Category Archives: Culture

The Best Thing HR Can Ever Do For Employees

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By random circumstance I’ve had three of the most boring HRish types of conversations in the past month about 401K!  Can you imagine me talking about 401K?  It’s so, well, it just regular old HR talk!  One conversation was with our banking partner (Shoutout to PNC, 33 year business relationship with them and I value that greatly!), two others with trench HR peers, but all three conversations were about the exact same thing — Auto Enrolling employees into 401K.

This is actually a really polarizing topic in HR, I’ve found!  It comes down to two schools of thought:

1. HR Pros who believe auto enrolling is helping their employees

2. HR Pros who believe they are infringing on the privacy of their employees by auto enrolling their employees

I’m in camp #1!  In fact, I’ll go on record in saying that auto enrolling your employees into 401K is the single greatest gift you can give to your employees over their career with your company.  Bam!  I said it.

Let me give you a few facts about employees:

1. The majority of your employees that are under 30 have no idea they should be saving for retirement – when it’s the most important time to do so.

2. The majority of your employees at any age – don’t save enough for retirement.

3. The majority of your employees think a magical fairy will come along at age 65 and pay for them to live the next 25-30 years.

These are all actually true!

Most people don’t think about retirement and the amount of money it will take to retire until they get to be around 50.  At that point, it’s too late and they are then on a path to be a senior citizen greeter at Walmart.  HR can change all of this.  HR can ensure that when your employees get to be around retirement age, at least they might have some hope of sitting around enjoying not working!  It’s easy. It’s called Auto Enroll – check it out.

If it’s so good why aren’t all companies doing this?

It’s America, right?  We hate being forced to do anything.  What!? You mean your going to force me to sign up for 401K and save for my future! How dare you!  This isn’t Russia!

Want to take 401K Auto Enrollment one great step further!?  Auto Enroll your employees and have 3% taken out of their pay automatically as well.  Just auto enrolling really does nothing but making it easy for people to start saving, but you can actually auto enroll and start them out with an automatic deduction of your choosing. The employee at anytime can choose not to participate and stop the deduction, but very, very few ever will!

Can you imagine the difference you could make in your employees life by forcing helping them start saving for retirement?  For many of your employees, it would be the best thing HR ever did for them, period.

2014 Career Paths: Prison, Military or College

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My gun-loving Democratic friend, Laurie Ruettimann, sent me an article last week about the plight of Americans from the Washington Times basically saying 4 out of 5 Americans are at or near Poverty. I sent a message back ‘joking’ that it was another attempt by her to convert me to Democrat.

She replied with “No, it’s my attempt to get help. It’s employers like ‘you’ who can help this, not government, not Democrats, not Republicans…”

Here’s segment of that article:

“Here’s a snippet of what the American dream has become in the past few years: Irene Salyers, 52, of Buchanan County, Va., said the economic trend is only going to get worse.

“If you do try to go apply for a job, they’re not hiring people, and they’re not paying that much to even go to work,” she said, AP reported. The youth have “nothing better to do than to get on drugs.”

The American Dream is a nightmare for the majority of Americans. Our government can’t help. Let’s face it: the brightest people in our society aren’t in government; they are in private industry because that’s where the money is. Our government is mostly filled with narcissists who like to think they are really important while doing nothing but spending our tax dollars on band-aid programs and trying to stop the bleeding of a broken system. That’s just reality. 

No one, on either side of the political fence, has the brainpower to stop what’s going on.  They just jump on the bull and hang on with no control over where the beast wants to go.

I use humor in most situations. It’s my defense mechanism. When you grow up in the inner city — white, short and red headed — you either get your ass kicked or become funny. I didn’t like getting my ass kicked, so I got funny. Over the past year I’ve come up with what I think the career path is for my own three sons in today’s world. It’s what our government and public education system now provide to every American child.

What Career Path Will You Choose?

There are three concrete paths:

1. College

2. The Military

3. Prison

Realistically, those are the only three career paths a middle-class American child has today.

If you are a smart white kid with some money in your family, you have options. You can go to college. You can go to Europe. If you are a smart minority kid, the government will pay for you to go to college.

But most kids from the “lower-middle” or “lower classes” will either go to military or prison, regardless of race. A few will make it through the Community College ranks. 

(One caveat, super smart kids can go to college on scholarship no matter what race.)

But the broader point is this: if you are of average-to-lower intelligence, your career path narrows. College isn’t an option. Let’s face it — if High School kicked your ass, college probably isn’t a good bet. So you are left with the Military, which is actually a great option for many young people today who are lost.

Or you have prison.

This is what our society is showing our young people. College is the only way to move up. And if you don’t go to college, you have to go to the military or you’ll end up in prison.

We no longer have skilled trade programs. Service jobs don’t pay enough for you to actually live. Any decent hourly wage job will eventually be sent overseas or technology will be invented to make it obsolete.

Our President wants to start a Community College program that will allow most Americans to attend. I actually like this idea — but it’s really just taking the old programs that high schools use to provide and moving them into ‘High School II’ — aka community colleges. I think high schools could do most of these ‘non-professional’ programs better and cheaper than community colleges — but at least it’s a start.

Corporations, ultimately, will have the final say with all of this. If American companies want and need a trained workforce, they will make it happen regardless of what our government does. If they don’t, the career paths I’ve laid out will remain.

I am not trying to be pessimistic. If anything, I am being pragmatic in my views of our current situation.  Four out of five Americans are within reach, or in, poverty. That’s real. 

What is your company doing to help out this situation?

 

Why Shrinking College Enrollment Is A Bad Sign For HR

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Colleges and Universities will have fewer students this fall as enrollments across the board are falling.  The reasons?  It’s a number of factors – decline in college-aged kids, rising tuition costs and continued soft job market for new college grads, is making it a perfect storm for students to decide to forgo college and try and get into the job market in any job they can.  The idea being  – why go to college and come out in debt, when those who have are getting the same job I’ll get – service oriented, lower end jobs, sales positions that don’t require a degree, etc.

Here’s the big issue for employers – we need those kids in school to fill future jobs!

While the government and analyst continue to say the U.S. has a soft job market – those HR/Talent Pros in the trenches are seeing something very different!  Not enough ‘qualified’ workers for the jobs we have.  Not enough skills and training, increasing numbers of retirees and 5 plus years of not funding our own corporate training programs, have left many employers short on talent.  Having fewer college graduates in the future will only add to the shortage of a trained, technical workforce.   The current lack of STEM talent in all areas of the country is startling – and this only gets fixed by having more students in those programs, not less.

In the last year alone Microsoft released a report showing that the unemployment rate for STEM related jobs is at 3.4% – where ‘full employment’ of a field, by government standards, is considered to be between 4-5%.  These figures are during the recession!  In Michigan alone the automotive industry is searching for thousands of engineers and IT professionals – with graduates of STEM programs coming out to multiple offers and compressing salaries in many organizations.  Many other parts of the country are showing positive signs of coming out of the recession as well.  This adds to the issue of lower college enrollment as employers will soon be taking more STEM kids before graduation with the lure of money and instant employment.  We are already hearing stories about this during this summer’s internship season where engineering and IT interns are being asked to stay on full time and salaries very close to those who have already graduated.  Many students will drop out, figuring there is no need to finish, or that they’ll finish later in non-traditional formats.  Most never will.

All of these factors adds to that giant tsunami of retirements that will continue to hit over the next 5-10 years as baby boomers continue to leave the workforce.  How will companies cope?  Many will do what they have been doing for years – moving technical and engineering centers overseas where other countries have far surpassed the U.S. in STEM graduation rates.  It’s a complex time to be in HR in America – on one hand we still have relatively high unemployment as a country, but on the other we have a severe shortage of skilled workers.  The President and Congress believe ‘training’ unskilled workers to be skilled workers is the answer.  It’s not.  That is like telling a Doctor that they will be trained as a Dancer!  It takes more than desire to want to be a talented Engineer or IT Professional – it takes more than being an expert on Xbox.  It takes some real analytical ability – which most unskilled workers don’t have.

What can HR do?  Keep your workers.  Find ways to ensure those who want to retire can continue to work but add flexibility and part-time arrangements where you didn’t have them before. Continue to invest in technology – because you will have to do more with less.  Get ready to pay – because STEM workers will hold the negotiating power – more than they hold it now!  What else?  Don’t let your babies grow up to be Cowboys. Don’t let them pick guitars and drive them old trucks….Get it?  When your kid says they want to go to college and study something that they struggle to get a job – do what parents do – help direct them down another path – an easier life path of being employed.

 

The One Email Every Employee Wants To Send

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Please raise your hand if you have ever drafted an email that you desperately wanted to fire off to your entire organization, or leadership, only to delete it – so to not ruin your career? I know most of you have  – because sometimes, in HR, we get to deal with those poor souls who didn’t have the will power to push ‘Delete’ and instead pushed ‘Send’.  In the HR business we call those employees – ‘Former Employees’!  I’ve coined a name for those emails – I like to call them ‘The Lotto Email’!  It’s the email you would feel comfortable sending the moment you return from picking up that overly sized Powerball check you just won.  You now have I-Don’t-Give-A-Sh*t money – and you’re completely unfiltered.

I don’t hold out hope I will ever win the lottery – but I imagine the email might look something like this:

Dear Fellow Employees,

I’m Rich Beeatch! (click here for context)

That being said I’d like to say a few things before not packing up any of this crap in my office and leaving forever.  To make this easier for you to cut and paste and send around later, I’ll bullet point this out into chunks – USA Today style – because I know most of you are slow and lose attention quickly:

– Mr. CEO – I know you think it’s probably adorable how you make comments about every woman in the office’s ass behind closed doors, but it’s not, it’s creepy – just like you.

– Mr. CFO – You’re an accountant – calm down – you’re not that important – just tell how much money we have and go back to being boring.

– Mrs. HR – Nobody likes you – this is just confirmation. BTW – everyone lies on your engagement surveys because all the managers use them as weapons, so it’s easier to lie and make you feel like what you do actually matters – it doesn’t.

– Mrs. COO – The CEO constantly talks about your ass. Hope that makes your meetings going forward more comfortable.

– Mary – I’ve always wanted to tell you that you are drop dead gorgeous, but your low self-esteem keeps you married to a complete asshole! I’m better than that – I won’t be that asshole. Here’s your chance – walk out of here with me Jerry Maguire style and let’s do this – otherwise I’m probably 5 drinks and 2 hours away from making some real bad decisions at a strip club.

– Ted – You’re a douche bag – everyone hates you.

There’s a bunch of other stuff I could to say – but really the only thing I really want to say is: I’m Rich Beeatch!

See you in the parking lot, Mary.

Former Employee

Obviously this wouldn’t be ‘my’ letter because I’m the President of my company!  My letter would be a lot of thanking everyone for everything and I’ll see you around, if you’re ever in the South of France on a large yacht – plus a bunch of positive stuff and how valuable each and every employee was to me personally. Follow by – “I’m Rich Beeatch!”

 

What Detroit’s Bankruptcy and Your Company Have In Common

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Big news last week was that the City of Detroit filed for bankruptcy.  Made national headlines as being the largest municipality in the history of America to do so – yet, I think most people, nationally, are really not surprised.  For decades Detroit has had a horrible reputation as being the murder capital of the world, corrupt politicians, GM going under and the government rescuing it, and everything that is wrong with unions.  Besides a few shining moments from local professional sports teams, there are really never any positive national stories coming out of Detroit.   Fast Company believed Detroit was so far beyond repair, and they were probably right, that Detroit should be bulldozed and turned into farm land.  Basically, hit the reset button.

As you know, I’m a core problem kind of person.  I believe at the heart of most issues, there is a core problem that has created all the issues your are facing.  Most organizations, like Detroit and your own companies, don’t like solving the core problem – you like solving all the little symptoms that the core problem is/has created.  People catch the common cold and take cold medicine – yet study after study show that washing your hands is really the only thing that is going to keep you getting the cold, and those same studies show most people still don’t wash their hands often enough or long enough to not catch the cold.  We like solving symptoms!  It gives us little wins and makes us feel successful. Solving core problems takes a lot of work, usually takes unpopular difficult decisions and many times the success isn’t immediately seen.

So what is Detroit’s core problem?  That is really up for debate – but it’s core Detroit is a victim of its own success. The great Automotive Industry that gave so much to the City of Detroit ended up being its downfall.  Relying solely and completely on one industry bankrupted Detroit.  Everything else is a symptom of time and function.  Rely on one product, service, etc. long enough and eventually the life cycle of that product or service will catch up with you.  The city is just a victim of that life cycle. Here’s some facts from Morgan Housel at  The Motley Fool:

“But the largest driver of Detroit’s demise is a simple, startling fact: the city’s population declined 65% in the last six decades. No city can survive such an exodus; it’s actually amazing Detroit’s finances lasted this long.

The Motor City was home to 1.9 million people in 1950, at the time nearly identical in size to Los Angeles. Today, 700,000 inhabit Detroit, or less than a fifth the size of L.A. That works out to 2.2 people leaving Detroit every hour, 24 hours a day, for the last 63 years.

If the number of people who left Detroit in the last sixty years formed their own city, it would be the nation’s ninth largest, ahead of Dallas, Texas…

Detroit shows how organizations that can’t adapt eventually crumble. Before it was a technology hub, San Francisco relied on shipping, and before that, gold mining. Before New York was the financial capital of the world, it was the garment capital of the world…Detroit was overwhelmingly reliant on the auto industry. When the fate of three companies — General Motors (NYSE: GM), Ford (NYSE: F), and Chrysler — turned, so went the entire city’s fate. Evan Soltas of Bloomberg wrote, “Detroit’s dependence on cars wasn’t exactly the problem. It was dependence itself. Cities should never go all in on any industry, cars or otherwise. It didn’t realize that until it was too late.”

Detroit can easily be your company.  Don’t kid yourself into thinking it can’t be – that is another major mistake generations of Detroit’s leaders made.  “We are different” “Everyone will always need cars.”  “Everyone will always need Facebook.” “Everyone will always need $125 running shoes.” Everyone will always need…you fill in the blank.  Diversification is the only thing that can truly mitigate your risk – and it’s one of those ‘core’ problems at almost every company.  It’s tough because we are told to ‘be the best at what you do’ and it’s hard being the best at many things and be diversified.  We can’t save Detroit – it needs to be reborn – but you can save your company – focus on core problems and stop solving symptoms.

 

Inclusion – As Defined By A Conservative White Guy

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Before I go off – let me say I’m 100% sure Pro Diversity and Inclusion camps don’t have me in mind to be their spokesperson.  You see I’m white. I’m middle-aged. I’m a male.  I tend to lean conservative in my political views, moderately.  So, if you’re really into Diversity and Inclusion – I can totally see why you’ll immediately discount everything I’m about to say.  If I was a women – a black woman – a liberal black woman – a liberal black woman in a wheelchair  – well then – I’d expect you’d listen pretty closely. Right? Don’t kid yourself.

If that’s the case – you’re as closed minded as you believe I am.

I’m completely sick and tired of hearing about Diversity and Inclusion in the way it is being advocated for by my HR brothers and sisters.  It literally makes me sick to my stomach.  Here’s why – with every program, every communication you espouse about your organization being ‘Inclusive’ – what you’re really saying is –

“ABC Company values Inclusion as long as you’re view points are the same view points that we share.”

This isn’t Inclusion!  This is ‘Exclusion’ to the definition!  But you’re selling it as Inclusion.  Am I insane!? (Don’t answer that – it was rhetorical!) Or did someone change what Inclusion really means?

You see – by my middle aged white conservative viewpoint – Inclusion means we should accept everyone – all view points, all colors, all shapes and sizes.  But when ‘I’ the middle aged white conservative guy wants to share ‘my’ beliefs – your organization doesn’t want to hear those.  What you want to hear is that I really have liberal beliefs, that I support abortion, that I think marijuana is harmless, that tattoos are super cool, that everyone should be working from home, that all people have the ability to do all jobs, that I’m not religious – and if I am it’s a religion that you totally support, and that if my religious beliefs somehow don’t support your liberal view of inclusion that I’ll never speak those views publicly and make those employees who do have different views that I uncomfortable – although it’s fine if they throw their views in my face, since that is what ‘Inclusion’ is all about…

The funny thing is – I would define myself as a fiscal conservative, socially liberal and I don’t go to church but was raised around many religions- so I can adapt and fit into almost anywhere.  But since I’m white and middle aged and voted Republican – I can’t fit into most of your Inclusion demographics – which is again is funny to me – since Inclusion is defined as:

“the act of including or the state of being included”

No where in the dictionary did the definition include: “if you believe the same things we believe ‘inclusion’ to mean” or “if you some form of minority”.  The definition is short and clear – Inclusion means everyone is included – even Me – middle aged conservative white guy!  My HR peers are forgetting the “Inclusive” part of “Inclusion”.  I’m reminded of this daily, not because of my own demographic makeup – but I have a 70 year old father still in the work force and he continues to share stories with me about how his 50 years of experience is no longer relative.  That somehow 50 years of experience is becoming worthless.  That on a daily basis – he feels his organization is less inclusive, and more exclusive – because the only people who know anything are the young.  Again – Inclusive-Exclusion at its finest.

But – I understand while you’ll discount this – I’m not liberal – I’m not a minority – the only disability I have is horrible grammar.  I don’t count.  Maybe we can call this ‘new’ Inclusion – “Inexclusion” – being inclusive to those that we share our same ideas, beliefs and opinions.  What do you think?

Why ‘Recruiter’ is the best job in HR.

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I grew up and lived most of my life in Michigan.  There are so many things I love about living in Michigan and most of those things have to deal with water and the 3 months that temperatures allow you to enjoy said water (Jun – Aug).  There is one major thing that completely drives me insane about Michigan.  Michigan is at its core an automotive manufacturing state which conjures up visions of massive assembly plants and union workers.  To say that the majority of Michigan workers feel entitled would be the largest understatement ever made.  We have grown up with our parents and grandparents telling us stories of how their overtime and bonus checks bought the family cottage, up north, and how they spent more time on their ‘pension’ than they actually spent in the plant (think about that! if you started in a union job at 18, put in your 30 years, retired at 48, on your 79 birthday you actually have had a company pay for you longer than you worked for them – at the core of the Michigan economy this is happening right now – and it’s disastrous!  Pensions weren’t created to sustain that many years, and quite frankly they aren’t sustainable under those circumstances).  Seniority, entitlement, I’ve been here longer than you, so wait your turn – are all the things I hate about my great state!

There is a saying in professional sports – “If you can play, you can play”.  Simply, this means that it doesn’t matter who you are, where you come from, how much your contract is worth – if you’re the best player, you will be playing.  We see examples of this in every sport, every year.  The kid was bagging groceries last month, now he’s start quarterback in the NFL!  You came from a rich family, poor family, no family – doesn’t matter – if you can play, you can play.  Short, tall, skinny, fat, pretty, ugly, smart, no-so smart – if you can play, you can play.  Performance on your specific field of play – is all that matters.  BTW – NHL released this video last year supporting the LGBT community (if you can play…) –

This is why I love being a recruiter!  I can play.

Doesn’t matter how long I’ve been doing it.  Doesn’t matter what education/school I came from.  Doesn’t matter what company I work for.  If you can recruit – you can recruit.  You can recruit in any industry, at any level, anywhere in the world.  Recruiting at its core is a perfect storm of showing us how accountability and performance in our profession works.  You have an opening – and either you find the person you need (success), or you don’t find the person (failure).  It’s the only position within the HR industry that is that clear cut.

I have a team of recruiters who work with me. Some have 20 years of experience, some have a few months – the thing that they all know – if you can recruit, you can recruit.  No one can take it away from you, no one can stop you from being a great recruiter.  There’s no entitlement or seniority – ‘Well, I’ve been here longer, I should be the best recruiter!’ If you want to be the best, if you have to go out and prove you’re the best.  The scorecard is your placements.  Your finds.  Can you find talent and deliver, or can’t you.  Black and white.

I love recruiting because all of us (recruiters) have the exact same opportunity.  Sure some will have more tools than others – but the reality is – if you’re a good recruiter – you need a phone and an ability to connect with people.  Tools will make you faster – not better.  A great recruiter can play.  Every day, every industry.  This is why I love recruiting.

The 4 Letter Word We Never Use In HR

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I’m not sure about your HR experience but in my HR experience I’ve used every 4 letter word known to man – except one.  That word is:

Luck.

This came to mind recently when I was speaking to a really close HR friend of mine who happens to work at a really great company.  The kind of company who wins all of those HR and Recruiting awards and accolades for doing ‘great’ HR work.  For being the industry leaders in HR and Talent.  For being the company ‘we’ should all follow and emulate.  My friend is funny, I like hanging out with funny people, and she told me the only reason they’ve won any of those awards is luck!  Not skill, not hard work, not better HR/Recruiting talent – it is luck.  Granted, their team had to do some work after the luck to take advantage of timing – but the Luck is the reason they got to ‘greatness’.

She says that they were your average to below average company – nothing special – when a perfect storm of timing hit them.  They had a product that became popular and they went virtually overnight from being a nobody to a somebody.  “We were the same company, but now everyone wanted to know how and what we were doing in HR and Recruiting!  Internally, we laugh about it – we weren’t doing anything new or different – but being asked to accept awards and come speak.  To hear professionals all of sudden think your something special is a pretty cool feeling!  Everyone should experience it, but it makes me sad because I know HR pros who are hell of lot more talented than I working at crappy companies doing much more than we are in HR to turn their companies around – and they’ll never get awards and no one wants to hear them speak – and quite frankly they do HR better than we do!  We got lucky…”

In HR, and probably most parts of our organization, we never want to give Luck credit for anything.  It diminishes us as professionals, and diminishes the profession.  It can’t be LUCK that is making us ‘better’ it’s our skill!   We didn’t get lucky by hiring that designer who after 5 years just had inspiration and got our company noticed, our selection process picked that person. We didn’t get lucky by winning that harassment lawsuit, it was our training.  Luck is a very bad work to use in the corporate world!  Can you imagine going into your CEO when she asks “So, how did you guys lower our turnover by 25% in the past 12 months?”, and you go “Luck”!  But how many of ‘us’ had these conversations in the past few years when we saw our turnover plummet because of the recession, and our employees having no other job choices – go into our executives and talk about our ‘processes’, our ‘engagement programs’, our ‘programs to reduce turnover’ – when in reality you could have done nothing and turnover was going to plummet.  Luck, was on our side.

I like to give Luck credit.  I’ve been very lucky in my career – and I’m always willing to give it credit.  I think luck has more to do with success than people want to give it credit for.  Sure, once luck comes your way, you better have the skill and motivation to take advantage of your situation – but luck is behind so many great pros.  I still believe in hard work and skill will take you far – but hard work, skill and luck – will take you farther!   That word Luck is real tricky.

Are You A Big Deal?

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I have a pin in my office I picked up a couple of years ago at the SHRM National Conference from the Baudville booth (no this isn’t a paid post! But I love their company!), it says:

“I’m Kind Of A Big Deal”

I thought it was funny – it’s been stuck to the board behind my desk for over 2 years now.   I like it because it reminds me daily – I’m not a big deal – far from it.  In fact it makes me laugh when someone thinks I’m a big deal because I’m the President of a company, or because I write a blog (you know anyone can do this, right!?) or that at one point in my kid’s life they believed that I use to be Batman, but stopped to be a Dad.   I’m not a big deal.

Here’s the thing about being a Big Deal.  If you truly are a ‘Big Deal’ you don’t act like a ‘Big Deal’ – if you’re a wannabe ‘Big Deal’ then you certainly try and come across like a ‘Big Deal’.  Do you follow me?  Apparently getting an executive HR job in corporate America makes you a wannabe ‘Big Deal’ – or that might just be how certain HR executives like to treat almost anyone they come into contact with.  You might think I would have to worry about writing something like this – but I don’t – wannabe ‘Big Deals’ don’t read HR blogs.  Wannabe Big Deals read their own press clippings – which are usually those articles in the monthly employee newsletter, or local shoppers guide – because they’re a big deal.

I’ve never really understood the ‘Big Deal’ phenomenon.  When I was on the corporate side of the desk I would get bugged by numerous calls from vendors and hiring managers and community groups – all wanting a piece of your time.  I get it, it gets frustrating. Being a Big Deal has those draw backs – people wanting your time.  Being a Big Deal, though, doesn’t give you a license to be an asshole.  Asshole Big Deal is not the kind of Big Deal you want to be.  Treating people like they are a small deal, does not make a Big Deal any bigger, it makes the Big Deal smaller.

I have people reach out to me frequently because of all the writing I do – I respond to each one as if I was responding to a coworker or friend.  If I can’t help, then I will try and find someone who can.  If I can help, I will.  If they want me to sell their product – I will tell them how that works – I’m a really good salesperson if you pay me – I tend to be a really bad sales person if you’re asking me to do your job for free.  At no point do I become a Big Deal – because I’m not.

But I have a blog which allows me to write about ‘Big Deals’ – I guess that’s something.  I might have to reach out and ask Baudville if they’ll send me some of those pins so that when I run into ‘Big Deals’ I can make sure to send them one – just so everyone is clear on what who they are…

 

Profiling Needy

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Last week I wrote a post about how money can buy happiness – and decided to do a ‘Pay-It-Forward’ exercise with my team – this is from that original post:

“Tomorrow morning I’m handing each one of my employees a $100 bill and asking them to go out into the world at some point their day and give it away – randomly – or not randomly – to someone other than themselves.  $100 isn’t a giant amount for my staff – but I’m sure it will have a big meaning to someone else – I think some of the people on my team will feel good about helping someone out – about surprising them and making their day/week/month.   My hope is they’ll come back with a smile and a story.  My hope is they’ll feel a little better about their day.  My hope is they’ll feel happy.  My hope is – money can buy happiness.”

So, this went down – a stack of $100 bills and we all went off to find who we thought needed that $100 the most.  First, I want to share some learning from this activity:

  • I gave very few rules – one was that they had to ‘give’ the money away that day, by midnight – almost everyone wished they had more time.
  • Apparently when you go to give out money – you do a lot of stalking! You want to make sure the receiver deserves it so you follow them around for like 10 minutes which tells you all you need to know about a person!
  • When given the chance to help – it’s hard to find someone to help! In any random day you see all kinds of people to help – someone hands you cash and says ‘Go Help’ and they all disappear…or do they!?  It seems when you actually have the resources to help – you do more ‘Profiling’ and become much more selective about who is actually needy! I say this with all positive intent – my team wanted to help out the ‘most’ deserving person – and you find out it’s hard to tell degrees of deserving apart!
  • In this exercise many on my team set very high expectations for the event of giving – reality is you probably don’t change someone’s life with $100 – but you surprise a lot of people!
  • Some people on the receiving end – are very cynical! (We actually had people say: “So, what do I have to do for this”; “Do I have to fill out a survey”; “What church are you from”, etc.  Just take the damn money! I was trying to be nice!  Others are very gracious.
  • You can find out a ton about what is important to your team, by listening to how and what they wanted to help others!

The Stories:

We had plenty of hugs, some crying, some cheers and a whole bunch of smiles!   We had people help out animals, babies, old people, young people, poor people, families, teens, schools, bartenders, servers and entrepreneurs.  I had one team member who wanted to share our experience and asked the person he gave his $100 to keep $25 and pass the rest on with the same instructions – 4 total people getting a nice smile in their day.  I had many team members stalk local grocery stores wanting to help others pay for their groceries – to make their week a little easier  – these stories were the funniest hearing how they stalked the aisles and ‘profiled’ the neediness of the individuals.   We heard from teammates who seemed to have a hard time giving the money away at every turn – some people, it would seem, are to proud to accept a simple gift of help (not something you see everyday in today’s world).

One big learning my team took away from this was that quite possibly – it would have been more rewarding if it was their own personal money – and not the companies money (I said I be willing to take it out of their check! 😉 ) But many decided the experience was so rewarding they wanted to do it on their own – and share the experience with their families – the Pay It Forward principle at it’s best.

I think I learned the most – about myself.  In the end I gave my money to a young Latino who had just started up his own business.  It’s tough to start a business in any climate – to be a young minority in Michigan, it might be even harder.  He captured my heart – his will, his enthusiasm, his naive confidence that it could only be successful!  I went looking to help someone who couldn’t help themselves and found myself supporting someone who decided, against all odds, to help himself.  I was drawn to support that.  I’m not sure what that says about me – but the experience made me ‘happy’ and made me feel a connection to my community that I didn’t feel before.  I’ll do this again.  Like my teammates at work – I’ll use my own money – I’ll involve my kids – I’ll try to hear more stories.

The money invested in this was the best investment in my company that I’ve made in a very long time.  Please steal this idea – it doesn’t have to be $100 bills – it can be $5, $10, whatever – you’ll be better for it!