Category Archives: Culture

T3 – @GlintInc – Introducing Narrative Intelligence

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Last week I had this idea about how A.I.’s real value would be in HR and not in Recruiting. Most A.I. technology right now in the market is focused on TA and it’s easy to see the productivity and efficiency gains from A.I. in the TA space. It’s not as to see the same advantages in HR, but my theory is, very soon, we’ll see the advantages as A.I.

It’s not as to see the same advantages in HR, but my theory is, very soon, we’ll see the advantages of A.I. using Natural Language Processing (NLP) in analyzing your employee’s unstructured communication data. What?! Big brother will start listening to everything being said and then give you predictions on what might happen, and what you should probably do about it.

After I wrote that post the folks at Glint saw it and send a message saying, “Hey, we’re basically doing that now with Narrative Intelligence!” If you don’t know Glint, they are an enterprise level (1,000 employees and above) People Success Platform. Basically, Glint’s technology helps organizations drive higher levels of employee engagement through prescriptive analytics.

Ton’s of Reader’s Digest Word Power words in today’s post. “Prescriptive Analytics” = giving you advice on next steps based on what the data is telling you will probably happen. So, engagement is trending lower in your sales team, here is an action plan for the Sales Manager to do to help turn that trend around. Pretty cool stuff. Not only does Glint help you raise engagement, but they are also helping you develop your managers into better leaders.

The real reason for today’s post was to talk about Glint’s Narrative Intelligence which is a new product in their platform. Narrative Intelligence basically pulls the ‘real’ story out of what’s going on in your organization by analyzing the unstructured data comments from your employee surveys. This comment data gives you a much richer picture of what truly is going in your organization.

Glint’s NI then takes this unstructured data and puts it through their natural language processing engine, specifically designed for employee feedback data, and presents you with this awesome story around what your employees are actually talking about. From this data, you can then begin to write that next chapter of the story, whereas in most organizations now, we just wait around to see what happens in the next episode!

What I really like about Glint’s technology is it’s one more example of how technology is helping HR shape itself into a strategic partner of our organizations. To know what’s happening in your organization is one level. To link what’s happening to specific actions that will have a positive impact is strategic. It’s what our leaders have wanted from HR forever and it’s now a reality.

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

The Single Best Incentive You Can Offer Millennials!

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The world is millennial crazy. If you read this blog you know I think about 99% of the millennial stuff is pure B.S. (we were all young once, it’s mostly great, but sometimes sucks, buy a helmet!), but every once in a while I find something that really hits home.

Student debt is the real deal!

I’ve gotten up close in personal with this. I have two kids in college who are just starting down this debt path. I also have a brother who is a millennial who gets punched in the gut each month he has to make his mortgage-sized student loan payment! Great white collar, professional career, well paid, can’t even think about buying a house. That sucks!

Take a look at his chart:

So, if you truly want to attract great millennial talent you need to do a couple of things:

1. Offer as a sign-on to pay off their student debt.

2. Offer home buying, mortgage assistance.

Why? Turns out employees who own a home, stay around a lot longer, are more productive, and I work for a company that cares enough about me to help me with my student loans and to buy a house, I’m probably a bit more engaged as well!

Here’s the other dirty little secret we know in HR. Let’s say you have a program that pays off student loan debt for employees. With those agreements, you usually have an amount per year payoff (I.E., We pay off $30K, you give us three years of service, or pay us back the money, or something along those lines).

Very few employees leave you after they’ve been employed with an organization for three years. Three years is that tipping point where you decide you’re all in, or all out. So, your job as an HR leader is to get them past three years! Okay, every organization has their own tenure tipping point, but on average most are around three years. Go find yours!

One other item from the chart that sticks out like a sore thumb? No college degree means you’ll more than likely never own a home. That sucks! Guess what, we all have people in our organization without college degrees. These folks need our help with major financial situations, like buying a home, more than any of our employees.

We should be able to figure this out as well. What would stop an employer from offering home buying assistance, for years of service, to their employees? Nothing. But we don’t do it because we see ‘those’ employees as easily replaceable. So, why put in the extra effort?

Employees are our most valuable asset, well, unless, you know, you only make $15 per hour, then you’re just an asset, not really that valuable. Isn’t that what we’re really saying?

Long, story, short: Help your employees buy homes. You’ll never regret it.

 

Be Careful What You Incentivize! You Actually Might Get It!

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I’m fascinated in how we compensate and incentivize employees. Not the actual process, but the decision-making process behind the what and how we do it. In my experience, how this usually goes is a two-level process:

First Level: Someone has a hunch, or it’s being done this way somewhere else.

Second Level: Someone in compensation searches for data to justify the hunch or data that agrees with what you want to do.

Real scientific, huh!?

Let me give you a real-world example that most of us are familiar with. We have a prison problem in America. We can all agree on this, correct? Prison populations are exploding and continuing to grow at an alarming rate.

Popular ‘theory’ says the reason behind this are based on a few situations. First, the war on drugs has caused the increase in more inmates in prison. Seems fair, we definitely hate those drugs. Second, for-profit private prisons have turned prisons into a business and this keeps prisoners in longer than they need to be. Third, minimum sentences and three-strike policies have people in prison for life for minor crimes and drug offenses.

What if you were to find out none of this is actually true? That in fact, the real reason we have exploded our prison population over the past two decades is because of one simple incentive program. This is probably going to piss you off!  From The New Yorker:

“So what makes for the madness of American incarceration? If it isn’t crazy drug laws or outrageous sentences or profit-seeking prison keepers, what is it? Pfaff has a simple explanation: it’s prosecutors. They are political creatures, who get political rewards for locking people up and almost unlimited power to do it…between 1990 and 2007, while the crime rate began to fall, the number of line prosecutors went up by fifty percent, and the number of prisoners rose with it. That fact may explain the central paradox of mass incarceration: fewer crimes, more criminals; less wrongdoing to imprison people for, more people imprisoned….

Meanwhile, all the rewards for the prosecutor, at any level, are for making more prisoners. Since most prosecutors are elected, they might seem responsive to democratic discipline. In truth, they are so easily reëlected that a common path for a successful prosecutor is toward higher office. And the one thing that can cripple a prosecutor’s political ascent is a reputation, even if based on only a single case, for being too lenient. In short, our system has huge incentives for brutality, and no incentives at all for mercy.”

Go read the full piece in The New Yorker, it’s loaded with statistics to back up these real reasons for prison growth, and it’s an exceptional example of you actually get what you incentivize!

Many times we come up with incentive plans based on a short-term situation we want to change, but then years later those short-term incentive plans are still in place, and driving behaviors we never wanted or intended.

The other stat I loved from the article that we never hear in mainstream media or from our politicians is after the age of 40, most crime just stops. Basically, crime is young person’s game for the most part. If we were to release all prisoners at age 40, we would basically see no increase in the crime rate, but this will never happen. Why?

Because it only takes one. It takes one person getting out and committing another horrific crime and we all go, “See! It doesn’t work!” And, if it was someone I know, or god forbid my family, I’m probably right there with you. So, we lock up 7 Million Americans!

Be careful what behaviors you’re incentivizing, my friends, you actually just might get them!

The real value of A.I. is in HR, not Recruiting!

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What if you could catch and stop sexual harassment in the workplace before it got started? What about other types of violence, embezzlement, etc.? What if you could determine when disengagement was starting with an employee and address it immediately?

All those would be pretty powerful advantages to HR and leadership, don’t you think!?

Google is beginning to use A.I. and machine learning to find objectional content on the internet. Now, the main reason for this is a little less moral than it sounds. Google was losing advertisers because many ads they were paying for were showing up on content that was not something they would want to be associated with their brand.

Seems like most solutions to problems happen because of money…

Recently, in HR, we’ve seen some really high-profile cases of harassment come to light with Uber, Tesla, etc. These cases have had a major impact to both the consumer brand and especially to the employer brand of these organizations. While those of us who work in HR understand this is far too often occurrence, it seems like little gets done to stop it.

Say hello to my little friend!

Why couldn’t an artificial intelligence technology tell me when some creepy employee is sending inappropriate things to other coworkers, customers, vendors, etc.? What about when an employee uses threatening language to intimidate another employee? Wouldn’t you want to know about that? I think Mary just told Jennifer she’s ‘done’ and wants ‘out’ and she needs to get her resume together.

Would love to know that, so I can find out how to talk Mary off the ledge!

Say hello to Big Brother!

Yikes, right!? But, this is probably closer to reality than we realize and it will probably actually help our work environments a ton! Our employees communicate in a number of ways: email (primarily), messaging, voice, various tech platforms we use to do our daily work, etc. Almost all of which have unstructured data that A.I. could analyze and make predictions.

Some of those predictions could help you as an organization reduce risk. Tim seems to be coming very close to crossing a line with Mary, maybe we should give him a little reminder about our policy on harassment in the workplace. Bam! A nice, neat, little piece of content automatically hits Tim’s inbox and a message gets sent to his boss to stop by and remind Tim about what’s appropriate behavior in the workplace.

Some might help the organization retain their talent. There’s already predictive analytic solutions in play that predict employee turnover, add in machine learning, and A.I. will begin to show you employee who might turn before they’ve even thought of turning!

This might seem all futuristic, but the technology is really already here. Eventually, someone will launch a solution that does all of the stuff mentioned above, I’m quite certain someone already has this in development. It will only take one company to put it in place and the dominos will fall.

What you get paid to do at work is owned by your employer. We’ve all known this for a long time. What we never realized was that eventually, technology would actually hold us to not only the work but the behaviors as well!

Would you want to work in an environment where every move you made was measured by A.I.? I’m guessing not, but I’m also guessing it won’t be a choice!

What if you could predict all of your Turnover? #UltiConnect @UltimateHCM

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Out at Ultimate Software’s Conference, this week and one of the cool features that Ultimate has within UltiPro is Retention Predictor. Ultimate has done a really good job at going out and buying some great data analytics companies and implementing that tech and talent into their organization.

So, what’s Retention Prediction? 

The concept is that if you analyze enough of your employee’s data points you’ll see trends that show if someone is highly likely to leave your organization as a voluntary term. As an organization, we really want and need to know data this to help retain our best performers.

UltiPro delivers a ‘score’ of each of your employees showing if someone is a flight risk based on their level of performance, so that you can filter, if you want, by high performers to low performers. The notion being, you definitely want to ‘save’ your high performers.

So, how do you save an employee that shows up as a High Risk? 

UltiPro will then deliver to the manager of the employee at risk specific “Leadership Actions”. These actions are recommendations of things the manager can do to help retain this employee. Currently, UltiPro has over 50 actions built into the system, and you can build in your own actions if you want for specific things you might want to do in your organization.

Does this really work? 

I spoke with multiple Ultimate Software customers who raved about how this one feature has literally changed their entire culture! One great example is Gregg Paulk, an executive at Anderson Center for Autism in New York.

Anderson had high turnover of their support staff, and also had an issue of lack of quality leadership training. Before they began using UltiPro’s Retention Predictor they had 30% turnover. In the two years since turning on the prediction feature, they’ve lowered their turnover to 15%! That’s giant! That’s real money that can now be used in other ways to better their organization and increase student care.

Anderson also saw higher engagement with their managers because they were now being able to deliver each manager specific actions to help them retain their staff, and ultimately help them become better managers of their team.

Paulk said one of the challenges in implementing anything like this is always the potential of false positives. One of your employees comes up a high flight risk, but in reality, they’re not. Yes, this can happen and will happen.

He said the key for them was to get their managers to understand how data prediction works. Yes, we’ll have a few false positives, but the majority of the data will be highly accurate and the percentage that is correct is so high, you can’t ignore what the predictions are telling your team.

What I really like about this feature is it puts HR into an immediate strategic position within the organization. It helps to make your entire team proactive and stop reacting to turnover as it happens. Your organization can finally become proactive in developing your team and leaders, which will naturally just help you drive a more dynamic culture.

What’s next? 

Ultimate Software is not just sitting on this, their data team is off the charts brilliant and they’re already working on their next generation product called “Perception” that will add in even more unstructured data into the algorithm and make these predictions more accurate, faster.

Check it out. I was super impressed by the accuaracy and real-life outcomes of this. It’s definitely a game changer for organizations.

Every Moment Matters! #UltiConnect @UltimateHCM

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So, I’m out at the Ultimate Software Conference this week and they had one of the most unique keynotes, Will Smith! Yeah, that Will Smith! Fresh Prince, I Am Legend, Hancock, Men In Black, Bad Boy himself!

At HR Conferences you don’t normally get big time Hollywood. You usually get a dude who’s really good looking, who wrote a book, telling motivational stories. The HR ladies tend to like those types. Well, they really liked Will! I really liked Will!

For starters, Will Smith is an entertainer. He immediately grabbed the audience and didn’t let go. He knows how to control and audience, tell great stories, be funny, and hit on big themes that make you think and leave you feeling motivated. That’s what a great keynote can do.

My favorite story he told was about his father dying. His father was told he had three months to live and he ended up living about six months. Will said after they got to three months every single moment felt like it really could be the last moment.

Because of this, hellos became special, goodbyes tended to linger longer, embraces were more special. It went on like that for another three months, and it made Will realize that all moments with those that you love and care about, should be moments like this because we don’t know if that will be the last moment.

On the last day of his dad’s life, Will was in LA and his dad was back in Philly. Will’s dad called him on Facetime and told him he thought this was it, that this was going to be his last day. Since he was going through this, it wasn’t a shock, but he stayed on the phone with him for a while.

Will said they went about fifteen minutes without saying anything to each other, just staring at each other, just spending this time together in the only way they could at that moment. Will’s sister was with her father in Philly and eventually broke the silence and said, “Well, dad, do you have anything you want to say to Will?”

His response was awesome and it brought down the house in classic Will Smith fashion:

My dad said, “Shit, anything I haven’t told this motherfucker isn’t going to make a difference now!”

He died that night. The crowd laughed. Will laughed. At the story, not at his dad dying!

The crowd laughed. Will laughed. At the story, not at his dad dying!

Most of us won’t be as lucky as Will to know you have that time and also in that time realize the importance of those moments. Our loved ones will die today, tomorrow, next week, and we won’t have any idea that it’s coming. We live with this reality.

We also live with a reality that we don’t have to let these moments go by. We can choose to not let moments go by and let people know how much we value them and care about them. For me, that was the real message Will was sharing.

You’ll have a bunch of moments today with people you care about. Try not to miss them!

Hi, My Name is Tim, and I’m a Lonely Middle-aged Guy.

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Middle-aged men face this weird life-path. You start a career. Get married. Move to the suburbs. Start a family. Become a little league coach. Watch your kids graduate. Then you get ready to die.

I feel like I’ve got more friends than ever in my life, but if I stop and really put down on paper people who I would consider a ‘close’ friend, that number is very small. Part of this is the social world we’ve created. Staying in touch with hundreds or thousands of people at a very surface level, but never really going that deep. “Sorry to hear your cat died. So, awful…Hey, this video is hilarious, I better share…”

The reality is I grew up in a generation that was much different than my parents. I don’t think my parents really cared if I lived or died, as long as I wasn’t too loud in the house, and I didn’t do anything to embarrass their station in life. My generation then went to the extreme opposite and became helicopter parents!

The Boston Globe recently had an article titled: The biggest threat facing middle-aged men isn’t smoking or obesity. It’s loneliness. And while I don’t really want to admit this is me, it’s probably more me than I realize! From the article:

Beginning in the 1980s, Schwartz says, study after study started showing that those who were more socially isolated were much more likely to die during a given period than their socially connected neighbors, even after you corrected for age, gender, and lifestyle choices like exercising and eating right. Loneliness has been linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and stroke and the progression of Alzheimer’s. One study found that it can be as much of a long-term risk factor as smoking.

The research doesn’t get any rosier from there. In 2015, a huge study out of Brigham Young University, using data from 3.5 million people collected over 35 years, found that those who fall into the categories of loneliness, isolation, or even simply living on their own see their risk of premature death rise 26 to 32 percent.

I like to tell my wife she’s my best friend, and the reality is, that’s true in every form of the phrase. I’m sure she likes knowing that, but boy does that add a lot of pressure to a marriage relationship! I’m thankful for having such a great relationship, but she doesn’t like Tosh or Deadpool, so I probably need a guy friend for that stuff!

I have a dog. He’s pretty great. Wish I had a pickup truck for him to ride with me in it. That would be even better. I call him my best friend every day, and I think he actually believes it. I know I do.

I have others I call my ‘best’ guy friends, but some of those on that list I rarely see and sometimes go weeks or months without actually communicating live. That doesn’t seem best friend-ish!

Because I write in the HR space, I have a bunch of women who I communicate with often, and I would definitely call them my ‘best’ friends who are ladies. Most guys don’t have this luxury because their wives wouldn’t take to kindly to other women talking to their husbands. I’m lucky that way, but still, most of these ‘friends’ I rarely see live or talk to live, it’s mostly a social relationship.

The moral to this story? Stop reading blogs and go touch someone. Not inappropriately, but physically see them and talk to them. The human body needs real life relationships to thrive.

Sackett’s Top 10 Fast Food foods of All Time

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So, I’m a big fan of sportswriter Bill Simmons. I love his writing and his podcast. About a year ago he started a website called The Ringer that basically develops sports and pop culture content, and last week they released a list of the Top 50 Fast Foods of all time.

On his pod, Simmon’s admits that the millennials who work for him screwed up the entire list (they had Chick-fil-a waffle fries as the number one choice! Those aren’t even the number one choice on the Chick-fil-a menu!), but it’s a fun list to look at any way to see where your favorites fall. To me, the list was flawed as it just measured all fast food foods in one category, which is really hard to do. S

So, I’m giving you my Top 10 Fast Foods based on the following categories: Main dish, Side dish, Breakfast, and Desert.

Sackett’s Top 10 Fast Food Main Dishes: 

1. Chick-fil-a Original Sandwich – I first ate a Chick-fil-a sandwich on spring break in Florida when I was nine years old and I thought it was the best thing I’ve tasted. Since I was in Michigan, I only got Chick-fil-a once a year when we would go to Florida for Spring Break. So, when I got older and traveled all over the country, I would go to great lengths to get Chick-fil-a and bring Chick-fil-a home to my family! These sandwiches are so good I actually look past their awful social stances! Until I’m done with the sandwich, then I go back to thinking how bad of a company they are.

2. Shack Burger from Shake Shack – The single best burger on the planet. Some could argue it’s not completely fast food, but when you order at a counter and wait to pick it up in minutes, it’s fast food. More expensive than most fast food, but another item I go out of my way to get! And stop on In-and-Out burger. You lose all credibility with me if you actually think In-and-Out is better than Shake Shack. Cheaper? Yes. Better? Not even close.

3. Spicy Chicken Sandwich from Wendy’s – The original spicy chicken sandwich and for my money the best. Chick-fil-a is close, but when the original is so good, you can’t bring yourself to order the spicy. Wendy’s sandwich has the right amount of heat and a juicy piece of chicken!

4. Joey Bag of Donuts burrito from Moe’s Southwest Grill. Qdoba’s burrito runs a close second to Moe’s. Chipotle isn’t even close. Look, when I get a burrito that’s as big as my head, I don’t need to hear your organic, free range bull shit. I know I’m eating something that will likely kill me, just let me enjoy it! Moe’s makes a great burrito and you always feel welcome!

5. Double Cheese Burger from McDonald’s. The double cheese from McDonald’s is the grease-soaked burger type item that just tastes good, even though it shouldn’t.  Also, you can’t just eat one, it’s a two order minimum, they should just come that way. I’m not proud, but I’ve been known to order more than two. It’s a great 2 am meal.

6. Arby’s Roast Turkey Ranch & Bacon Sandwich. First, you actually feel healthy ordering this as compared to most fast food items, But throw on a ton of turkey, bacon, and ranch and it’s no longer a healthy choice, but it sure tastes good! This replaces all subs on my list. Sure there are great subs shops, but they’re all local. National sub shops are usually awful.

7. Shredded Chicken Burrito from Taco Bell. This is my go-to road food. If I’m in the car and in a hurry, this Taco Bell burrito is a winner in my book. Look, I don’t trust Taco Bell beef, but for some reason, I trust their chicken, and I can eat a few of these.

8. Little Ceasars Hot & Ready $5 Pepperoni Pizza. Not fast food? It might be the fastest food on the planet! I walk in. Ask for a hot and ready and I’m out in a minute! Not only is it not an awful pizza, it might be the best value of all fast food, ever! Sure you can find way better pizza, but for $5 bucks you can’t beat this pizza.

9. Philly Cheesesteak from Penn Station. Regional chain alert. I don’t consider a Cheesesteak a sub, and Penn Station has a great Cheesesteak. Sure, you can find way better local joints, but not fast food cheesesteak places in the midwest like this!

10. Chicken Club Toaster Sandwich from Sonic. Okay, I’m a chicken sandwich fan and I like Texas Toast, Sonic gives me both on this sandwich. It’s my go-to sandwich at Sonic.

 

Sackett’s Top 10 Fast Food Side Dishes: 

1. Potato Ole’s from Taco John’s – I’m a sucker for tater tots and these are the small ones, deep fried with a blend of spices that you can dip in nacho cheese. Stop it! I want some right now!

2. McDonald’s Fries – I think 99% of American’s grew up on these and they’re still a favorite. Consistently great for about ten minutes. Once they get cold they taste like something awful and they can never be warmed up. This leads to eating the fries first, usually before you even get the bag home.

3. Sonic Tater Tots – Like I said, I like tater tots. It’s my list, not yours. Dip them in ranch and welcome to the Midwest of awesome!

4. Kentucky Fried Chicken Mashed Potatoes – I don’t even think these are real potatoes but you put that brown gravy on them and I can eat way too many.

5. Qdoba Queso and Chips. Great spicy white queso and fresh chips, if they only had a margarita in a to-go cup this would be perfect.

6. Long John Silver’s Hush Puppies. What the hell is even in a hush puppy? I don’t know and I don’t care because they’re so good!

7. Crab Rangoon’s at any Chinese takeout place. Usually, this is another no-wait item in the Chinese takeout world, especially those takeout places that run the hot buffet counter all day long.

8. Waffle fries from Chick fil a. You don’t find waffle fries in many places and they do these pretty good. The one thing that holds this back is when you get that one waffle fry that isn’t really a waffle fry but more of a half of potato that didn’t get fully waffled!

9. Onion Rings at Burger King. These aren’t great onion rings overall on the onion ring scale, but these are fast and good. The problem is you never get enough of these in an order, but you do get usually get a bonus fry or two.

10. Crinkle Fries at Culvers – close second place are the Shake Shack crinkle fries. The key to a great crinkle fry is making sure you get the done enough. The worst tasting fry is a half done crinkle fry. Culver’s does these really well!

 

Sackett’s Top 10 Fast Food Breakfast items: 

1. Steak Breakfast Crunchwrap from Taco Bell – So, let me get this straight you put a big hash brown, eggs, steak, and cheese inside a flour tortilla shell and grill it? Yes, please!

2. Krispy Kreme Donuts – Okay Krispy Kreme’s aren’t even my favorite donuts, but donuts had to be high on the list and we all have our favorite local places! To be fair, a hot box of Krispy Kreme’s is like eating Lay’s Potato Chips, you can’t just eat one! My favorites in order: Quality Dairy (Michigan), Glazed and Infused (Chicago), and LaMar’s (Midwest, KC).

3. Chick-fil-a Chicken Biscuit – It’s the Chick-fil-a sandwich on a biscuit instead of a bun. What’s not to love?!

4. Sausage, Egg, and Cheese McGriddle’s from McDonald’s – Okay, sausage, egg, and cheese between two warm griddle cakes that taste like maple syrup. My diabetes gets excited just thinking about it!

5. French Toast Sticks from Burger King – Perfect fast food breakfast. You don’t have time for a fork and knife. Just let me dip these deep fried pieces of bread into some syrup.

6. Bacon, Egg, and Cheese Croissan’wich from Burger King – Back to back BK items on the countdown. This is a solid breakfast sandwich and the flaky croissant pushes it over the top.

7. Cinnabon Original Classic Role – My teeth hurt just writing this, but OMG these are too good to be real! I actually feel guilty ordering one of these and eating it in front of people.

8. Steak, egg and cheese Subway Flatbread – Under-rated as a breakfast stop. Their sandwiches are awful, but the breakfast is actually pretty good and you can make it semi-healthy is you decide that’s for you.

9. Grilled Breakfast Burrito at Taco Bell – Taco Bell is killing it at breakfast as compared to most fast food places, I could probably list most of their items on this list and feel good about it.

10. McDonald’s Hash Browns – It doesn’t seem like a breakfast item by itself, but many folks I know just order these. What’s not better for breakfast than fried potato cakes!?

 

Sackett’s Top 10 Fast Food Dessert Items:

1. The Chocolate Chunk Cookie from Chick-fil-a – I have this number one on my list and I think it’s underrated! Every time I give someone one of these cookies they can’t believe how great it is and they can’t believe I got it from a fast food place. I could buy these in bulk, put them on a plate in my house and pass them off as homemade.

2. Blizzard from Dairy Queen – The most copied fast food desert on the planet, almost everyone now has their version of the original, but it started at Dairy Queen. Vanilla ice cream and your choice of mix-ins, it’s one of the perfect summer treats.

3. The Chocolate Frosty from Wendy’s – Another original which is basically an extra thick chocolate shake or just a cup of soft serve chocolate ice cream, it doesn’t really matter because this is the perfect fry dipper!

4. Strawberry Slush from Sonic – Okay, you could call it a drink, but it’s a dessert. Most people will say this isn’t event the best dessert at Sonic as their shakes and malts are good as well. Plus, if you don’t like Strawberry, go ahead and pick your flavor, there are like twenty-five to choose from.

5. Apple Pie from McDonald’s – It might have been the first fast food dessert ever created, so it has to make the list. I mean, warm apple pie you can eat with one hand while driving! That can’t be beat.

6. Cookies from Subway – You can’t miss with Subway cookies. My oldest son likes these so much we had them at his graduation open house. What makes them good? Usually, they’re half-baked, making them super soft and you can’t just eat one.

7. Cinnabon Delights from Taco Bell – These double as a breakfast food and a treat. Basically, they’re a traditional Cinnabon ball filled with Cinnabon icing, plus they come warm! So sweet your teeth will hurt.

8. Cheesecake from Fazoli’s – Plain or with strawberry topping, the Fazoli cheesecake is a great compliment to your Italian fast food meal.

9. Frozen Custard from Culver’s – Super creamy, thick frozen custard tastes so much better than your normal soft serve ice cream. Plus, they always have multiple flavors and toppings, plus the flavor of the month. It’s hard going to Culver’s and not getting custard!

10. Rootbeer float from A&W or In and Out – It’s a throwback to when America was great. I remember my grandparents making root beer floats for us as kids on a Saturday night and everyone, including the adults wanted one.

Hit me in the comments if I missed one of your favorites on the lists above!

There’s No Test for Grace Under Pressure

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By now you’ve all seen and heard what happened at the 2017 Academy Awards. It’s the end of the night where they announce the biggest award, Best Picture, and those announcing the award were given the wrong envelope, so the wrong movie gets announce. Mass confusion and you can see here what happens:

Jordan Horowitz, the Producer of La La Land, was put in the most extremely embarrassing situation most of us could imagine. 120 Million people on live television have just witnessed his greatest triumph turn into defeat in a matter of seconds.

How would you have handled this?

Jordan handled it with complete grace. There’s nothing that prepares you for being in an awkward time like this. His first thought was only to congratulate the true winners. I can’t even imagine how hard that was, but for him, it wasn’t. It was his true being, his natural state. If that happened to Jordan a thousand times, he’s most likely always be gracious.

Grace under pressure is such a wonderful trait to have in your character. I honestly can tell you I don’t have this grace, and I’m ashamed by that.

In 2006 I was working for Applebee’s and we had this huge leadership meeting. Probably a thousand employees in attendance and they gave out annual awards for top performing regions. My region was number one in all three main areas: Operations, HR, and Training. The winners got an award and a Rolex watch. Boy, I couldn’t wait to put on that watch!

The night went along and our operations leader accepted his award and watch. My training partner accepted her award and watch. Then it came time for HR! Our VP of HR got up there on stage. I straightened my shirt, cleared my throat, and oh no you didn’t just say what I thought you said, another name, not my name, I don’t understand, why is everyone telling me they’re sorry, what the fuck just happened!

The award was given to another deserving HR pro who improved their region a significant amount. She wasn’t number one like I had been back-to-back years, but who’s counting. I was counting! That’s who! I was pissed with a capital P. I excused myself from the ballroom and walked out.

I was not graceful. I was embarrassed. I was hurt. I let that VP have it as soon as he found me. I was not someone I ever wanted to be in that moment.

Grace is a funny thing. We all want it. We all think we have it. But until you’re actually put in a position to show it, you truly don’t know if you have it.

Shout out to JP! You screwing me out of that Rolex still stings! By the way, I was number one in HR metrics for a third straight year the next year, but the company decided to end doing awards that way. Man, I really wanted that Rolex! In hindsight, I wish I would have had the grace, like Jordan.

 

Free Frozen Yogurt is Always a Great Union Buster!

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If you’ve read any of my posts over the past five years you know I really don’t think too highly of unions. Unions today, especially the UAW, are basically in bed with major corporations, doing almost nothing for the members that pay their dues and keep them in business. Which is why I loved Elon Musk’s response when the UAW came knocking on Tesla’s door.

The Tesla CEO also lambasted the efforts of the United Auto Workers union to unionize Tesla employees at the company’s factory in Fremont, California, calling the organization’s tactics for doing so “disingenuous or outright false.” Musk alleged that the UAW’s “true allegiance is to the giant car companies, where the money they take from employees in dues is vastly more than they could ever make from Tesla.”…

Musk’s email includes a point-by-point rebuttal of a number of Moran’s claims. Regarding long hours, Musk said overtime has actually decreased by 50% in the last year, and that the average employee worked 43 hours a week. Regarding compensation, he noted that Tesla factory workers earn equity, and therefore, over a four-year period, earned “between $70,000 and $100,000 more in total compensation than the employees at other US auto companies.” On issues of safety, Musk said Tesla’s incident rate is less than half the industry average, and noted that the goal is to be “as close to zero injuries as possible.”

“There will also be little things that come along like free frozen yogurt stands scattered around the factory and my personal favorite: a Tesla electric pod car roller coaster (with an optional loop the loop route, of course!) that will allow fast and fun travel throughout our Fremont campus, dipping in and out of the factory and connecting all the parking lots,” Musk wrote. “It’s going to get crazy good.”

Don’t underestimate the power of free frozen yogurt and roller coaster rides through the factory!

Unions prey on your employees who are disgruntled. We all have them and there’s really nothing you can do about it. What you can do is continue to provide great communications to your employees about what being union-free means to them as workers, and what it doesn’t mean.

Unions lose their power the more your workers are actually educated. When they know the facts (not the alternate facts!) about what truly happens in today’s world when a union takes over a plant. This isn’t the 1940s. Most organizations today, and for sure Tesla, are competing for the best talent against their competition. This forces them to be competitive with wages, benefits and even frozen yogurt.

Where most of us fail in leadership, and this is traditionally how most organizations worked to remain union-free, was you became Fight Club! The first rule in being union-free, is to not talk about being union-free, especially with employees! This actually puts you a catch up role and you look behind the eight ball when unions come knocking.

All of sudden they have the upper hand, because you allowed them to talk about unions with your employees first, so your employees are naturally going to believe them over you. If this isn’t a big deal, why weren’t you talking to us about it?!

I think most employees today get that voting a union in your shop isn’t all rainbows and butterflies. You have to have a really bad work environment for anything to substantially change. What most workers today see when a union is voted in is the immediate payment of dues, and not much more!