Category Archives: Communication

The Rules for Office Romances

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Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. As HR pros we know what this means, which is usually a lot of unwanted advances by horny dudes who think they have a shot at the hot co-worker, who has absolutely no interest in them at all.

Welcome to the show, kids!

I’ve given out some rules in the past. Everyone on the planet has read my Rules for Hugging at the Office, but Office Romances are a little more complicated than the simple side-hug in the hallway. So, I thought I would lay out some easy to follow, simple rules for Office Romances for you to pass out to your employees on Valentine’s Day:

Rule #1 – Don’t fall for someone you supervise. If you do fall for someone you supervise, which you probably will because this is how office romances work. In that case, get ready to quit, be fired, be moved to another department, and or get the person you’re having an office romance with fired, moved, etc.

Rule #2 – Don’t fall for anyone in Payroll. When it ends, so will your paycheck. At least temporarily, and even then it will be filled with errors from now until eternity. It’s a good rule of thumb to never mess with payroll for any reason.

Rule #3 – Don’t mess around in the office, or on office grounds. Look I get it. You’re crazy in love and just can’t wait until you get home. The problem is the security footage never dies. It will live long past your tenure with us, and we’ll laugh for a long time at you. So, please don’t.

Rule #4 – Don’t send explicit emails to each other at work. It’s not that I won’t enjoy reading them, it’s that I get embarrassed when I have to read them aloud to the unemployment judge at your hearing. Okay, I lied, I actually don’t get embarrassed, but you will.

Rule #5 – Don’t pick a married one. Look I get it, you’re the work spouse. He/She tells you everything. You get so close, you really think it’s real, but it’s not. You’ll actually see this when the real spouse shows up and keys your car in the parking lot.

Rule #6 – Don’t pick someone who has crappy performance. Oh, great, you’re in love! Now I’m firing your boyfriend and you’ll have to pick between him and us, which you’ll pick him, and now I’m out two employees. Pick the great performers, it’s easier for all of us.

Rule #7 – Inform the appropriate parties as soon as possible. Okay, you went to a movie together, not a big deal. Okay, you went to the movie together and woke up in a different bed than your own. It might be time to mention this to someone in HR, if there is at anyway a conflict of some sort. If you don’t know if there’s a conflict of some sort, let someone in HR help you out with that.

Rule #8 – If it seems wrong, it probably is.  If you find yourself saying things in your head like, “I’m not sure if this is right”, you probably shouldn’t be having that relationship. If you find yourself saying things like, “If this is wrong, I don’t want to be right”, you definitely shouldn’t be having this relationship.

Rule #9 – If you find yourself hiding your relationship at work, it might be time to talk to HR. We’re all adults, we shouldn’t be hiding normal adult relationships. If you feel the need to hide it, something isn’t normal about it.

Rule #10 – Everyone already knows about your relationship. People having an office romance are the worst at hiding it. You think you’re so sneaky and clever, but we see you stopping at her desk 13,000 times a day ‘asking for help’ on your expense report. We see you. We’re adults. We know what happened when you both went into the stairwell 7 seconds apart. Stop it.

There you go. Hope that helps. Have a great Valentine’s Day!

Maybe You Should Just Do The Job You Were Hired For

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It seems like frustration is at an all-time high. On a daily basis people are coming unglued over things they have no control over, and never will.

We are told to be more empathetic. We are told our employees need us to be “X”. You fill in the “X” because it changes pretty much article to article, generation to generation, leader to leader. One day I’m just supposed to care more. Then next day I need to listen more. The next day I need to understand more. Today, I need to be more flexible.

Somehow we’ve gone from running businesses to managing a day care.

I’ve stopped listening to people who don’t do the job I do. To the people who haven’t done the job in the past decade. To the people who claim to be experts but haven’t worked in my field, ever. 

Instead, I’m going out and talking to my employees. The young ones, the old ones, the ones in between that we’re not supposed to pay attention to anymore because they don’t matter because they’re not young or old, or female, or a minority, or gay. I’m going out and talking to them all equally. Since I need them ‘all’ to move my organization forward.

It doesn’t matter what my employees are telling me. That’s for me, to help them. The thing that will help my employees, most likely won’t help your employees. You work in a different culture, location, industry, climate, etc. No one is a better expert on my employees than I am. 

Just like you will be the expert of your employees, your team, your department, your organization.

 But, here’s what I think you’ll find out:

 – Your employees are all individuals with very specific problems, concerns, and desires.

– Their problems start close to them and then move outward. Sure it sucks Trump is making massive change and they want to help America and the World, but first, they have an issue with daycare and paying student loans, and a health scare. Those problems are bigger than the world problems you keep shoving down their throat. Help them solve the problems close first, then solve the world.

– Your millennials employees became adults, and you keep treating them like they just left college and are still kids.

– Your ‘new’ youngest employees are much different than millennials, and they’re not. They’re still young people with young people problems and passions.

– Your employees want to be successful. Across the board, it’s a driving, motivating force. You helping them become successful is the most important thing you can do as a leader. What’s successful? That is also very individualized. Your challenge, as a leader, is to find a way tie their success to the organization’s success. It’s hard to do, and you have to figure it out for your employees.

We keep letting other people tell us how to do our jobs. Have fun with that. I’m going to do the job I was hired to do, the way I know it needs to be done because no one knows how to do this job, better than me.

11 Proven Tips for Landing the Perfect HR Tech Solution

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It’s no wonder we all fall in love with technology: When we pick the right tools, they can save us a ton of time and headaches–and help us make our employees’ lives easier, too.

The catch, of course, is that getting approval for great tech can be a giant hurdle, what with the constant demand that HR do more while simultaneously cutting its budget. However, as HR tech expert Tim Sackett will tell you, there’s a realistic path to getting the HR tech solutions you desire without freaking out your CFO–and in this special Valentine’s Day webcast, he’ll show you the way.

Specifically, you’ll learn:

  • 3 ways to argue that HR tech should be a top priority within your organization.
  • 5 strategies for making your pitch to your executive teams.
  • 3 ways to ensure the HR tech solutions you choose won’t come back to haunt you.

The HR technology answers to your prayers are right around the corner! (Or, at the very least, you’re just a click away from getting some great, practical advice on how to boost your tech stack in 2017 … and beyond!)

This, free, webinar will run on February 14th (that’s right, the day of Love!) at 2 pm EST, just around that time in the day when you’ll need a nice big hug from me on Valentine’s Day!

So, if you’re lonely on Valentine’s Day, like I’ll be, come on over and we can commiserate together and geek out talking HR technology, since I’ll be hosting!

REGISTER HERE! 

 

 

 

Compromise Kills Innovation

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The most innovative leaders of our time were mostly assholes. Why? They refused to budge on their idea. Everything in their body told them what needed to be done to make their idea happen, and they refused to compromise on even the smallest details. This is how greatness happens.

True change only happens when someone is unwilling to listen to their critics.

This is also the exact way more careers are killed than any others. It’s all or nothing. Greatness happens at the edges, not in the middle.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t fit well in most corporate environments. Most MBA programs don’t teach you to be a tyrant. Leadership development, in today’s corporate world, is about bringing everyone to the middle. Finding ways that we can all get along. Even suppressing those who push the envelope too far.

We want everyone to line up nice and pretty. To play the role they were hired to play. To be the poster children for compromise.

It’s important for leaders to understand this concept if your job as a leader is to drive innovation and change. You don’t drive this through compromise and you need some renegades on your team, that quite frankly you might not even enjoy being around.

It took me so long to learn this because I was a renegade as an employee. I couldn’t understand why my leaders kept pushing me to compromise when I knew the right way to do something, the better way to do something, the new way to do something.

Once I became a leader I acted the exact same way towards those who were like me. Get back in line. Run the play. Do what the others do. That was the leadership I was taught. I didn’t value those who seemed to be fighting me, just as I use to fight. New leaders struggle with this because we take it personally.

We feel like those renegade employees are actually fighting us. When in reality they’re fighting everything. It’s our job as leaders to understand that the fight they have is super valuable if directed at the right target! To get them to understand they don’t need to fight everyone and everything but pick some fights that help us all and then support that fight.

This isn’t everyone you lead. It’s actually a really tiny number, but it seems bigger because they take up a lot of time and cause a lot of commotion amongst the drones who want to stay in their box. But, this is how change and innovation are born. By one person who is unwilling to compromise because they know a better way and they’re willing to fight to make it a reality.

This isn’t to say it will always work. Most ideas fail, but those who are willing to make an uncompromising stand for their idea, stand a better chance of seeing that idea succeed.

Would You Facebook Live Your Interview?

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A few weeks ago, after an NFL playoff game, a wide receiver from the Pittsburg Steelers, Antonio Brown, Facebook Lived his coaches post-game talk to the team. That kind of talk is almost always a private conversation between the coach and the players.

Beyond the concept of betrayal between player and coach, this entire thing got me thinking about how our world has changed in what society views and private vs. public. My parent’s generation is extremely private. You don’t talk about money, political beliefs, religion, love life, family, your job, etc., with anyone outside your immediate family, and maybe not even them!

My generation was a little less, we would speak our political beliefs, talk opening about relationships, etc. The most recent generation to enter the workforce seemingly will talk about anything publicly! Somedays it seems like nothing is off limits within the walls of the office, this was not always the case.

Antonio Brown’s Facebook Live broadcast of this private moment got me to think about how long is it until we see someone broadcast an interview live!? This is truly a private moment between candidate and hiring manager. A time that both could look awesome or like a total fool.

There might be value for both sides to broadcast an interview live.

From a candidate perspective, you could show yourself in a very good light. If you nail the interview, not only do you have proof but now others also can see this and might want to hire you. If you bomb, having a video of this to analyze might be the best thing to help you get better at interviewing.

From an employer perspective, having a live broadcast of an interview might be a bonanza of publicity from an employer branding standpoint. We already know if would take a unique organization to be willing to do this, and every organization is trying to find ways to set themselves apart from their competition for talent. It would also be a great record for employment law purposes to prove you were compliant during an interview (or vice verse).

It’s easy to pick apart this idea and see both good things and bad. I suspect most HR and TA pros would see more bad than good, which is why I like it! If the majority only see negative, you can use this to your advantage.

The reality is, if you do what you should do, you have nothing to worry about and only could really use this to your advantage. If you suck and you don’t trust your hiring managers, this isn’t for you! That’s most of us, by the way!

It’s something to think about. I don’t see us, as a society, going backward as it relates to privacy. Every day another privacy barrier is broken. My question is, how long until we begin broadcasting live from the interview room?

I’m not an “Us” or a “Them”

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Politics are ruining my friendships. Look, I don’t really want to know what you care about, because most of us care about crazy shit that others don’t understand, or can’t understand. You getting me to understand your crazy, probably isn’t a good thing!

I have true friends who are pro-life. I love these friends. I don’t understand how they can’t understand my pro-choice stance, but they don’t. They can’t understand how I can be a baby killer. I’m not, but we all have our positions. We’ve been able to have a great friendship in spite of this one difference.

Maybe there should be a difference of belief scoreboard. Only having one difference of belief is fine, we can still be close friends, even two or three. Once you get to four, you begin to be a person I don’t want to hang with. Once you get to six, maybe you turn into a horrible person I would rather see dead. I’m not quite sure at the math, but I’m sure we could come up with a system.

I want to be friends with all kinds of people, but recently it seems like all kinds of people don’t want to be friends with me because I don’t believe in their crazy, to the exact specifications they want me to believe.  I see their points. I respect their points. But, I’m not flying their flag. So, apparently, that makes me part of the evil empire.

I like puppies. I fly that flag, for sure! I love babies. All babies. White, brown, yellow, any color baby is alright with me. I’m definitely pro puppy and pro baby. I like gin and tonics. Marry whomever you please, I support that. Single moms, I was raised by one, that’s the toughest gig on the planet. I’m not a church-goer, but I’m not an Athiest. I like the Spartans, probably too much. I like money. I hate giving money to people who don’t deserve it or appreciate it. I’m definitely, pro-money. I like helping people. I try and do that as much as I can.

I’m not a ‘them’. I’m also not an ‘us’. I’m more of a ‘we’.

Both the Democrats and Republicans are extremely happy we are all going ‘us’ and ‘them’. By doing this we keep both parties in power. The last thing they want is that we become a ‘we’. The establishment has ‘us’ exactly where they like to have us. Against each other. That gives them the most power. If we find a middle ‘we’, you’ll really see some shit happen!

The reality is, our current government is fine with the other party winning. All that does is give their own party more power for the next four years. Until they come back into power. Then the cycle repeats. Don’t you think if one side had it ‘right’, I mean really ‘right’, they would keep winning each year? But neither do. So, we yo-yo back and forth. Feeling passion one cycle, beat down the next, on top again the next.

Morals matter, well about once every four years, then we go back to forgetting morals matter. Walking by homeless like they’re not there. Laughing a comics tell crude jokes but she’s a woman so it’s okay to say those things. Letting our government drop tens of thousands of drone-bombs on people different from us, killing anyone in our way of a $1.99 gallon of gas.

I know this sounds naive, but I just want my friends back. I want to be able to have a conversation that isn’t filled with hatred and absolutes. I didn’t vote for him because he’s a bad person. I didn’t vote for her because she was an awful liar. I voted for someone I thought was different than the establishment because I truly want a change that benefits us all.

I’m stuck in the middle right now wanting to be a “we”, but surrounded by “us’s” and “them’s”.

 

 

The Joe Biden Employee Appreciation Award

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I’m sure by now most of you have seen President Obama give Joe Biden the Presidential Medal of Freedom. It was very moving, no matter which side of the aisle you sit:

Let’s face it, being the Vice President of the United States is a thankless job. You don’t really get credit for anything besides being a good wingman, which Joe seemed to be to Obama throughout their entire time together in Washington.

So, President Obama did what he could to show his appreciation, and Joe responded emotionally like I think most people would expect. It’s a huge honor receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Isn’t really all any of our employees want? No, not the Medal of Freedom, to be appreciated for the work you do. To be recognized by your supervisor in the best way you can, publicly, letting everyone know, “hey, Joe’s a great guy, he gave it his all, all the time, and I that truly matters to me”.

Being appreciated is so powerful, yet, so underutilized.

Why?

Because you can’t fake appreciation. I mean you can, but everyone knows, especially the person receiving fake appreciation. Real appreciation is emotional. It’s connected. You can feel it.

You have a bunch of really hard working people in your organization. Not all of your employees, but still a bunch that deserve this level of appreciation. The key is that they get it from the person who actually appreciates them for real. They might not all act like Joe receiving his medal, but don’t be surprised if they do.

Appreciation is the holy grail of engagement.

I Love the Buzz of a Recruiting Team in Full Motion!

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On a Tuesday night recently I stayed late at the office, took my laptop and sat out in our recruiting bullpen. Hearing everyone at once on calls, talking to candidates, selling, recruiting, is like music to me. There’s an energy you can feel, and so can everyone else that’s in the middle of it!

If you do one thing to make your recruiting team better this week, schedule a full team calling party! It doesn’t have to be at night. For agencies, that’s the best time, but I know most corporate TA leaders would struggle to make this happen.

Bring your team together and give them time to prepare, source, etc. Let them know from 10 am to noon, we are all going to call candidates all at the same time. No sourcing, no setting up interviews, no following up with hiring managers, no working on projects. Just one thing, dialing and talking.

Make a contest out of it. The recruiter who makes the most calls in this time will get a prize, or the person who talks to the most people will win. You can play around with different ways to incentivize this behavior.

It’s an amazing feeling having the entire team doing that one activity, together, that is the core of all that you do. The nervous energy, the elevated voices, the positivity is infectious! I can guarantee you that if you do once, you’ll want to do it again.

It’s too easy for us to sit there at our desk and send emails. Source on the internet. Do all that work we do, but not that one thing we all need to do more of and that’s one-on-one conversations with candidates. That’s how you make more hires. That’s how you decrease days to fill. That’s how you increase your hiring manager satisfaction. That’s how you increase candidate satisfaction.

At our core, this is what we are. Recruiters find people, talk to people, and connect people. Most of this can only be done with live conversations. Do yourself a favor and give this a try!

T3 – Smarp @BeSmarp – Connecting Employees with your EB Content

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This week on T3 I take a look at the employee communications application, Smarp. Smarp is a comprehensive communications app that connects employees with the employer’s online content, generating positive brand awareness and exposure by empowering employees to participate in the internal and external communications of the company.

The Smarp app ensures employees are well-informed whether they are at the office or on the go and allows them to improve their own professional brand by helping them position themselves as thought leaders in their fields through the content they share. At its core Smarp is an application that allows an admin (HR, marketing, EB, etc.) to schedule content to be distributed to employees with simple one-click access for them to share the content with their social circles that they decide.

Smarp can easily be used for Employer Branding, but it’s not limited to only HR and Recruiting, all employee communication within the organization can leverage this tool. Smarp is a better way to share and exchange content amongst your employees.

The things I liked most about Smarp: 

– Smarp gives you an easy to use tool that gets your branded (or approved) content into the hands of your employees, then rewards them for consuming and sharing the content with a broader audience.

– Mobile App, with an Admin desktop interface, Smarp also allows your employees to recommend content to be shared across the organization, with specific locations, groups, or departments. This let’s the organization source content that your employees are already consuming and finding value in.

– Smarp has a major gamification element that rewards employees, through a point-based system. Not only are employees rewarded for sharing the content, but they are also rewarded for the quality of the share, thus, the amount of reshares, likes, comments, etc. also count for more points. It’s not only about the quantity they share but about the quality of the share. These points give each employee a “Smarp Score” that is tracked on an organiational leaderboard. Employees then use their “Smarp” points to purchase items you choose, give to charities, etc.

– The Admin dashboard has a great analytics engine integrated that truly gives you the metrics you need to know which content is performing the best, with which groups, etc. It will show you the reach of individual pieces of content, your estimated earned media value (EEMV), and allow you to disable certain share networks you might not want to frequent.

– Internally, Smarp also allows your employees to engage with content and drive collaboration within the organization, while also sharing the content externally, without any of the internal dialogue reaching the outside. I love this feature. It allows you to have dynamic conversations internally, without fear of the public seeing what’s going on behind the curtain.

– Smarp also allows you to share job postings if you have a unique URL for the job posting. Also, if you have an RSS feed to your jobs these will be brought in automatically if you would like that ability for your employees to share these jobs externally and give you the ability to measure this kind of activity.

This application is more likely one that would be used by larger organizations, or more tech-savvy organizations who have an employee base that would embrace this type of activity. Built as an annual license per employee user, organizations will get the most out of this with high user adoption, which can be tricky if you’re not prepared. I was impressed with what Smarp has to offer, not only for HR and Recruiting but how this tool could easily be used across the enterprise for employee communication.

T3 – Talent Tech Tuesday – 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 T3 – just send me a note – timsackett@comcast.net

What Are Your Rules for Engaging Your Employees After Hours?

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On January 1, 2017, it became ‘legal’ for French workers to ignore online communications from their employer when those communications were sent during non-work hours. Meaning if your normal work day was 9 am to 6 pm, any communication sent outside of those times can legally be ignored and the employer has no recourse:

With the implementation of this law, the country aims to tackle the problem of the so-called ‘always-on’ work culture by giving employees the ‘right to disconnect.’

While the new law stipulates that employers sort out viable ways to avoid the intrusion of work matters into the private lives of employees, for now the ‘right to disconnect’ foresees no penalties for companies that fail to reach such agreement with workers.

In such cases, employers will be required to “publish a charter that would make explicit the demands on, and rights of, employees out-of-hours,”

While this is currently only the law in France, we know eventually we’ll see this type of legislation begin to creep into many other countries as well. Currently, most American companies have more of an ‘always on’ concept of work communication response culture. Meaning, if I send you a note, whenever I send you a note, I expect a reply when you see it.

Of course, there are organizations and leaders who have taken the opposite stance on this, but those are really few and far between. Those organizations understand the importance of balance between work and your personal life. The problem comes into play as we give our employees more and more flexibility in their work schedule, we also expect more flexibility in how we communicate with them as employers.

That’s the one issue I see with the French law. The French are still working under a very traditional style of work. You go to an office. You do work. You go home. In America, and many other countries, that type of work culture is no longer the norm. So much flexibility has been added into employees working schedule that traditional communication rules of when and how become very difficult to manage, and quite frankly even employees wouldn’t want those rule.

So, should you have after-hours work communication rules? If so, what should those rules be? Here are mine:

1. Salaried employees, with flexibility in their schedule, in leadership roles, need to be available 24/7/365. You might disagree with this, but at a certain level in organizations, you are always available. The one caveat to this is when you have something personal, or an emergency issue, and have set up a communication plan where another leader is covering for you and taking on your responsibility.

2.  Sales pros and leaders must respond to clients in an expected manner when there is a client issue. “Expected” then becomes a negotiated stance with your clients. So, if your clients expects an immediate reply, you should reply immediately. If you’ve negotiated twenty-four hours, then you reply within twenty-four hours. The point being, negotiate communication expectations up front, not when there’s a problem for the first time!

3. Employees are expected to communicate to their leaders about a known issue that could have a drastic impact the organization immediately. After-hours, during work hours, anytime. Salaried, hourly, temporary, etc. If there’s a problem, let someone know. I don’t hold you responsible for taking care of it, but I do hold you responsible for letting someone know.

4. Don’t be a hero. If you’re at your daughter’s school play, don’t leave to answer a phone call just because you see it’s a work number. Let it go to voicemail and return the call, if needed, after the play is done. Don’t return an email message immediately on Saturday night of something that can easily wait until Monday morning. Just because someone else decided to work on Saturday evening doesn’t mean you are expected to work Saturday evening. It might just be that time worked well for them.

5. Don’t expect others to have your bad habits. Just because you love responding to email at 3 am does not mean others will love doing the same thing, and you believing they should makes you look like a terrorist.

What are your after-hours work communication rules?