Monthly Archives: February 2014

I Love to Love

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I love to love. I don’t love to be loved in return.  That is a very hard concept for most people to comprehend. They’ll say, ‘oh yeah, me to, I just love that person’, but when ‘that’ person doesn’t love them in return, the way they want to be loved, they no longer ‘love’ that person.

The employment relationship is a lot like that.

When you’re an employee you want to love your employer.  Also, you want your employer to love you.  One without the other seems like a bad mix.

I love to love.  If someone I love stops loving me, or doesn’t love me the same as I love them, I like to believe it doesn’t change my love.  When all my sons were really little, they loved me in a way that I will never forget.  I was the center of their world.  As they grow older, I know they still love me, but I also know I’m no longer the center of their world.  My love has not changed for them, they are still the center of my world.  I don’t think less of them for this.  This is growth.  It is my hope, I’ve shown them how to love their children, if they are fortunate enough to have them.

Just like we shouldn’t think less of our employees who fall out of love with us.  Nor should we fall out of love with them, just because they fall out of love with us.  Sometimes there are legitimate reasons for these feelings.  I see this all the time.  Well, we loved Mary, but for some reason she stopped loving us, so screw her we don’t love her anymore!  Would you do that with your children?  Your parents? Your spouse? (Wait, don’t answer that!)

I love my employees.  If I fall out of love with an employee it usually ends rather quickly.  If an employee falls out of love with me, it hurts.  But I don’t stop loving them.  I care about them making good choices.  I care that they are healthy and successful.  I want the best for them. That might not be with me and my company, but I want it all the same.

I love to love.

Happy Valentines Day!

What would it take to get you to punch an employee?

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For most HR Pros, the answer might be – “Not much!” if they were joking behind the locked doors of their HR department!

This came up close and personal this past weekend when a college basketball player from Oklahoma State University, Marcus Smart, fell into the crowd during a play in the game and forcibly shoved a fan that made a comment to him that caused him to react.   It’s the first time anyone can really remember a NCAA athlete leaving the field of play and purposely making contact with a fan – in a manner that wasn’t positive.  It happened years ago in the NBA with the now infamous, Malice at the Palace, where a fight broke out between professional basketball players and fans that got completely out of control.

I’m not here to say Marcus was wrong or right.  If the guy said what Marcus said he said, I think the kid should have done more than just shove it, and I applaud his restraint.  If the guy didn’t say what is thought to be said, but some other dumb thing, well Marcus wasn’t living up to his namesake. Either way, Marcus understands that leaving the court of play to shove a fan is wrong, and has said so.  Being in HR, we know that at well.  There is nothing any employee could say to me that would get me to physically assault them.

Okay, that’s lie!  There is all kinds of things that might happen at work that I could justify an employee punching or shoving another employee!

I’ve witnessed employees saying the most outrageous, cruel things to each other.  What usually happens? One, or both, get fired.  It’s pretty easy from the HR side of things.  We can’t have this in our workplace, zero-tolerance, you’re gone.  It’s the easiest termination in the HR game.  In 20 years I’ve never even had anyone come back and try to fight it.  You punch an employee – you get fired.  Period.

I actually don’t agree with this, but it’s what happens in HR.  I think there are times that an employee is completely justified in hitting another employee – and the one who got hit should lose their job!  I had a former employee tell another employee, who was a father that recently had his son die, that ‘he deserved it’, to have his son die.  Beyond cruel.  The guy deserved to get hit, and the father deserved to react.  Legal made me fire him.  I fought it as far as I could, almost lost my job.  There are times in the workplace that an employee should get punched.  Just like there are times in an athletic event where a fan should get hit.  There are no absolutes in HR or life.

What would it take to get you to punch one of your coworkers?

Check out this video – even though it’s parents and a school principal – it totally reminds of how employees act when they are in the HR office. Enjoy.

7 Words Mathematically Proven To Get You More Hires!

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Wired recently worked with OkCupid and Match.com to find out which words were used on the most popular dating profiles on their sites.  Millions of data points were done for this data analysis and they came up with the most popular 1000 words.  What they came up with were the exact words to use in your profile descriptions to get the most clicks.  I’m going to take this one step further and say if these words attract singles to another single, I’m quite certain they would attract a job seeker to a job.  My theory being singles are also job seekers.  Okay, I hear you, just because some words might attract one person to another person doesn’t mean those same words will attract a person to a job – but it might.

It is my belief that we can totally re-write Job Descriptions in a way that is a lot less HR’ish, and much more real, which will make more people want to work in the jobs you have.  My good friend, Kris Dunn, is a master at this over at Kinetix (click through to see some of KD’s work). Here is another one I put together when I was hiring a Recruiter for my staff.   The positive is, it lets us in HR get our ‘creative on’.

Let ‘s give it a shot. I’ll give you 7 categories of words that were mathematically proven to get more dates hires:

1. Active Words: Yoga, Surfing, Surf, hiking, athlete, etc. These words were popular because people want to be associated with things that are good for them. Do you highlight active things you do at your organization in your job descriptions?

2. Pop Culture Words: 30 Rock, The Great Gatsby, Homeland, Arrested Development, The Matrix, The Big Bang Theory, The Hunger Games, etc.  People want to work with an organization that has a personality.  Pop culture references in your JD give you a personality.

3. Music Words: (FYI – some of these could also be considered Pop Culture) – Radiohead, Nirvana, live music, guitar, instruments, etc .Does your organization have a musical preference? Why not?  Maybe you’re a little country, maybe you’re a little rock and roll, either way, it’s alright to let candidates know!

4. Calm Words: Ocean, meditation, beach, trust, respect, enjoy, planning, dedication, openness, etc. Words that project a feeling of safety and security. In today’s employment marketplace, don’t discount the value of your jobs based on how calm and secure the work is.  Anxiety is at an all-time high.  Having the ability to say “we’ve never laid off in our history!” could pay you huge dividends.

5. Food Words: Chocolate, cooking, foodie, pizza, sushi, breakfast, etc. Food is a gathering and sharing point in most cultures.  If you do food related things in your work environment it brings all of your people together. Everyone eats. Not everyone will do Yoga or want to watch movies.  Chili cook-offs, company happy hours, Donut Fridays, etc.

6. Descriptive Words: Creative, motivated, confident, driven, passion, awareness, etc. Most HR pros see JDs as a means to an end.  They’re a legal necessity.  We should be looking at them as mini-commercials for our jobs.  I would love to see a company go full video JD – nothing written, just watch our Job Description. 60 seconds of someone telling you what this job is.

7. Spontaneous Words: Tattoos, F*ck, wasted, kissing, puppies, sucking, lucky, etc.  Words that most people would never expect to see in a JD.  This word has absolutely no usefulness in a JD – that’s exactly why we put it in there.  It might not attract an older conservative candidate, but it might be just what a newer generation is looking for.

I’ve never met a senior executive that had a problem with any job description I wanted to write – not matter how bland or how crazy.  That being the case, why do we continue to write JDs that put people to sleep?

 

 

 

2 Ways to Tell If You’re An Essential Employee

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I’ve had many conversations in my career with employees who “essentially” felt they were probably more important to the business than they really were.  You know who I’m talking about!   The ones who at some point let it slip: “This place would shut down if I wasn’t here” or “Let’s see how you do if I leave” or “I made this company what it is today”.  It’s usually a sales person, or technical person who have had big roles, no doubt, but they begin to get a little to big for their own britches (as my grandmother would say).  Over time I’ve developed a good two point test to determine if someone is Essential or Non-essential to your business:

1.  In a snow storm, is this person required to make it into the office/facility no matter what? (think large storm – more than one day)

Example: I worked in a large Health System – Doctors & Nurses had to get in – we actually had plans on how to get them to work in an emergency.  I on the other hand, being in HR – didn’t have anyone coming to pick me up in a 4 wheel drive SUV.

2.  Does the person in question spend way too much of their time trying to convince you of how important they are to your operation?

Examples:  “Without me are largest client wouldn’t be here.” ; “Our department (a non-revenue generating department) saved the organization over $500K last year.” – on a budget of $3.7M…

You know what is really interesting about looking at the life of an organization – when they start out, in their infancy, there is only Essential employees.  We make widgets, all you need is someone to get widget material, someone to make widgets and someone to sell widgets and someone to collect the cash and pay the bills.  Pretty basic.  No HR, No Marketing or Finance, No customer service – it’s a very straight line organization.   Most companies don’t even add an HR element to their organizations until they get over 100 employees – usually an office manager/payroll/accounting person or the owner takes on this responsibility.

I always like to remind myself of who is “really” essential in my organization.  It’s important.  It’s important that as a “client” to those people, I make sure I focus what I’m doing on things that will help them do what they are doing.  That only happens when I actually talk to them, face-to-face, and ask them – “What can I do, to help you do what you do?”  Doesn’t seem overly complicated – but somehow we try and make it harder than that.  You see, that’s what non-essentials do – we convince you that what we do is really important!

I like to look at organizations the same way you pick a team on the playground.  If you had the most essential person in your company begin picking a team – where would you get picked?  First, 10th, last?   It’s a good exercise to go through.  What you’ll see is your most essential person will pick individuals who will/can help them get the job done – without hassle, without issues, without extra work.

Are you Essential to your organization?

It’s not you, It’s me!

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I don’t necessarily agree with this, but it’s part of corporate culture, almost everywhere.  You do a really great at a job, and because you do really great, you get promoted. Eventually, through great performance, you’ll be promoted to a position of leadership.  That’s when ‘it’ happens…

“You’ve changed!”

“You aren’t the same person any longer!”

“You never would have done that when you were one of ‘us’!”

Doesn’t matter what organization, large, medium, small, public, private, government, profit or non-profit, people who know you best are going to treat you differently when you rise to a position of leadership.

They’ll say it’s you.  The problem is, it won’t feel like you. It’ll feel like them.

You’re right, it is them.

People will make you feel like you’ve changed, when in reality it’s how they look at you that has really changed.  Before you were ‘just’ one of them.  In the trenches everyday working it.  Now you’re you, the leader.  Their new perception of you, thus their reality, is that you can now do something for them.  Before you couldn’t.  Now you can.  But you don’t.  You keep being you.  That’s not what they want.  They want you to be the new you. The ‘you’ that can get them something.  Maybe it’s a better job.  Maybe it’s more money. Maybe it’s getting out an hour early on Friday, who the hell knows.

What I know is that it’s not you. It’s them. But you’ll say it’s you, because you’re the leader.

 

How Technology Saved Recruiting

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This is a rebuttal post to an article on Forbes.com by Liz Ryan titled “How Technology Killed Recruiting“.  For those of you who don’t Liz she is a media personality who use to work in HR back in 1997 for Fortune 500 companies, which might speak to her viewpoints about recruiting and technology.  Liz writes a ton of HR and Recruiting type articles for publications that wouldn’t give me the time of day (Forbes, Huffington Post, Harvard Business Review, etc.), so clearly she is respected.  That is why I decided to react to her article.  She has a huge stage and gets thousands of clicks, so I was perplexed at this attack on corporate recruiting that really has no true basis in 2014.

Liz feels that Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) have killed recruiting.  She feels all corporate recruiters do is set a never-ending string of hoops for applicants to jump through, until they are eventually lost in the black hole of a corporate recruiting abyss.  I do think this thought process has merit, 10-15 years ago.  When ATS software first came onto the market they were clearly selling to the corporate HR marketplace.  I can clearly remember sitting in process meetings with ATS vendors and having them show us (corporate HR) how they could make our life easier.  Need more screening of applicants? No problem we can put them through the ropes and only the best will get through!  Then they show you a process flow chart with 67 steps and the rest was history – Liz’s story above.

Today, ATS vendors look at the process completely different (Note: I don’t sell ATS software now, or ever! But I have purchased and implemented 5 systems in my career.).  Now, corporate HR needs the ATS to provide talent fast.  It’s about fewer clicks – how does an applicant let you know they have interest in “1” step, not 67.  Once the talent is ‘sourced’, corporate recruiting can then take them through as many filters as needed to ensure a great hire is made.  This is fairly common practice in the last 10 years of ATS implementations.  Can you still find companies that don’t get this? Yes.  But it’s not the norm in corporate recruiting with today’s ATS. Dare I say ATS vendors asked to set up a 67 step process would probably back out of the deal and refer that customer to their competition, because that will not be a customer you will ever make happy!

Here is why Liz and those who support her argument still carry around this notion of an ATS being a ‘black hole’ for your resume (BTW – I’m wondering when the last time Liz even applied for a job online?).  Candidates make excuses when they are not chosen.  “I applied! And I was perfect for ‘that’ job! But I never heard back.”  I know this because I’ve been the leader of corporate recruiting departments in the last 10 years.  I’ve heard this exact line coming from the cousin of our CEO.  I then had to show our CEO, in fact, three carefully crafted communications that his cousin received from our ATS system as the hiring processes proceeded over two weeks.

Technology hasn’t killed recruiting.  Technology has decreased the time it takes HR to recruit great talent. Technology has increased our retention rates and decreased new hire turnover by giving us better data on which to base our hiring decisions.  Technology has allowed recruiting to be brand ambassadors to our organizations. Technology has allowed most corporate recruiting departments to do ten times more, with the exact same staff it had 10 years ago.  Technology has allowed our employees to be an integral part of our recruiting function by automating employee referral programs. Technology has increased applicant response times by showing us exactly who in our organizations is holding up the process.  Technology has allowed us to fish in candidate pools that, previously, were never possible. Technology moved recruitment out of HR and into one of the most valuable functions an organization can have.

If people are your most important resource.  Your organizations ability to recruit talent, becomes critical to your organizations success. Technology help do that for recruiting. But I don’t write for Forbes, so what do I know.

 

3 Things Parking Lots Can Teach HR

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I read an article last week and found out Parking Lots have their own industry! Just like Healthcare, Banking, Automotive, etc. Parking lots are big business around the world.  I live in a small town in Michigan, the only time we have a parking problem is one weekend in August when we have the annual Ox Roast.  The carneys come to town, we fire off explosives and we eat Ox. God Bless America!

If you live in a big city, you probably get to deal with the parking lot industry on a daily basis. Like most industries Parking is finding ways to use technology to make themselves more profitable and more efficient.  From PandoDaily:

According to a 2011 IBM survey, drivers globally spend an average of nearly 20 minutes per trip in pursuit of a parking space. Despite this colossal waste of time, the concept of pre-booking parking prior to arriving at a destination is still nascent. Most people continue to drive around searching for a spot, either on-street or off-street, typically unaware of what parking inventory is available to them. In a perfect world, they would not only know what spots are available at any given time, but also be able to compare the price, location and amenities of those available spots, to find the one that suits them best…

Over the next few years, parking will undergo a shift that will be a tipping point for the industry.  Some of the changes we may see include a single source solution that combines off-street and on-street parking availability at the time you need it. Or it may include urban mobility solutions that will focus on getting consumers from point A to point B to point C, whether that involves taking a car, public transit, biking, or walking. Parking facilities will also integrate relatively low-cost technology solutions to streamline and better the customer experience through the smartphone and the connected car. Lastly, demand-based pricing will become a tenet to parking, maximizing revenue by matching driver to the right space at the right time at the right facility.

1. On Demand Talent – Parking lots have figured out that you don’t need all parking spaces all the time.  You usually need them for peak times, and then they stay unfilled for most of the other times. Example: Monday through Friday 8am to 5pm will be at or close to 100% full, while Saturday and Sunday will remain mostly empty.  HR, especially in the US, will eventually have to decide do we really need all these employees all the time, or just during peak times.  Billions of profitable dollars are wasted hanging onto employees that organizations don’t need all the time.  European markets already use far more numbers of contractors to help with this problem. The US market is slow to adopt, mainly do to historical hiring practices.

2. True Pay for Performance. Parking figured out if you want the spot right next to the stairs or elevator, versus one all the way on the back of the parking deck, certain people will pay more for this space.  Organizations should be willing to truly pay more for better, measurable talent.  HR is a major roadblock to this, maintaining a banded compensation system that does not truly reward the best talent.  Not the best talent you have, but the best talent in the market.  Those few employees who can truly make a difference as an individual contributor.

3. Talent Sharing – Parking lots have figured out if they work together in reporting open spaces, their customer base will benefit and ultimately they will benefit.  Why don’t we share employees across like minded work?  Because in HR we are to lazy on how to figure this out.  But if my building is right next door to another company and we both have a need for developers, why couldn’t we share these skills?  It would take work to make it work from a legal, pay and benefits standpoint, but it isn’t something that can’t be done.

 

3 Reasons Women Make Less Money Than Men

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In the State of the Union speech last week, President Obama spoke passionately about wanting to end the wage discrimination between males and females.  He used the number $.77 in the context of women make $.77 for every dollar a man makes.  Is that actually true?  Probably not, when you look at all the data:

“[Women] still make 77 cents for every dollar a man earns. That is wrong, and in 2014, it’s an embarrassment. A woman deserves equal pay for equal work.”

Hard to argue with that, but the 77-cents statistic does not convey the point.

All it tells us is how the median annual earnings of full-time, year-round female workers compare with that of full-time, year-round male workers.

It doesn’t speak to any of the factors that determine one’s pay, such as the type of job chosen, education, experience, tenure, or hours worked. Nor does it reflect the host of less tangible factors that play a role, such as job performance.

Controlling for those factors would shrink the pay gap considerably in many jobs and in some cases all but erase it.

Does that mean there’s no gender discrimination in pay? No. But teasing out just how much exists is very hard. Assessments will differ depending on what methodologies are used and what specifically is being compared. The Institute for Women’s Policy Research, for instance, estimates that somewhere between a quarter to a third of the 77-cents pay gap may be attributable to discrimination.

But it doesn’t really matter, in my mind, if we are talking about $.23 or $.03 – any difference is too much.  Our reality is there shouldn’t be any difference in pay given all things being equal.  So, why is it that really, today in 2014, have pay discrepancy between men and women?  I’ll give you 3 reasons why we have it, and why it’s going to continue:

1.  HR still does not have enough influence in most organizations to stop illegal and immoral decisions by leadership.  72.7% of HR Professionals are female (based on 2012 BLS figures).  So, in the vast majority of our organizations women are actually in a position to influence this issue.  You would think with such a large number of females in HR this would take care of itself.  But here we are.  I’m not saying women don’t have influence, I’m saying HR doesn’t have influence. Having over 70% of HR positions filled by women, should make, and keep, this a top of mind issue to put an end to.

2.   HR does not train, and consequently discipline, male leaders who over inflated performance of male employees over female employees who are similar or above in performance of their male counterparts. We see this happen all the time, and we (HR) turn a blind-eye to the practices, instead of putting a stop to them.  I think one could easily argue that an over-reaching competency amongst HR professionals in their inability to directly handle conflict, which definitely perpetuates this issue.

3.  Culturally, in America, we want women to make less.  That one hurts, right?  Before you react, think about it.  Who is expected to take off work when a baby is born?  Who is expected to stay home with a sick child? Or on a snow day from school? etc.  All of things attribute to Obama’s $.77 figure.  If 20% take off 12 weeks after childbirth, that has a huge impact to female average wage as compared to male wage!  Also, what about that thing we don’t talk about?  Men who can’t handle being with or married to a woman who makes more than them? You can scoff, but it is a very real thing!  In my career I’ve had to sit with female employees and have them tell me to my face they don’t want a raise, or to take on a new position, because it would cause them to make more than their husbands, and that was a bad thing.

#1 all by itself should make us furious with anger.  HR could put a stop to most of this wage discrimination, almost immediately, but we don’t.  It wouldn’t solve the entire amount, but it would make a huge dent in the difference!  I have been apart of trying to tackle this issue with major corporations.  I’ve stood in front of a CEO and showed this person the disparity and the solution.  The cost would be substantial, in the millions, and was told to ‘bury it’ and take care of the most critical outliers. Organizational leadership knows this is happening, they just don’t want to hurt their potential bonuses to stop it.

 

Do Managers Favor Attractive Employees?

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We already know that there is an attractiveness bias when it comes to hiring.  What about when it comes to managing your daily team?  Do managers give better projects to those who are most attractive?  Are all the bad jobs given to the ugly employees?

Research would suggest – yes!

“Studies have indeed shown that people attribute more intelligence and competence to taller, well-turned-out or otherwise good-looking people…

And even though the authors say that beauty has its pitfalls (good-looking men and women, for example, dated more and drank more and some of this had a negative impact on their grades and college success), their conclusion is that, overall, this period of “lookism” in high school is important enough to merit the same kind of consciousness-raising discussion given to unfair racial or class stereotypes.

If looks translate into higher praise, better grades and even more credit for being warm and sensitive, as the authors found in their research, this is a real boon for the people with the lucky DNA.”

Okay, so the study focuses on teachers and kids, with teachers giving more attention to the better looking students. But, is that really that much different then with bosses and employees?  I’d argue that if we see this happening, and being learned, by grade school kids, it most definitely is happening in our workplaces!

Also, don’t let me hear from you about ‘well beauty is the eye to the beholder’ crap.  Further studies have found that even babies are more drawn to the pictures of attractive people versus those who are less attractive.  It’s in our DNA.  We like pretty.  Because we like pretty, we feel that pretty is better.  Pretty is smarter. Pretty is harder working. Pretty is what we need to get the job done!

It’s important for us to know this. Why?  Because that’s how we become self aware of the choices we and are leaders are making.  Are they really giving the fair shot to ‘all’ employees, or are the selecting the best looking.  We never want to believe it’s us, then I look at my own staff and think “Wow, I’ve got a pretty bunch working me! Not a ugly in the flock!”  And that’s when it hits you. You’ve got pretty bias and you could have beauty discrimination running rampant in your organization.

You start going to 12 step programs. “Hi. My name is Tim and I like pretty people.”

You start forcing yourself to hang out with the Uggs at Big Lots and Walmart.

You immerse yourself into their culture, spending Friday nights at home watching large amounts of reality TV and eating food loaded with enough salt to save Atlanta in 2 inch snow storm.

To be truly Inclusive, to truly understand, you have to be committed.  I’m good enough, and I’m strong enough, and gosh darn it, I’m going to love these ugly employees.

5 Crippling HR Behaviors That Keep Employees From Becoming Leaders

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In HR (OD, Training, etc. – pick your title) we like to believe we develop our employees constantly and ongoing to become the next generation of leaders.  But many times our actions tell a very different story.  We (HR and our Leadership teams) do and say things daily that keep people from truly reaching their full potential.  Self awareness of these behaviors is the key to making sure you are the roadblock to creating great leaders in your organization.

Here are 5 things you are doing to stop leadership development in your organization:

1. We try to mitigate 100% of risk.  Leaders need to understand and experience risk.  It’s part of the growth process to becoming a leader.  If we never allow our future leaders to experience risk, they’ll fail when they finally face it, or will be unwilling to face it, thus missing out on huge opportunities for your organization.

2. We don’t allow our employees to fail.  There are two parts to this. First, we get personal gratification by saving the day.  Second, we have this false sense that ‘great’ leaders won’t allow their employees to fail, so we step in quickly when we see things going south.   We tell ourselves that we need to let our people fail, and failure is good, etc. But we can’t stop ourselves from stepping in when failure is about to happen, or is happening.

3. We mistake what is expected with great.  Words are so powerful.  It’s so easy to say “You’re doing Great!”, when in actuality the correct phrase is probably closer to “You’re doing the exact job you’re paid to do!”  That’s not great. That’s is expected.  You can’t blow hot air up everyone’s butt and think they’re going to get great.  They have to know what great is, and then get rewarded with praise when great is reached.

4. We mistake high performance for the ability to lead.  Just because you’re great at ‘the’ job, doesn’t mean you’ll be great at leading people who do ‘the’ job.  This might be the one behavior that is hardest to change.  All of our lives we tell people the way to ‘move up’ is through great performance.  But it isn’t.  The way to move up into leadership, is to do those things that great leaders do – which does include high performance, but it also includes so much more than just being good at ‘the’ job you’re doing.

5. We are not honest about our own failures.  Developing leaders will learn more about leadership from you, if they know and understand your own failures at leadership.  We all have major failures in our lives, and many of those are hard to share because they are embarrassing, they show weakness, they might still be a weakness, etc. Developing leaders will learn more from your failures about being a great leader, then from any of your successes.

Developing future leaders has always been a critical part of HR in organizations, but we are quickly approaching a time in our history where your ability to develop leaders might be the most valuable skill you can provide to your organization.

(adapted from the Forbes article “7 Crippling Parenting Behaviors That Keep Your Children From Growing Into Leaders“