Job Description Killers

You know what position I would love to apply for!?  Jr. Human Resource Manager – said no one ever!

I hate spending 3 seconds on Job Descriptions – because JD’s just scream “Personnel Department” but I have to just take a few minutes to help out some of my HR brothers and sisters.  Recently, I came across a classic JD mistake when someone had posted an opening and then broadcasted it out to the world for a “Jr. Industrial Engineer”.  I almost cried.

Really!  No, Really!  “Jr.”  You actually took time, typed out the actual title and then thought to yourself – “Oh yeah! There’s an Industrial Engineer out there just waiting to become a ‘Jr. Industrial Engineer’!”  Don’t tell me you didn’t – because that’s exactly what it says.  “But Tim, you don’t understand – we’ve always called our less experienced Industrial Engineers, Junior, so we can differentiate them from our ‘Industrial Engineers’ and our ‘Sr. Industrial Engineers’.  What do you want us to to do, call them: Industrial Engineer I, Industrial Engineer II and Industrial Engineer III?”

No – I don’t want you to do that either.

Here’s what I want you to do.  I want you to title this position as “Lesser Paid Industrial Engineer” – you’ll get the same quality of responses!

You know how to solve this – but why you won’t – just have one pay band for “Industrial Engineer” – from $38K to $100K.  Pay the individuals within that band appropriately for their years of experience and education.  This is why you won’t do it.  Your ‘Sr.’ Compensation Manager knows you aren’t capable of handling this level of responsibility and within 24 months your entire Industrial Engineering staff would all be making $100K – Jr’s, Middles and Sr’s!

And please don’t make me explain how idiotic it looks when you list out your little number system on your post as well (Accountant I, Accountant II, etc.). Because you know there just might be an Accountant out there going – “Some day I just might be an Accountant II!” If SHRM actually did anything, I wish they would just go around to HR Pros who do this crap and visit their work place and personally cut up their PHR or SPHR certificates in front of them – like a maxed out credit card that gets flagged in the check out line.  That would be awesome!

All this does is make it look like you took a time machine in from a 1970 Personnel Department.

But, seriously, if you know of any Sr. Associate HR Manager III positions please let me know.

You Never Truly Leave Your Favorite Job

I wasn’t a huge fan of high school.  I didn’t hate it – I just always felt my time was not the four years of high school – or at least I hoped it wasn’t! As you can imagine, being 5’7″, with above average intelligence and a ginger isn’t normally the recipe for high popularity in an American high school environment.  I wasn’t great at any sport, but participated in a few.  I was involved in theater and had fun with that.  I had friends, but none that I call a close friend now.  I know people who won’t ever admit, but you can tell about how they talk about it, that high school was the best years of their life.  It’s sad really – four years – all happening so early.  They haven’t left high school, even though they graduated long ago.

Everyone has their own ‘high school’, that place where for that one moment in time – everything seemed to fit together just right.  Maybe it was college for you, or your first job, or your current job or maybe you are still searching.   If you’re lucky that ‘time’ lasted for a while, for some, it might only last a few weeks or days.   Right now, in your mind, you’re picturing your time (if you’ve had it!).  As I’m writing this, I’m picturing mine.

In June 2001 I started my first ‘real’ HR job with a company in Omaha, NE called Pamida.  Our HR Department had a great group of men and women – people I’m still in contact with today. The one reason that my position at Pamida is ‘my time’ is because of 3 guys I had lunch with almost every day over a two year period.  Luke, Bob and Ray.  The four of us worked within 50 feet of each other and interacted throughout the day, but each day we would go off to some fast food restaurant for lunch and laugh.  Laugh like your sides hurt, like you were going to pass out, laugh.  Every stress we had in life, in our job, etc.  would get made fun of in some way or another.  It was the best therapy session you could ever have.  It made coming to work, fun.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I’ve had other great positions, with other great companies and have made great relationships (heck, I talk about my time at Applebees like we somehow created burgers and beer during my time there).  But if I had to force rank which job I’ve had that just felt the most comfortable – it would be that.  Comfortable is a good word for it.  I’ve had higher level jobs that have paid me more and challenged me more – but none where I was just completely…comfortable.  The best part of having ‘that time’ is it will always be ‘that time’ in my mind.  I know I could never go back.  Lunch with Luke, Bob and Ray would never be like it was.  It as a moment in time, and it was great.

Some people will find this exercise depressing.  Those are the people still stuck in ‘high school’.  I find it refreshing.  I’ve enjoyed certain parts of every single position I’ve ever had.  I’ve made great personal and professional relationships with people in every position.  I’ve been apart of ‘that time’ for other people in other companies, and I cherish those times as well. I like having my time, because it helps me as a leader want ‘that time’ for those I lead.  It’s like a goal.  I want their time, under my guidance, to be ‘that time’! That would be awesome.

What has been your favorite job?

3 Ways Contract Staffing Fails

Contract technical staffing is what I do for a living – so I know exactly where it falls down.  I spend every day trying to talk people into why they should use contract staffing and why it makes sense.  In 13 years of being in this business, I’ve never had anyone ask me why it doesn’t work.  That might be kind of odd.  Don’t get me wrong, I’ve talked to hundreds of corporate HR and Recruiting Pros who HATE contract staffing – but 99% don’t know why they hate it.  Most believe they hate contract staffing because it’s taking their job away.  Nothing makes me smile more than to hear a really good HR Pro say “if I hire your company ‘they’ll’ have no reason to keep me around”.  It makes me smile because I know they have no idea about what we do – and I can probably convince them to use our services!

To be honest, though, there are some reasons when contract staffing fails.  If you deal with contract staffing firms, you might find that shocking to hear, because we are trained from birth not to ever say anything negative about our service.  ‘Everyone’ can use us for any recruiting need you might have!  Well, no not really.  Let me give you 3 Ways Contract Staffing Fails:

1. To Attract your competitions talent when you are equal or trailing in market compensation.  I always like to say there is no one I can’t recruit.  Given enough time and money – I could get President Obama to quit the Presidency.  But if you think a contract staffing firm is going to get your competitions best developer to leave their direct job for a contract job, for the same money or less – you’re crazy.

2. When you fall in love with the talent.  Every once in a while I a client who gets upset.  They bring on a high priced contractor, that person does great work, and the client falls in love and wants to hire them.  The problem is many contractors are contractors because they like moving from project to project.  They like you, they just don’t like-like you.  Contract staffing works really well when it’s a win-win. We have a project, you nail project – we both got what we wanted.  It fails when one party falls in love, and the other doesn’t feel the same!

3. When You Think I’m Magical. Recruiting is recruiting.  I don’t have a magical stable of candidates waiting to come to work for you. Well, I might have one or two, but not a stable. When you tell me you need something – I, usually, have to go out and find the right talent, fit, etc.  Just like you would, if you were looking to hire a direct position.  I’m not magic, I’m just good at finding technical talent.  There’s a difference.

I get why some new clients get put off by contract staffing.  I call you, tell you how amazing we are and how good we are at what we do and then you expect I’m going to have 5 perfectly screened ready to work Controls Engineers in your inbox the next morning – when you’ve been searching for 6 months and don’t have one.  Expectations are a huge issue we all face in recruiting – no matter what kind of recruiting we do.  I have to manage my clients expectations, just like you have to manage your hiring managers expectations.  Contract staffing works really well when you find a partner that makes sure your expectations and their deliverables all line up.

Want to discuss?  Contact me: sackett.tim@HRU-TECH.com, 517-908-3156 or send me a tweet @TimSackett.   I promise to under promise and over deliver.

Ex-employers, Please Send Gifts!

Dear Applebees,

I use to work for you in Human Resources.  It was a great 3 1/2 years, I loved working for you.  I was surrounded by the most talented group of Human Resource, Operations and Training professionals I’ve ever been around.  I tell this story often, but you know when you go into a large business meeting with like 20-40 people all sitting in a large square or circle of tables?  And you look around and you instantly see a couple of slugs, people who shouldn’t even be working for the company, let alone be in this meeting.  The first time I traveled to Applebee’s headquarters for a large operations meetings and I walked into the entire group of HR professionals that the Applebee’s leadership team had assembled, I looked around the room and couldn’t find one of those people!  Then it hit me – I’m that person – I’m the slug!  It was the coolest feeling to be challenged like that – to be surrounded by talented, caring people all working to make a company great.

I’ve moved on to bigger roles and a bunch of new experiences, but I still share so many things I learned while I was with you to those HR Pros I’m connected to.  I still talk so highly of the brand and the people that make your brand what it is today.  You’ve got some really great people still working for you, even after that crappy pancake place bought you.  You’ve lost some great ones as well – I could point out a number and where they are currently working and what their numbers are – who knows, they might want to come back.  You knows, maybe I want to come back.

Tell you what.  Why don’t you send me something. Just a little something to remind me of what I’m missing – a gift card, a free appetizer coupon, a carside to go Frisbee – you could even have someone drop off lunch to my office — grilled chicken oriental roll-up .  You see, I might want to come back, but no one has ever asked.  No letters, no phone calls, no tweets or Facebook messages.  I know I left you and that probably didn’t feel very good, but I think we can all be adults about this.  I had some growing up to do, I needed to see if those fries on the other side of the street really were hotter.   You can’t blame a guy for that.

So, who knows, we were so close once – and there’s nothing to say we can’t be close again,

Tim

****************************

Just in case you are very lost at this point – check this out from Yahoo! Also, Marissa Mayer if you want to send me stuff, I’ll even think about coming over to Yahoo! Who knows – I like gifts!

In case you’re still lost: some of the best recruits you’ll ever get, are people who’ve already worked for you and were good, but you’ve never asked them to come back.

 

The A+ Player Employee

I know a ton of HR/Talent Pros are sick of hearing employees broken down into A, B and C players.  It seems played out and dated.  But I like it.  I’m simple and the ABC player scenario is easy for me to describe, in very quick manner, how someone is performing.  I’ll give you, though, there are problems.  Once you have your “A” players, how do you tell which is the best one?  Can’t a “C” player be close to moving up to “B”, but another “C” be close to getting terminated?  The problem is, ABC doesn’t accurately enough describe individuals, it just describes groups of employees – a range of performance at any given snapshot in time.

I was having a conversation about this the other day with a peer and was describing a person’s performance who worked for me – an “A” player.  As I was describing this person, I said, “but you know what, they are better than an “A” player – they’re an “A+” player”!   Oh, boy, here we go.  What the heck is an A+ player?!

Traits of your A+ Players:

– All the talent and performance of your traditional “A” player, but with:

A.  Work like they’re a “B” player hungry to get to “A” status

B.  Lack the ego some “A” players tend to catch upon gaining “A” status

C.   Don’t believe they’ve reached “A” status, even when they have.

A+ players are special.  As soon as you read the traits you had an individual come immediately to mind.  That person who is a great performer, but also someone you wish all of your employees would emulate.  A person who is a joy to work with, and gets things done.  Maybe not the best at any single task – but the person you want to do every task.  A+ players aren’t culture changers, they are the culture.  Not everyone has an A+ player, and I don’t believe you can create one.  You usually have to hire them – and they ascend to A+ level very quickly.

When people tell me they only hire “A” players I tend to judge them as not having any idea about HR/Recruiting/Life.  You don’t hire “A” players.  You hire talent you believe is capable of becoming an “A” player within your organization.   Because they were an “A” player at another organization, has very little impact on their performance level within your organization – unless you somehow magically cloned their previous environment, leadership and resources and put them back into that same place.  It’s true that past performance is predictive of future performance – but only when you put that talent into a very similar circumstance.

That’s why it’s really hard to find A+ players, because you don’t even know when you hire someone if they will reach that level.  You might have a feeling – like – “oh boy, we’ve got someone special coming in”, but you don’t know, until you know.  All I really know is when you have one, do what you have to keep them around, because you’ll never know if you’ll get another one.

 

Paul Hebert Day Celebration!

A year ago today, my friends in the HR Community, made up a holiday just for me!  On January 23, 2012 Tim Sackett Day was born! The holiday was created as a tongue in cheek, sorta F you to all of the ‘most influential‘ Top 100, Top 25, etc. lists that were being created.  I was against most of these lists, primarily because I was being left off most of these lists! I was surprised by this gesture!  I was flattered and it was really funny!  January 23rd became my day.

For the 2nd Annual Tim Sackett Day – we (those same HR friends – Laurie Ruettimann, Lance Haun, Kris Dunn, Matt Stollack, Steve Boese, etc.) decided it would be best to keep the spirit of the day (recognizing a Great HR Pro like myself – who is under-appreciated!) and make January 23, 2013 – Paul Hebert Day!

Don’t know Paul – well you should!  He’s a Pros – Pro.

Paul Hebert is a fellow Fistful of Talent Contributor – Badge #03 – Paul is one of the originals at FOT!

From his FOT Bio:

“Paul Hebert is the Vice President of Solution Design at Symbolist.  Paul’s mission is to humanize the business relationships needed to drive greater employee, channel and customer loyalty.  His is dedicated to creating true emotional connections often overlooked in our automated, tech-enabled world.  He is currently working to combine 1,000 posts on influencing behavior at his old site: http://www.i2i-align.com with his new team at Symbolist: http://symbolist.com.”

What does Paul specialize in?  Incentives and Performance Motivation – and he really knows his stuff!   I’m fortunate to have him in my circle of trust being on the FOT team together and I’ve frequently gone to Paul with incentive questions/issues I have, and he always comes back with some very straightforward, slap me across the face, advice.  In HR many times we know what we should be doing – but we do other stupid stuff instead – because the other stuff is too hard or too uncomfortable – Paul doesn’t let you do that!

What else is there to know about Paul – the dude is a fighter!  He’s fighting Bladder Cancer right now and started a site – PeeStrong.com – which gives you a little insight to his personality!  Check it out – Paul writes over there about his fight in the same frank matter that he writes about incentive and employee motivation.  It’s refreshing and needed.

Look, I know many of you are probably a little shocked right now.  You had major Tim Sackett Day parties planned and your mind is racing on what is happening.  It’s O.K. – relax – the nice thing about today turning into Paul Hebert Day is Paul and I would both want you to celebrate in a very similar matter.  Sit down with friends and family, select your favorite beverage, light up an expensive cigar and enjoy the conversation – that’s what Paul Hebert Day/Tim Sackett Day is all about!

Have a wonderful holiday!

Sales Pitch Tuesday – The Test Drive

You know what car dealers know that they’ll never tell you?  They know that if they can get you to test drive a car, there’s a great chance they can talk you into buying a car.  That’s why you see all of these test drive special offers!  Come on in for a test drive and you’ll automatically get 2 free tickets to a Piston’s game. The best ones are the ones when it’s for a charity or non-profit school organization – “we’ll donate $20 per test drive this Saturday to the little league!”  They know that we are stupid and we are addicted to new car smell – get enough folks to come in and test drive, and they’ll be moving some cars that day!

Hiring really isn’t to awful different.

In my business, contract staffing, I know that if I can get you to hire some on contract, engineers or IT professionals – you’re going to eventually want to hire them.  You’re basically test driving talent!  The one rejection I get the most from corporate HR/Talent Pros is that we don’t want “contract” we want to hire direct.  So, I ask the most obvious question – why?   And I’ll get a range of answers that mainly stay around the theme of: “we want someone ‘permanently’ to come and work here”.

Here’s what I know about hiring.

1. No matter what hiring/screening/interviewing process that you have – you’re going to make some really bad hiring decisions.

2. Once you hire someone ‘direct’ – it’s highly unlikely you will be quick to terminate that person. (2 reasons for this: A. As a HR Pro you don’t want to admit that your process failed;  B.Your hiring managers are bad at performance management and it takes them forever to get to a point to fire.)

3. You’ll fire a contractor without a 2nd thought. (HR Pros are great – because the exact things they would never fire a ‘direct’ employee over – they’ll ‘can’ a contractor over in a heartbeat! “Yeah, Tim, Johnny keeps wearing Capri pants, he doesn’t fit in here, we want to end the contract.”)

I always tease my clients that contract staffing a little like ‘Crack’ – once you start, you don’t want to stop.  Here’s why you need to try crack contract staffing:

1. You hire faster.  (You still screen, but you don’t have to get all HR crazy with it!  Hiring managers love this because you get people in fast, determine if they are a good organizational fit and Bam – it works.  I can’t tell you how many times on the corporate side we took months to make the ‘right’ decision, only to have the person come in and find out they really weren’t that great of a personality fit with the hiring manager.  Such a complete waste of time and resources.)

2. Ultimately, when you decide to hire direct – you’re hiring a completely known talent.  There are no surprises.  You’ve test driven your candidate for an extended period!

3. You might find out you don’t need someone on direct.  I can’t tell you how many times a year a client comes to us saying they need someone, ultimately for a direct position, but 6-9 months into it they’ll lose a project, or have another resource internally come available.  99% of HR/Talent Pros have no idea what percentage of their workforce should be contingent – with many ‘truly’ believing that percentage should be zero!  If the recession has taught us anything, it’s we need to have at least a little flexibility to our workforce.  Our European HR counterparts get this much more than we do.

Want to know more?  Want us to find you some contract Tech Pros? Want me to come take you to lunch to discuss? (I’ll buy)  Want to tell me I’m an idiot?  Contact me directly at: sackett.tim@hru-tech.com; 517-908-3156 or @TimSackett on the Twitters!

 

Employee Retention is Easy

What is the one thing that employees hate more than anything else?

Change.

Bar none – ‘change’ would rank as the most disliked thing that a company can do to employees.  I know, I know – all of you reading this are really progressive – you ‘love’ change, you embrace ‘change’, you’re ‘change’ advocates.  Yeah, right.  The people who say they ’embrace’ change are the same folks who go into a deep depression when their favorite TV show is cancelled.  Change for most people sucks.  People like what they know.  They like knowing that they’ll stop at the same place each morning to pick up their morning coffee and Joe behind the counter will know they like it with low fat milk and one sugar.  They like knowing that the doctor they’ve gone to since they started with you right out of college, is in your insurance plan, and they can keep going to that doctor.  They like knowing that their check will always be deposited into their bank account on the first and third Friday of each month. No. Matter. What.

That is the secret of Employee Retention.

People – your employees – don’t actually want to leave your employment.  Starting a new job, in a new location, working a new boss, etc. – Sucks!  It’s major change!  Your employees actually want to stay with you – they just don’t want their job and the company to suck.  So – you Change!  And change causes them to what?  Ugh…this is hard.

So, how do you keep your employees, without changing?

Most change fails because of the communication.  This is especially true in so many HR shops – we tend to over communicate and over complicate minor changes, with major communications!   We are implementing a new payroll system that will save us time and money, but in doing so checks will now be deposited on the second and fourth Friday of each month.  OMG!  Our employees are going to freak out – they are use to the first and third Friday!  This. Is. A. Major. Change.  We need a committee.  We need posters and wallet cards.  We need changes to our policies.  We need to have a six month transition period – where we will communicate this over and over.  We need…Stop.

What you need is a simple message out to the troops.  Hey all – payroll is getting a great new system.  We’ll have less errors, save the company a bunch of money.  We’re happy we could get them some really good technology for their function.  Checks will now come out on the second and fourth Friday of each month. Plan accordingly.  Let your supervisor know if you need some help in this transition. This will go live next pay period.  Bam!

People don’t like change.  So, don’t maximize change that doesn’t need to be maximized!   If you only communicated truly “Big” change and it “Big” change happens rarely – it doesn’t seem like change is happening all the time.  Your employees WANT to stay with you.  They HATE change.  Stop making them feel like change is happening all the time – just so you feel like you have some IMPORTANT to do.

Employee Retention is Easy, simply because deep down, your employees really don’t want to leave.

 

 

Lawyer-Up

Years from now when I retire and look back on my career in HR I think I’m only going to be surprised about one thing.  It won’t be how crazy some employees can be, or dumb things supervisors have said to employees or even the shocking employee relations issues I’ve dealt with.  The one thing will be how totally comfortable I’ve become in dealing with lawsuits and potential lawsuits!   If you really thing about it, most people in the world are not comfortable with lawyers.  Just as HR Pros are looked at like the Grim Reaper in many organizations – no one wants to see the lawyer’s number pop up on their caller ID!  Combine the Lawyer and HR Pro together and you have most employees worst nightmare.

I’ve gotten to the point now in my career where I actually try and beat employees to the punch.  Here’s how it normally goes: Employee is either being terminated, or had a boss be a little too touchy or somehow slipped in the parking lot on a dry sunny day and HR gets a call/visit that sounds something like this:

Employee: “Yeah, well, ‘we’ve’ got a problem!”

HR Pro: “Really!? What problem do ‘we’ have?”

Employee: “Jill took my stapler and told me my ‘Boo’ is sleeping with Mary.”

HR Pro: “And…”

Employee: “And!  And that’s stealing and I’m working in a ‘hospitable’ work environment!”

HR Pro: “Hostile.”

Employee: “I’m not being “Hostile”! Oh, you’re against me to – I see how this is. I know my rights! I don’t want to have to get ‘others’ involved but I will.”

HR Pro: “Others. Oh, you mean a lawyer?” (I like to act like I’m surprised and that thought had never come to me that they might go this direction.) “Tell you what – I think you’re right on.  Have your lawyer contact me immediately so we can start working through some of these details, like how another employee stole your work issued stapler and how your “boo” is sleeping with Mary.”

That usually ends the conversation right there.

The fastest way to get an employee off ‘Lawyering-Up’ is to push them to ‘Lawyer-Up’.  The reality is for HR Pros – either way – you will either need to Lawyer-Up or you don’t, depending on the details.As an HR Pro I’ve become very comfortable with this issue.  I think about 100% of the time when  I hear from an employee that they are “going to call their attorney”, I try and tell them that is a really good idea.  I encourage them constantly to seek legal advice. Why? Because here’s another thing I’ve learned from being an HR Pro – the majority of attorneys will tell people to take a hike when they have nothing.  Honestly. We tend to think lawyers will sue for anything, but in most employment cases they won’t. 99 out of 100 times you have an employee seek legal advice – you’ll never hear from them again because some attorney will tell them – “You have no case.”  The one case you do hear from – is probably the one you already knew you had problems with already.

Yep – being told “I’m going to sue you”, who knew someone could ever hear those words and not feel nervous!? Only HR Pros and Lawyers.

 

The Longest Mile…

You know the saying “walk a mile in their shoes”?  It’s usually said when someone is overheard judging someone else – and it comes out – “well, I guess you’d have to walk a mile in their shoes to really know” or some variation that is similar.  I feel very strongly about this with the recent developments with Lance Armstrong.  I don’t find myself judging him, in fact, I find myself thanking God I have never been put in that type of situation where my morality would be so tested!

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not a Lance Armstrong supporter.  I usually hold my support for those I’ve sat down and have broken bread with – and, well, Lance and I just run in different circles.  I actually feel very indifferent towards the whole Lance thing.   I am a little put off, though, by folks who claim they could never do what he did.  Let me give you the quick run down of what he did:

1. Started Professional Cycling.

2. Found out to compete in professional cycling you would have to do Performance Enhancing Drugs and Lie.

3. Made decision to do Performance Enhancing Drugs and to lie.

4. Made a crap ton of money.

5. Destroyed peoples lives to continue to make a crap ton of money.

6. Got Cancer.

7. Decided to fight cancer and use his money and notoriety to start a widely successful Cancer Foundation.

8. Uses influence and motivation t0 help save untold lives through his foundation.

9. Finally admitted to cheating and lying on Oprah.

Did that pretty much sum it up? For the most part…

To be perfectly honest – if I was put in Lance Armstrong shoes – I can’t tell you that I wouldn’t do the same thing.  I could lie to you and tell you I would never do that, but I’m thankful to never have been put in that situation.  99.99% of us will never have our morality tested like this – be thankful, not judgmental.  Remember the movie The Good Son?  Average movie, one great scene – Mom at the end, hanging over a cliff, hanging on to her two sons from falling to their certain death, one by each arm.  If she holds onto both – both will eventually slip from her grasp and fall to their death.  She has to let one drop and save one.  Which one?  As a parent, I would rather die myself than to have to make that decision – most parents would.  Thankfully most of us will never be tested like that.  Lance was tested.  He failed.

You can almost see his thought process of justification: did something really bad – foundation will make up for bad stuff.  Fortunately, again, I’m glad to not have to live my life being judged on one decision I made, deciding my fate for the rest of my life, no matter what other decisions I’ve made since.  I wonder if Lance ever would have done anything good – if he never got cancer!? He never gets cancer, you never have the LiveStrong foundation. There’s no argument on this guy.  He’s just bad. (oh, boy that’s a whole other post!)

I can’t imagine how long of a mile it must be to walk in Armstrong’s shoes – or even bike it!  I pray I never have to know.