Category Archives: Culture

Would You Tell On Your Boss?

Posted on by
Reply

Classic HR Line by –  HR Pro:

“You know who tells on their boss?”

Employee:

“Who?”

HR Pro:

“Soon to be fired employees.”

If you don’t think this to be true, you either haven’t been in HR long enough or you haven’t been in a position to have to nark on your boss!   Why does this happen?  I’ll let this recent article from Business Week about the Tiffany’s VP caught stealing over $1M in jewelry explain:

“Chris E. McGoey, a Los Angeles-based security advisor, believes that other employees at Tiffany’s may have had suspicions long before the investigation, but were afraid to speak up. “I guarantee you that a company like Tiffany’s has checks and balances,” he says. “But it didn’t apply to [Lederhaas-Okun.] People reported to her, and they had to relinquish their inventory to her, based on her say-so.” Even if they had concerns about why the jewelry she was checking out wasn’t being returned, he says, they might’ve been reluctant to raise any red flags. “Nobody wants to rat out their boss,” he says.”

But why doesn’t anyone want to ‘rat’ out their boss!?

It’s simple – ratting out your boss puts you in a lose-lose situation.  While the ‘corporation’ will be thankful you did this, the leadership team will be wary of you from now on out.  Not that they are doing something wrong, but you get labeled as the type of person who would be willing to tell if something did happen.  People automatically go to unethical/unsavory types of behaviors – which is the wrong thing to do.  When someone is willing to tell on someone else – leadership will then believe they are the type of personality that can’t stop from telling even simple misgivings.  Senior VP forgets to approve an Ad plan, misses deadline – causes everyone to scramble around and costs the company a few thousand dollars to get it right.  This Sr. VP would not want this to go public, it’s embarrassing, but forgivable corporate mistake.  This Sr. VP would look at our ‘rat’ as someone who would probably ‘tell’ on her, thus she would probably not want this person on her team.

Sorry folks, that’s reality in corporate America!  This is common amongst whistle-blower employees – company commends them publicly, and privately tries to find ways to get rid of them.  I’ll admit this happens more at a professional white-collar level than blue-collar.  “Professional’ employees might feel more to lose, thus less willing to come forward if something is going on.  Also, if it’s found out that something wasn’t going on – kiss your career goodbye!  Lose-lose.

So, how do you get your employees to rat on a their boss?  Don’t make them rat.  Several times in my career I’ve had employees come to me, reluctantly, when something was going on.  I gave them options on how to share the information, and still save their reputation as a ‘corporate’ person.  I usually ended up finding a way that made it plausible that either myself or another executive found the same information, thus taking this person out of the cross-hairs.  Not perfect, but it allows your employees to not have to carry the burden of being a whistle-blower.

Actually, Money Does Buy Happiness!

Posted on by
3

I think most people feel ‘charity’, in almost any form, makes people feel good.  You do something good for someone else, and it seems like whatever it was you did, makes you feel doubly good!  Harvard Business Review recently had a good article on how giving, especially money, can bring you happiness:

“Buffet recently penned an op-ed titled “My Philanthropic Pledge” — but rather than offer financial advice about giving, he suggested we give as a way to enhance our emotional wellbeing. Of his decision to donate 99% of his wealth to charity, Buffett said that he “couldn’t be happier.”

But do we need to give away billions like Buffet in order to experience that warm glow? Luckily for us ordinary folks, even more modest forms of generosity can make us happy. In a series of experiments, we’ve found that asking people to spend money on others — from giving to charity to buying gifts for friends and family — reliably makes them happier than spending that same money on themselves.

And our research shows that even in very poor countries like India and Uganda — where many people are struggling to meet their basic needs — individuals who reflected on giving to others were happier than those who reflected on spending on themselves. What’s more, spending even a few dollars on someone else can trigger a boost in happiness. In one study, we found that asking people to spend as little as $5 on someone else over the course of a day made them happier at the end of that day than people who spent the $5 on themselves.”

Who says money can’t buy happiness!  Just not in the way we traditionally think.  It’s not about the bigger house, or the nicer car, or the best wine – all those things will make you more comfortable in your life – but they aren’t guaranteed to bring you more happiness.  I’m also not naive to think that everyone would be happy giving away that which they worked hard for – for some that would be a nightmare – not a blessing.  That’s alright – that’s inclusion at its finest – we all have things that will make us happy.  I do think for the majority of our employees – donating time, money, skills, etc., helps them feel good about themselves – which makes it a little easier to feel happy about their place in the world.

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.

 

3 Reasons To Hire Back An Employee You Fired

Posted on by
20

There is an unwritten HR law that needs to be addressed.  This law states:

“If you fire an employee, at no time in the history of mankind should you hire back that employee to your organization.”

So it is said, so shall it be…

I was reading an article recently about ESPN’s new CEO, John Skipper, when he was asked about bringing back former polarizing Sports Center anchor, Keith Oolbermann.  Here’s what Skipper had to say about the possibility of bringing back Olbermann:

“I wasn’t here when Keith was here, but he is very talented. So I had dinner with Keith — it was delightful and fun. And I would not have had dinner with him if we didn’t sit around and think about whether there was a reason to bring Keith back. I haven’t met with him again, but we don’t have a policy here that you can never come back.”

So, ESPN doesn’t have a policy about bringing back terminated employees.  Do you?

I know of companies that actually have it written into the policy manual about bringing back terminated employees.  Sometimes it’s a time thing – ‘it has to be more than 5 years’ – or a position thing – ‘it has to be into a different position than they had previously’  – or a severity thing – ‘the termination could not have been for cause’, etc.  Sometimes it’s just the classic unwritten rule thing!  Regardless if it’s written or unwritten any organization that refuses to hire back terminated employees is extremely shortsighted!  Let’s be clear – I’m not saying your should bring back the jerk who embezzled money or sexually harassed every female employee.  What I’m saying is – if you analyzed every single termination you’ve had over the past 10 years in your organization, there are probably some really good hire-backs in that group!  But you wouldn’t know that – because it’s not something you’re going to do – it’s a policy…err…un-policy thing!

Here’s 3 reasons you of when you should potentially hire back a previously terminated employee:

1. They’re the best at what they do.  Yep – talent and performance trumps all.  Well, mostly!  If the person got fired for some kind of behavior that they can’t or won’t change – well, it will end bad again – but many times – having years away and proving themselves all over again in another organization – makes these folks ultra-valuable again to your organization.

2. New Leadership.  Let’s face facts – a large percentage of your terminations happen because of personalities not matching.  In almost every leadership change organizations see high turnover.  This doesn’t truly mean those leaving are bad employees – it’s a phenomenon that happens when you new leadership and ideas meet old leadership behaviors and ideas and they don’t match.

3. Former Employee and You (your organization and leadership) have had significant growth.  I’ve seen some young, less experienced people get fired, who 5 -10 years later were completely different people.  All of that blind fight and energy that had when they were younger which distracted from their talent is gone, and what you have left is this focused high performing employee.  At the same token, our leader who was less experienced and didn’t know how to handle high potential employees, now does.  Growth happens.

Unfortunately, 99% of organizations refuse to bring back an employee who was fired, ever!  It’s too bad really – you’re probably missing out on some great talent, especially if you’re in a smaller geographic area with limited talent pools to begin with.  Sometimes it’s up to get our organizations to become a little more open minded to the fact that change happens, and not every person who gets fired, is a bad employee.

Helping Your Employees Through Their Quarter-Life Crisis

Posted on by
Reply

When I was a kid I would hear my parents and grandparents speak of a ‘midlife’ crisis.  It might be about someone buying a convertible Corvette or getting a divorce and dating someone half their age, etc. In my mind I always considered the term ‘midlife’ to be at the age of 50!  Like I said, I was young!  As I got older I realized I didn’t want to live to be 100! So, midlife took on a different definition from high 30’s to low 40’s.  Not to be outdone – millennials have coined a new term – ‘Quarter-Life’ Crisis.  This is that extremely difficult and challenging time you have around the age of 25 years of age…

Knowing how challenging it was for me to be 25 years old and having no responsibilities, mortgage, kids, tons of free time – I wanted to give HR Pros some tips on helping your own employees through this most difficult part of their life.  Here’s goes:

– If you’ve been having this overwhelming feeling of – ‘Hey, I’m 25 and haven’t really accomplished anything in my life!”  Don’t be afraid – you are not a freak – in fact 22% of people your age haven’t accomplished anything either, and the other 78% of your friends who have accomplished ‘something’ are lying about it on their Tumbler.

– Feeling completely paralyzed by indecision?  Again, completely normal.  You feel this way because you have no real life experience on which to draw upon to make actual real meaningful decisions.  This feeling will go away in about 10-15 years, after you made many failed decisions to learn from.

– Getting bored with your friends?  That’s alright – they’re bored with you as well.  It’s because you have nothing to talk about, yet.  Get married, have some kids, buy a house – now you can be boring with each other on all those topics!  Nothing makes your friends less boring than to hear about baby bowels movements and having to replace your water heater!

– Starting to feel differently about dating?  You should!  Statically speaking, by 27 years old every good potential married mate is already taken and you start to get into the idiots that got married at 21 and 22 years old, who are now getting divorced. Yuck!  Who wants a used partner! Not you.  Here’s a Pro Tip:  Lower your standards – your 25 and no one has popped the question yet – you’ve got some issues.

– Do you have sudden, intense fear of failure?  You should know this will never go away.  Well, it might go away if one of two things happen: 1. You win a large lottery ($5M+ – smaller ones will just be a tax headache and potentially still have to make you work at your young age); 2. You marry extremely rich (Which is called the Spouse Lottery – and they think it’s really for love and don’t make you sign a prenup).  And don’t believe all those crappy motivational saying about ‘The only Failure is to not Try’ – there are much bigger failures than not trying! Trying and being completely inept is a much bigger problem!  The reality is – if you do absolutely nothing 99% of decisions will make themselves and you don’t have to take the blame! (Pro Tip #2)

Quarter-Life Crisis…

 

 

 

3 Myths of the ‘Cool’ Office

Posted on by
7

I think the one thing that ‘normal’ HR Pros are sick of hearing about it the crap in HR that gets the most headlines in the media – The Cool Office Perks! Let’s face it the majority of HR Pros don’t have the budget to do anything close to what you hear about in magazines articles about the cool new start-ups or big IT firms like Google and Yahoo.  We can’t give our employees free lunches, and brand new open environment office spaces that look like a cross between a MTV Real World house and a abandoned slaughter house and unlimited time off!

The Atlantic had a great article on this recently that will for sure put ‘normal’ HR pros at ease on these escalation of perks:

“Don’t be fooled by the perks at all those Silicon Valley (and Alley) offices — it’s all just part of a subtle plot to control employee behavior. The founders of Fab.com, which just got itself a $1 billion valuation, admitted as much to Bloomberg’s Sarah Freier. The shopping site wields its beer on tap, free lunch, and ice-cream machine as a means to force Fab employees to send emails in a “certain font,” use high-quality paper, and always “be Fab” — whatever terrible thing that means. Those types of office perks abound at startups, of course, not only as a way to attract the best talent, but also to get that “talent” working on message, official office font included. Each and every kegerator serves as a reminder of what you owe the company…

It sounds like the best perk ever: You could, officially, and under official policy, get paid for a three-month summer vacation. But of course the increasingly popular you-work-so-hard-that-we-won’t-count strategy doesn’t work that way. First, most companies wouldn’t allow it. The marketing company Xiik, for example, boasts the limitless vacation offer, but in its fine print discourages long hiatuses. “There are no hidden agendas; xiik employees can take as much paid time off as needed,” claims a Xiik project manager on the company website, before clarifying what that really means: “As nice as it would be to regularly leave for months at a time, common sense prevails: In most cases, it simply doesn’t make sense to be away from work for extended periods.”

I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had with HR Pros across so many industries that involve this idea of how do you compete against all these perks?!  I’ve always come back to  – you don’t!  The perks are just perks  – they might help you hold onto some folks a bit longer – but they don’t make your employees better and they don’t raise the performance of your company.  In HR we need to figure out those things, first.   Here are the 3 Myths (Thank you Sally!) of the ‘Cool’ Office concept:

1. Offering Free food and drinks will keep our employees working longer and more productive. Workers apparently “waste” 2 billion minutes a day of “productivity” getting snacks, lunch, and coffee, according to Staples.

2. Having an ‘open’ office environment foster collaboration and productivity. A recent Quartz article outlines all the terrible things that come out of the open quarters, such as decreased productivity and more airborne illnesses.

3. Unlimited time off allows your employees the ultimate work-life balance – which will increase productivity and retention.  The reality is your work culture makes people feel bad about taking time off and discourages people from utilizing ‘unlimited’ time off policies.  The reason companies can offer ‘unlimited’ time off policies is because studies continue to show those organizations with these policies actually use less time off than those with set limit policies.  It’s a benefit to organizations to use this – not employees!

HR Announces – ‘We’re Out of Ideas’

Posted on by
7

Recently the crew at FOT has been having some conversations about what’s new in HR.  It use to be all you had to do was show up at a HR conference and listen to someone from Zappos, Google, Sodexo, etc. to find out what were the latest and greatest happenings going on in HR!  But no more – it seems like HR is in a dead period of new ideas!  I blame the recession – why wouldn’t I – the ‘Great Recession’ gets blamed for everything – might as well take some HR heat!   Nobody at FOT could really come up with any ideas that were new.  But thankfully the good HR folks at Google came through one more idea, but I don’t how new it is…

From Quartz – Google admits those infamous brainteasers were completely useless for hiring:

“Google has admitted that the headscratching questions it once used to quiz job applicants (How many piano tuners are there in the entire world? Why are manhole covers round?) were utterly useless as a predictor of who will be a good employee.

“We found that brainteasers are a complete waste of time,” Laszlo Bock, senior vice president of people operations at Google, told the New York Times. “They don’t predict anything. They serve primarily to make the interviewer feel smart…

Bock says Google now relies on more quotidian means of interviewing prospective employees, such as standardizing interviews so that candidates can be assessed consistently, and “behavioral interviewing,” such as asking people to describe a time they solved a difficult problem. It’s also giving much less weight to college grade point averages and SAT scores.”

Yes, you are reading that correctly – Google’s ‘new’ HR idea is to go retro!  Back to behavioral interviewing and standardized interview decks – hello 90’s!  Isn’t that wonderful – I can’t believe Google didn’t have someone at SHRM 13 leading a session like “Google’s Strategic HR Innovations – Just Interview Them Stupid!”  HR ladies would have packed the house to find out how they to could jump into the 90’s.  Also, let’s just come right out corporately and validate to all those kids in college – you’re just wasting your time and spending your parents retirement.  I’ve really never been so excited for our industry!

So, I would like to take it upon myself and the entire HR community to let the world know – HR is out of ideas!

Here’s were we/HR stand:

– Still need to hire people

– Still need to train our employees

– Still need to provide benefits and pay administration

– Still planning the company picnic, and/or ‘holiday party

Long live HR.

Ridiculous Terminations

Posted on by
5

Once in a while in HR we have to make ridiculous decisions to terminate an employee.   Maybe it’s a well liked, popular employee, an employee with long tenure close to retirement, an employee who did something supporting their beliefs but still wrong, etc.  Those kinds of decisions come in all shapes and sizes.

What about firing an employee who was abused by a spouse, and because the company feared the spouse might come to the placement of employment, HR terminated the employee to protect all the rest of the employees?

What do you think about that call HR friends?

I have had to fire some employees for reasons I did not support in the least, but I was directed by a senior executive to do it.  Period.  I had two choices – 1. Fire the employee, or 2. Lose my own job and someone else would fire the employee.  While those few and far times don’t sit well with any HR Pro, most of us are put in that type of situation at least a few times in our career.  Do I become a martyr and quit to show my support for this employee, or save myself?  I’ve always decided to save myself.  Family to feed, mortgage to pay – does it really matter the reasons – either way I’ve had to compromise my true beliefs and do something I didn’t believe in.

As Paul Smith says – “Welcome to the Occupation!” (Great HR blogger, BTW, Check him out)

So, what about our example above with your employee who is being abused and you fire her because you don’t want her crazy husband showing up at your office with a gun?! What did you decide?  Let this poor woman fend for herself, or are you going to help her and put all of your employees at risk?  I bet a fair amount of you are not going to fire her!! What if I told you she was an elementary school teacher and her place of employment was surrounding 400 children. Now what do you do?!?!

From Gawker and a real-life example from San Diego, CA:

Earlier this year, Carie Charlesworth and her four children were removed from Holy Trinity School after she gathered up the courage to disclosed her struggles with domestic violence to the school’s principal.  After what the second-grade teacher’s called “a very bad weekend with [her ex-husband],” the unidentified man arrived outside the school, prompting a lockdown.

She was subsequently put on “an indefinite leave,” and then formally terminated three months later.”

Of course the employer wouldn’t comment on publicly about personnel issues. (I love that HR statement!)

Want to know why women don’t come forward about domestic violence issues? It only takes a few examples like this.  This is one HR firing I don’t think I could have done – losing my job or not – I’m positive my wife and kids would have understood. I understand you need to protect all of those children – but you need to try some other things before throwing out an employee and 4 of those kids onto the street to fend for themselves.

The Myth of Being a Highly Selective Employer

Posted on by
2

We all think it, don’t we?  We all want to believe in this notion that we only hire the best and brightest – we only hire quality.  We are ‘highly’ selective.

We’ll show our executives really cool data that shows how ‘highly’ selective we are.  Number of applicants per hire – 25,000 people applied for this position and we only took the best 1!

I read something interesting recently from Time magazine and college admissions at highly selective colleges – think Harvard, Yale, MIT, etc.  Schools that are super hard to get into because of how selective they are – much like your hiring process of your organization. From the Time’s article:

“What many parents and students don’t realize is that increasing numbers of applications isn’t necessarily a sign that it’s harder to get into a selective school; rather, it’s a sign of changes in behavior among high school seniors. More and more people who aren’t necessarily qualified are applying to top schools, inflating the application numbers while not seriously impacting admissions. In fact, it has arguably become easier to get into a selective school, though it may be harder to get into a particular selective school…

The most recent study available from the National Association for College Admission Counseling shows that between 2010 and 2011 (the most recent years available), the percentage of students applying to at least three colleges rose from 77% to 79% and the percentage of students applying to at least seven colleges rose from 25% to 29%. In 2000, only 67% of students applied to three or more colleges, while 12% applied to seven or more.

The net effect of this behavior is to create an illusion of increased selectivity. Especially at the most selective schools, an increase in applications generally leads to the acceptance of a smaller percentage of the students who apply. However, students who meet the academic and extracurricular thresholds to qualify for competitive schools will still get into a selective college; it’s just less likely that they’ll get into a specific competitive college. These schools work hard to not admit students who won’t attend;  the acceptance rate and the matriculation rate (the percentage of accepted students who attend) are key measures in many college ranking methodologies, so both admitting too many students and admitting students who don’t attend can hurt a college’s ranking.”

An illusion of increased selectivity…You see, just because you turn down a high number of candidates doesn’t make you more selective – it makes you popular.  Too many organizations, and HR departments, are marketing that they are highly selective based on some simple numbers that give an illusion of being highly selective, when in reality, they’re just good at processing a high number of applicants – but not really being ‘more’ selective.  Just because you turn down 24,999 candidates doesn’t make you selective – it just means you have a high number of applicants.

So what does make you selective?  Quality of hire – which I can argue is another very subjective metric in most organizations – but at least it’s a start.  Can you demonstrate with real measurable items that the applicants you’re hiring are better or getting better than those previously?  This creates a real evidence that you’re becoming ‘more’ selective and on your way to becoming ‘highly’ selective.

2013 – Smoking In the Office

Posted on by
6

I’ve decided I’m going to start allowing my employees to smoke in the office.  Maybe it’s watching too many episodes of Madmen, or maybe it’s just some psychological phenomenon about growing up with parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. who all smoked that I weirdly like  hanging out with smokers – but I don’t smoke.  Don’t get me wrong – I’m not allowing traditional lighting up – this is 2013 – we’re going Electronic!  E-Cigarettes are all the rage and I can’t think of a better way to cure my mental cravings about hanging out at smoke breaks than to just allow my staff to start lighting up – alright I don’t know if you call it lighting up maybe it’s powering up those E-Cigs and getting their E-Smoke on!

E-Cigarettes are coming big business because of the assumption they’re safer. From BusinessWeek:

“The electronic cigarette is about to have its turn in the spotlight. The battery-powered gadgets transform nicotine and other substances into an inhaled vapor and have been marketed as a safer alternative to tobacco smoke, which is drawn into the lungs and increases cancer risks. The rapidly growing e-cigarette business—expected to top $1 billion in annual sales in the next few years—is racing to command a bigger share of spending among smokers and potential smokers ahead of possible regulations from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.”

This brings in all that was good about 1970’s business and modernizes it! (did you catch that the only thing I think about a ‘good’ 1970’s business was their ability to smoke in the office!) I can’t wait until my next big conference room meeting with 20+ employees all smoking away on their E-Cigs, talking sales, talking red meat they’ll grill that night – if that isn’t quintessential Americana I don’t know what is!  Sure its a little more metro-sexual America, but it’s 2013, let’s face it – so few of us can pull off the Marlboro Man look anymore!

I know most of you think I’m joking but wait and see HR Pros.  E-Cigarettes are not considered ‘cigarettes’ by the FDA.  If you have an employee come in and want to suck on a battery powered device at their desk that emits water vapor – are you going to tell them ‘No’!  Especially when that same employee could chose to take an hour+ per day off to stand outside and fire up for real?!  Doesn’t productivity and health demand you allow your employees to E-Light-Up at their desk or workstation?

What do you think HR Pros?  Will you join me in allowing your employees to E-Light Up in the office?  Do any of you allow this now?  Has any employee approached you and asked to do this?  Will you shoot the first employee who is standing outside taking a 10 minute smoke break who is puffing on a E-Cigarette?

Brains Before Bros

Posted on by
Reply

True or False: My existing talent pool is always my first line of defense in filling key roles that become available in my organization.

If the first statement is true, shouldn’t the second one be too? In a perfect world, yes. But we know that isn’t always the case, and unfortunately employee development is often overlooked when organizations are forming their talent strategies.

Join hiring smart (people) experts Kris Dunn and Kelly Dingee for Brains Before Bros: Why Hiring Smart People over Experienced People is a Winning Talent Strategy, sponsored by our friends at SumTotal, on Tuesday June 12 at 1pm EST and they’ll hit you with the following:

1.    A rundown of the factors driving talent scarcity in today’s workforce and why it’s better to hire smart people and train for success.

2.    FOT’s definition of “smart” and common false positives you need to consider when defining what smart looks like for your organization.

3.    Three signs that your top talent may be looking to jump ship and how to reel them back in by providing the incentives they really want. (Hint: It’s not always monetary).

4.    Five ways to keep training and development programs aligned with evolving expectations from top applicants and your existing talent – without breaking your budget.

5.    We’ll close this webinar by bringing in Steve Parker from SumTotal to help you ensure your leadership team is creating the right environment to get the most out of your existing talent.

 Your traditional approach to talent isn’t working—start putting brains before bros and maximize your talent strategy today.

REGISTER HERE