The Latest Dating Trend has Always been a Leadership Trend!

Have you heard of the dating concept called, “Stashing”?

Here’s the Urban Dictionary definition of stashing (editor’s note: you know you’re about to read a great HR post when it starts with a definition from Urban Dictionary!):

“Stashing is when you’re in a relationship with someone and you refuse to introduce them to your friends and family; mostly because you view the person as temporary, replaceable, and/or you’re an assh@le.”

There are other reasons you might ‘stash’ someone. Maybe you know your friends and family would approve of this person, so you stash them because you still like them, but you don’t want to upset your friends and family. Maybe you’re worried your friends might try and move in on this person themselves, so you stash them.

But, usually, stashing has more to do with there is something about the person that embarrasses you, most likely because you’re a shallow, horrible person, so you stash this person you’re in a relationship with. On the leadership side, stashing actually takes the exact opposite effect.

Leadership Stashing

Leadership stashing is when a leader purposely makes sure one of their direct reports doesn’t have a high profile, so that other managers within the same organization won’t know you have a rock star on your team and then try to steal them to their team.

This happens all the time, especially within large organizations!

Here’s how it works. I’m a leader of a group, my name is Tim. A year ago I hired Marcus right out of college. Your basic new hire grad. Green as grass, just like every other new graduate. I quickly came to understand that Marcus had ‘it’. He was a natural. I know Marcus will easily be better than me in the near future if he’s not already better than me.

As a leader, I’ve got a decision to make. Keep Marcus stashed on my team and reap the professional benefits, or position Marcus for promotion, in which I’ll probably lose him off my team. With Marcus on my team, I exceeded all my measures last year, and Timmy got a big bonus. So did Marcus.

When asked in leadership meeting what I’m doing with my ‘team’ to exceed all my measures, I let everyone know some of the ‘new’ leadership accountability strategies I’m using, and how it really comes back to setting great measures and then holding your team accountable to meeting those measures. Marcus, specifically, doesn’t come up.

Am I a bad leader?

Yes, and this is happening in every organization on the planet.

We love to frame this around, “well, Marcus just needs some more seasoning, and I’m the right person to give it to him”. “Marcus is young, and not quite ready.” “Under my leadership, Marcus is thriving, but under some of these other yahoos, who knows what might happen.”

The right thing to do is obvious and simple. My group is doing well, I let the organization know, it’s a team effort, but you all have to know, I hired a rock star, and we need to get Marcus on a fast track to leadership. That’s the right thing, but it’s not as easy as it sounds when you’ve been struggling to climb your own ladder.

What we know is leaders stash talent.

It’s our job as HR pros and leaders to find that stashed talent and elevate that talent within the organization. If we don’t, that talent will most likely leave because being stashed sucks in life and in your career.

 

What Paid Holidays Should You Be Paying Your Employees?

Every year, American employees leave 430 million vacation days up for grabs. (If you were wondering, that’s 1,178,082 years of unused vacation every year.)

Or in other words, way too much time.

We already know Americans are by and large workaholics. But still, if you own a small business, there are some days you should definitely give off to your employees. And it’s helpful to know what that mix of days should be.

That’s where I come in. I’ll show you how to build your own paid holiday schedule for your small business, using benchmarking data as our trusty guide.

The bigger PTO picture.

Let’s start with the main question on your mind: How much time off do people normally get? An average full-time employee in a small, privately-owned business in the U.S. receives about 7.6 paid holidays per year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That number also breaks down even further:

  • Technical/professional employees get 8.5-ish days a year.
  • Clerical/sales employees get 7.7-ish days a year.
  • Blue-collar/service employees get 7 days a year.

While that’s the average, other studies have shown most employees report getting about nine paid holidays per year. Think about these benchmarks as you decide on the number that will work best for you business.

There are no federal laws requiring employers to give PTO, but most companies offer it anyway. Why? Because it’s a must to attract and retain great employees. In fact, PTO is the second most important benefit to employees, right after health insurance.

Now, onto the next layer of the paid holiday puzzle: Choosing the actual days you give off.

So, what paid holidays should I offer?

Click through this link to my Gusto post to get the rest of this riveting content! 

No, really, I promise, it’s good stuff! Have I ever steered you wrong?

Is This a Major Sign Your Company Culture is Broke?

Or, is this just the reality of workplaces today, in the world we live in with the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements?

That’s the question I was asking myself this week when the Wall Street Journal reported that a group of female employees at Nike circulated their own survey about workplace behaviors. Here are some details from the Quartz at Work article:

According to The Wall Street Journal, the developments were precipitated by an employee-led survey circulated among women at the company. It reportedly asked respondents about inappropriate behavior by men at the company and gender inequities more generally.

Sources told the paper that Parker eventually learned of the survey, which led to a recently completed six-month formal review of company culture. Then, last week, employees learned that Nike brand president Trevor Edwards, widely considered Parker’s likely successor, would step down in August, while one of his top lieutenants, vice president Jayme Martin, was terminated immediately. According to the Journal, the two men “protected male subordinates who engaged in behavior that was demeaning to female colleagues.”

So, before I give you my opinion, I have to tell you I’m a complete Nike fanboy! My first pair of Nike’s happened around the 6th grade when I was in high school the first Air Jordan’s were released. I saved my money all summer to get my first pair (by the way, I came home from college to find my Dad mowing the lawn in these same shoes, believing since I left them in my closet I no longer wanted them!). I’m not a complete sneakerhead, but I’m a wannabe sneakerhead for sure. I love Nike, as much as anyone can love a brand.

I believe Nike’s culture is fine. It’s probably better than most places to work in the world by a great deal. I feel this way from people I know who work there and feedback I hear in HR circles. Nike is not Uber, by a million miles.

I think this shows that every workplace, no matter how good, still has some things we need to clean up. Should female employees at Nike have to circulate their own survey to deal with poor workplace behaviors? No. But, understand that Nike, over most companies, hires emboldened, powerful women. That means this isn’t surprising. The surprising part would be that these women didn’t take action.

I’m not sitting in Nike, so I don’t know if the response that happened was right, or enough. On the outside looking in, it seems like the senior leadership team handled this appropriately.

In the past, I can only imagine how this would have been handled, but my guess is it wouldn’t have been with a senior leader leaving the company, it probably would have been a lot of coaching these female employees around the appropriate way to lodge a complaint, followed by many of these females eventually leaving or being pushed out.

That was the old HR/leadership playbook. That playbook no longer works.

I would love to hear your opinion on this real HR issue and how it was handled by a very visible brand? Hit me in the comments!

 

How to be an Adult! An Employer’s Edition

Don’t buy into the hype! “Oh, just do what you love!” That’s not being an adult, that’s being a moron! Just do what makes you happy! No, that’s what a child does.

“Tim, we just want to hire some ‘adults’!” I hear this statement from a lot of CEOs I talk with currently!

That means most of the people they are hiring, aren’t considered adults by these leaders. Oh, they fit the demographic of being an adult from an age perspective, but they still act like children!

I tell people when I interview them and they ask about our culture I say, “We hire adults”.

That means we hire people into positions where they are responsible for something. Because we hire adults, they take responsibility for what they are responsible for. If I have to tell them to do their jobs, they’re not adults, they’re children. We don’t employee children.

I think about 70% of the positions that are open in the world could have the same title –

“Wanted: Adults”.

Those who read that and got it, could instantly be hired and they would be above average employees for you! Those who read it and didn’t understand, are part of the wonder of natural selection.

How do you be an Adult?

You do the stuff you say you’re going to do. Not just the stuff you like, but all the stuff.

You follow the rules that are important to follow for society to run well. Do I drive the speed limit every single time? No. Do I come to work when my employer says I need to be there? Yes.

You assume positive intent on most things. For the most part, people will want to help you, just as you want to help others. Sometimes you run into an asshole.

You understand that the world is more than just you and your desires.

You speak up for what is right when you can. It’s easy to say you can always speak up for what is right, but then you wouldn’t be thinking like an adult.

You try and help those who can’t help themselves. Who can’t, not who won’t.

My parents and grandparents would call this common sense, but I don’t think ‘being an adult’ is common sense anymore. Common sense, to be common, has to be done by most. Being an adult doesn’t seem to be very common lately!

So, you want to hire some adults? I think this starts with us recognizing that being an adult is now a skill in 2018. A very valuable skill. Need to fill a position, maybe we start by first finding adults, then determining do we need these adults to have certain skills, or can we teach adults those skills!

The key to great hiring in today’s world is not about attracting the right skills, it’s about attracting adults who aren’t just willing to work, but understand the value of work and individuals who value being an adult.

I don’t see this as a negative. I see it as an opportunity for organizations who understand this concept. We hire adults first, skills second. Organizations that do this, will be the organizations that win.

The Motley Fool has a great section in their employee handbook that talks about being an adult:

“We are careful to hire amazing people. Our goal is to unleash you to perform at your peak and stay out of your way. We don’t have lots of rules and policies here by design. You are an amazing adult and we trust you to carve your own path, set your own priorities, and ask for help when you need it.”

You are an amazing ‘adult’ and we trust you

If only it was so simple!

3 Ways Employers Should Be Encouraging March Madness!

For those that know me, I’m a huge basketball fan.  Pro, college, AAU, high school, hell, if you really dig into my past you would probably find me hanging out at some playground breaking down the defense effort of a pickup game between grade school kids.  So, when March Madness time comes around each year I’m like many of your employees.  I’m trying to find the best ways to work and watch basketball, or at the very least stay up on my brackets and see who is getting upset!

With all the hype over the past few years about lost productivity, do to March Madness, in the workplace.  I felt it was my duty to provide HR Pros with some helpful tips and tricks to get your staff to highly productive during this time of year.

Here are my ideas:

1. Put up TVs throughout the office.  Let’s face it, you really only have one or two hoops junkies in the office, and those folks usually spend vacation time to ensure they don’t miss a minute.  Everyone else just wants to see scores and highlights.  They’re a casual fan.  They’re willing to work a perfectly normal day, and will probably be just a productive, if not more, with the TVs steaming all the games in the background.  Plus, if you get a close game or big upset, you’ll get some team excitement in the air.  This also stops most of your staff trying to stream the games on their desktops for the entire afternoon.

2. Call off work those afternoons.  Let’s face it, March Madness is pretty close to a national holiday as we will ever get.  Doesn’t matter if you’re female or male, young or old, what religion you are, we all love the drama and excitement of March Madness.  Just close the office.  Make a deal with your staff to reach certain goals and if they’re met, take them to the local watering hole yourself and have some fun with it.  Employees like to rally around a fun idea.  You don’t have to make everything fun, all the time, but once in a while, it helps to lift productivity.

3. Shut off all access.  Yep, you read that correctly. Have IT shut down all access to anything related to March Madness.  Threaten to fire any employee caught checking scores on their smartphone, or calling a friend to see how it’s going.  Fear!  Fear is a great short-term lifter of productivity.  Whether we like to admit it, or not, it’s true.  If you went out right now into your office and told the entire staff at the end of the day you’re firing the least productive person, you would see productivity shoot through the roof!  You would also see about half your staff, the half you want to keep, put in their notice over the next 4-6 weeks.

The reality is, most people will do business as usual.  While the CNN’s of the world love to point to the millions of dollars American corporations lose during March Madness, it’s no different than so many things that can consume our thoughts in any given day.

I do think HR and leadership, each year, lose out on a great way to have fun and raise engagement during March Madness.  It’s something most of your staff has some interest in, and depending on your city and the schools your employees went to, it can get heightened pretty significantly.

For the record, I’m not picking Michigan State.  I want to with all my might, but I’m nervous that my bracket mojo would work the opposite, so I’ll pick someone else, and feel awesome when Sparty wins and I lose my bracket!

 

The Email Every Employee Wishes They Sent After Leaving!

Please raise your hand if you have ever drafted an email that you desperately wanted to fire off to your entire organization, or leadership, only to delete it, so to not ruin your career? I know most of you have because sometimes, in HR, we get to deal with those poor souls who didn’t have the willpower to push ‘Delete’ and instead pushed ‘Send’.

In the HR business, we call those employees ‘Former Employees’!  I’ve coined a name for those emails I like to call them ‘The Lotto Email’!  It’s the email you would feel comfortable sending the moment you return from picking up that overly sized Powerball check you just won.  You now have I-Don’t-Give-A-Sh*t money and you’re completely unfiltered.

I don’t hold out hope I will ever win the lottery but I imagine the email might look something like this:

Dear Fellow Employees,

I’m Rich Beeatch! (click here for context)

That being said I’d like to say a few things before not packing up any of this crap in my office and leaving forever.  To make this easier for you to cut and paste and send around later, I’ll bullet point this out into chunks – USA Today style – because I know most of you are slow and lose attention quickly:

– Mr. CEO – I know you think it’s probably adorable how you make comments about every woman in the office’s ass behind closed doors, but it’s not, it’s creepy. Just like you.

– Mr. CFO – You’re an accountant, calm the f@#K down, you’re not that important. Just tell us how much money we have and go back to being boring.

– Mrs. HR – Nobody likes you. This is just confirmation. BTW, everyone lies on your engagement surveys because all the managers use them as weapons, so it’s easier to lie and make you feel like what you do actually matters. It doesn’t.

– Mrs. COO – The CEO constantly talks about your ass. Hope that makes your meetings going forward more comfortable.

– Mary – I’ve always wanted to tell you that you are drop dead gorgeous, but your low self-esteem keeps you married to a complete asshole! I’m better than that. I won’t be that asshole. Here’s our chance, walk out of here with me Jerry Maguire style and let’s do this. Otherwise, I’m probably 5 drinks and 2 hours away from making some really bad decisions at a strip club.

– Ted – You’re a douche bag, everyone hates you.

There’s a bunch of other stuff I could to say – but really the only thing I really want to say is: I’m Rich Beeatch!

See you in the parking lot, Mary.

Former Employee

Obviously, this wouldn’t be ‘my’ letter because I’m the President of my company!  My letter would be a lot of thanking everyone for everything and I’ll see you around if you’re ever in the South of France on a large yacht. Plus a bunch of positive stuff and how valuable each and every employee was to me personally.

Follow by – “I’m Rich Beeatch!”

Does Your Annual Review Process Include Terminations?

By now most of you probably have had the chance to read the Telsla article where they terminated 400 employees directly after their annual review process. If not, check out the link. Also, my buddy Kris Dunn did a great write up on Tesla’s ‘unique’ culture as well over at the HR Capitalist.(Go Check it Out!) 

“The departures are part of an annual review, the Palo Alto, California-based company said in an email, without providing a number of people affected. The maker of the Model S this week dismissed between 400 and 700 employees, including engineers, managers and factory workers, the San Jose Mercury News reported on Oct. 13, citing unidentified current and former workers.
 
“As with any company, especially one of over 33,000 employees, performance reviews also occasionally result in employee departures,” the company said in the statement. “Tesla is continuing to grow and hire new employees around the world.”
My take is a bit different from Kris’s. Sure Tesla is a unique culture that has been ultra successful, but I’m wondering from an employee performance point of view, is firing employees during your annual process something that drives a sustainable culture?
Tesla is ultra cool, everyone wants “Tesla” on their resume or in their client list. Does that continue to be the case if you treat employees like this? I’m all for firing bad, underperforming employees, we all need to do this more and quicker. I think we all agree on that.
The question is, do you fire employees during your annual review process?
I’m wondering what the day or week before annual review time looks like at Tesla? Probably a lot of going away lunches and after hour drinks, but for everyone since no one really knows who will get ‘cut’ this time. Can you imagine those lunches!?
“Hey, team, everyone is invited to lunch next Thursday, just because, well, you know, it’s annual review time and we just want to say ‘thanks’ (“Thanks” now meaning “Goodbye” in Tesla speak) for all of your hard work, and, well, again, you just never know when one of us might want to do something else, and, oh gosh, we just never spend enough time together, so let’s break some bread!”
I’m also guessing the Friday after Tesla Annual Performance Review week is one big giant after-party!
Let’s face it, firing anyone during performance evaluation time is an awful way to run that process. You wait around for once a year to do most of your terminations, you’re not doing employee performance well at all!
If you have performance issues, high-performance companies address those issues immediately, work to correct, and if that doesn’t happen, they move to terminate as soon as it’s clear performance will not improve. Or you can wait around for f’ing ‘Death Day’ once a year and add a million times more stress to the process than is ever needed.
But what do I know, I mean it’s Tesla and Tesla knows all. Can’t wait to meet the ‘unicorn’ HR leader from Tesla at next conference I go to explain how brilliant they are for coming up with this nightmare.
HR on my friends.

Everyone Has An Organizational Expiration Date

I was out at the HR Technology Conference last week and I was reminded of a post I ran a few years back. I ran into a ton of friends and colleagues, many that I’ve known for about ten years. These are good, smart people who are successful in the HR and TA industry.

Regardless, many of these folks are working at new companies, or even looking for work. I’m confident all will find what they are looking for, but it also points out a phenomenon that happens all the time which is many of us have organizational expiration dates.

There are a number of other reason people should have expiration dates with organizations, these include:

  • Chronic Average:  This is for the people who just never really do anything, they just exist in your organization.  After a while, they need to just go exist at another organization.
  • Convicted Idiot: This is the person who makes a certain bad decision, so bad, that their expiration with your organization must come up. Think, hitting on the bosses wife at the holiday party, or worse!  Probably can’t legally terminate them, but they need to go someplace else.
  • 1997 Top Salesman/woman:  This happens way to much, yeah, you were top salesperson a decade ago, either get the trophy back or go give another organization your attitude!  We tend to keep them around because we are hoping they’ll regain their top form, but they don’t. We need to just let them expire.
  • My Boss Is Dummer than Me: An organization can take only so many of these, for only so long. Ok, you win, go be smarter than us someplace else.
  • No Admins Left To Sleep With: I’m hoping the title of this one explains it as well, otherwise, you might have reached your HR expiration date at your organization!

But, what I’ve learned over the past couple of decades is that there are also some positive reasons of why people have organizational expiration dates:

  • New CEO is running the show. One day you’re minding your own business, the next day the new CEO fast-forwards your expiration date so she can bring in her own you.
  • We All Need Some New Magic. Many of us have a limited number of magic tricks. It might be amazing magic, but eventually, even our biggest fans get tired of our magic. But, the great thing is a new organization will love our magic! (Editors note: you can replace ‘magic’ with ‘bullshit’ and this works just the same)
  • You Stopped Growing. I’ve met some folks who took their organization to some great places, but eventually they reached a point where they stopped growing. Going to a new organization is really the only hope.

Probably the best thing we can hope for professionally is that we will know when our organizational expiration date is up before others know.  How do we do that? Work hard on having the best self-insight you can. It might just extend your expiration date.

 

Turns Out, Employees Don’t Actually Leave Managers!

For decades we’ve been telling leaders this one thing about employees and retention. We’ve said it so much, it’s actually become ‘common’ knowledge we take for granted. It’s this one phrase:

Employees don’t leave companies, they leave managers. 

Have you used this phrase? Of course, you have! Everyone in HR has used this!

New research has come out from IBM’s Smarter Workforce Institute, “Should I Stay, or Should I Go?” that has actually proven our ‘common’ knowledge is wrong:

“Managers are not the reason most people leave – 

• Contrary to many media reports, only 14 percent of people left their last job because they were unhappy with their managers.

• The biggest work-related reason (cited by 40 percent of respondents) for leaving is because employees are not happy with their jobs.

• Almost as many people (39 percent) left their last job for personal reasons such as spouse relocation, child care or health issues.

• One in five (20 percent) workers left because they were not happy with their organization.

• Eighteen percent left due to organizational changes which had caused a great deal of uncertainty.”

This isn’t some small study of a hundred employees. IBM looked at data from 22,000 employees!

So, why has this concept of employees leaving managers become so wildly accepted and popular amongst HR leaders and pros?

You won’t like this answer, but we liked using this reason for employees leaving because it meant it wasn’t our problem. I mean it was our problem to help fix, but it wasn’t our fault. It was those stupid managers!

So, we’ll coach them up. Give them soft skills training. Talk down to them like their children, and help them become ‘leaders’. IBM didn’t actually say this was the reason, this is my own reasoning. It’s just super comfortable to give this explanation to why we have high turnover.

The reality is if employees leave there are likely numerous reasons all of which are probably centered on a bad employee experience. They were unhappy because of something. It might have been because they were working for a crappy manager, but it also might be they just made a bad fit decision in the job they choose to accept, or culturally the fit wasn’t good with your organization and the employee.

One thing is certain. Employees, the majority, don’t leave managers. They leave your freaking company. That’s not our manager’s issue, it’s all of our issues. Today’s challenge? Stop using this phrase and start taking ownership of your employee turnover!

 

The Questions Leaders Ask When Great Talent Leaves

Employee Turnover is a major problem in the majority of organizations, and it’s going to get worse. The economy might not continue to be as strong in the near future as it has been, but it doesn’t look to be any major downturn as well. Plus, demographics are playing into the job seekers favor with so many people retiring.

I’ve never been too concerned with low performers leaving my organization. I do have an issue with hiring managers telling me a performer is average or above, then when they leave the ‘new’ story comes out about how that person was a piece of garbage and now we are ‘better’ off that they left. Wait? What? You said this person was solid, but now they’re awful?

This happens all the time, especially in organizations that segment and track turnover by performance and hold managers accountable to this metric.

For me, I think the best organizations at controlling turnover are the ones where the leadership asks certain questions when they see their best talent leave. The ones that really dig into the reasons and not allow a middle-level manager make up a reason. The ones that have a documented ‘save’ strategy in place.

Here are some of the questions I ask myself when great talent leaves:

  1. Is there anything I could have done to keep this person with our organization? Why wasn’t that done?
  2. Was there anything the employee asked for to stay but we couldn’t deliver?
  3. What would have had to take place to keep this employee with us?
  4. Can we get this employee to return to us in the future?
  5. What was the ‘real’ reason this employee left?
  6. Did we ask this employee what it would take to keep them with us? What was the answer?

I’m a firm believer that you can talk anyone into staying with your organization. I’m also a firm believer that the ‘studies’ that tell you people who accept a counter offer will leave in 18 months anyway are completely wrong and out of date!

What I’ve found in all my years of doing this is that for about 50% of people who tell you they’re leaving, small things can keep them and ultimately they actually want to stay, but someone else showed them some love, and that feels so good to be wanted by another! The other 50% probably have a larger issue that is harder to solve, but if you work really hard it can get done.

One issue organizations with high turnover face is they let each other off the hook with turnover by giving each other excuses. “Yeah, Tim used to be good, but lately, he’s been awful.” “Well, it’ll hurt losing Mary, but we weren’t going to keep her happy for long.” “George is our best sales person, but he was holding other back that can be great as well.”

To control turnover leadership needs to change this narrative and stop the excuses for every single turn. The one caveat I allow is documented bottom performers that are on a plan. That’s good turnover, but it better be documented, or it’s bad turnover. Leadership owns this and it starts with tough questions about their own behavior that led to the turn.

If you get to this place, turnover will stop being a problem, and start being an opportunity.