PODCAST: Episode 5 – This is HR!

Posted on August 29, 2019 by Tim Sackett

In Episode 5 of THIS IS HR, Jessica Lee (VP of Brand Talent, Marriott) is joined by Tim Sackett (President of HRU) and Kris Dunn (CHRO at Kinetix) for a discussion of industry news that only true HR pros could love.

[buzzsprout episode=’1565860′ player=’true’]

The gang covers:

—Age Bias Claims recently settled at Google, with the search giant paying 11M to 200+ claimants, with the key claimant striking out/not being hired in 4 separate hiring process (4:54). The gang talks about how this represents a cheap reset on training and a move ahead strategy for Google. A conversation also is had about what is “googly” and what is not.

—The THIS IS HR crew clears the deck and provides a platform for JLee to go off on a rant about progressive HR concepts that look great in small environments but are next to impossible to launch in big companies (13:03).

—A renegade firm highlights a bug in the LinkedIn development stack that allowed them to post a job for a CEO position at Google (21:49). Spoiler alert – Google has a CEO and LinkedIn quickly shut down the bug and ruined the fun for the rest of us. Tim talks about where to find ROI with your job posting money and the team explores the giant mess of skeletons that are created when aggregators automate posting from other aggregators, which means you can’t get old stuff pulled down and other forms of resulting recruiting pain.

JLee, Tim and KD round out the show by talking about the most aggressive LinkedIn invite they have recently accepted (32:36) – you know the vibe, you accept an invite and someone is automatically trying to sell you something.

THIS IS HR hates bad LinkedIn invites, but we hate ourselves when we accept them in moments of weakness/charity.

TA Technology Buyers Guide: How to select the right vendor to solve your recruiting challenges

Posted on August 28, 2019 by Tim Sackett

Hey gang!

ATAP (Association of Talent Acquisition Professionals) is putting on some great webcasts, designed for recruiting leaders and professionals and I’m leading one September 12th at 12:30 pm ET! Basically, I’m going to be telling you how you should buy recruiting technology and what to watch out for! I’m going to be telling you stuff that the vendors don’t want you to know about the buying process.

Check out the details:

Talent acquisition technology is moving faster than ever and very few TA pros and leaders have the ability or capacity to stay on top of all of these changes and innovations. The TA Tech landscape has over 10,000 different pieces of technology worldwide. The average TA leader can probably name 10-20 pieces of the technology and/or vendors. Currently, most TA technology is not actually chosen by Talent Acquisition, but by IT and Finance leaders. This is a major problem in our industry!

TA Tech expert Tim Sackett (Hey, that’s me!) will help simplify the complex world of TA technology and let us know how we can take back control of recruiting tech stacks. Tim personally demos over 100 TA technologies every year and is constantly sharing this information across our community.

Bottom Line, tech vendors don’t always have your best interest at heart and Tim will show us how to uncover the right tech and right vendors that will lead us to better candidates, faster.

Join us for this fast-paced webinar that will be both entertaining and informative, and you’ll probably never look at doing demos the same way again!

Register Here!

Company Culture Across Generations

Posted on August 27, 2019 by Tim Sackett

There’s been a lot – A LOT – of discussion in the past few years about all the different generations in the workplace, how dissimilar they are and the challenges and opportunities they create for work. To quickly recap, at present, we have five generations in the workplace, typically:

Silents: Born during and before World War II.
Baby Boomers: Born immediately after World War II up until about 1965.
Generation X: Born in the late 1960s (culture change, Vietnam, etc.) until about the early 1980s.
Millennials: There is some argument here over when this cohort begins, and sometimes 1977-1983 birthdays are called “Xillennials” (mix of “X” and millennial), but generally this is early- to mid-1980s up until the late 1990s.
Generation Z: 1998/1999 region until now-ish.

The exact years will vary a little bit based on which source you use, but these are the big buckets. The important thing to remember is that each of these cohorts is millions of people, so while there’s a tendency to generalize – and we will need to do some of that in this article – the fact is that some millennials are bad at technology, and some boomers embrace technology instantly (both examples going against perception of their cohort). So, above all: Treat individuals as individuals in order to get the best results work-wise.

All this said, we still wonder how the interplay of these five generations impacts company culture.

What might each generation want from the culture of an organization?

Think about it in these terms:

Silents: The ones that are still working have been working for a long time, and they’ve seen an almost uncountable number of changes to how we work. You could argue their biggest cultural focus would be one of respect and, at some level, not wholly disrupting their final work years.
Boomers: They are established in their careers and see the exit ramp. They do want a culture of respect for elders and one where learning can be passed down the chain to “young bucks.” We get very stereotypical around boomers and technology, but in general, if technology is going to improve the org and the business, boomers tend to be in favor of it.
Gen X: This is currently the generation doing a lot of managing and “making trains run,” although it’s possible we’re not promoting them enough in line with all the work they do. They want a supportive culture where process is followed so that work can be optimized.
Millennials: There are a lot of stereotypes and misconceptions about millennials in the workplace. For example, there’s a perception that they don’t work hard and yet consistently ask for promotions. In reality, because they’re less-established in their careers, they tend to be workaholics statistically. They want a culture of learning, and they do want to broadly disrupt how work is traditionally done. They want to see change when change is relevant.
Z: Zers entering the workforce now were in elementary and middle school during the 2008 recession, and they saw how it impacted their parents. They have a different connection to work, understanding that work doesn’t always provide in the way it claims. They want to see different approaches culturally, which means more flexibility for the employees. You could also classify them as a “side hustle” generation, not fully believing in one W-2 job for years and years.

How would this knowledge help you shape work?

There are a few different ways:

First, treat individuals as individuals. We mentioned this above, but just because someone is 28, that doesn’t necessarily mean they have a millennial mindset. Their mindset might be akin to a boomer. So, deal with people where they are.
Learning is paramount. With the possible exception of Silents, every generation wants to learn, especially because work is changing so quickly. Unfortunately, organizations haven’t been great at prioritizing learning over the years. Consider different modalities, like video learning, auditory learning (podcasts about your culture, interviews with executives, etc.), session learning (standard with slide decks) and experiential learning (seeing how trucks are unloaded at a warehouse). Make learning a priority because the need for it cuts across all generations culturally.
Mentors/training. Because you have two established generations, two younger generations, and one squarely in the middle, you should create opportunities for each to impart wisdom to another. Host Friday afternoon sessions about hobbies outside of work. Have millennials teach boomers about chatbots, and boomers teach Z about professionalism. Create a constant exchange of ideas between generations, and have the knowledge move in different directions.
Constant assessment. Ask every generation what they think about the work, the projects, processes and the overall culture. You don’t need to ask every day (overkill) but try to ask once a month to get a pulse for how your employees are feeling. Break that information down by age cohort to see which cohorts are feeling least-connected to the culture of your business. What could be done to get them re-engaged? You might have an abandoned cart strategy for your e-commerce side, right? Well, now we need an abandoned employee strategy. If Gen X is disconnected, is it time to promote them more, for example?

Overgeneralizing about the existing generations can lead to navel-gazing, and navel-gazing can lead to non-impactful decision-making. But if you prioritize learning and treat everyone as an individual while constantly assessing how people feel about working for you, you’ll put yourself on the path to designing a culture that works for everyone, regardless of age.

Other aspects of company culture

What each generation wants from their company differs, but every employee wants to work in a culture that is supportive and consistent. To learn more about how to promote an organizational culture that is positive and sustainable, check out King University’s guide What’s All the Buzz About? The Importance of Company Culture.

With all the benefits of great culture, it’s easy to see why focusing on it is a must, but it’s also a challenging task. It’s imperative that culture be sustainable and permeate throughout the entire workforce. Much thought is still being put into how to do that, and all companies must customize their approach.

The Plains are Covered with the Bodies of Pioneers!

Posted on August 26, 2019 by Tim Sackett

I will speak at over 25 conferences in 2019. Mostly HR and TA, some leadership conferences. Every single talk I give will have some piece around innovation, at some point during the talk. The need to drive our organizations forward.

Here’s the problem with that concept. The ones that do things first are usually considered pioneers.

Do you know what happened to the pioneers? The ones that went first? I’ll save you time looking it up and going through the history. They died!

You see, those who go first are always at a disadvantage in many respects. You don’t know what you don’t know. In the corporate world, in HR and TA specifically, what this means is you’ll probably fuck it up and be fired. And, yet executives wonder why ‘we’ aren’t more innovative!

It’s a super easy answer! I don’t like to be shot.

Most organizations do not have an appetite for innovation. 100% will tell you they do, but the old white guy sitting in the CEO chair will fire the first person who screws up. That’s not a culture of innovation and change, that’s a culture of “I’ve got a board meeting in two months, get sales up or heads are going to roll!”

So, it is unsurprising to me when an HR or TA leader tell me they would love to be innovative, but then they don’t really do anything differently year after year. Yeah, we know our current system sucks, but that new system is expensive and if the metrics don’t change, I’ll have a target on my back.

The plains are covered with the bodies of pioneers.

We see this happen in organizations constantly. Stuff isn’t going well. Big change must happen. Big change happens. A lot of people get fired. New people come in (walking on the bodies of the pioneers) and get to revel in the glory of a new world ‘they’ created.

You can either be a Pioneer or some Schmuck that thinks they created something amazing but didn’t have the guts to ever really do it themselves. Or just keep doing like you’ve been doing it and life goes on. That’s what most of us actually decide.

I want you to be a pioneer. I want you to drive innovation and help make your organization, your life, and your career better. That comes with some risk. So, I don’t judge anyone when they don’t become a pioneer. When they are unwilling to accept that risk.

The pioneer life isn’t easy. Those who choose to live it do so because they are drawn to a new world, a better world, but mostly they end up dead.

This is HR! Episode 4

Posted on August 22, 2019 by Tim Sackett

In Episode 4 of THIS IS HR, Jessica Lee (VP of Brand Talent, Marriott) is joined by Tim Sackett (President of HRU) and Kris Dunn (CHRO at Kinetix) for a discussion of industry news that only true HR pros could love.

[buzzsprout episode=’1565809′ player=’true’]

The gang covers:

—Shots fired in pay equity between the USA Women’s National Soccer team and the US Soccer Federation, which have different talking points when comparing total comp of the USA Men’s and USA Women’s National Soccer Teams (3:19).

—A Iowa state Director of Human Services gets canned for broad use of 2Pac lyrics in his management style, which begs the gang to wonder aloud how much 2Pac is too much if you’re trying to lead a department of public servants… in Iowa (18:40).

—A new productivity study is out and has some interesting outcomes related to which days are the most productive (22:15). The gang has issues with some of the findings, including that Thursdays suck.

KD closes it out by forgoing the mailbag and forcing the JLee and Tim to pick a single 2Pac song that most represents their management style, which includes the awkward reading of rap lyrics to defend said favorite 2Pac songs (28:53)

Just another day in the office at THIS IS HR.

5 Tips for Displaying Company Culture During the Hiring Process

Posted on August 21, 2019 by Tim Sackett

So, why is company culture important?

We inherently understand why a company’s culture is valuable, sure. It sets up the rules, procedures and best practices for a place where you spend 40-50 hours a week, and it guides employees on how to make decisions, how to deal with customers and more. It’s very important for those intangible reasons.

But, at the same time, for-profit companies are about, well, generating returns for shareholders and stakeholders. In those situations, why does company culture matter? It can easily be dismissed as a “fluffy” or “soft” concept in the big financial meetings, but that’s folly. Company culture deeply impacts the bottom line, with one study in August 2016 showing that bad cultures can lose companies about $52.7 million of value per year. That number will vary drastically between organizations and the verticals they play within, with another estimate putting culture and personnel problems at about $15.5 million lost in a year. We’ve also seen studies about more compassionate, empathetic cultures – which employees tend to respond better to and turnover less within – being tied to improved fiscal performance and customer satisfaction.

What we’ve established: The culture of an organization is important. So now, if you’re growing and hiring, how do you display that culture during the hiring process to make sure you get the best people possible?

Some tips for displaying culture during the hiring process

Here are some of the bigger buckets to consider:

What is happening with your Glassdoor? This is a tricky subject for some organizations, but I’ll attempt to break it down for you. First, many candidates will look at your Glassdoor to see what previous employees have said about you. Glassdoor scaled enough within public opinion that it got a profile in The New Yorker. It’s important. That said, when you see an absolutely terrible review in isolation, most humans will dismiss it as a disgruntled former employee (e.g., someone who was fired). Most candidates will look at the more nuanced reviews that address both the good and the bad. As the company, what you want to do is go in and respond to the bad elements – while acknowledging the good – in all the reviews you get. Show that you care. That’s a big element of your culture.
Be active on LinkedIn: This should seem obvious, but it often is not. Most information in the early stages for a candidate will come from LinkedIn – seeing what you post as a brand, seeing who works there, how connected (first/second degree) they are to who works there, etc. So, post relevant content there. Post about your industry. Post about employee accomplishments. Post about growth and gains. Post thought-provoking questions. Show that you’re a robust company that is active both online and off. That will make a candidate feel better than “Their last brand post was in 2013.”
Have an employee video: This can be cost-prohibitive sometimes, especially if you lack a video production person in-house, but if you can make it happen, it’s very valuable. Show employees at work, at social events, at ball games, volunteering, etc. Break it up with a mix of soundbites from executives and regular employees, and put a dash of history – when founded, where, why – into the video, too. Use the language and actual words of the employees themselves.
Have a “What It’s Like to Work Here” page on your website, tied to your Careers Page: Too often, organizations will only have a careers page with open listings, but a candidate can’t find much about what it’s like to work there. (That’s why they turn to LinkedIn and Glassdoor.) Have a page with pictures from work, social events, volunteering, the video mentioned above, quotes from employees, and more. Embed the job openings on that page, too. That way, as someone learns about your culture, they’re one click from actually applying to an opening.
Consider using peer interviews: Peer interviews aren’t massively common yet, but more and more companies are embracing them. By letting candidates be interviewed by members of the team they would eventually join, they get a realistic look at the culture, the day-to-day responsibilities and the actual people they’d be completing projects with. Obviously, the hiring manager can have the final say on who gets the offer, but involving the team in hiring is a great way to showcase what the culture really is to a candidate.

What other ways have you seen culture showcased during the hiring process?

Other aspects of company culture

To learn more about company culture, including the types of company culture and what they mean as well as how to promote an organizational culture that is positive and sustainable, check out King University’s guide What’s All the Buzz About? The Importance of Company Culture.

You can learn the latest in this and other business topics by earning an online MBA through King University. Throughout the program, you’ll study management, research, theoretical systems, quantitative analysis, ethical practices and more, preparing you to become an effective and strategic business leader in a variety of settings. Designed with working students in mind, their flexible program can fit easily into your schedule, and no GMAT is required.

Leaders Secretly Hate Succession Planning!

Posted on August 20, 2019 by Tim Sackett

Do you want to know what you’ll never hear anyone on your leadership team say publicly? Well, let me stop before I get started, because there are probably a ton of things leaders will say behind closed doors, off the record, and then open the door and say the exact opposite. Welcome to the PC version of corporate America.

One of the obvious, which always causes a stir is veteran hiring. I’ve written posts about Veteran Hiring many times, in which I state that companies will always, 100% of the time, publicly say they support veteran hiring, but behind closed doors they don’t really support veteran hiring. At best they want to offer veterans their crappiest jobs, not their best jobs.

If they did truly support veteran hiring, we would not have a veteran hiring crisis in this country! If every organization who claims they want to hire veterans, would just hire veterans, we would have 100% employed veterans! But we don’t. Why? Well, it’s organizational suicide to ever come out and say we don’t really want to hire veterans. The media would kill that organization. Yet, veterans can’t get hired.

Succession planning is on a similar path. Your leaders say the support succession planning. They’ll claim it is a number one priority for your organization. But, every time you try and do something with succession planning, it goes nowhere!

Why?

Your leaders hate succession planning for a number of reasons, here are few:

1. Financially, succession planning is a huge burden on organizations, if done right. Leaders are paid on the financial success of your organization. If it comes down to Succession Planning, or Michael getting a big bonus, Succession Planning will get pushed to next year, then, next year, then, next year…You see Succession Planning is really over hiring. Preparing for the future. It’s a long term payback. Very few organizations have leadership in place with this type of long term vision of success.

2. Leaders get too caught up in headcount. We only have 100 FTEs for that group, we couldn’t possibly hire 105 and develop and prepare the team for the future, even though we know we have a 6% turnover each year. Organizations react. Firefight. Most are unwilling to ‘over hire’ and do succession in a meaningful way.

3. Leaders are like 18-year-old boys. They think they can do it forever! Again, publicly they’ll tell you they’re planning and it’s important. Privately, they look at some smartass 35-year-old VP and think to themselves, there is no way in hell I’ll ever let that kid take over this ship!

So, what can smart HR Pros do?

Begin testing some Succession Planning type tools and data analytics in hot spots in your company. Don’t make it a leadership thing. Make it a functional level initiative, in a carve-out area of your organization. A part of the organization that is highly visible has a direct financial impact on the business, and one you know outwardly has succession issues.

Tinker. Get people involved. Have conversations. Start playing around with some things that could have an impact in terms of development, retention, cross-training, workforce planning, etc. All those things that constitute succession, but instead of organization level, you are focusing on departmental level or a specific location.

Smart HR Pros get started. They don’t wait for the organization to do it all at once. That will probably never happen. Just start somewhere, and roll it little by little. Too often we don’t get started because we want to do it all. That is the biggest mistake we can make.

Just do some HR today!

Posted on August 19, 2019 by Tim Sackett

If you’re highly active in HR and Talent Acquisition in the social space (read: blogs, sites, pod/videocasts, webinars, conferences, Facebook, Twitter, etc.), you might be caught up in this mindset that what you’re doing is not what you should be doing.

You’re being told what you should be focusing on by idiots like me, and thousands of others, most of whom don’t even work in HR or Talent Acquisition at this moment. That’s not a bad thing, some are brilliant and took their brilliance to the consulting/analyst/vendor side of the fence because the money was better, or the balance was better, or both. This isn’t a consultant vs. practitioner post.

This is a post to remind you that it’s alright if you just put your head down and do actual HR and Recruiting work for a while.

That it’s okay not to be instituting the next best practice or innovation.

That it’s okay not to be focusing on recreating HR and Talent Acquisition in your organization.

Sometimes we just need to keep the train running down the tracks. Allow ourselves to catch our breath. Get and build a strong team around us, and get ready for big things in the future. In the meantime, we just do what we do.

We make sure our employees are doing alright. Is there anything we can do to help them be better?

We make sure our employees get paid correctly and benefit card works when they show up at the doctor.

We make sure to kick managers in the shin, under the table, when they’re being idiots to their teams.

We make sure new employees have the tools they need when the show up on their first day, and they feel welcomed.

We give bad employees the gift of finding a job they will truly love, by letting them find that job on their own time.

Sometimes when I’m writing I forget what it’s like to have a million priorities in your day, and knowing you won’t get to half of them. That’s the daily grind in HR and Talent Acquisition. So, I write about how you should do this or do that, how you should be all innovative and shit, but I get that many days (sometimes weeks and months!) you just need to do the basics.

I’ve been there. I struggled to just do the basics many days. When thinking of being the best and innovating seemed so far away from reality that you felt like giving up.

That’s when I would tell myself, “Today, I’m just going to do HR”. Focus on what I’m good at. Focus on what I can control. Make it to the next day, where just maybe, that day would allow me to get better.

Bad is Stronger than Good in HR!

Posted on August 15, 2019 by Tim Sackett

I spoke at a conference recently and one of the things that came up during my presentation was a conversation around “Must Do Moves”. Must do moves are those things in your organization that you grab a hold of, as an HR leader, and make sure they happen.

I asked the group a question:

Do you have anyone in your organization that you need to get rid of?

100%, all hands raised up immediately, “Yes!” If you work in an organization that has a decent employee size, let’s say 100+, you almost always have a least one or two folks you would be better without. (for the record, my staff is less than 100, and I don’t have anyone I need to get rid of, they all rock! Don’t hate, I just follow my own advice!)

As HR Pros we hear about this in meetings with your executives and hiring managers, “Oh if we could only replace John, we would be so much better!” My point to the HR Pros in the audience is this is a value item that we can own in our organizations. Must do moves. Especially those moves that make our organizations stronger, need champions in HR. When it comes to staff moves, we are that champion.

What we realize, but many of our hiring managers fail to realize, is that Bad is Stronger than Good, when it comes to employees. We hear all the time “Addition through Subtraction”, and yet we struggle in our organizations to make this happen. Most likely this happens in your organization because you are trying to make your hiring managers, manage, and have them make this decision.

When in reality they have made the decision and they told you. They hate conflict, even more than you do, and this was their cry for help. Take it and run with it, make it happen. It’s the one thing in HR we are all really good at, process and planning. Put a plan together to get rid of your Bad and make it happen.

I didn’t just say go fire that person. That’s not a plan. Well, it is a plan, but not a very good one. I said make a plan to get rid of the bad. That means working with the hiring manager to determine timing, back-fill options, sourcing, recruiting, progressive discipline, all that good stuff, but make it happen. Really, make it happen! Executives like doers!

They like doers that get rid of Bad in our organizations. We own the Bad people in our organizations. Any time you have a Bad person in your organization you need to take on the persona, “this Bad person is my fault and I’m taking care of it.” Bad is Stronger than Good, so you have to fight hard against Bad.

Want to look and be better in HR? Own the “Must-Do Moves” in your organization.

DisruptHR Detroit 3.0 – Limited Tickets On Sale Now!

Posted on August 14, 2019 by Tim Sackett

DisruptHR Detroit is coming back to Downtown Detroit on September 19th from 5:30-8: 30 pm. Once again we want to give a big shout out to Quicken Loans and the HR and TA teams of Quicken Loans for hosting this great event onsite at The Madison!

We changed things up a bit this year – still great speakers (see the list below) and still great food, drinks, and fun – but we are going smaller, more intimate, can we say a bit more Disruptive! On top of this great, cool venue (that is literally across the street from Tiger Stadium) we have the founder of DisruptHR, Jennifer McClure, making a celebrity speaking appearance!

Here’s the deal though, we can only fit 150 folks into the venue! We’ve already sold half those tickets! Last year we sold 300+! So, if you want to come this year, you better be quick and go buy your tickets! We will sell-out and I apologize in advance, but there’s no way for us to increase seating capacity for this event. The cost is $30 per ticket, which includes the speakers, food, drink & parking!

DisruptHR Detroit 3.0 Speakers:

– Becky Andree: SOS! I am Drowning in Complexity

– April Burton-Welch: HR Perspective: Let’s Be Fair, Firm & Consistent

– Adam Klug: Texting Candidates – You’re Not Doing It, but You Should!

– Jennifer Laidlaw: Your Training Did Nothing!

– Jill Melton: Words Can Kill – Words Can Heal! Choose Wisely

– Clarene Mitchell: Don’t be shy…Create Your Own Digital Footprint!

– Greg Mood: Jerry Springer-type HR Stories!

– Joan Morehead: What’s your brand of IPA, and it’s not about beer!

– James Reid: Employment Issues: Drugs Sex Money Rock’n Roll

– Michelle Snay: Show IT the love, HR!

– Jennifer McClure: (She’s surprising us with her title!)