Category Archives: Employment Brand

The Project Product Reviews: Lunch Balancer

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I get pimped weekly to review products/services/books/etc., and I actually do a bunch of reviews.  I have a couple of rules to do reviews:

1. Whatever it is you want me to review, I need full access.  You want me to review your recruiting tool, give me access to the system and let me play with it. You would be amazed at how many folks won’t allow this!  “Oh, you want to say great things about something I’ve never used?!”  Yeah, that doesn’t work.

2. Book reviews are tough, I just don’t have that much time to get through your boring book.  That being said, if you send me a copy I might try to get through the first chapter.  If you send me a link to an electronic version (i.e., pdf), I’ll never read one word of it.  I’ve bought one e-Book in my life, it was Laurie Ruettiman’s I Am HR, and she had to walk me through how to download it onto my iPhone.

3. If you want me to review a real product, like the one I’m doing below – Lunch Balancer, you have to actually send me the product!  Seems simple, you send me product, if I like it I’ll write about it.  I don’t like, I also might say something about it.  If you never send me the product, I’ll never say anything about it.

4. If a hundred dollar bill somehow slips into the product as you ship it too me, that never hurts your chances of getting reviewed.

On to the real Product Review –

Lunch Balancer 

Lunch Balancer contacted me about seeing if I would have interest in reviewing their product.  They offer “nutritionally-balanced portion-controlled meals”, high protein, low carb.  The design is that they’ll actually ship to your office a box that has five meals read to go for about $6-6.50 per meal, depending on which way you go.  They are targeting the health conscious desk jockey that is getting fat by sitting around all day, not moving enough and topping that off by having some sort of super-sized fast food meal at lunch. Basically, they were targeting me! 

The box they sent me looked almost identical to their picture on the website:

lunch balancer

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My first impression was they sent a box of samples.  The next impression was this was all Hippie/Tree Hugger food, I was not going to like this!  Gluten free, organic, vegan, etc. were just a few of the titles I quickly scanned.  The box looked like a bunch of samples you picked up at a how to survive by eating tree bark convention. But they actually plan out the menu each day, and color code each item so you know which items go for which day.   Here’s what that looks like:

Lunch balancer 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To be completely honest, I did the first two meals on two different days, let my staff kill the rest of the food after that.  Here’s my take.

Meal #1 – Turkey sticks, veggie chips, natural almonds and organic mango fruit snacks

Turkey sticks were like Slim Jims, but healthy, but tasted like Slim Jims.  I like Slim Jims, so the experiment to healthy eating was going great!  The 100% veggie chips, made mostly of peas, actually tasted like regular salted chips!  Heck, this was going to be easy!  I’m a little sketchy on almonds that are in a cookie, candy bar or have wasabi spices baked into them, but I have to say these were actually crunchy and tasted good.  The mango fruit snacks were also good.

When I first saw the amount I was going to eat, I thought no way is this going to fill me up, but it did!  Meal #1 done, and I was impressed.

Meal #2 – Protein Pretzels, natural almond butter, multi-grain crackers, roasted chickpeas and Chocolate Macaroons

The protein pretzels had a cinnamon sugar spice on them, and they were really good. The biggest hit was the natural almond butter and crackers. Since I never ate almond butter before I had no idea it was just peanut butter, but made with almonds!  I’m becoming a healthy eater!  The roasted chickpeas were crunchy and salty, and reminded me of the corn nuts you get at gas stations.  The chocolate macaroons, which I left until the end, because I knew those would be good, were absolutely awful! Yep, one miss, they tasted like little mud balls in my mouth.  Again, I was full after eating Meal #2.

I would definitely recommend Lunch Balancer to companies looking to give their employees a healthier option.  It’s fairly inexpensive, and better for you.  When you think about your time, gas and normal lunch expense. $6 per meal is pretty cheap.  Make it healthy on top of that, and it’s a win-win!

Check them out at www.lunchbalancer.com 

Lunch Balancer did not pay me for this review, but they did send me a free sample box to test their product.

 

4 Ways To Find Great Talent on Glassdoor

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The next biggest recruiting play is not LinkedIn, or CareerBuilder, or Monster.  It’s Glassdoor!  But you wouldn’t know that, because you still see them as a place where former employees and zombies go to bitch about your company and bad managers.  It’s not!

Kris Dunn and I are going to show you, in this month’s FOT webinar, how smart companies are leveraging Glassdoor in their recruiting practices to steal your talent, and it’s not the crappy talent you wish would leave!

Yep, Glassdoor is sponsoring this webinar.  Yep, Kris and I made sure they knew we don’t hold back punches!  That, in and of itself, is cool, because they know we speak the truth, and they aren’t afraid of the truth getting out (BTW – we have a lot of companies not willing to do FOT webinars because of this!).

Let’s face it. HR pros have a long history of being uncomfortable with sites like Glassdoor.com. After all, the only people that use Glassdoor.com and sites like it are disgruntled ex-employees that you fired, right?

Wrong. It was wrong 5 years ago, and it’s horribly wrong today. Rather than view these types of sites as a threat, smart HR and Recruiting pros are learning how to use the reputation/rating sites to manage their employment brand, connect with candidates and make better hires.

The days of the employment brand strategy with scripted photos, smiling faces (just the right amount of diversity!) and PDFs are over.

That’s why we’re going deep on reputation sites like Glassdoor in the July version of the FOT Webinar entitled,“How Smart HR Pros are Becoming Better Marketers – By Using Company Reputation Sites Like Glassdoor.”  Join Kris Dunn and Tim Sackett from Fistful of Talent at 2pm ET on Wednesday July 30th, and we’ll hit you with the following:

– How the the yelp-ification of America—the trend towards consumer-based reviews in almost every area of our economy—is changing the way employees and candidates think about job search and employer brands. It’s second nature for your employees to rate a restaurant, a book or a movie online. That means that employees of all types (not just the ones who want to complain) are more willing than ever to participate in your brand through user review.

– Why the explosion of social media and deep coverage of every aspect of our lives through video and photos is changing the willingness of smart companies to increase their transparency.  Every employee and candidate who interacts with your company is a potential reporter, and they expect you to share the good, bad and ugly about working with your firm openly and honestly. Old versions of employment brands won’t cut it—you”re going to have to give up some control to maximize your brand.

– We’ll cover the 5 Biggest Myths about company reputation sites like Glassdoor and tell you which ones are completely BS and which ones you actually perpetrate by not fully engaging on sites like Glassdoor. We’ll hit the usual suspects here: “The only comments are from the bad employees”  and “The salary data out there isn’t factual,” and tell you why things have changed. More importantly, we’ll cover how you actually may make the myths a reality by not fully engaging on reputation sites.  Think about that last sentence: You’ve got to be in the game to influence the game.

– Last but not least, we’ll give you a 4-step playbook on how to engage on reputation sites and become more of a Marketer as an HR/Recruiting Pro.  It’s true—you wouldn’t have read this far if you didn’t want to learn more about how to use reputation sites like Glassdoor to maximize your company and your career. We’ll help you get started.

The outside world now has a huge say in how your company/employment brand is perceived, whether you engage or not. FOT thinks you should engage.  Join us for “How Smart HR Pros are Becoming Better Marketers – By Using Company Reputation Sites Like Glassdoor” at 2pm ET on Wednesday July 30th and we’ll show you how.

(FOT Note: Glassdoor is sponsoring this FOT webinar. We’re happy to have them as a sponsor and, true to their commitment to transparency, they’re letting us talk about the myths and a lot of other realities HR and Recruiting pros have experienced related to Glassdoor—without restriction. That type of balance makes them a great partner.  Join us and we promise you’ll get a balanced view—no sales pitch—as well as an insider’s guide to how to use sites like Glassdoor to become a better marketer as an HR/Recruiting pro.)

I was fired for taking a 15 Minute dump

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I believe in natural selection.  When the internet when crazy last week because some little known company was only allowing their employees 6 minutes to use the bathroom each day, I didn’t have a strong reaction.  I didn’t care because I know, from experience, companies only do this because they are forced into the position, for some reason or another, or they have horrible leadership. Or, sometimes, both.

This might be the case for Water Saver Faucet Company out of Chicago, but quite honestly, I don’t know. Here’s what we know.  The owner of the company makes his employees swipe in and out of the bathrooms to monitor usage.  Sounds horrific, the internet screamed!  How could anyone do this?! Well, he’s doing it, and in a Teamsters union shop (this could be a post on how far the union has fallen!).

We could argue for days about why this is wrong, but no one wants to argue about why this might be right!

Here’s what we don’t know, but a savvy HR Pro would question before coming to conclusions:

1. Why did he feel the need to install such a system to begin with?

2. How much money is the company losing for excessive bathroom use?

3. Did we try other measures, first, before deciding on this measure?

4. Were employees consulted about this change, before making it?

5. Are we actually breaking any laws by doing this?

6. Are we putting ourselves in a unfavorable recruiting stance, by making this change?

We could go on, and on, but our reality is, there might very well be great reasons to monitor the use of your bathroom facilities at your office.

The company claims they lost 120 hours of productivity in May alone to unscheduled bathroom breaks. In a shop where they already get one 10 minute mid-morning break, a lunch break and a 15 minute afternoon break.  At which time they can use the restrooms as freely as they would like.  The six minutes of bathroom break monitoring is for unscheduled breaks.

This still sounds barbaric for so many of my HR friends.  Many of which have never worked in a union shop.  I have.  I played the union game.  I’ve spent time in the bathroom for long periods with nothing to do, but not wanting to build another pallet or haul more material. So I hid out.  By the way, I was showed how to do this during my union mandated 3 weeks of supervised training, for a job that took me about 30 minutes to learn.  I was showed when to go, where to go, and how much time I could stay without repercussions.  I was also showed where I could go to play cards, smoke, sneak outside to my car, etc.  It was a ‘great’ training program!

Should someone who physically has to use the restroom ever feel like they can’t or they’ll use their job?  Absolutely, not.  Should employees who take advantage of ‘using’ the bathroom to get out of work? Yes.  But that is so hard to prove! So, what do you do?  In this case, leadership decided to limit access.  Will it work? Who knows, but it got the point across to the workforce that someone is watching.

 

 

The #1 Technical Recruiting Firm In The World

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I’m happy to announce that today that my company, HRU Technical Resources, is the #1 company in the world when it comes to Engineering and IT staffing!  Yay, me! Is that freaking awesome!!!  Wow, unbelievable, I’m so excited.  If you want to work with us, the #1 Technical Recruiting Firm in the World, just give me a call – 517-908-3156!

How’d we get that honor? Um, next question. We are #1!!!

Let’s face it, I’ve known for so long that my company is number one.  It’s pretty easy to see.  I have a rock star team of recruiters who get it at a level that far surpasses everyone else I’ve seen.  I have an Account Management and Biz Dev team that grinds every day, and my back office is full of chicks on mental steroids.  It’s always great when, not only are you recognized as number one, but when you truly deserve it as well.

My company has never gotten a position it couldn’t fill. True story.  Knows how to recruit socially and non-socially.  They literally breakdown walls in recruiting everyday.  I’m glad we decided to finally recognize ourselves for who we really are, the #1 Technical Recruiting Company in the World!

Have you really ever wondered how this stuff is measured?  Sometimes there are third party organizations that claim to be unbiased, but they only exist if those companies they are touting actually pay them some money to keep them in business.  Analyst really aren’t any different.  They do research, but at the end of the day, someone has to sponsor that research, or they can’t pay their bills.

I would say the only true measure of deciding who is better than whom would be if an organization is willing to work with you over your competition, but we know that is bogus.  Time and again I’ve run into companies who are working with #2 companies in our industry because they have a relationship, or they gave me tickets to see Katy Perry, or they drop off bagels the first Monday of every month.  This has nothing to do with who is better.

Sometimes it’s based on total revenue or number of hires, but that to doesn’t make you better, it just shows you’re bigger.  Our industry loves to use revenue as a key to success, then you’ll see staffing and RPO firms who are growing like weeds and losing money.  Is that success?  Well, yes, if you’re goal is to just buy market share.  I’m sorry but I can’t say a company is number one in anything if they’re losing money.

BusinessWeek had an article that helps straighten this all out:

“The organization in charge of policing this dispute and the several dozen like it in the U.S each year is the National Advertising Division. There are laws against publishing misleading advertisements, and in the early 1970s it seemed as if Ralph Nader-style consumer groups would result in more regulations. “There are ticking sounds that we hear in all the pressure groups, congressional hearings and other forums that are meeting to decide our fate,” said Victor Elting Jr., the chairman of the American Advertising Federation, at the time.

So the advertising industry founded the National Advertising Division in 1971. While various federal agencies and state attorneys general have authority to regulate misleading advertising, the division is the way for the industry to handle things before they get to that level. Cases often originate with one company complaining about a competitor’s sketchy claims. NAD holds hearings and asks fibbers to cut it out. While it has no enforcement power, it does have an agreement with the Federal Trade Commission that it will look at any case in which the violator doesn’t change its ways. That threat is usually enough to keep companies in line.”

So, now you know, the NAD will let us know who’s number one.

Until then, I’m still happy to announce we are #1!

The 1 Problem with Posting on LinkedIn

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LinkedIn made me internet famous for a day with my 11 Rules for Hugging at Work.  That one post got me a gig on Huffington Post, has gotten me speaking gigs and has gotten me clients at HRU.  My immediate reaction on the back channel to my close friends was “Holy Sh*t! This LinkedIn publishing thing is a game changer!”

Of course, my friends are smarter than me, and they said, slow down.  It’s great if you an “LI Influencer”, because they promote your posts out to millions of potential readers.  But, as they open the publishing ability out to everyone, let’s see what will happen.

I was in the first roll-out of 20,000.  Now everyone and anyone can’t publish on LinkedIn.  You know what?  My friends are smart.

I don’t know if you noticed, but the content stream on LI has turned into Twitter.  There is so much content, you can’t even begin to start to digest it, let alone find really good stuff.  That was my initial hope.  Oh boy, this is going to be great!  I will find all kinds of new and interesting voices! In reality, what has happened is I can’t find anyone, because there is so much crap that people write, I find myself unwilling and unable to put in the time to get through it.  So, I’ve given up.

I even have given up writing on LI’s platform, because I figure the same thing is happening to everyone else, that is happening to me.

The 1 Problem with posting on LinkedIn is that they’ve allowed too many people to post, to often.  It’s become spam.  It’s become to much to digest.  While their original concept of “Influencers” was great, the new concept of open access, I believe has blown up on them. More content does equal more clicks, I’m sure.  But, too much content just equals more garbage for their members to sift through.

There’s a great lesson here for leaders.  If you have something that works great and is getting great results, sometimes more of that one thing doesn’t equal better.  It equals worse.  As with most things in life, less is more.

Naked and Afraid HR

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Have you guys seen the TV show Naked and Afraid?  It’s brilliant!  It’s basically a survivalist show where they take a man and woman and put them in some godforsaken place, with one tool each (knife, fire starter, etc.) and no clothes. That’s right, just like the day they were born, they only get to wear their birthday suit!  21 straight days naked with a person you have just met the first time, in horrible conditions you wouldn’t want to be in clothed, let alone naked.

Initially, you go, there is no way I’m sitting down in the mud and sticks and bugs and letting them crawl up my…well, you get the picture. You actually don’t get the picture, because they blur out the actual naked parts, accept butts, you see a lot of butts in Naked and Afraid.  I’m not completely sure why or who decided butts were fine to look at on normal cable TV but no pencils or vajayjays, but I guess we have to have limits.

Naked and Afraid is a HR dream TV show!

HR and organizations constantly put people together and force them to interact.  Naked and Afraid is almost the same thing, accept we make our people wear clothes per your dress code policy.  What you find in Naked and Afraid is usually very sexiest to begin with.  The guys want to take on this role of protecting the female (and they over act like seeing this woman naked is having no impact on them, I’m sure their blooper real is awesome!).  The females they get are usually bad-ass outdoorsy types, so they can usually take care of themselves.  After about ten days of hardly any food and water, usually one of the parties breaks down mentally.

This is the point my wife likes to point out, that it’s usually the man who loses it mentally.  For what ever reason, under nourished the men tend to break down faster than the females. While the guys do a lot of the heavy lifting of building shelters, rafts, etc.  It’s usually the women who can get them right in the head, and get them to finish line before tapping out and giving up.  Like I said, HR folks will love this show!

What this shows does is strip away everything between male and female and put them a completely level playing field.  They aren’t in competition, in fact, those that do best usually show the best team work, and really dig into each strengths to make it through the 21 days.  Just one man and one woman with only their skills to get them to survive.  I wonder how much better our own organizations would be if we could strip away all the B.S. we deal with and let people stand on their own merits!?

Naked and afraid shows you that each person, male and female, has their own strengths needed to survive. While one might possess enough of all these strengths to do it on their own, usually they don’t.  Our organizations have gender issues.  These issues are rooted in hundred’s of years of male domination, and the ingrained belief strong leaders are primarily male. This show demonstrates this is truly false when all things are equal.

Having a bias is the new black.  Like saying you know you have biases somehow exalts you of this weakness.  It doesn’t. In HR we allow our leadership to have a gender bias, and we help perpetuate it by not forcing change.  Naked and Afraid points this bias out in a not so subtle way and you get to see butts!

The Search For The Smartest Employee

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Yo! I’m on vacation this week, don’t try and come rob my house, it’s a ‘staycation’!  I’m going to run some oldies but goodies so I can let my creative juices focus on Gin and Tonics. Here you go:

I couldn’t sleep the other night, probably because of the 14 Diet Dews I had throughout the day, but I had an Epiphany while staring at the ceiling in the dark.   I figured out a way for HR Pros to find the Smartest Employee in their Company!  It isn’t a complex algorithm or a set of cognitive assessment tests – it’s a simple matrix – but it’s very effective.  Now, you might be asking yourself:

 “Why do I need to find the smartest employee in our company?”

Which would be legitimate – unfortunately at 2 a.m. I didn’t ask myself that same question – I just thought I came up with some crazy Einstein type shit!  But, like most things I deal with, I can come up with a plausible argument to why it’s important to find the smartest people in your company.  My reasons:

1. Smart people have the potential to do smart things.  In an organization you want to make the right decisions – usually dumb people don’t.

2. Smart people usually know other smart people. In an organization you want to get rid of your dumb people, and hire more smart people.

3. Smart people know the fakers.  Organizations make people selection mistakes, it happens all the time, don’t be embarrassed, just don’t let one decision turn into another by keeping a mistake.  Smart people know your bad hiring mistakes, because they can read through the B.S.

Now for the Matrix!  Like I said it’s simple – which is also why it’s genious, because anyone can do it.  It goes a little something like this (hit it!) –

First Step: down one side of your matrix list your employees by level of responsibility. Most responsible at the top, down to the least responsible at the bottom.  Some of these you’ll just have to do the eyeball test on, and slot people as you see fit – don’t get to worked up over this – just get the most responsible up top, the least down low – the ones in the middle don’t matter anyway.

Second Step: Across the top of the matrix list total compensation of each person to the corresponding column.  For the most part you should end up with a sheet that shows the most responsible person in your organization, making the most money, and slowing but surely working your way down to the least responsible, least amount of money.

Third Step: The Smart Employee Search.  Here’s where the rubber hits the road!  Now, look at your matrix and find the highest paid employee, with the corresponding least amount of experience.  Boom! You just found your smartest employee.

I told you it was easy!  This person has figured out how to, relatively, make the most money by having virtually no responsibility.  Say what you want – but that is one smart person!  You need to pull that person in and find out how to get them more engaged into your daily operations.  Don’t take this as a joke – dumb people don’t figure this out – you just don’t fall into a highly paid, low or no responsibility job – you have to work to get there.  Don’t underestimate this person’s capabilities – because guess what – everyone else has!  That’s why your working your butt off until 6pm, and they’re out the door at 3pm going to their golf league – for about $4000 less than you make. They’re going home with no stress, while you’re on your 4th therapist – this year.   They love coming to work – you have a hard time pulling yourself out of bed.

I love these employees – I try to hang with them, learn from them – I feel like I’m an anthropologist learning about a forgotten species – they intrigue me so.  A word of caution though – don’t try and capture and change these employees – don’t try and be “smarter” than they are – and change their job or their scope or their pay.  Remember, they’re smarter than you – you’ll just frustrate yourself as they find another position – doing even less for more!

5 Steps To HR Success

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Yo! I’m on vacation this week, don’t try and come rob my house, it’s a ‘staycation’!  I’m going to run some oldies but goodies so I can let my creative juices focus on Gin and Tonics. Here you go:

I was reminded last night that success doesn’t just come to you, and it might not necessarily be about hard work and attitude – like your Dad would always say.  To often we (the collective lot of us!) want to believe success is like the lotto – at least to often we hope to get success that way – one day you don’t have success, then the next day success somehow miraculously finds you!

Sorry. Doesn’t usually work that way.

But one thing we over look is how important success is to finding success.  Here’s what I mean:

Directions for Being Successful –

Step 1: Find a little success

Step 2: Find another little success

Step 3: Find another little success

Step 4: Repeat steps 2 and 3 each day

Step 5: You are successful

I know, directions are hard to follow for some people, so let me give you an example.  You feel like a failure at everything – job is going well (or you don’t have one), relationships suck, you’re a little soft around the middle (i.e., fat) – basically you feel like a failure, nothing is going in the right direction.  Guess what? When you wake up tomorrow you won’t magically be successful – no matter how hard you wish it, pray it, want it.  You have to find some sort of success, no matter how small.  Maybe that success is eating one less Twinkie than you did the day before – yesterday I ate 8 Twinkies – today I only ate 7!  Don’t let someone tell you that’s not a success, because tomorrow I’m only going to eat 6 and before you know it I’m going to kick this Twinkie habit!

I works with everything.  Not recruiting enough candidates for your organization, can’t get anyone to pick up the phone and talk to you – today make one more call than you did yesterday – only 1 – that is a success, because tomorrow you’re going to do that again, 1 more than the day before – small success steps until you’re just one big giant bag full of success!

People who are successful and throw it in your face suck!  They suck because they act like they’ve always been successful, but they haven’t.  It came to them a little at a time, until they could no longer feel what failure felt like.  You see success is like a drug – you need a little to want another hit, it’s addictive.  That’s why you need to feed your mind a little everyday – we can all find those little successes each day – the key is to find them every single day – don’t miss.

Nursing Moms Seen As Less Competent

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Yo! I’m on vacation this week, don’t try and come rob my house, it’s a ‘staycation’!  I’m going to run some oldies but goodies so I can let my creative juices focus on Gin and Tonics. Here you go:

Have something to admit.  I’m a bit of an expert in regards to Nursing Mothers.  “Really”, you say.  Let me explain.  I’m in a fairly small office, 20 or so employees on a daily basis – about 70% female.  The interesting part is that in the last few years, I don’t think we’ve gone a day when we haven’t had a nursing mother on our staff.  The women keep telling me it’s something in the water – I keep yelling at our water softener rep – and yet it hasn’t changed.  That being said – I was somewhat shocked when I read a report out of the Wall Street Journal titled “Nursing Moms Seen as Less Competent” in which spoke of a new study claiming people perceived nursing mothers as lower performers than their peer group. From WSJ:

In one of several experiments testing attitudes toward breastfeeding, 60 students were told they’d be forming general impressions of other people, based on a brief meeting and reading of a short profile. Each met a woman whose profile described her as a married  transfer student and psychology major. During the course of the experiment, this woman—actually a confederate of the researchers— checked her voicemail and played out loud a friendly message that varied in one way: It expressed understanding that the woman wanted to push back a social event because she had to go home to 1) breastfeed her baby; 2) give a baby a bath (emphasizing her motherhood but not breastfeeding) ; 3) change into a strapless bra (emphasizing the sexuality of the breasts); or for an unexplained reason.

The students rate the “breastfeeding” woman lowest of the four on overall competence, workplace capabilities, math ability – and also whether they’d hire her, if they were in a position to do so.

So, what does this tell us?  Clearly that those 60 students at Montana State University are idiots – but beyond that – probably someone who has no concept of breastfeeding probably shouldn’t be taking a perception survey on cognitive competence based on whether someone breastfeeds or not!   From my in-depth experience with breastfeeding here’s what I know:

  • The women who were/are nursing mothers who have worked with me – work their butts off and usually have to endure uncomfortable, at best, and embarrassing conversation with idiot male co-workers when trying to do what is best for their child, and still be productive and professional.
  • Work as hard or harder than their co-workers, because they know they are taking extra time out of their work schedule to take care of their lactation duties, and don’t want to be seen as not pulling their weight.
  • Are usually more on task with their work, because they value their personal and professional life balance more than most workers, who don’t have the same life challenges of working and raising a family.

And NO those breastfeeding Moms I work with in no way made me write this post!  (how’s that gals?)

 

Tiger Woods Returning To Work

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Most folks probably didn’t notice, but this week PGA golfer, Tiger Woods returned to the tour after a lengthy absence due to an injury to his back.  People either love or hate Tiger Woods.  I love him.  Yeah, yeah, I know what he did, I don’t like that at all.  I love watching the greatest athletes of my generation perform, and he’s one of those.  I can separate his personal life from his professional life, and appreciate the skill it takes to perform at the highest level.

In HR we have people go out on leave all the time.  Traditional HR thought is when an employee is out on leave (FMLA) you shouldn’t talk to them, communicate with them (unless to just get updates regarding the leave), practically not even acknowledge they’re alive!  I’ve seen HR pros tell their hiring managers to have absolutely no contact with an employee who is out on leave, if they contact you, have them contact us in HR.  I think this is crazy!  We miss great opportunities to build loyalty with our employees, and opportunities for our leadership to be empathetic.

Some of this has to do with why a person went out on leave, and HR’s belief that an employee might be gaming the system to try and get something more than just time off needed for whatever problems we have.  We add into it this belief that we have to treat everyone the same, and medical leave’s of absence become a nightmare for employees.

Our reality is, most employees just want to get better and return to work as soon as possible.  Another reality is that most HR Pros don’t actually believe this.  This is where the conflict comes in, and we begin to make it very difficult for our employees to be off.  I never believe in the theory we should treat everyone the same.  You will have some employees in your HR career who don’t want to work, and want to find some way for your company to pay them to sit at home.  That’s real life. But we can’t start believing that is everyone of our employees, it’s not!

HR should encourage hiring managers to keep frequent contact with employees out on leave.  Let them know we care about them, we miss them, we can’t wait to have them back.  This type of communication will allow you to plan for their return, keep them engaged with your organization and the rest of their coworkers.   HR needs to firmly believe our employees are innocent until proven guilty when out on leave. To believe each and everyone of our coworkers can’t wait to get healthy and return to work, because that is actual reality.

It’s tough, I know, I’ve been there as well, and gotten taken advantage of.  But our employees deserve better from us.  They deserve empathy and compassion. They deserve the same thing you would want if you had to go out on leave.