Category Archives: Culture

Launch and Learn

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I love HR Pros! I really do.

There is one common trait that many of the best HR Pros have – we love to have things perfect before we launch or go public with them!  BTW – this is specific to HR – Operations, Sales, Marketing, etc. are all willing to ‘try’ stuff – to throw it out there and see what happens.  In HR this is taboo!

Why is that?

For me this idea is the one thing that truly holds HR back from being innovative.  Think about these words from Mark Suster at the Both Sides of the Table blog:

“I’m sure you’ve all heard saying derived from Voltaire, “don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good” which in a way is encapsulated in the lean startup movement and the ideology of shipping a “minimum viable product” (MVP) and then learning from your customer base.

I think about this topic of perfection being the enemy of the good often. Because I live in startup land where everybody is a perfectionist. I think this is particularly true because every startup entrepreneur is trying to catch lightning in a bottle.

I hear about it in every first product release. You can see it in the founders’ eyes. They want the perfect feature set, the PR company lined up to do the perfect press release, they want maximum coverage, rave reviews, viral adoption and they want to sit back and then wait for the signups to come roaring in.

Life doesn’t work like that. And gearing yourself up for a lighting-in-a-bottle moment leads to bad company decisions.”

If those types of decisions lead to ‘bad company decisions’, inevitably those same types of behaviors will lead to bad HR decisions.

I hear what’s going around in your head right now, HR Pros!  I’m an HR Pro myself – that voice is hard to quiet.  “How can making sure something is perfect – a project, a program, a new process – be bad for HR and our organization!?”  Making something perfect isn’t bad.  Failure to launch is bad.  Also, taking too long or using too many resources to ensure perfection can be a huge negative to how HR, and you, are viewed.  In HR we aren’t trying to save lives or solve the world economic crisis – we have some room to ‘test’ and do some ‘trial and error’ – as long as communicate that is what you’re doing.

I’ll give you a little secret I’ve used for years in HR.  Like most of us in HR I’ve designed my fair share of new programs and processes, and I’ve tried to make them perfect.  To ensure I didn’t have something blow up on me – I always have done ‘soft’ launches.  I’ll launch with a single department or I’ll communicate out that this is a ‘test’ and we need feedback.  99.9% of the time my ‘test’ goes off without any issues and the ‘test’ becomes the program.  That .01% of the time that something goes wrong or there are errors – we chalk it up to why we ‘doing the test first’!  Everyone wins.  Employees and hiring managers get to tell you where you messed up without feeling like they’re stepping on toes.  You get to correct your errors without feeling like an idiot. The company moves forward – faster.

 

How Do You Really Get A Job You LOVE?

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My single most read blog post ever is – How Do You Really Get An Entry Level Job?  It’s about a woman who reached out to me and asked me for advice – so I gave her 5 tips on how I would go about getting a job if I had her skill sets and resume.   One major difference between getting an ‘entry level’ job and getting a job you ‘love’ is that when you’re just trying to get your first job – my advice is to take anything!  I mean anything!  I’ll take out the trash, I’ll answer phones, I’ll wash your car – just let me get in the door – my talent will take over from there and eventually I’ll move up the chain.  Most folks don’t think of taking out the garbage when they think of getting a job they ‘LOVE’.

So, how do you get a job that you ‘Love’ – I mean one of those jobs that doesn’t seem like work because you ‘Love’ it so much?  One of those jobs where you would be willing to take less money to be able to do it.  That’s the key.  You see I get asked frequently what my ‘dream’ job would be – I have had the same answer for at least 20 years – Head Coach, Los Angles Lakers.  That’s my ‘dream’ job – for a couple of reasons – I love basketball, love the Lakers and that I would be getting huge BANK!   I don’t know if I would ‘Love’ the job – but I sure would give it a lot of hugs and kisses.  Now, if someone said, “Tim, we are going to offer you the head coaching position for the Lakers, but it only pays $75,000.”  I would decline – because I wouldn’t ‘Love’ that job for $75,000.  I would ‘Love’ that job for about $1M per season – which would be a bargain for my skill set – Mr. Buss!

That word ‘Love’ is real tricky.  Many people say the ‘Love’ their job – but you ask them to take a 10% pay cut and they don’t ‘Love’ it anymore.  Here’s how you get a job you Really Love:

1. Know what it is you ‘Love’ – Too many folks want a job they love – but they don’t even know what it is they love to do.   “Well, Tim, I love to sit on the couch and watch movies.”  That’s a very easy job to get! Congratulations – have fun with that – plus you might want to find someone willing to support you in your new chosen profession.  I don’t say that in jest – that really isn’t that hard!  I know quite of few ladies who have chosen to do Yoga each day and have lunch with the ladies – they ‘Love’ their jobs!  They’ve found ways to get supported in doing their jobs.  Guys – don’t be haters – I know guys who have found ‘sponsors’ that let them stay home and fish and golf – face it – they must be really good at something – or they’re better at finding suckers than you!

2. Understand that something you ‘Love’ at 20, might be different at 30, and 40, and... – I wanted to be a teacher from age 12 to about age 23 – even today I love interacting with children – I’ve done youth sports coaching for the past 20 years.  I got my undergrad degree in Elementary Education.  I was 100% positive -teaching was a job I would ‘Love’.  I found out that it wasn’t.  I fell out of ‘Love’ with teaching.  I see so many folks who ‘Love’ something, do it for a while, then realize they don’t really love it anymore – but they have this idea that you can’t stop loving something and move on to the next thing.  It’s alright to stop loving a job you once loved.   Want a job you ‘love’?  Sometimes that means leaving a job you once loved.

3. Realize, falling in ‘Love’ is sometimes the greatest part of finding a job you ‘Love’ – Too many people get set on finding a job they are instantly in love with.  Most times, loving a job doesn’t work like that.  Many times you fall in love with a job you initially didn’t like very much.  I’m fairly certain the first time I met my wife she wasn’t instantly in love with me!  But I wore her down.  Jobs can be like that!  They seem kind of average, then over time you begin to realize you really are in love with it.  Don’t get caught up in the notion you need to instantly be ‘in love’ with a job to eventually ‘love’ your job.

Do you love your job?

How New Leaders Categorize You

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It’s a pretty common phenomenon for new leaders to turnover most, if not all, of their team when they take over.  It happens all the time!  It’s a primary reason while you’ll see senior leadership take way too long to change out an ineffective leader – the fallout sucks.  Let’s take a look at how most leaders take a position.  It usually happens one of two ways: Promotion or Termination- old leader gets promoted up or gets canned – organization finds new leader (internally or externally) to come in and takeover.   Either way, the team has a new leader.  Now, 99.9% of the time, this next thing happens: Change!  New leader comes in and feels pressure to make a difference, to do better – so they make change.  Then, this happens – Crappy Communication!  Most leaders are not equipped or trained at how to communicate as a new leader, and don’t negotiate with their team on how the team likes communication – so they fail at this part.

Change + Crappy Communication = Employees leaving and having bad attitudes about the new leader.

Here’s how a new leader categorizes employees of a new group they take over:

The Converts – These are the people who are going to forget about the old leader as soon as the person leaves the parking lot and fall into the ‘new’ line of thinking.  What’s funny about these folks is many times their thought process switches 180 degrees depending on what the new leader likes, thinks, prefers, etc.  These folks will be the ones who stay around and thrive – they are corporate survivors in the truest form – some will see 10+ leaders come and go in their careers.

The Zombies – These are your victims.  They only support themselves and how bad their life is because bad things only happen to them.  They are just waiting around for the next bad thing to happen to them.  These will be the first people get to get terminated – which perpetuates their Eeyore belief that everything in life is against them.

The Militia –  Are the employees who are going to fight blindly to keep the vision of their old leader alive.  These folks are passionate, so the new leader will try and convert them over to the new vision, because if you can get them on your side – they make great soldiers. But some will leave and/or get fired because they just refuse to give up the rebel flag!

The Double Agents – DA employees fall in the middle between converts and the militia – they really don’t want to be on one side or the other – they want to find another job, but don’t want the new leader to know.  They want to watch the new leader fail, but at the same time need that person to think highly of them to ensure their next position and possible recommendation down the road.  These folks are the ones who surprise the new leaders – they think they’re on board, then get a two week notice dropped on their desk.

The Insider – This is the most dangerous employee to a new leader. The Insider is an employee who has connections and influence and will funnel information on how the new leader is doing to higher level folks in the organization.  Successful new leaders find this person quickly, and convert them quickly – it’s key to survival!

How does a new leader stop a mass turnover of their team?  I like to see new leaders do three things:

1. Communicate the new reality quickly.  I like to see new leaders do this within the first week of taking on the new position.

2. Team transition meeting.  Third party facilitated, this meeting allows employees to share their fears of a new leader, share the history of the collective group and allows the team and new leader to negotiate how they will communicate with each other.

3. Individual meetings. New leaders should set up a meeting schedule to meet with all of their direct reports weekly in the first 90 days.  Making sure everyone is on the same page is critical.

 

 

 

 

How Obamacare Can Help Your New Hire Retention

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You know what’s really cool?  When major change happens to an industry, entrepreneurial people find a way to make money off that change!  I love America!

Obamacare, The Affordable Care Act, is having major changes to the healthcare industry and some forward thinkers are taking advantage.  One company in particular is a startup out of New York, NY called Health Recovery Solutions.  Here’s what Forbes had to say about what they are doing:

“For too many patients, hospitals have a revolving door: They leave, get sick again, and are quickly readmitted.

The Affordable Care Act aims to curb preventable return visits with heavy financial penalties: If 25% or more of the Medicare patients a hospital treats for pneumonia, heart failure or a heart attack are readmitted within 30 days of discharge, the hospital gets whacked with a 1% reduction in its Medicare reimbursements for every single patient it treats.

The penalties kicked in late last year, and those little 1% slices add up fast. “If a hospital gets $300 million a year in Medicare payments, that’s $3 million,” says Sandeep Pulim, a co-founder and chief medical officer of Health Recovery Solutions, a startup that aims to help hospitals cut their readmissions.”

How do they do it?  They give each patient a tablet with a recovery plan, videos, instructions, etc. when they leave the hospital.  Teach them how to use it and follow up with communications to ensure the patients is using and following the plan.  Let’s say this helps stop 50% of readmissions – that saves the hospital $1.5M in penalties – lets say the service and equipment cost $750K – the organization still saved $750K by using their service. Pretty good ROI!

How does this help your New Hire Retention?

You could use the same methodology with your new hires!  Let’s say your cost of hire is $5,000 per hire (which is very low for almost any kind of hire!), and you’re turning over 25% of your new hires.  This is costing your company thousands of dollars each year.  A tablet is $500 – you load it with content that helps a new hire not only adjust to your culture, but to their job – build a communication and followup plan – engage the hiring managers – reduce your new hire turnover by 50%.  You will save thousands of dollars.  Bam – there’s your business case ROI to buy tablets and build content to your executive team.

Another company has already shown you the road map – you just need to make some adjustments and build content – it takes time, but it isn’t too hard for HR to do.  It’s funny how having to carry around a tablet, as a new hire, will change your culture. People will see them and think ‘hey, that’s a new hire – I should say something. I should do something to help them” – signs and symbols are powerful that way.  Having to log into each day and see what the plan is for them each day, helps new hires focus on where they are going with the company – where they need to be at.  The power of direction and goals, helps add comfort to the uncomfortable nature of starting a new position, in a new company.  Having a built in communication tool between you, the hiring manager and the new hire will definitely let you know sooner when something isn’t right and let you address it.

Innovation happens best when major change is about to hit.  If you look close – Obamacare will give us some great ideas in HR!

 

 

Are You Getting Knocked Up or What?

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I have to stand up and applaud Sheryl Sandberg today.  Not for leaning in.  For finally saying what every HR and Operations person in history has always thought, but every lawyer who works for our organizations would never allow us to do.  Ask a simple question that has huge aspects to how we run our businesses.  “So, what’s the deal?  You knocked up or what? What’s the plan?”  It’s not discriminatory. It’s not biased.  It’s a reality of our workforce.  Women get pregnant and have to take time away to have the child.  Organizations need to plan effectively for this.  To do that the leadership team needs some time to plan.  Seems like a very simple concept to grasp. Yet, most in HR, to this day, advise their leadership teams to never have this conversation with a female employee.

From the Wall Street Journal – Sheryl Sandberg: It’s OK to talk about babies:

“People genuinely want to handle gender issues in the workplace well, but it’s a topic that makes everyone uncomfortable,” says Sandberg. “No one wants to be insensitive, so often they say nothing at all.” One male manager told Sandberg he would rather talk about his sex life in public than take up gender issues with his staff.

Many managers, especially men, may shy away from such discussions because they fear saying anything inappropriate, or worse, illegal. For lots of managers, even mentioning pregnancy and child-rearing is off limits. “The easy and often reflexive recommendation from counsel is often to stay away from any conversation or discussion,” say Joseph Yaffe and Karen Corman, employment lawyers at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.

That’s a “very bad interpretation” of gender discrimination laws, Sandberg says. While rules to protect against gender discrimination are necessary, she says they shouldn’t be used to stifle important workplace conversations. “The path of not talking about it is not working,” she says.

So, should you do a 180 and now tell all of your leaders to start asking their female workforce if they’re actively engaged in trying to make babies? No, slow down cowboy!  Here’s some talking points to help move your organization towards having business necessity conversations about potential work disruptions due to pregnancy:

1. Let it be known publicly within your organization how you want to work and communicate with expectant ‘parents’ – both parents need to know, since many families are now deciding to use FMLA time to help care for their spouse/partner and baby.  This just isn’t a Mom issue any more.  Communicate that you expect that parents will miss time for the birth or adoption of a child.  The intent of communicating open and honestly with leadership to help plan your absence so there is as little disruption as possible to organization and for the individual employee.

2. Coach your leaders to never imply or pry about an individuals desires for family.  If your culture is open, your employees will come to your leaders when the time is right.  Be very clear with your leaders – an employees pregnancy is something very personal – some will want to celebrate, some will want to keep if very quiet – don’t treat everyone the same.  Always be supportive of how you as a leader and organization will continue to support them in their career development – in what ever way they decide they want this to go.

3. Acknowledge the realities of what is ahead.  I love having a sit down with HR, the group leader and the employee to have one big open discussion, having everyone on the same page in developing the transition plan.  This includes scheduling a return, which will have some flexibility to it.  The worst thing you can do to a new Mom is to have her go from maternity leave to full work week right away!  Start with partial week or days during the first week.  Talk with the leader about allowing for some additional flexibility during those first days. Be empathetic.  If you feel someone is taking advantage of your flexible policy – address that individually – don’t manage the entire organization like everyone will take advantage – most will not.

I go into each expectant mother conversation planning and expecting 100% will return to work. Period.  I know the reality is, 100% will not return.  I never ask, “So, are you coming back?”  The reality is most will never know until that baby is in their arms.  Those who know for sure, will tell you.  Either way, I don’t need to ask that question, my plan stays the same – how do we support the employee and support the organization will as little disruption to both as possible.

The worst thing we can do as leaders and HR Pros is act like everything is the same and not talk about it.  It’s not.  There will be change and great organizations plan for change, and make the best of the situation at hand.

Want Higher Employee Engagement? Integrate a Cat Charity

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Have you ever tried to get your employees to join a Habitat for Humanity project, or go down to the local homeless shelter to volunteer?  It seems like an easy endeavor, I which of your employees don’t want to help out the less fortunate?  Apparently, most of them!  From Georgetown University’s Center for Social Impact:

“…the study underscored this new dynamic: You are twice as likely to see a message from one of your social network contacts promoting an animal charity as you are a human rights campaign. And causes dedicated to the disabled or homeless are even less popular, the study found.”

It sounds unbelievable right?  I mean, we all hire great, caring people – we are great, caring people, so why is it we would rather support a charity to help animals, than our own brothers and sisters who are living on the street? I call it the face test.  It’s easier for us to look into the eyes of a dog and cat and feel empathy.  It’s difficult to look into the eyes of a homeless man or woman – it makes us uncomfortable.  It’s similar to when people have a hard time talking about death – it becomes a little to real for them.  You having to engage a homeless person puts into real terms what life potentially has to offer – to you.  It makes you very uncomfortable.  So we combat that by making ourselves feel good – by donating money to animals.  We can rationalize that to ourselves – these beings can’t take care of themselves – so I will help them.

How does this help your Employee Engagement?

Pretty simple – don’t fight psychology – you’ll lose.  I’m not saying don’t support homeless charities – please do!  What I am saying is that your employees will rally around and be more engaged to help homeless pigmy goats, or barn cats in need of food.  It’s sad, but true.   People like to feel like they are making a difference, but most don’t want to get their hands dirty.  Local animal shelters needs funds. Great!  Our employees are the best, they’ll help!   And, they will.  That’s a good thing for your engagement.  Don’t focus on the negative, focus on what you can control in your world.  If you truly feel that bad about the concept, go out on your own and donate your time and resources to take care of actual humans.

Believe me, I’m guilty of this as well.  I support the crap of finding a cure for Leukemia. Truth be told, I’ve never met or known anyone with Leukemia – yet each year we do specific fundraising things just to help this cause.  I drive by a homeless guy almost every day on way to and from work – and I’ve never once offered to help him – not thrown him a couple bucks, dropped off food, nothing.  Psychology is a monster.  I vow to stop and offer some assistance the next time I see a homeless person.  I also vow to start an office program to help disabled kittens – it’s sure to get high participation!

 

 

Do you value new employees over old?

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Here’s a quick way to check!

When an old employee comes to you and says, “Hey, I really like working here but I’m hearing from folks that I can make like $10-15-20K more doing the same thing at the company across the street.”  And you go, “Well, you know, we love you and you’re doing great work, but we just can’t afford to pay you that much more. Sorry.  Let me see what I can do for you – I need to talk to HR.”

Your supervisor then goes to HR.  She tells HR what you said.  HR might actually know that your competition is indeed paying that much more – but the budgets are done – we didn’t figure in 20-20% pay increases.  Let’s first go back and try and give them $3,000, bringing their total to $75,000, and again tell the employee how valuable they are to us and how much we need them on ‘our’ team.  Sound like a plan?  Sound like you’ve had this conversation before? I have.

So, the supervisor does it – gives them employee $3,000 and waits and hopes the employee will take it and not actually go out and look.  Here’s the problem.  The $3,000 increase you just gave them – probably was the straw that actually broke the camels back!  Now, for sure they’ll look.

Let’s fast forward a month down the road.  Same employee comes into the supervisor’s office and turns in 2 week notice.  They got their offer for $20K more than you were originally paying them, they are now at $95K – they gave you a chance – you blew it.

Fast forward two months down the road.  You’ve posted the position, did interviews and now want to make an offer to the replacement.  The replacement wants $95K.  You go to the hiring manager and tell them the budget only has $75K in it.  The hiring manager comes back and says they have no choice, we have to pay $95K…

You value new employees over old employees.

 

I Love Being Right!

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I’m coming up on my annual review.  Something that my boss does that I like is to require me to put together all the things I did for the last year, beyond my normal job.  The theory being, why should I pay you more, if you’re just doing the same job.  Tell me what you do beyond the norm.  Tell me why you’re more valuable to me this year, than you were last year. It’s not perfect, but I’ve yet to see an evaluation system that is!  What it does do is drive conversation about what is valued in my organization.  You are hired and paid well to do a job.  That is expected.  If you want more – show us why.  Doing you normal job isn’t more – it’s what you were hired to do.

The problem with this is my self-insight measure, is off the chart.  When I sit down to write this up – all I do is find things that are wrong with me!  Which might be the entire reason for the exercise to begin with! Figure out that you suck, then I don’t have to pay you.

Here’s what I found out about myself this year:

  • I love being right.

That was about it.

It’s not a good thing – it’s definitely an opportunity area.  When you love to be ‘right’ you tend not to be the best listener.  Being right means you have to keep showing people you’re right.  Which means preparing what to say next instead of listening then crafting a response to what you heard.  Being right means that someone is wrong.  That, also, is not a good thing.  We live in a world of gray.  Most things in business aren’t right or wrong – there is usually an answer in the middle of the two – some will call it compromise, some will call it synergy – it’s a better third option.  Something we both created.

Having a desire to be right is somewhat immature.  It harkens back to the day of playgrounds and rows of desks.  It’s when you wanted to show your parents how smart you were.  You did that by being right – and sometimes being right got you a slap on the backside or early bed with no dinner.  Most people learn at an early age, being right isn’t all that you thought it would be! Being right, can also be very negative.

So, over the next 12 months I vow to work on not being right.  I want to embrace being wrong.  It doesn’t feel comfortable, but I know it will make me better.  It’s alright to be wrong (I’ll need to keep saying this to myself over and over!). Being wrong means I will be able to tell someone else they are ‘right’.  That seems like a better leader to me.

This is Why You’re Afraid to Make HR Simple

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Have you ever wondered why HR Departments continue to make complex processes?  In reality, all of us, wants things simple.  But, when you look at our organizations they are filled with complexity.  It seems like the more we try to make things simple, the more complex they get.  You know what?  It’s you – it’s not everyone else.  You are making things complex, and you’re doing this, because it makes you feel good.

From Harvard Business Review:

“There are several deep psychological reasons why stopping activities is so hard to do in organizations. First, while people complain about being too busy, they also take a certain amount of satisfaction and pride in being needed at all hours of the day and night. In other words, being busy is a status symbol. In fact a few years ago we asked senior managers in a research organization — all of whom were complaining about being too busy — to voluntarily give up one or two of their committee assignments. Nobody took the bait because being on numerous committees was a source of prestige.

Managers also hesitate to stop things because they don’t want to admit that they are doing low-value or unnecessary work. Particularly at a time of layoffs, high unemployment, and a focus on cost reduction, managers want to believe (and convince others) that what they are doing is absolutely critical and can’t possibly be stopped. So while it’s somewhat easier to identify unnecessary activities that others are doing, it’s risky to volunteer that my own activities aren’t adding value. After all, if I stop doing them, then what would I do?”

That’s the bad news.  You have have deep psychological issues.  Your spouse already knew that about you.

The good news is, you can stop it!  How?  Reward people for eliminating worthless work.  Right now we reward people who are working 70 hours per week and always busy and we tell people “Wow! Look at Tim he’s a rock star – always here, always working!”  Then someone in your group goes, “Yeah, but Tim is an idiot, I could do his job in 20 hours per week, if…”  We don’t reward the 20 hour guy, we reward the guy working 70 hours, even if he doesn’t have to.

Somewhere in our society – the ‘working smarter’ analogy got lost or turned into ‘work smarter and longer’.  The reality is most people don’t have the ability to work smarter, so they just work longer and make everything they do look ‘Really’ important!   You just thought of someone in your organization, when you read that, didn’t you!?  We all have them – you can now officially call them ‘psychos’ – since they do actually have a “deep psychological” reasons for doing what they’re doing – Harvard said so!

I love simple.  I love simple HR.  I love simple recruiting.  I hate HR and Talent Pros that make things complex – because I know they have ‘deep psychological’ issues!  Please go make things simple today!

Recruiting, Reenvisioned

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What is the worst buying experience you’ve ever had?  For most people, it’s buying a car.  New or Used, it doesn’t matter – buying a car, sucks.  It starts with the sales person.  You go onto a lot, you see a car you like and you want to take it for a test drive.  The last thing you want is to have someone you don’t know, ride a long with you and make small talk when you’re trying to decide if the car if right for you.  It starts the entire experience off on the wrong foot.  Then you finally decide and you have to sit through a minimum of an hour while you do this stupid dance between the sales person and their ‘sales manager’ as you negotiate the car.  From top to bottom, most people would rate – buying a car – as the single worst buying experience they’ll ever experience.  The entire process is set up for the car dealers, not for the buyers.

From a recent article in Time on re-envisioning the car buying experience:

…“I wish the Apple store was more like an auto dealership.” Or even something like: “My check engine light comes on and I smile.”…When asked what car shopping should be like, Michael Accavitti, vice president of marketing at American Honda, and one of the judges at the challenge, offered the following description:

“It should be like when you go to an ice cream store. Everybody is happy at the ice cream store. They are laughing, smiling and joking. When you buy a car, it should be the same.”

Recruiting is a little like buying a car for a company/hiring manager/candidates.  It’s uncomfortable. Both sides want to ask things, but they don’t. Both sides want information, but it’s not shared.  In the end, one side usually feels like they’ve won, and one side feels like they ‘left something on the table.’

How do we change that?

That is a really difficult question.  Like the car buying experience, dealers and auto companies would have changed it decades ago if they would have a better answer.  The problem comes down to the company not believing the buyer is smart enough to understand their position and need for a profit.  “Hey, look, the car cost us $15K, we need to make $2K, the taxes will be $1K – it’s going to cost you $18K” Instead they they list it $25K, and let us feel like we are ‘getting a deal’ when they negotiate it down to a purchase prices of $21K – then we find out a neighbor down the street got his for $19K and we lose our minds.  Trust broken – you made one sale, you won’t make another.

I think, like the article explains, recruiting functions need to become more match making services versus we’re going to sell you what we have!  Ultimately, I’m not looking for the best talent. I’m not.  I’m looking for the best talent that matches my culture and can work effectively within our organization and those already in it. Those could be very different people.  Recruiting tends to only look, or mostly only look, for skill match.  Hiring manager needs Java Developer, Recruiting delivers Java Developer, one or both are miserable because they didn’t really match to begin with.  The problem with why we don’t do this now, is that it frankly takes to long and is too subjective.  Subjectivity causes HR heartburn.

I don’t have an exact answer, but I wonder what recruiting would look like if we went more match.com vs. monster.com?