Monthly Archives: February 2014

The #1 way to tell someone they Suck!

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Every Monday morning we have a recruiter meeting at HRU.  The purpose of the meeting is for our recruiting department to share with each other what they are working on, what they’ve accomplished the prior week, and give in updates that the full group might need to know.  Something came up this morning that I wanted to share.  Like most recruiting departments/companies/etc. we have our “Repeat Offenders”  – these are the people who just won’t give up.  At one point, a recruiter probably called them, and maybe even interviewed them, possibly even hired them – but now, they won’t leave you alone – they call, they email, they LinkedIn, send Facebook Friend requests, etc. Basically, they become a stalker!

This morning, one of the recruiters says “Mr. Jones (I’ve changed the name to protect the guilty) won’t stop bugging me, he emails his resume to me ‘every’ day!”  We all know Mr. Jones, because Mr. Jones use to work for us at a client, and it didn’t turn out so well.  Now, Mr. Jones wants us to find him his next assignment.  The problem with Mr. Jones isn’t skill related, it’s personality related – he’s annoying.  He was annoying to the client and to his work group peers, he is annoying to us, and I’m pretty sure he was annoying to his ex-wife – thus the “ex”!

So, the BIG question. How do you get Mr. Jones to stop bugging you?  This happens to every single recruiter I know eventually.

Here are the steps I use:

1. Tell Them!

That’s it – no more steps.  Here’s our problem as recruiters – we never want to burn a bridge.  “Well, Tim, you don’t know where he might go, who might hire him, I don’t want to ruin my reputation”  We have to think about our “Candidate Experience”! Bullshit.  You’re being conflict avoidant, and if you look at your last performance review, I bet under “opportunities” is probably says something about avoiding conflict or not confronting issues head on.  I had a very good HR mentor once tell me – “it’s best to deliver them that gift, then to allow them to walk around not knowing”.  Once you start being straightforward you’ll be amazed at how many people will say, “No one has ever told me that!”  That’s the problem – no one ever tells them the truth, thus they keep doing the wrong thing, instead of trying to fix what is wrong.

How do you get an annoying candidate to stop bugging you?  You tell them exactly, very specifically, very calmly, with no ill intent – “I want to give you a gift.  You might not see it as a gift right now, but I hope in time you’ll understand it to be a very valuable gift.  I (don’t use “we” or “us” or “the company – you’re avoiding again by using those) – I think you have a very bad personality flaw that comes across annoying to me, and from the feedback I have received, to those you work with.  If this does not change, I won’t be finding you any job in the future, and you’ll probably struggle to find one on your own as well.”  OUCH! That hurt right?  But, read it again, was there anything mean or untrue in the statement? If this person actually listens to the statement and acts on it, will they be better for it?  You can change the reason for whatever issue the person might have – maybe it’s hygiene, maybe it’s a crazy laugh, who knows – but the basic message stays the same.  You need to change, or I never want to speak to you again.

It’s hard for recruiters to understand this, because 99% have been taught to be nice, thoughtful people – not to be rude.  This sounds a bit rude.  In reality, I think it’s rude to string a person along and not care enough about them to actually tell them what is wrong and to help them.  Stop telling candidates your blow off lines and start telling candidates the truth.  At the very least, you’ll have more time on your hands to talk to the candidates you really want to speak to!

HR’s Biggest Irony: We think we’re Contrarian

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When you get a group of HR Pros together there is one thing I can count on – the majority believe they somehow think differently than everyone else.  Then you look at their words and actions, and you discover they’re just like everyone else.  HR isn’t the only ones who believe this, in fact it’s rampant throughout our organizations.  The reality is, when we get around others, it’s really difficult for us to act and think differently. Hello ‘Group-think’!   The Motely Fool had a great piece on this in regards to investing, but it works for organizations as well:

“In the 1950s, Solomon Asch brought a group of students together and asked them to solve a set of problems, such as whether two lines were the same length. These were simple problems with obvious answers. But several of the students weren’t trying to pick the right answers. They were actors working for Asch, purposely giving the wrong answers in front of their peers. 

Asch repeated the study with varying numbers of actor-students blurting out the wrong answers. His conclusion: Three-quarters of the test subjects went along with the actors’ wrong answers at least once. In any given experiment, at least one-third of test subjects ignored the obvious answer and followed the actors. Just one in four consistently gave the right answer even when their acting peers disagreed with them.

Even when everyone around you is giving an obviously wrong answer, your tendency to second-guess yourself, not want to embarrass yourself, and your natural desire to fit in can trump every bit of rationality you think you have.”

Sound familiar?

The contrarian in most organizations is either the CEO, or the first one fired!  Contrarianism is not valued in the majority of our organizations.  CEO, and many senior executives, will tell you it is, and it’s what they want, but the facts don’t lie.  Most people who go against the grain don’t fit in well in corporate structures.  Which makes it even more funny when I hear HR Pros tell how they are the contrarian voice in their organizations.  No you’re not.  Plus, I would question is that what you really want to be?

I believe HR doesn’t need to be contrarian, HR needs to be conformist.  HR needs someone who is going to take that executive vision and completely conform to it.  Full buy-in, drink the kool-aid, get the tattoo on your ass, conformity.   In away that is contrarian, if you are lead by a visionary leader, either way it’s what our organizations need out of HR.  HR thinks the opposite.  They think our leaders need someone to tell them their full of it.  They don’t. Your leaders don’t want to hear they’re full of it. In fact most, really, just want to hear you think they’re right.  Those who are very self aware still only want to hear how you can help them make their ideas reality, not that their ideas are crap.

That isn’t what you expected was it? HR needs to conform, there, I said it.  Conform to the vision. Conform to the mission. Leading through conformity.

 

It’s Criminal Not To Recruit Your Competition’s Talent!

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If I get 100 Talent Acquisition Pros in a room (no this isn’t going to be a dead lawyer joke) and ask them if it is ‘ethical’ to recruit each others employees, about half will say ‘No’. In fact, there are even a number who will say, “we have an agreement to not recruit from each other”! I’ve heard this, out in the open, with no restraint. It’s normal practice in the corporate world. It’s very common to hear inside Talent Acquisition departments say they don’t ‘actively’ recruit from each other because they’ve been told not to by their executives. That type of conversation will soon be a thing of the past, although, I doubt highly the activity will be!

From SHRM on the highly publicized lawsuit of many of Silicon Valley’s largest tech companies who ‘conspired’ to not recruit employees from each other:

“From 2005 to 2009, the leaders of Northern California’s largest and most powerful companies agreed to reduce competition for workers by entering into an interconnected web of secret, bilateral agreements not to solicit—‘cold call’—each other’s workforces,” the plaintiffs allege.

“By shielding their employees from waves of recruiting, defendants not only avoided individual raises, they also avoided having to make across-the-board pre-emptive increases to compensation,” the plaintiffs claim.

Agreements among the companies to refrain from the common recruiting practice of cold-calling each other’s employees deprived workers of information regarding pay packages that they could have used to find higher-paying work or to negotiate for higher salaries with their existing employers, according to the lawsuit.”

That’s right Talent Acquisition Pros it’s actually illegal to say you won’t actively recruit from your competition because you’ve agreed between each other not do it.   I get it, I get why you do this.  Having a hot job market and constantly taking talent and losing to each other seems like a never ending treadmill of work, but that’s the life of a Recruiter.  You know there are ways to stop this from happening.  Pay better.  Engage better.  Develop talent better. Have a vision that is real and share it.  It’s the age old business conundrum, do you want to pay on the front side or the back side.  Reactionary companies end up paying on the back side – more money in wages to attract talent because they turnover people who leave for better companies, more wages, etc.  It eventually catches up.

Other companies pay up front and keep their talent by paying at market or above, then constantly evaluating the market and changing pay whenever it’s needed without having employees ask, or have to leave to get paid fairly.  They develop talent from within and spend the money to do it right, giving themselves an internal pipeline.  They make sure to only allow people into leadership positions who are engaging and visionary.  It’s a lot of work, and costs money, but in the end it’s still cheaper and you have a better company.

I would actually love to see legislation that makes it illegal if you’re a corporate recruiter and you don’t make cold calls to recruit!  You saying you’re a ‘Recruiter’ but you don’t actually recruit!   That’s the real criminal activity going on!

The Mt. Rushmore of HR and Talent Bloggers

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I’m a sports geek and recently the sports talk shows and Twitter have been blowing up over The Mt. Rushmore of the NBA.  This happened because Lebron James came out and said he wants to be on the Mt. Rushmore of the NBA when his career is done.  His current NBA Mt. Rushmore is: Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Oscar Robinson.  The reality is, is had no bearing on anything, but people love to argue the concept!  Why Oscar? What about Russell or Wilt?! Wouldn’t you put Lebron on it right now!? It’s a never ending argument that sports geeks, like me, love to have.

The Mt. Rushmore got me to thinking about my own world and the Mt. Rushmore of HR and Talent Bloggers.  People can start the argument with just the title! Why not just HR? Aren’t those two separate mountains!?  I don’t think so. While there are thousands of bloggers in the space, I don’t differentiate the two, because to me Talent is part of the HR function, not a separate thing (although I do think it will be out of HR in the future!).

So, here is my Mt. Rushmore of HR and Talent Bloggers:

– Kris Dunn – Mostly HR, writes every freaking day for the past 5+ years at the HR Capitalist and Fistful of Talent, has great opinions on topics, ties in pop culture, sports, politics, etc. He entertains and educates. First and foremost he is and has been an actual practitioner in the field – he has gotten his hands dirty cleaning up after an employee picnic, had to do I-9 audits, design hiring processes, facilitate on-boarding and open enrollment meetings. KD knows your world and knows how to give you information to help you get better at what you do.

 – Jessica Merrill-Miller – Jessica is one of the few HR blogger types who has actually made this a paying career.  Also a one-time real HR person, over the past few years she now only blogs and consults, but is a content machine with great opinions, and super helpful advice to HR pros, candidates and leadership alike.  JMM loves this stuff!  In fact, I would put money down that if you made JMM chose between Blogging4Jobs.com (her website) and her husband, it would be a quick divorce! You feel her passion when you read her stuff and go to her site.  Everyone wants to make money blogging, but no one puts in the time and effort that JMM does.

 – Glen Cathey – Many will know Glen by his site Boolean Blackbelt.  Glen gets recruiting and sourcing at a completely different level than 99.9% of people in this industry, and that isn’t an exaggeration!  While some will be intimidated by his writing – it can get technical – the information he provides is more valuable than a Master’s degree in HR.  Also, he does have a beginners guide to get people started, and he loves to use screen shots of what he’s doing to help visual learners.  Of all the people I read, Glen puts the most effort into his posts. Super detailed, great research, it’s like my own personal training guide on how to find talent better and faster – and he just keeps delivering!  Glen is also a working Talent pro – so he’s giving you real, live up-to-date stuff. Not something he did 10 years ago and is still trying to sell as relevant.

 – Laurie Ruettimann – While LFR is currently on blogging hiatus, or sabbatical, or vacation, it really doesn’t matter – she’s the queen of HR blogging.  No one is more opinionated and spot on, usually, with those opinions.  That’s why I love her writing – she can make me laugh and not like her all in the same post.  That’s what a great blogger does, she challenges the way you think.  LFR is the also the only HR/Talent blogger I know who can talk about her bathroom habits and have a thousand people comment. She’s got a great audience and the HR folks love to read her take on things.  She the prototypical anti-HR lady, who was an HR lady, lady.  She’s a CHRO, who decided not to be a CHRO.  For those who need a LFR fix – she has a Tumbler, or you can read her years of content still up at The Cynical Girl.  

People always want to know who I read – it’s these four consistently.  I also read all the folks at Fistful, I think they’re all great as well.  Who would be on your Mt. Rushmore of HR and Talent Bloggers?

 

Closeted Conservative

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Don’t think this is a post about me coming out as a Conservative! I did that a long time ago.   I actually don’t consider myself a conservative.  I would consider myself a social moderate.  I hate big government, tax increases and 24 months of unemployment insurance.  I also hate my government telling women they can’t get an abortion, and the fact our planet is dying and government does little to stop it.  Every time there is a Presidential election I feel none of the candidates are good choices.  The two party system is slowing killing everything that is great about America.

So, who am I calling out of the closet?

All those individuals, male and female, that you have working for you. All ages and ethnicities, that are considered to be ‘conservative’ in their beliefs towards issues in politics, society and culture.

Do you know why they are in the closet?

You put them there.  You make it wrong for them to believe in Jesus, to believe women shouldn’t have abortions, to believe that people on welfare sometimes take advantage of the system.  You make them stay in the closet by making them believe that the only ‘right’ opinion is that of the liberal minority in your workforce.  You teach them that ‘inclusion’ is believing what you believe.  That your liberal beliefs in politics, finances and social responsibility are the ‘right’ beliefs.  That if you believe like we do, feel free to share it publicly around the office, but if you don’t believe like we do you aren’t welcome here.

So, they stay in the closet.

It’s not that they’re really bad people.  They just believe differently than you.  You might look at them as throw backs of by gone era.  Must be from the Midwest, you think to yourself, no one on the coast would think like that.  Must be from a small town, because big city folks are more ‘well rounded’ in their beliefs. You make them feel like their kind is unwelcome in your work environment.  We like are employees to be progressive in their thoughts and beliefs.  We are an ‘Inclusive’ workplace…

Until you’re not.

It’s My Birthday, Biatch!

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Yeah, it’s my birthday, if we were really close friends you would have already known that and sent me something cool like Diet Mt. Dew or a Sprinkles Cupcake.  But you didn’t, so I wrote this stupid blog post as a birthday present to myself.  That’s what happens when you turn 33, you give yourself a present, like an adult.  Actually, I’m 44.  I don’t get why people get all upset to talk about their age.  I look at it as I’m one year closer to moving in with my kids and making their life miserable, paybacks are bitch boys!

Actually, I’m fairly certain that with the massive amounts of Diet Dew I drink I’m headed on a path to Alzheimer’s, and I don’t say that to make fun, it’s just a fact. You can’t put that many chemicals in your body and not think something will happen.  I’m very self aware. I think it’s probably a blessing in disguise to my kids. They can put me in a home, and I won’t know the difference either way.  All I ask, remember it’s my birthday, is you put me in a home that has a lake or a pond.  I like sitting by the water, even it I won’t know why.

Anyway, my wife asked me what I want.  Which is a little like asking ‘what do you want me to allow you to buy yourself’, which I appreciate, because she gets me.  If I’m going to have to get something for my birthday, I might as well like it!  At 44 there isn’t really anything material I need, so here’s the list of things I would want for my birthday in no particular order:

1. To be left alone in the house with a gin and tonic and an NBA game on.  So I can fall asleep without interruption.

2. For someone in my family to take my kids, so my wife and I can have a solid 24 hours together without having to make a meal, do a load of laundry or pick up shoes, coats, backpacks, empty food wrappers, socks, empty cups, etc.

3. For you to listen to this white kid do the rap from TLC’s Waterfalls –

Now you know what a 17 year old Tim Sackett was like.

Happy Birthday to me kiddos!

3 Steps To Make HR Suck Less

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Are you working in a HR department that sucks?  You know if you are, it’s alright, you can admit it – it’s the first step of changing it.

I bet I talk to over a hundred HR Pros a year that begin the conversation with – “our HR department sucks!” or “my company doesn’t get it when it comes to HR” or “Our HR department is terrible”.   It’s not the outlier, it’s the norm.  So, many HR Pros working in HR functions where the organization has the feeling that “HR” sucks in our company.  If you’re not in one now – great – but chances are you have either been in one before, or eventually you’ll make a “grass is greener” decision and put yourself into this situation.

You know what?  We have the power to make HR Suck Less.  Yes, you do.  Stop it, you do.  No really, you do. Alright that’s enough, just play along with me at least!

Here are the 3 steps to making HR Suck Less:

1.  Stop doing stuff that Sucks.  But Tim! We have to do this stuff.  No you don’t – if your HR shop blew up tomorrow – your organization would still go on.  Over time you’ve “negotiated” to do all this sucky stuff – thinking it would “help” the organization, or give you “influence”, etc.  Stop that.  Give it away, push it out to other departments – start doing stuff that doesn’t suck, more than doing stuff that does suck.  It’s not easy, but it can be done, little by little.

2.  Get rid of people in HR who Suck.  Some people get real comfortable with sucking.  They wear their suckiness around like a badge of honor.  You need to cut the suck out of your department – like cancer!

3. Stop saying that you Suck.  We brand ourselves internally with everything we do – and if you say that you suck at something – the organizational will believe you suck at something.  If you say we are the best in the industry at recruiting our competitions talent away from them – you’ll be forced to live up to that – and little by little you will live up to that and the organization will begin to believe it as well.  Signs and Symbols!

Every single HR Shop who feels they suck – doesn’t have to suck.  If you feel you don’t suck, but everyone else tells you that you suck – you suck.  You’re just delusional and you keep telling yourself things like “we have to do this stuff”, “it’s the law”, “we don’t have a choice”, etc.   This is the first sign you’re comfortable with sucking – you aren’t listening to your organization.  No one has to suck – you can decide to do things in a complete different way. Perception is reality in terms of sucking.  You need to change perceptions, not reality.  You can still accomplish the exact same things, just do it in a way that people think you rock.  Start saying “Yes” to everything – not “No”.  “No” sucks.

Sucking less is a decision – not a skill.  You all have the skills – you just need to make the decision – to stand up and believe – Today we will no longer Suck!

Consistency Is Way Underrated

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You know what your organization wants from you?

It’s not to be great. Or an A player. Or high energy. Or Top 10%.

It’s also not to just show up.

The only thing you really need to do is to be consistent.  Not consistently great or consistently sucky.  Just come in and meet expectations.  Every day. Every week. Every year.  Consistent.  We can count on Tim, he’s consistent.

But we don’t feel that way, do we?  We feel like we need to be more than consistent.  Consistent is somehow the new below average.

We strive to be ‘world class’ and create ‘best practices’ and ‘industry leading’.  Which leads everyone to believe that just being consistent is like having a disease.   In reality, if everyone was consistent in our organizations, we would kick the crap out of our competition.

So, why aren’t we all kicking the crap out of our competition?  Because it’s really hard be consistent!  It’s why we push so hard for rock star performance.  We need those rock stars to make up for the trolls because it’s impossible to get everyone to just meet expectations.

The next time you sit down with an employee who is ‘meeting expectations’, who is consistent.  Hug them.  Thank them for what they do each day.  Tell them if I could only get everyone else to be just like you, we would be great!

We don’t need exceptional performance to be great.  We just need everyone to do what they’re suppose to do.  Consistent.  Let’s put that on a leadership poster and sell it – “Strive to do what you’re suppose to do!”

 

I Don’t Want To Work With a Gay Person!

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Michael Sam’s announcement last week, becoming the first openly gay NFL player, rekindled some hot workplace topics.  His acknowledgement has talk shows buzzing about whether NFL players would be comfortable with a gay teammate in the locker room.  I think most people concentrated on one area of the locker room, the showers.  Would male NFL players be comfortable showering with a teammate who was homosexual?  So far, no NFL players have said they would not be.

I wonder what most HR professionals would tell an employee who did come to you and said “I don’t want to work with Tim, he’s gay, and I don’t agree with it.”

I’m assuming 99.9% of HR Pros would come up with something like this:

“You know Mr. Employee, we are an inclusive and diverse company, and that means we support all of our employees and don’t judge them based on things like sexual orientation, religion, etc.  If you feel uncomfortable working with Tim, maybe this isn’t the place for you to work.”

Seems about right, right?

Let’s add some real-life to this scenario.  What if, in your work environment, employees had to share a community, locker room type shower environment, as part of the job function.  Dirty, chemical filled, environment, employees shower after their shift as a normal course of their daily working environment.  Now what would you say?

Does it change what you might tell Mr. Employee?  You’re lying to yourself if you say it wouldn’t.  All of sudden you start trying to make concessions and talking about building individual showers, or asking Tim to shower in a private shower and locker room.  You start accommodating, like being ‘Gay’ is a disability.

What if it is your policy for employees of the same sex, when traveling, to share hotel rooms.  This is a common practice with many companies.  What do you tell Mr. or Mrs. Employee when they feel uncomfortable sharing a hotel room with a gay employee?  Do you make an accommodation for that employee to have their own hotel room?

What if your top sales person came to you and said they don’t want to work with a gay employee.  The sales person who controls and has your largest client in their back pocket – 60% of your current business.  Do you give them the same line above? “Go work someplace else!”  I’ll be honest with you, you won’t, because executives would have your job for letting that person walk from your company.  Oh, I’m sure you’re reading this saying “No, Tim, I would!” That’s great for you.  You have to know most people are unwilling to lose their job over something like this.  That’s real life HR in the trenches.

It seems simple.  So what, we have employees that are gay, who cares.  Until another employee cares.  Then HR has issues.  Being an inclusive employer doesn’t mean you just look for the gay employee, it means also you value the beliefs of the person who doesn’t agree with the gay lifestyle for what ever reason that might be.  That’s really, really hard to except for many of us.  I want to tell the gay-hating employee to go take a walk, but if I do that, I cease being ‘Inclusive’ and begin being ‘exclusive’.  It’s HRs job to make it ‘all’ work.

So, what would you do with an employee who has a problem working with a gay employee?