The H-1B Shakeup: Immigration Program Redesign and Alternative Pathways
episode
“HR Heretics” | How CPOs, CHROs, Founders, and Boards Build High Performing Companies
29 min
2 speakers
7 chapters
transcribed 17 days ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What’s the quick intro and agenda for today’s episode?
What's up everybody? Welcome back to another episode of HR Heretics. Kelly, it's good to see you. What a week, huh
my god, what a what a week, Nolan.
Yeah, we made it. So We're gonna cover two topics today. One is the H1B Madness from this past weekend. The other is going to be a recap of a panel that Kelly and I did with dear friend of the show, Colleen McCreary at the Confluent People Team offsites. So, Kelly, let's start with this H one B madness just to catch everybody up in case you've been living under a rock.
How are the recent H‑1B visa policy changes shaking up tech hiring?
in Hawaii without service or just completely unaware of your surroundings. Last week
people, by the way. That sounds I mean, terrific.
That is exactly zero percent of our audience. Um so last weekend obviously the Trump administration on Friday evening, which I'm a little worried what's gonna happen dropped a new executive order on H one B's essentially saying that they're gonna cost a hundred thousand dollars per year, that then changed to like Oh, it's only for new ones and maybe it's a one time thing. There's still a ton of uncertainty here. And so, you know, my text chains blew up. We did an emergency episode on Monday with Nicole from Manifest Law. If you haven't listened to that, you definitely should if you have any sort of immigration program at your company. Oh Kelly, like what are you hearing on the streets?
Yeah, I just talked to one of my good friends, I told you a couple hours ago, and if she listens to this, which she will, she knows who she is, but she's on the east coast. you know, and got this note on the east coast, it was like Friday, right? It was late day, almost evening. Do you know what I mean? It wasn't like
it
wasn't like a Tuesday at, you know, eight eleven AM Pacific or something, but And she happens to work in a company where they heavily, heavily use these these visas and hire a lot of this great talent and It literally like created so much anxiety and uh all this stuff for the weekend. So there's just that part of it that I think we should call out is the what of this is enough, but how this hit and the franticness it caused. I mean, right, we saw on the news planes l just tarmacked for five hours, like until it's just not Like, there's a what and there's a how. We know this in tech. Like, your performance is based on the what and the how. Like, independent of the what, this how is fucking awful. And I
agree.
Someone should be fired over that. I don't care if you agree or you disagree with whatever this is or turns into be or doesn't. Uh that's just terrible.
Yeah. The rollout was uh It was fucked up. Like it wasn't cool, you know, to like make everybody scramble. We had multiple friends who were literally trying to track down hundreds of employees to figure out where in the world they were and if they were outside of the country to try and get them back before Sunday at midnight, aka Saturday night, right? And this is on Friday that they're trying to do this. You know, a lot of that stuff came to pass as like not a concern, but it didn't matter in the moment, right? Like you still had to do it. And you had to
part 'cause it was like, oh just kidding. You're fine if XYZ. So I just you know, like be a good person. Someone think through this stuff. That's what we're trained to do in our jobs, right? Kinda walk through the process and you think through all the angles and It's just the one on one of a comms plan. So That sucks.
For for me it's for me it's kinda like the microcosm of the Chief People Officer role. Like You know, you sit down on Friday night, you're at dinner with your wife, you just like got the the wine poured and you're about to just take a deep breath for the first time in six days, and then all of a sudden your phone starts blowing up. And sadly, like that is a big part of the role, and to your point, like these are all self inflicted wounds. Like it didn't have to be this way, but it is this way, and so now we're here. And so I wanna transition the conversation to You know, what are you hearing about people in their immigration plans and what are companies doing?
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What’s the quick intro and agenda for today’s episode?
0:13–0:47
2
How are the recent H‑1B visa policy changes shaking up tech hiring?
0:47–11:55
3
What sponsor messages and resources are highlighted for HR leaders?
11:55–15:36
4
What key takeaways came from the Confluent People Team off‑site panel?
15:36–23:52
5
Which contrarian HR beliefs and leadership ideas sparked debate?
23:52–27:56
6
Is Silicon Valley really ‘dressing up’ and why does it matter?
27:56–29:08
7
How do the hosts wrap up the discussion and invite listener feedback?
29:08–29:23
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from “HR Heretics” | How CPOs, CHROs, Founders, and Boards Build High Performing Companies
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