Monthly Archives: October 2012

HR’s Largest Affliction

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You know what I really like about Sales departments in most organizations?  They try, or do, almost anything, once, to try and increase sales for your organization.  They are willing to take chances, to tinker, to experiment and the organization is fine with it – hell, most organizations expect sales to do stupid stuff every now and again.  Marketing is the same way – if there is a dumb idea out there – someone in Marketing is bound to come up with it – and give it try.  Why not?!  It might actually work.  Operations? Same thing.  When I was at Applebee’s, about once a year some operations person would say “Hey, we should do Breakfast!” You mean America’s beer and burger place, doing eggs and bacon? Sure, why not.  Then after one week of trying a “Sunday Brunch” they’d go – “That’s dumb – let’s not do that”.   But they tried it.

HR, not so much.

Somehow HR became our organizations’ Mom.  I’m not sure how your Mom is but most Mom’s do whatever they can to put their kids out of risk.  I called this “Bubble Boy” when my boys were little and my wife would do everything possible to keep them out of harms way.  I’m sure, if would have been possible, she would have found a way to put a bubble around our boys to keep them safe.  Not a bad – necessarily – right?  Ultimately, we want to keep our kids safe – out of harms way.  That is the role of Mom.

HR is not Mom.

That really is our (HR’s) major affliction.  We are trying to be “Mom”, when no one in our organization, including the C-suite, is asking us to be “Mom”.  Most HR shops run like they are trying to eliminate 100% of the organizations risk.  The problem is – it’s not HR’s role to eliminate risk from the organization.  HR can advise of risk – “Hey, you might not want to do that, could get us into some hot water, but if you do, here’s how I can help” – but it shouldn’t be spending large amounts of time figuring out how to eliminate risk.  That’s why you have legal council – every company I know – even ones with 25 employees – have legal council.  Maybe not onsite – but they can make a call.

Think about it for a minute.  No other part of your organization spends time trying to eliminate risk.  They spend time trying to figure out what risks they should be taking to move the organization forward.  Some of those risks won’t work. Some of those risks will work so well it will transform the organization.  We need them to take risks.  Taking risks, calculated, is what drives innovation, drives increased revenues and drives long term health of our organizations.  Risk avoidance is an ill HR can cure.

HR needs to take risks.  Our organizations require this.

New Recruiting Vendor – Intomi

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One of the most unique Recruiting vendors I saw when I was at HR Tech a few weeks back was a company out France.  The name of the company is Intomi – pronounced – “In-To-Me” and they’ve come up with a product that I dare say might change Corporate Recruiting as we know it, and when I say they’ve come up with something no one else has – believe me – NO One is selling this product!

Think about what is the one thing that Corporate recruiting is missing – what is it?

No, it’s not sourcing tools – they’ve got plenty of those.

No, it’s not screening tools – that market is flooded.

No, it’s not ATS’s, or CRM’s, or branding – and you’re not going to guess this because their product is unlike anything that has ever been scene in corporate recruiting.

What Intomi does is quite simple, which makes it even that more powerful.  That’s really what every recruiting and HR vendor should be striving for – designing a product so simple that it needs no explanation – just pick it up or turn it on – and go.  Simple is difficult to do – Intomi gets this!  I’m sure it was the simplicity of their design that first drew me into their product, but it was the functionality that kept me looking at it.

In 20 years of being in the talent/HR space I’ve never seen a product that had such an immediate impact to the amount of talent that was brought into our organization, and was so cost effective at the same time.  When job boards first came out 20+ years ago – that was a big deal – and over the past 10 years social tools have really changed the game – but all of these things had one fundamental flaw – Intomi changes all of that – it eliminates the one struggle that corporate recruiting still has.

Intomi does one thing and one thing only – Intomi will immediately separate you from your competition – as you can tell I’m a huge fan!  So, what is this super simple, super powerful solution to all of your recruiting problems?

Intome forces your recruiters to physically pick up the phone and dial the number of a candidate – and won’t allow the recruiter to hang up the phone until they say at least one word. Freaking Brilliant!   This will be HR Tech’s 2013 Award winner for sure!   How does Intome do this?  Glad you asked.  They use something called metrics – which actually tracks the number of calls a recruiter makes, how long they spent on the phone and how many qualified screened candidate profiles they send on to hiring managers.  If those metrics aren’t met, the recruiter is then coached and if they are continually not met, Intome will fire them for you!  I’m just really in love with this product!

I’m not their sales person – but if you want more information on this product, then you have no idea what you’re doing in recruiting.

 

Better Boss or More Money – What do You choose?

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There was a survey done recently by Michelle McQuaid and the results were picked up by a number of news outlets and delivered as big news.  The basis of the study was, if given a choice, would your employee choose a better boss or a pay raise – and guess what they found!?

65% of employees say they would rather have a Better Boss than more Money!

So, my question to you – do you think this is true?  If you went to your employees right now, today, and told them – look we know, based on this survey you guys want a better boss, so we going to fire the idiot we have managing you right now and let you pick your next boss!  And, because we are doing this – you don’t get a raise next year – but don’t worry – you’ll be more engaged and happier because this next gal you pick to tell you what to do is really going to that much better! What do you say – are you in?!

Before you go cutting your increase budget for 2013, and funneling all of that money into leadership development – let’s look at a couple of things:

1. The person who did the survey -Michelle McQuaid – has a consulting business and guess what she’s selling? Engagement!

2. The survey sample was a total of 1000 folks from various demographics – and I’m sure was academically and statistically tested to be completely valid and reliable…

Unfortunately, the media outlets that pick this crap up never give the full story – that’s not their job – their job is to get you to click – and most people believe what they read.  Put into context, this survey is almost laughable – One person, trying to sell her ideas, throws a survey together that just by happenstance validates what she’s saying.  The Business Insider even tied Gallup into the article  making it look even more valid – which causes great confusion!

Here’s my real life study of this same subject – do this for me and let me know how it turns out:

1. Take $2500 cash – stacks of $20 bills – and set them in front of an employee.  Let the employee touch the money – pick it up.

2. Then, ask this one question – “You can have a new boss – a better boss – or you – right now – can have this money. Which one would you like?”

3. Do this to 100 employees – or 1000 (like it matters) – and tell me your results.

Here is my guarantee to you – and if it doesn’t work out this way – I’ll pay for your study.  You will not have 65% of your employees chose a new boss!!!!  I guarantee it.  Look I get what Michelle is trying to do – we’ve all drank the engagement Koolaid – so now we’re supposed to believe that money no longer matters to people. Well it does – it matters a whole lot – don’t try and kid yourself.  Telling yourself that your employees will pick a better boss over a raise is fools gold – and makes you look like an idiot to your executives – because they know reality.  People want a better boss – people need and want more money – more.

Social Responsibility is a Bunch of Crap!

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GUEST POST ALERT!  I know I’ve told a number of folks I don’t do guest posts – but it’s my site and I changed my mind – because I like this post from Ben Eubanks (check out his bio below), plus I like the kid and know him and did I mention it’s my site and I can do what I want?!  Check it out –

 

Social responsibility. It conjures up images of business people giving up their purpose and profits for the “greater good.” And I think it’s a load of crap.

I think businesses provide a much larger service to our economy than simply handing over their profits in the name of “social responsibility.” They provide jobs, products, and services that power our economy, and that’s more valuable than all the handouts in the world.

If a company is being ethical and lawful in their business dealings, then I think we have no right to expect them to do more. 

They are already having a major impact by offering jobs to people who might not have one otherwise. If you collected a paycheck sometime this month, raise your hand. Now, go and hug your CEO if you can find him/her.*

That is where businesses provide the greatest value to the rest of the world.

But we care about [animals / the environment / whatever]!

What’s going to help local charities and social programs to be successful? Money.

And where does money come from, ladies and gentlemen? Why, it comes from businesses creating valuable products and services and selling those in the open marketplace for a profit. Money in local economies is circulated when those businesses pay their employees who then go out and purchase other products and services. Hellloooo, economics.

There’s nothing wrong with companies wanting to support their local charitable organizations, but it should never become such a focus that it causes them to kill the goose that’s laying the golden eggs. Oh, and if they are dumping money into those sorts of things on a regular basis, you can bet that you aren’t getting paid enough.

It’s not that I hate charities. It’s that I hate when business leaders feel guilted into giving when they could be investing that money to hire more people, sell a better product, etc. Each of those options can have a net positive impact on a local economy.

*Not responsible for repercussions of unsolicited executive hugging sessions.

Ben Eubanks is an HR pro, speaker, and writer. He works as a one-man HR team at Pinnacle Solutions during the day, and at night he writes at upstartHR-an HR blog with a little humor, humility, and how-to. Check it out to learn more about the benefits of team building and other “in the trenches” HR topics.

Talent is a Zero Sum Game

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There is a mathematical concept called Zero-Sum, what is says is basically where one person, organization, etc. will gain, there is an equal loss by another person, organization, etc. of that exact same amount.   An example might be market share of a corporation – if GM has 17% market share of U.S. car buyers, and it gains 1%, to 18% total market share – the 1% came at the expense of their competition.  GM didn’t miraculously grow/build/birth 1% of new car buyers out of thin air. It’s a Zero-Sum game, their competition loses the exact same number of car buyers that GM gained – you rob Peter to pay Paul. 

Hiring Managers never get this!

Talent and HR Pros feel this all the time.  Hard to fill requisition, limited talent pool and the hiring managers makes you feel like you should be able to go down to the vending machine and just select C-3 and another Software Developer will fall down into your hands, ready to work! (by the way C-3 in my office is Peanut Butter M&M’s which seem to make everything better at almost any time of the day!) But it’s not that easy, right?!  Talent is a Zero-Sum game.  Now, I know my OD and Training friends will be all – “No it’s not! We can grow and build new Talent!”  Not really – not in the time I need it – which is NOW – or – YESTERDAY!  That’s my timing – it’s not 3 months or a year down the road.

That’s are main problem in Talent in 99.9% of organizations, are lack of organizational understanding of the simple concept of Zero-Sum.  If organizations really got this concept they would have robust, funded, succession planning programs that would be attempting to build future talent, to expand their internal talent pools,  but we don’t.  Less than 1% of organizations in the world really fund succession the way it needs to be funded if you want to be self sufficient in terms of talent.  Organizationally, you’re paying either way – you either pay the money up front in terms of talent attraction, or you can pay it on the backside with retention and training – so why does almost every company choose the front side of this equation?  I think most choose the talent attraction spend because we (HR/Talent/OD) have done a horrible job of working with our finance teams to come up with a plan that shows our organization there’s a better way to spend our money.  We haven’t given our leadership a better option – so we/they continue to choose to do more of the same.

Some could argue that we are currently in a less than Zero-Sum game with our employee demographics.  We have more of our population reaching retirement age, than we have potential workforce reaching the age/education/experience to replace our leaving workforce.  But, even at zero – you still see the problem we are in, it’s never ending, it’s just how do you choose to play the game.  I like thinking about our HR/Talent problems in terms of mathematics, because it gives me the feeling there are actually solutions and it’s just a matter of building the solution/process.   I think most will argue that the solution is to do all of it in combination – some attraction, some succession, some training – which I agree with, but I think the percentages of your current combination need to change if you truly want to get off the treadmill.

 

Before The Rose Ceremony – Interviewing beyond Selection

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Join Dawn Burke and I for our October webinar (sponsored by the good folks at HireVue) – “Before the Rose Ceremony: How to Become an Employer of Choice Through Your Interview Process”, where we’ll explore the following and compare it to the meat show on the Bachelor/Bachelorette:

  1. What pre-interview, pre-phone screen features subconsciously tell a candidate that you’re different from your competitors and help you plant the initial “why you want to work here” seed
  2. The 3 things that need to be present in your initial outreach to a candidate to prevent their BS meter from exploding (aka momentum killers).
  3. 5 Key Features of the live interview process at your company that sell your culture as a Great Place to Work – regardless if you hire the candidate or not.
  4. FOT’s Top 7 Interview Questions for uncovering great info and selling the candidate on your company as an employer of choice – they won’t even realize you’re doing it (and you’ll get great info as a result).
  5. SEND IN YOUR LESS ATTRACTIVE FRIENDS TO GIVE APPROVAL! (That’s FOT in this case.)  We’ll end with a simple audit process that you can use to determine if your interview process is contributing as much as it should toward your company being viewed as a destination of choice for candidates.

Join us for “Before the Rose Ceremony” and install a couple of the interview process features we discuss, and candidates will start to view you less as the Motel 6 and more like the Ritz.  Or wherever it is that feels like an upgrade from the Motel 6.  Maybe the LaQuinta?  The W?  You tell us.  The point is when you say no to people and they still love you, you’ve arrived – just like the bachelor or the bachelorette.  We think the way you interview candidates can help you accomplish that in the recruiting process.

**This program,ORG-PROGRAM-124798, has been approved for 1.00 (General ) recertification credit hours toward PHR, SPHR and GPHR recertification through the HR Certification Institute.

REGISTER TODAY

5 Steps To Becoming the Most Liked HR Pro Ever!

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The old adage “I’d rather be respected, than liked” was made up by people who didn’t have any friends!  And it’s been perpetuated for centuries by HR Pros who didn’t think it was professional to have friends in their organizations.  “I’m not their friend, Tim – I’m in HR – there is a reason we lock the doors to our department.”

I look it this a bit differently – make friends first.  That is all.  No, “then” or “after that” – just make friends.  Do you know why HR Pros don’t make friends with employees? Yes – you do – because “We don’t want to fire our friends!” or “We need to remain impartial” or “I’m stupid” (I made that last one up – which if your stupid you probably didn’t know).   The reality is, we do things attempting to stop stuff that probably will never happen.  When is the last time you truly had to fire a friend?  “Never – because I don’t have friends that work for me!” No, really, when? Most of us would say, “Never”.

The problem with not allowing yourself to be friends with non-HR employees is that you lose a major source of influence within your organization.  Also, it sucks eating at your desk everyday.  And you decrease your eventual dating pool. But, really it’s the influence!  So, here are 5 steps you can do to be more liked and make more friends at work:

1.  Stop being a know it all.  HR people act like they created Congress – everything is legal this or legal that – stop it – be normal. 99% of stuff HR thinks might happen, doesn’t happen – trying to mitigate 100% of risk in your organization makes people hate you – and it doesn’t help you do your job better.

2. Make a fool out of yourself once in a while.  You’re not that important that you have to act like Mr. Manners all the time. Having employees laugh at you, because you did something silly, foolish and/or crazy – will help them believe you might be normal.

3. Hang out with the smokers! Let’s face it smokers are cool and know everything that goes on in your organization – you want them as friends.  I don’t smoke because it’s gross, smells and will kill you – but I love hanging with smokers – especially if they have one of those voice boxes they talk about of!

4. Go out to Lunch.  Preferably not with the smokers because that isn’t appetizing at all.

5. Kiss another employee on the mouth at the office Christmas party! Kidding, just making sure you were paying attention.  Don’t do this – unless you’re really drunk and want to leave a legacy. Here’s the real #5 – Spend 50% of your time away from your desk – visiting employees and hiring managers – even the ones you don’t like.  This will change your professional life forever.

Being liked in HR is important it allows you to do your job in a much more efficient manner than when people don’t want you around.  It’s not about respect – you can have both – and given the choice of having respect and being hated, or having respect and being liked – well, let’s just say I hang out with smokers.

 

 

 

LinkedIn’s Talent Brand Index Could be Trouble!

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Ok, let’s be as transparent as possible:

1. I’m pissed at LinkedIn like a scorned girlfriend because they won’t let me buy their corporate version LinkedIn Recruiter (not that I need it – I know you can do x-ray searches or use a great product like Scavado for a fraction of the price and get the same info. – but it’s the racialist mentality of it all – “No, you can’t have it because your a bad staffing company and we only give it to good corporate recruiters) – see – scorned girlfriend.

2.  I use LinkedIn every day. Mostly to recruit employees from one company to another company, and someone pays me to do this.

3. I like using LinkedIn – solid U/I and a great recruiting tool, inexpensive.  (we call that a triple threat)

OK – On with the show!

Last week LinkedIn announced a new product at their annual Talent Connect conference, called Talent Brand Index or BrandConnect – or something like that – as you can see I wasn’t invited (which I’m actually not pissed about – I mean I’d like to go – but it’s not like the scorned girlfriend thing). Basically this is a tool/measure of how much your brand is engaged on the LinkedIn site – but it has a number of components baked into the algorithm that make this less than black and white.  I have 3 opinions of this announcement that range in 3 very different psychosis:

Pessimistic View (LinkedIn Haters)

Holy crap – this is just another way for LinkedIn to hold companies hostage over their brand!  Basically, the Talent Brand Index, if I want a higher score, forces me to encourage my employees to get on LinkedIn – the more employees I have on, the higher score I get.  Also, the more products I buy from LinkedIn, the higher my score.  I don’t want my employees to be on LinkedIn because my competition will be pimping them non-stop and I’m bound to lose some.  Plus, they keep using the words “Brand Engagement” that invariably will get confused by people as my “employee engagement” when it really has no correlation.

Optimistic View (LinkedIn Lovers)

This tool is great at showing me where I can increase my “engagement” of my brand within the product.  We trust our employees and want them to network professionally and share our brand with as many people as possible – it’s good for them, it’s good for us.  We believe we have a great place to work and increasing our brand engagement on LinkedIn will only help our recruiting efforts.  Plus, this new tool really, for the first time, gives us great insight to how people outside of our company feel and interact with our employment brand.  It’s great data!

Pragmatic View (The Middle)

If you have a “great” work environment and strong employment brand (let’s say 10% of companies) this is wonderful.  You have low turnover, high employee engagement – this will only help you recruit more folks – and more employees you have on won’t hurt you because they aren’t leaving you.  The other 90% of companies could see some impact from this – if they go out and encourage their employees to actively get on LinkedIn, in hopes of raising your Brand Index score. You have pockets that aren’t pretty and you’ll have folks that get picked off by your competition.  This will then cause you more work.  It’s not to say those people wouldn’t leave on their own – some will, regardless, but I don’t want to throw them a job fair in the lobby of our building. Reality check – most HR shops/companies don’t have the people, the money or the desire to really move the needle on increasing their “LinkedIn Brand Index” score – so this will be a non-issue for most.

Final thought –

I would like those companies who really think this is a great deal to do just 1 thing for me. Will you do that?  Today, go to your CIO and tell them you are going to have the entire Software Development team put their profiles up on LinkedIn – because you want to raise your Brand Index score.  Then let me know the results – if you still have a job, or are conscious.

 

Falling in Love with Your Job

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Do you know what it felt like the last time you fell in love?

I mean real love?

The kind of love where you talk 42 times per day, in between text and facebook messages and feel physical pain from being apart? Ok, maybe for some of you it’s been a while – you didn’t have the texts or Facebook!  But you remember those times when you really didn’t think about anything else, or even imagine not seeing the other person the next day, hell, the next hour. Falling “in” love is one of the best parts of love – it doesn’t last that long and you never get it back.

I hear people all the time say “I love my job” and I never use to pay much attention – in fact – I’ve said it myself.  The reality is – I don’t love my job – I mean I like it a whole lot – but I love my wife, I love my kids, I love Diet Mt. Dew at 7am on a Monday morning – the important things in life.  But my job?  I’m not sure about that one.  As an HR Pro I’m suppose to work to get my employees to “love” their jobs.  Love.

Let me go all Dr. Phil on you for a second – Do you know why most relationships fail? No, it’s not the cheating. No, it’s not the drugs and/or alcohol. No, it’s not money. No, it’s not that he stop caring. No, it’s not your parents. Ok, stop it – I’ll just tell you!  Relationships fail because expectations aren’t met.  Which seems logical knowing what we know about how people fall in love, and lose their minds.  Once that calms down – the real work begins.  So, if you expect love to be the love of the first 4-6 months of a relationship – you’re going to be disappointed a whole bunch – over and over.

Jobs aren’t much different.  You get a new job and it’s usually really good!  People listen to your opinion. You seem smarter – hell – you seem better looking (primarily because people are sick of looking at their older co-workers). Everything seems better in a new job.  Then you have your 1 year anniversary and you come to find out you’re just like the other idiots you’re working with.   This is when falling in love with your job really begins – when you know about all the stuff the company hid in the closet – the past employees they think are better and smarter than you, the good old days when they made more money, etc.  Now is when you have to put some work into making it work.

I see people all the time moving around to different employers and never seeming to be satisfied.  They’re searching – not for a better job, or a better company – they’re searching for that feeling that will last.  But it never will – without them working for it.

 

You Want a Jerry Jones Type Owner

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I’m not a fan of the Dallas Cowboys but I have to say from an HR perspective many of us our missing the boat on Jerry Jones.  Here’s the deal – you’ve got a guy who played college football, made a crap ton of money and decided he was going to buy the Dallas Cowboys.  It’s his team, he pays the bills, he is an owner unlike many NFL owners in that he actually wants to be involved and has background at a high level into the sport.

Let’s back up for a minute.  In business, most of our owners were at one point entrepreneurs/startup types that had an idea and ran with it.  They worked their butts off and became successful and while they might not be super involved in the day-to-day currently – they clearly have the ability to jump back into the mix if they had to.  In many circumstances owners are still the lifeblood of their companies – they drive revenue, they motivate, they live and die their brand.  Not bad traits to have from an owner (or anyone else working for you).

So, why do we hate on Jerry Jones, the owner of the Dallas Cowboys?  Here are the reasons

1. We hate him because he’s wants to be involved with the business he runs?!

2. We hate him because we feel there are more qualified people to run his billion dollar investment?!

3. We hate him because he wants to be involved with every staffing decision that is made in his business?!

You know what happens when an owner steps down and let’s someone else take over operations in a majority of cases?  You get less passion for the business, you get increased entitlement, you get a decrease in knowledge and a decrease in motivation.   It’s shown time after time when original owner steps aside (it’s something I think about often in my new role – don’t let this happen!).  Jerry Jones isn’t bad for Dallas or the NFL – he’s great for it – you won’t find a person more passionate for “his” business to succeed, for “his” employees to do well, for “his” investment to pay off even greater in the future.  You know what you get when you take away “his” or “hers” –you get “yours” and “theirs” – that isn’t better – it’s worse!