‘Jury Duty Presents: Corporate Retreat’ is scripted, but captures the real soul of HR

The second season of Prime Video’s Emmy-nominated sitcom Jury Duty is worth watching for many reasons, but will especially resonate with HR pros.

The ten episodes that make up Jury Duty Presents: Corporate Retreat follow Anthony Norman, who’s hired as a temporary assistant to the head of HR at Agoura, California-based Rockin’ Grandma’s Hot Sauces. Norman’s job is to help organize and ensure the company’s annual retreat is a joyous, seamless occasion for its 10 full-time employees.

What Norman doesn’t know is that none of it is real.

The job, the company, the shenanigans that ensue during the weeklong retreat…they’re all scripted. But many of the seemingly outlandish scenarios are more realistic than you might think.

“As you go, the scenarios get more and more far-fetched and outrageous. As they escalate during the series, I just was more and more ticking off, like ‘Yep, seen that. Yep, seen that,’” Rebecca Apostoli, a fractional head of people, told HR Brew.

During her 20 years in the industry, Apostoli says she has helped organize over 100 company retreats and 150 smaller offsites. She said the show captured the essence of a real-life offsite, and the colleagues and experiences one might find there.

Examples of HR situations on the show. Throughout the retreat, Norman was faced with some of the biggest HR headaches, like in the first episode, when Rockin’ Grandma’s head of HR proposes to an employee (whom he was not dating).

“I had been in a not too dissimilar situation where there was an unwanted romantic relationship, like an inferred romantic relationship, between a much senior VP and a more junior [employee],” Apostoli said, adding that the scenario resulted in a new “non-fraternization policy.” “You would think this is really unrealistic, that this could never happen in a workplace. It happens all the time.”

On the show, the head of HR is scripted to leave the offsite for several days, leaving Norman boss-less and responsible for the retreat, where emotions were running high. Employees, uncomfortable following the proposal, were also grappling with their decades-long CEO preparing to step down and hand the reins to his clearly inexperienced son.

“The nepotistic promotion from within, of a family member into a role that they are wholly and totally unprepared and unqualified to do,” is another scenario Apostoli said she’s seen.

But, amid the rising tensions, Norman stayed positive for the staff and supported the incoming CEO, who he seemingly saw as an underdog.

“When HR is at its best…it looks like the hero of the show, who unwittingly and with very little experience, showed up for those characters when they needed it,” Apostoli said. “With a word of encouragement, positive attitude, problem solving in the moment…he sometimes was able to save it and bring it back by using his humanity.”

How HR becomes the HeRo. Halfway through the retreat, the outgoing CEO shares that a private equity firm is interested in buying the hot sauce company. Employees then have to worry about their and the company’s future, too.

Their fears are confirmed by Norman, who learns the PE firm plans to fire them and dissolve the company once the acquisition is complete. In a race against the clock, Norman rushed into the boardroom, where the outgoing CEO was seconds away from signing the paperwork, and tried to convince him not to go through with the deal.

“Once you sign it, you have no control over the things they’re gonna do,” Norman said. “I go home in two days. I genuinely have no dog in this fight besides I care about y’all.”

Norman’s livelihood wasn’t on the line, but he was determined to save the day. And while it was unbeknownst to him that it was an entirely scripted situation, Norman exhibited genuine care.

“Humans being good, humans being good to each other, being kind, helping each other…is the true spirit behind HR,” Apostoli said. “Great HR professionals…they’re bringing the magic. They’re bringing some of the secret sauce and creating that container in which people can show up as humans and do their best work together.”