't want to address the poor performance because we don't want to be seen as impatient, ungodly, ungracious, unmerciful. We don't want to be seen as too hard or harsh toward individuals. But Jesus confronted sin, but he does it in different ways. You remember the woman at the well, he confronted her sin, but did it in a very patient, godly way and pointed her to him. But with the Pharisees, it's a different story. He had to hit them between the eyes with a two by four in order to get their attention. So, but he handled their sin and handled their performance, if you will, in different ways. So, for example, the performance in the man that I thought was stealing pizzas that was handling that in a gracious way and handling it in a different way is something that I should have done better. And don't respond harshly. So it's it's one of those that you don't just go in and browbeat people about their performance or yell at them or any of those things. You have to be very, you still have to be direct, but you have to be very specific about what you're dealing with and how what they need to correct. And again, maintain objectivity. This is not about whether they're making you mad or making you are not meeting, not doing things the way you want them done. You have to stay objective to what the duties and responsibilities of their job are. Are they meeting the duties and responsibilities of their job? But again, keep the message of the gospel in the forefront. I didn't do that when I terminated this other employee. I didn't keep the gospel in the forefront. God wants us to point everyone to him in every situation. And sometimes that means a disciplinary action. Sometimes that does mean termination. Because if individuals, if they're presented with all of these facts and what they need to do to correct, and they choose not to, then they are actually in rebellion, not only against you, but against God and not doing a work that they have been assigned to do. And sometimes a termination is what they need to humble themselves and point them to Christ. So you have to do all of those things, but do it in a godly way. I mean, you you just you can't ignore the poor performer, but you have to do things in a from a godly perspective and in a godly way.

SPEAKER_00 28:22

What one principle from biblical HR that you believe could inform workplaces if more people apply the I would say relying on um the Holy Spirit's direction, not just policies and procedures.

SPEAKER_01 28:43

So as you it just kind of stuns me that human resources, that individuals who are not believers, all they have are policies and

Holy Spirit Guidance In HR Decisions

SPEAKER_01 28:55

procedures and laws to guide their management of people. They don't have the Holy Spirit that can help guide them through how to handle things from a biblical perspective. Again, going back to that example where I terminated the individual, if I had prayed that through, I probably would not have terminated him. So I think just handling things, bringing the Holy Spirit into it is what is radically different than what other human resources people do.

SPEAKER_00 29:27

And that and that's hard because a lot not a lot of not a lot of the I mean, I was gonna say maybe not a lot, but you know, probably a good portion of the eight club people may not be saved and may not, you know, be able to, you know, bring in that, bring in the Holy Spirit to that situation.

SPEAKER_01 29:46

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 29:48

Where can people find your book?

SPEAKER_01 29:51

It is, they can find it a couple of different ways. It's on Amazon, Biblical HR, or you can go to my website, biblicalhr.com, and you can find uh the book there, but it's uh it's online everywhere. So you can find it. And if but if you want it, if you order it from me, I'll send it out from here and you'll get a signed personalized copy.

SPEAKER_00 30:13

Awesome. Okay. Well, Blet Bullets, thank you so much for coming on the show today. We greatly appreciate having you.

SPEAKER_01 30:21

It's been a pleasure. Thank you, Dorsey.

SPEAKER_00 30:23

Well, guys and girls, thank you so much for coming on for listening again. We greatly appreciate having you. Please go and check out Brett's uh website and his book and go and check out the previous episodes of the Dorsey Ross Show at www.dorcyroshow dot com and go um review and give it a review on Apple Podcast and and remember it's a weekly show now, so keep up to date and subscribe as well. And

Wrap Up And Listener Requests

SPEAKER_00 30:56

until next time, God bless. Bye bye.