Reclaiming Labor Consulting: Choosing Effectiveness Over Familiarity

The Cat at the Conference Table

In labor relations, precision is not optional. 

Nothing new there. Counsel knows this. Every word spoken during organizing activity is potentially discoverable. Every conversation may be scrutinized. ULP charges are very real. 

Which is why it’s worth addressing a quiet shift that has emerged lately. Some employers, and at times, the legal teams advising them, have begun selecting front-line labor consultants based on workplace familiarity. The rationale is that someone with prior experience in a given environment will know how to navigate it more intuitively.

You wouldn't hire a cat to advise veterinarians. We've moved away from hiring the best and brightest,
in favor of hiring less-qualified people familiar with specific industries. It's a mistake. 

On the surface, that makes sense. Familiarity may offer a sense of ease, but it does not replace expertise. It also doesn't replace empathy, common sense or people skills. 

I wrote recently, in this blog post, about the danger of selecting people from within an organization who are solely trained to broadcast, not receive. The broader meaning? People who have spent their careers enforcing the rules, defending the company, are usually the most poorly trained in how to listen with empathy. They're rule readers. Internal arbitrators. Those are the very skills that make them competent at what they do. 

Similarly, a lot of us have noticed a recent trend among HR consulting and executive labor relations management firms. Here's what it's starting to look like out there: 

We've got former flight attendants showing up to talk to pilots about unionization. Nurses to talk to hospitals about collective bargaining. Truck drivers to talk to transportation companies about labor relations. 

On paper, that might sound good. Those people will be relatable, right? 

But we don't require compliance auditors to have been a plumber, or quality control consultants to know how to take someone's blood pressure. 

The role of a front-line consultant is not to empathize with a setting. It's to empathize with people. 

It's also to carry out a strategy that is legally sound, tightly aligned with counsel, and responsive to real-time conditions without overstepping the law.

Familiarity may offer a sense of ease, but it does not replace expertise. 

This is not a radical position. The legal profession has always favored competence over proximity. We trust professionals to master the tools of their own trade, not the trade of others. 

Labor relations should be held to the same standard. A skilled consultant doesn’t need to have worn the uniform to read a room or recognize when a conversation can proceed, and when it can't. What they do need is the ability to uphold counsel’s strategy with precision, poise, and full awareness of the legal perimeter. That fine line they have to walk. 

The further we drift from that model, the more exposure we create. And in this line of work, exposure is not something anyone wants more of.

tl/dr: Let's get back to basics. Let's make sure the consultants we send out have expertise in people and labor relations, not unrelated trades.