Monthly Archives: November 2018

7 Steps to Fixing a Broken HR Department!

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Almost any HR leadership position you’ll ever interview for is the organization wanting you to come in and fix it. Almost always they’re hiring a new HR leader because someone believes HR is broken. So, you tell them this plan. You’ll get hired. You’ll fix it. You’ll send me a note to thank me!

I had a friend start a new HR leadership position recently. When I spoke to her the other day, she talked about how the department she has inherited is completely broken. Her first question to me was, “how do I turn this thing around?” (BTW – I actually wrote a book on how to fix a Talent Acquisition Department – The Talent Fix!) 

We all have asked ourselves this question, haven’t we?

So, often you get your first shot at leadership because something is broken and a change needs to be made. Rarely, as a first leadership position, do you walk into Disneyland! Oh, look, everything is perfect, all the processes are great, all the people are hardworking and get along, the budget has more money than I know what to do with!

It’s just not reality. If the department had all that, they wouldn’t be hiring you!

I gave her my steps to turning around a broken department, from my experience of turning around broken departments!

Step 1 – Don’t start by thinking you’re going to change the culture immediately. The culture is bigger than you. The only way you could truly change the culture is to go in day one, fire every single person, and implant your own new team. Culture will always win, don’t think you’re bigger than it.

Step 2 – Look for low hanging fruit and pain points. Anytime you walk into a broken environment there are always simple little things you can do and change, that will lead to big wins. Do those first. This will buy you time to do some of the bigger things you need to do, and at least you’ll be starting with positive energy.

Step 3 – Fire bad people fast. I don’t care that they’re the only one who knows how to make changes in the system. If they’re bad, fire them. Again, the organization will thank you. And if you’re truly broken, being broken a little longer won’t matter, and now you’ll have an excuse.

Step 4 – Hire people who are loyal to you, first, and the organization second. Broken departments eat up and spit out more HR leaders than you can imagine. It would be the first question I would ask when interviewing. So, how many leaders were here before me? Oh, five in five years, thanks, I’ll pass. If you’re going to put up a good fight, you need people who will die by your side.

Step 5 – Have a plan. Gain executive buy-in of that plan early on. Continue to update executives on the plan. It won’t be fixed overnight, but managing up on the progress you’re making, will ensure success over the long run.

Step 6 – Build extensive relationships with your peer group in other functions as quickly as possible. To fix awful, you need friends. Friends in IT, Marketing, Finance, Operations, etc. You need those champions on your side, supporting your change. I don’t need everyone in my department to like me, I do need my other functional peer group to like and respect me if I’m going to turn this puppy around.

Step 7 – Stop saying HR is broken, or bad, or you’re fixing it. Start using language that we’re building best-in-class processes, world-class technology, market-leading functions, award-winning talent, etc. The organization needs to change the language of what HR is, to make it what it can be. Turns out fixing broken also needs a little bit of marketing juice!

It’s the hardest, most challenging, thing you’ll ever do is turn around a broken department, but it will also be the most rewarding and best thing that ever happened to your career!

GM Closing Plants is Just a Good Business Decision!

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I’m in the heart of GM country! My company, HRU Technical Resources (technical staffing), has worked with GM for 38 years! I have multiple family members that have worked at and retired from GM. GM is important to me, personally!

GM closing a few plants is the right decision. This decision might cost my company business and that will hurt.

President Trump can get really worked up over it and try to shame the GM executive team into changing their mind. The UAW can get all worked up and claim it’s the worst thing ever, but the reality is GM has to make the right business decision for the health of all GM employees for the future, not just for today.

In the past, GM wouldn’t have made this decision. They would have kept plants open and kept building cars that weren’t selling. The President would be happy. The UAW would be happy. And ultimately the U.S. Taxpayers bailed them out of bankruptcy. This time around GM, and their CEO Mary Barra, is making the sound financial, and very difficult, decision to close plants that aren’t making it.

Bravo, Mary Barra!

I feel for the UAW members who will be affected. I feel for the GM salaried employees who will be affected. It’s a horrible thing to lose a job and I don’t wish that upon anyone, ever.

This is still the right decision, as it will make the company stronger long-term and protect those jobs of the thousands of other UAW and GM salaried employees. You can’t keep building cars and trying to sell products that no one wants. GM doens’t do small cars as well as some of their competitors. Maybe never have. If you want a small/mid-sized car in the U.S. you buy a Toyota Camry or Honda Accord, or maybe even a Hyundai. The numbers don’t lie.

Every organization has to make unpopular and painful decisions to protect their business and help it thrive.

“Well, GM is going to profit $5 Billion in 2018, smarty pants, what about that!?!?!”

Yep, they are. That’s what a strong business is supposed to do, make a profit. All the stakeholders of a business demand it! Those stakeholders of GM are: UAW members, salaried GM employees, GM shareholders, GM supplier base, GM retirees, etc.  We’re talking hundreds of millions of lives that rely on GM being successful.

Healthy organizations go through times of growth and times of contraction. You have a product that is taking off, you add employees to meet market demand. Those products go out of favor and you reduce your employees base to meet that lack of demand. If you don’t, you go out of business and ALL employees and stakeholders suffer.

Mary Barra is making the tough decisions that her male predecessors were unwilling to make. Let that sink in a minute. Sure GM has closed plants in the past, but that was usually the last thing that happened, and only after they spent years burning cash and pushing forward no matter what the market was telling them.

So, yeah, this hurts. Closing plants and terminating people hurts. This is a strong business move, and it’s the right call for GM. Mary will be unpopular, but she’s doing what is needed for the whole, not the few.

I had a wise mentor once ask me a question. “Tim, do you want your team to throw you a party?” I didn’t understand. “Well, if you do want every employee wants, they’ll love you, and when you get fired, they’ll throw you a big party down at the local pub for your going away! If you do what’s right, they won’t like you as much, and they won’t throw you a party, because you won’t get fired. So, do you want a party or not?”

Mary doesn’t want a party, she just wants to do what’s best for everyone.

Your Weekly Dose of HR Tech: @Indeed takes Away Free Traffic to Staffing firms!

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Today on The Weekly Dose I dig into Indeed’s recent announcement to stop scraping the jobs from staffing companies. If you didn’t hear Indeed announced as the Staffing World conference that beginning January 7, 2019, they would no longer include “recruitment-based” jobs in their organic search results due to ongoing search quality issues (link to the official Indeed Policy on Recruitment-based companies).

I was able to talk directly to Paul D’Arcy, the SVP of Marketing for Indeed, about this decision. Paul was refreshingly frank about the announcement. Here are some of the things that came out of that conversation:

Think of the jobs Indeed posts on its site in four type of buckets:

#1 – Organic Jobs listed on Corporate websites scraped by Indeed

#2 – Promoted Jobs listed by corporate TA teams willing to pay to get those jobs to show up higher in the search results

#3 – Organic Jobs listed on Staffing Industry websites scraped by Indeed

#4 – Promoted Jobs listed by staffing firms (recruitment-based organizations – in Indeed’s wording) willing to pay to those jobs to show up higher in the search results

Of those 4 kinds of jobs, three out of the four have very similar rates of candidates getting hired. One of those types doesn’t do well at all because of a number of factors. Basically, Organic staffing jobs that Indeed has been scraping do very poorly. “Analysis shows that impacted jobs represent approximately 5% of applies but just 2% of hires on Indeed.”

So, the decision is made, by Indeed’s Search Quality team, to no longer scrape staffing jobs.

THIS IS SUPER UNFAIR TO STAFFING FIRMS!!! (I hear a collective 3 trillion dollar industry shout!)

Is it?

No one on the planet has lit up Indeed worse than me over some of their practices! (Hi, Todd!) I’ve been in Indeed Jail since early 2018 when they first shut off my free organic traffic. But, let’s be real, Indeed isn’t saying they won’t work with staffing firms or kicking staffing firms out. In fact, every single product Indeed sells is still available for staffing firms to use. They just aren’t giving you anything for free anymore, and that stings a bunch.

It’s like that first time the crack dealer tells you that you have to pay for the next hit! It sucks, and then you hand over some money.

Indeed understands the optics of this, according to D’Arcy, and they also know this will take some work to repair some relationships within the staffing industry. The fact is, staffing companies have been making millions of dollars off of free traffic from Indeed and it hurts to lose that!

The reality is, we (staffing) basically did this to ourselves. No not you! It was always the other guy! There was location spamming, posting ‘evergreen’ jobs that you would never fill, etc. Like most good things in recruiting, the staffing world found ways to exploit it and Indeed is shutting that down.

It’s D’Arcy’s hope that Indeed will find a way to begin bringing back some of the ‘real’ staffing jobs that out there. Think of contract and temporary jobs. Indeed corporate clients will be impacted if those jobs aren’t filled, as many now rely a great deal on their contingent workforce for large parts of what they do. Those are real jobs, that real candidates, will want to apply for and Indeed just took those away from candidates. They do realize this and they are trying to come up with a way to bring the real jobs back, without opening up the bad jobs again.

This is just Indeed making a move into the staffing world!

Wouldn’t be a bad business move, let’s be honest! I would do it, so would you, but Indeed is telling me this isn’t part of the strategy behind making this decision. Take it at face value, some will believe it, some won’t. The reality is Indeed is making hundreds of millions of dollars off staffing firms as clients right now, and for years have also been working in the staffing industry simultaneously, so I’m not sure it really makes that big of a difference, short term.

What does this mean for staffing firms!?!?! 

If you want to keep making hires on Indeed, you’re going to have to start paying up! Indeed’s short-term revenue will increase because of this decision because most staffing firms will initially just fork over some money to keep the faucet on. Eventually, they’ll find our avenues to find candidates. Optimize their postings for Google Jobs and the traffic and hires will come from others sites and sources.

You might decide to start testing other tools like LinkedIn Recruiter, CareerBuilder, Monster, Dice, ZipRecruiter, Programmatic job postings, maybe even pick up the phone, build a recruitment marketing machine, grab some sourcing technology, etc. Staffing firms don’t know this yet, but the reality is not relying on one tool so heavily is a blessing in disguise for your longterm success.

One piece of good news from Indeed is they’ll still allow staffing firms to use their paid resume database product.

What does this mean if you’re in Corporate TA? 

The hope will be you’ll actually see more traffic to your jobs, but understand that Google is no longer indexing Indeed’s job pages, so traffic has been going down and will continue to go down unless Indeed buys that traffic through marketing efforts. What does that mean? You’re probably going to be paying a lot more for the same or less traffic.

Now, with less staffing firm jobs clogging up the search results the hope is that you’ll see more candidates, faster to your jobs that are scrapped as part of your organic Indeed feed, and potentially even better results using Indeed’s job promotion products.

What do I think?

From someone who has been living in Indeed Jail for almost a year, you’ll survive. It’s not fun losing your free organic traffic, but you’ll figure it out and you’ll be a stronger recruiting shop in the end.

I think Indeed really screwed up by announcing this without first figuring out the contract/temp/consultant jobs. The contingent workforce is the fastest growing segment of the labor market, and someone at Indeed completely dropped the ball. I’ll blame Matthew in search quality because that’s kind of the inside joke at Indeed, if a client is pissed, blame search quality. But, my hope is Paul and the team will stick by their word and figure out a way to get those jobs back on Indeed for candidates.

I’m not sure this was a wise business move, really by Indeed. You never want to wake a sleeping giant. The staffing industry has been a sleeping giant over the past decade ($3 Trillion). Fat on Indeed free traffic and LinkedIn Recruiter licenses, the normal staffing recruiter today is not the staffing recruiter of a decade ago. Indeed just kicked them awake to see if they wanted to pay the check or go find somewhere else to spend their money. Some will go elsewhere.

I also know that Indeed produces results, so many of us, myself included, will continue to use them and pay for the products that work, but it won’t stop me from continuing to test everything and figure out how to lessen my team’s reliance on any one product. That’s just good recruiting strategy for both corporate and staffing leaders.

The Weekly Dose – is a weekly series here at The Project to educate and inform everyone who stops by on a daily/weekly basis on some great recruiting and sourcing technologies that are on the market.  None of the companies who I highlight are paying me for this promotion.  There are so many really cool things going on in the tech space and I wanted to educate myself and share what I find.  If you want to be on The Weekly Dose – just send me a note – timsackett@comcast.net

Want help with your HR & TA Tech company – send me a message about my HR Tech Advisory Board experience.

Snow Days and Employees!

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Look I get it.  I have 3 sons and Snow Days are a big deal…if you’re 10!   So, if you’re an HR Pro, right about this time tomorrow, you’re going to feel like you have an entire organization full of 10-year-olds,  as we begin to see the first signs of Snowmageddon!

I understand people freaking out, that is, if you live in someplace south of the Mason-Dixon line, and you’ve never seen snow before. But, I live in Michigan and it snows here. The snow starts around Halloween and ends around Easter.  What I don’t understand is anyone that lives north of, let’s say, Chicago is even blinking an eye at a snow storm coming.  Let it snow, clear your driveway and get your butt to work.

It’s not a difficult concept! No, I don’t want you to drive to a client if the roads are dangerous, and, no, I don’t want you to drive to work if the roads are dangerous, and, no, I don’t want you to run around the office with scissors and your shoes untied!  But I do expect, we’ll all be adults.

If it looks like there’s going to be a lot of snow tomorrow, you need to make a plan. How about packing some work to do from home, or just plan on watching Lifetime all day, because I completely understand you missing the 3 days’ of warning that the snow was coming! (he screamed to himself in a mocking voice…)

Snow Days are the kind of crap that drives HR and Leadership completely insane!

Why is it, the CEO finds his way into the office, driving his Lexus sedan, but Perry in IT just can’t seem to get his 4X4Chevy Tahoe out of the garage?   If you want a day off that damn bad, take a day off,  but don’t insult the intelligence of all those who found a way to come in.

Be sensible, give your local snow plows some time to clear roads, give yourself extra time to get to work, but at the very least give it a shot. Then, when you get stuck, take a picture with your phone and send it to your boss, they’ll appreciate the effort!

What is your most prized possession?

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I’m heartbroken watching the California fires. The stories coming out of California are just gut-wrenching. I’m struck by how people find the strength to stand up when they’ve lost everything but the clothes on their back.

I was listening to the podcast, Broken Record, with Malcolm Gladwell and, world-renowned music producer, Rick Rubin, who literally just lost his famous house in a fire. Now, I know, Rick is super-wealthy, but he also is a person who probably has a ton of irreplaceable things he’s gotten in his life. Awards, artifacts of his industry, etc.

He said he didn’t really care about the ‘things’ the fire took, but he was brought to tears by losing the hundred-year-old trees on his property. The trees, the land, was what made his home special and a sanctuary for his peace. While he could replant trees, he would never live long enough to see them as they were.

It made me think about my own possessions. What do I have that if lost I would be crushed? Not people or pets, but inanimate object-type of possessions. If I could only grab one possession before getting out with my life and my families lives, what possession would I grab?

It definitely wasn’t anything like of a material nature. I could replace clothes, furniture, and electronics. At first, I thought I knew, oh, for sure it would be pictures. Pictures of my boys as babies, but most of these have been converted to digital and they are in the cloud, so while there would be a few pictures lost, I would still have many that were probably similar.

Maybe it was something someone gave me to me, but I’ve already lost my most valued possession. After my grandfather died, I was twelve, my grandmother handed me a tattered brown envelop, aged by the years. Inside it was a few pictures of my grandfather in the Navy, along with his medals. I had them for years, but somewhere along the way they got misplaced and I’ve never been able to find them. I still think about that loss. It was the only thing I had of my grandfathers.

I came to the realization, while it would be painful to lose everything, there wasn’t one thing I would have to keep for myself. There was one thing I know my wife, though, would want. She keeps a box with letters and notes I’ve given her over the years. I’m sure there are letters and notes from the boys as well. She would definitely want those, so my one thing would be that box. I know those momentoes are important to her.

So, as you get ready for Thanksgiving I’ll ask you the same question, what one possession would you grab if you could only grab one and everything else would be lost? Hit me in the comments with what you came up with, and if you’re struggling for great conversation at your Thanksgiving table, ask your friends and loved ones this question.

Your Weekly Dose of HR Tech: HR Tech Vendor Fatigue is a Real Thing!

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You know how milk and employees have an expiration date? Come on! We all have that one employee who been with us way past their expiration date and we just can’t take them any longer. They might actually have great skills and knowledge, but they still need to go! They’ve gone past their employee expiration date!

I get to talk to a lot of HR and Talent executives about the technology they use. The majority are fine with what they have. They take the positive leadership stance of this is what we have right now and we’ll make the most of it. If we get to a point where our technology is working against us, we’ll push to upgrade or change. Some are in love with their tech. I find most of these are in the honeymoon phase and were the ones who choose the tech. Some hate their tech.

What I find with most executives who hate their tech is the tech isn’t the issue, it’s usually Vendor Fatigue.

What’s Vendor Fatigue? 

HR Tech Vendor Fatigue is when you are probably having some problems with your tech stack, it’s not doing exactly what you need it to do. You’ve been going back and forth with your main vendor to try and make the changes you need, but it seems to be just more headache after another. You’ve been there, right? We all have!

So, instead of just going the last ten yards and getting it done, you decide it’s best to just move on and start over! You’re too fatigued to continue to work with this vendor, even though if you sat down and thought about it logically you would come to the conclusion staying with your current vendor is really the wisest solution and what’s best short and long-term for the organization and your resources.

But we don’t do that!

Instead, we go out and buy a new system that is basically 90% the same as the old system, and we start fresh. It’s like a marriage. Some people work to try and make it better. Hey, at one point I fell in love with you. We went through some hard times and we can now get divorced or we can go to counseling and rekindle that great thing we once had. We already know each other’s deep, dark secrets, so maybe it’s best if we just figure this thing out!

The biggest mistake most HR and Talent Executives make around HR Tech! 

I constantly speak to executives who are using a really great system. Top 5 on the market and they tell me they’re moving to another Top 5 system because they just can’t take it anymore. The system they have isn’t working, “I mean, Tim, my team is only using 35% of the technology!” Then they look at me for approval…

I tell them you’re making a big mistake. The technology you have in place right now is being utilized by hundreds, thousands of organizations that are doing great things with it. You only using 35% is not a tech problem, that’s a ‘you’ problem. Guess what’s going to happen with your new system? Yep – 35% usage. Find out first how to use what you have 100% and then tell me why it’s not working.

HR Tech vendor fatigue is just like a relationship gone bad. But we tend to think about it way differently. “No, Tim, they are a vendor and they should bow down to us and make it right!” Well, sometimes, yes, sometimes, no, you’re being unreasonable!

But, there are also times when it’s time to get divorced from each other. Expectations have become unreasonable. You both are making each other stressed out. While it’s true that one of you is a buyer and one of you is a vendor, pointing that fact out doesn’t help, but it is a reality. I’ve fired some clients and I’ve been fired by clients. Both of those firings cost me money, but one probably eliminated a lot of stress!

If you’re feeling fatigued by any of your HR or Talent vendors ask yourself some questions:

  • Did I do everything I can to make this solution work?
  • If we became a super user of our current tech would this tech work for us like we need?
  • Can we live without this solution? Short and Long-term?
  • Am I making the best resource decision for the organization or just making my life easier?
  • Will the state I’m in right now, happen again with my next vendor? Why or why not?

We love to believe our vendor is the issue, and many times they are, but also many times they aren’t!

Why are you scared to make HR simple?

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Have you ever wondered why HR Departments continue to make complex processes?  In reality, all of us wants things simple.  But, when you look at our organizations they are filled with complexity.  It seems like the more we try to make things simple, the more complex they get.  You know what?  It’s you – it’s not everyone else.  You are making things complex, and you’re doing this because it makes you feel good.

From Harvard Business Review:

“There are several deep psychological reasons why stopping activities are so hard to do in organizations. First, while people complain about being too busy, they also take a certain amount of satisfaction and pride in being needed at all hours of the day and night. In other words, being busy is a status symbol. In fact a few years ago we asked senior managers in a research organization — all of whom were complaining about being too busy — to voluntarily give up one or two of their committee assignments. Nobody took the bait because being on numerous committees was a source of prestige.

Managers also hesitate to stop things because they don’t want to admit that they are doing low-value or unnecessary work. Particularly at a time of layoffs, high unemployment, and a focus on cost reduction, managers want to believe (and convince others) that what they are doing is absolutely critical and can’t possibly be stopped. So while it’s somewhat easier to identify unnecessary activities that others are doing, it’s risky to volunteer that my own activities aren’t adding value. After all, if I stop doing them, then what would I do?”

That’s the bad news.  You have deep psychological issues.  Your spouse already knew that about you.

The good news is, you can stop it!  How?  Reward people for eliminating worthless work.  Right now we reward people who are working 70 hours per week and always busy and we tell people “Wow! Look at Tim he’s a rock star – always here, always working!”  Then someone in your group goes, “Yeah, but Tim is an idiot, I could do his job in 20 hours per week, if…”  We don’t reward the 20-hour guy, we reward the guy working 70 hours, even if he doesn’t have to.

Somewhere in our society – the ‘working smarter’ analogy got lost or turned into ‘work smarter and longer’.  The reality is most people don’t have the ability to work smarter, so they just work longer and make everything they do look ‘Really’ important!   You just thought of someone in your organization, when you read that, didn’t you!?  We all have them – you can now officially call them ‘psychos’ – since they do actually have a “deep psychological” reasons for doing what they’re doing – Harvard said so!

I love simple.  I love simple HR.  I love simple recruiting.  I hate HR and Talent Pros that make things complex, because I know they have ‘deep psychological’ issues!  Please go make things simple today!

1 True Fan is How it all Starts!

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You’ve probably heard of the idea of 1,000 True Fans. Seth Godin gets a lot of credit for the idea, but he’s quick to point out he got it from Kevin Kelly over a decade ago.

True Fans are those people who really believe in you and your work. They make it a point to consume your content. If you’re close to them they’ll make a point of coming to see you. Most people don’t have any fans. Think about your normal employee working their average job. They do good, solid work, but no one is going out of their way to hear what they have to say.

Kelly’s idea about 1,000 True Fans is this:

“A true fan is defined as a fan that will buy anything you produce. These diehard fans will drive 200 miles to see you sing; they will buy the hardback and paperback and audible versions of your book; they will purchase your next figurine sight unseen; they will pay for the “best-of” DVD version of your free youtube channel; they will come to your chef’s table once a month. If you have roughly a thousand of true fans like this (also known as super fans), you can make a living — if you are content to make a living but not a fortune.

Here’s how the math works. You need to meet two criteria. First, you have to create enough each year that you can earn, on average, $100 profit from each true fan. That is easier to do in some arts and businesses than others, but it is a good creative challenge in every area because it is always easier and better to give your existing customers more, than it is to find new fans.

Second, you must have a direct relationship with your fans. That is, they must pay you directly. You get to keep all of their support, unlike the small percent of their fees you might get from a music label, publisher, studio, retailer, or other intermediate. If you keep the full $100 of each true fan, then you need only 1,000 of them to earn $100,000 per year. That’s a living for most folks.”

That’s a very good living for 99.9% of the world’s population. I could live comfortably in the U.S. on $100,000. Maybe not NYC, or San Francisco, but most places $100K gives me a wonderful life.

I wrote a book, The Talent Fix, that was launched in April 2018. I’ve written every day on this blog for over eight years. I’ve been blogging in the HR and Talent space for a decade. I know I have some True Fans. I don’t think I have 1,000, although I’ve sold way over 1,000 books. I think I would be comfortable saying I’ve got 100 True Fans.

Some might read that and think, well that’s not very much, but I would disagree! Think about your own life. Who are your “True Fans”. If you said tomorrow you’ll be on stage in your hometown talking about whatever and it costs $25 to see you, how many people are showing up? Now take that number and take away your parents, your spouse, your kids, etc. Now, how many are showing up?

100 is a good number. I’m working to get to 200, then 300, and maybe one day I’ll have 1,000 True Fans of my work. That would be very awesome!

My best True Fan story is that my wife jokingly calls me a “Micro-celebrity” saying there’s really only a couple dozen HR and Talent Pros in the world who know who you are. One day we were going on a trip and we were walking through Detroit Metro Airport. The new terminal is giant, a mile long.

So, we are standing in the middle of the terminal as people are rushing by to catch flights. We are discussing where we should grab a bite to eat before we get on a long flight and a guy walks by me. He stops and turns and says, “Hey, you’re Tim Sackett!” I said, I am, and started up the conversation around how he would know me, etc.

Turns out, he’s a ‘fan’ (his words, not mine), read my blog every day. Just happen to be making a connection in Detroit, he was a Talent Pro from the east coast. What a small world! As he walked away I could feel my wife staring at me, knowing she wouldn’t be able to fit my head into the plane! I mean, when your wife calls you a micro-celebrity and then you get noticed in an airport, well…

That how it all starts, one true fan who will notice you in an airport and show your wife you’re completely a micro-celebrity!

So, what does this have to do with anything? 

You don’t need to boil the ocean. You don’t need to recruit every candidate. You don’t need to have everyone see your employment brand. You need to start with one, then two, then three. That’s doable, you can do that, I can do that! Trying to do that with everyone, that seems impossible!

Your Weekly Dose of HR Technology: @HiredOnLinkedIn Launches New Company Pages!

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Today on The Weekly Dose I take a look at LinkedIn’s new company page design and break down what you need to know and change to take advantage of the new design.

Besides your company career site, your LinkedIn Company page might be most organization’s TA Teams next biggest asset when it comes to attracting talent. Much more hires are made from your LI company page than your Facebook page, twitter or IG profile, etc. LinkedIn for years has had the same basic design of its company pages, and most organizations set it up, left it, and forgot about it.

You might have noticed LinkedIn’s new company page design has been rolling out and is now public for all.

What you notice right away, as compared to your old LI page, is the navigation on the lefthand side. Visitors to your page used to see your profile front and center, and the new page is much more visual and visitors will have to click “About” to read your company description.

Of course, like most of LinkedIn you have the free version of your company page, and then you can do a paid version which really turns your LI company page into a full-blown career site for your company, with direct link button to your career site, ability to list jobs, employment branding tools, Life at “your company” section, etc.

So, what are the major changes you need to know about? 

1. Candidates can now easily set up a job alert on your jobs section of your LI company page that will notify them when a job is posted that matches their qualifications.

2. When potential candidates visit your company page on LI they will be shown recommended jobs, at your company, that fit their background, plus other employees at your company that are similar to them, in case they want to network with those individuals. LI data shows candidates are more likely to apply to jobs when they’ve networked with others at your company in similar roles.

3. The new “Life” page on the paid version of LinkedIn Company pages makes it super easy for you to find and share posts by your current employees. This gives you a simple way to show candidates who are visiting your LI company page an inside view to what it’s like to work at your organization. Also, for those TA teams who are struggling to understand what kind of content they should create, their new Life page will give them suggestions based on all searches and activity on LI.

The full blown new LinkedIn company pages are a big step forward from the old pages. Definitely, something to demo and check out based on how much you recruit on LinkedIn and how big of a source LinkedIn is for your organization.

The Weekly Dose – is a weekly series here at The Project to educate and inform everyone who stops by on a daily/weekly basis on some great recruiting and sourcing technologies that are on the market.  None of the companies who I highlight are paying me for this promotion.  There are so many really cool things going on in the tech space and I wanted to educate myself and share what I find.  If you want to be on The Weekly Dose – just send me a note – timsackett@comcast.net

Want help with your HR & TA Tech company – send me a message about my HR Tech Advisory Board experience.

Why Did Amazon Decide on Having 3 Corporate Headquarters?

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So, the biggest news of the week is Amazon finally made a decision on where they were going to build HQ2 and come to find out instead of just one location, Amazon is splitting the job lottery into two prizes and both Washington D.C. and New York will get an Amazon Headquarters. Okay, it’s probably really about 4 Headquarters since they’re really focusing a ton of the supply chain talent in Nashville, but who’s counting!?

I never really thought Washington D.C. or New York City had a chance because I was thinking about stuff like the ability to actually move around! Turns out Amazon’s real decision point came around brain power. Now, I know what you’re thinking! There are absolutely no brains in Washington D.C.! Hello, is this mic on!? Also, have you been the urine-scented streets of New York!? Joking!

If you look at the U.S. and did a heat map around higher education institutions you would find a gigantic section of the Eastern seaboard is shaded a bright red! From Boston to New York to Philadelphia to Washington D.C. you can’t find a more concentrated area of higher education in the world! Amazon’s newest HQ2 and HQ3 will be strategically located right amongst those areas!

The largest employers in the U.S. look like this:

Walmart is stupid big, but almost all of their employees are onsite at stores.  Accenture is huge, but again their employees work in every medium to large city in the country, not a one big headquarters. FedEx is basically the US mail service. Go down the list and you’ll most of the largest employers are not headquartered centric, but location-centric.

Amazon is the lone giant employer who has most of its employees in office buildings. Knowing they were going to have to hire 50,000+ employees, there was really no one location in the U.S. that could have handled that need for talent in such a short time. Washington D.C. and New York are probably two of the places that can handle 25,000 new jobs, each, without crippling every other employer in the market. And, this will still cause a giant disruption in those cities as people will be moving around like crazy.

An additional 5,000 white collar jobs in Nashville will be an incredible amount for that market, especially in the key skills they’re looking for which are desperately needed everywhere in the U.S. right now. Better dust off your employee engagement strategies and update your compensation models, Nashville employers! 2020 is going to be a tough year!

This decision signals one other potential massive shift for IT. Washington D.C. was already a pretty big IT hub with all the government work, but now moving this many IT related jobs to the East Coast could begin a big shift away from organizations believing you have to be in Silicon Valley to hire IT talent. Amazon will bring and grow IT talent for the entire east coast and strengthen those cities as large IT hubs worldwide.

Amazon definitely didn’t help workers out from a quality of life standpoint. Both D.C. and NYC are awful in terms of cost and commute, at least in California you get sunshine in your closet of an apartment!

The decision for me showed that Amazon truly looked at labor markets and demographics (and some giant tax breaks – which, let’s be honest, everyone was willing to give) as the major decision points in the location of the new headquarters. The U.S. demographics over the next decade should be a major concern for large employers. More workers will leave the workforce than are coming into the workforce, so you better be close to where we tend to grow white collar, educated workers.

This is a win for higher education as much as it is for Washington D.C. and New York City.