Category Archives: Employment Brand

HR! Inclusion doesn’t equal you.

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Many of you probably missed what happened to one of your HR peers recently.  This HR peer was fired, and it was upheld in courts, for using their First Amendment Rights. This was a senior level HR executive at a public university.  Here’s the article: Federal appeals court upholds termination of anti-gay human resources administrator.  From reading the title, what is the picture that immediately came to your mind?  If you didn’t say over 60, white male – you’re a liar!  The administrator is Crystal Dixon, and she’s a black female. Here’s what she did:

“A federal appeals court on Monday upheld the University of Toledo’s decision to fire a high-level human resources administrator, who wrote a newspaper opinion column challenging the idea that LGBT people deserve the same civil rights protections as members of racial minority groups. 

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit Court ruled that Crystal Dixon’s column “contradicted the very policies she was charged with creating, promoting, and enforcing, and cannot be excused as merely a statement of her own views as a private citizen.”

The court upheld a lower court’s decision to dismiss the lawsuit.

Dixon, who had been the University’s interim Associate Vice President for Human Resources, wrote the essay published in the Toledo Free Press in April 2008 in which she took aim at LGBT people.

Dixon wrote that she was greatly offended that “those person who choose the homosexual lifestyle are ‘civil rights victims.'” adding that she “cannot wake up tomorrow and not be a black woman” because she is biologically and genetically such “as my creator intended.”

I’m not here to challenge Crystal’s views on the “homosexual lifestyle” – she clearly believes something, and it’s her God given right to believe what she wants.  I don’t agree with her – I think her thought process is ignorant and callous at best.

I’m here to challenge her being fired.

You see Inclusion works really well when you’re liberal, and you have your liberal ideas, and others have to listen to your ideas because we/organizations need to be “inclusive”.  But have a differing idea, a way more conservative idea, and somehow “being inclusive” doesn’t work for you.  I think Crystal’s ideas about the LGBT community are completely ridiculous.  But, if I’m, truly, being inclusive as an organization – I don’t fire her.  I work to help her become more educated and understanding of all people in our organization.  “But Tim! She’s in a senior level HR position – she should be the one that understands this!”  But she doesn’t.

Inclusion in 90% of organizations is broken.  It’s broken because those who ‘support’ inclusion – are the same folks who don’t allow inclusive thought to be a part of your organization.  We support the gay young male who wants to hang up a poster advertising the gay pride parade this weekend, but we chastise the old white man who wants to advertise his gun show this weekend.  That’s not inclusion, that’s bigotry in the opposite direction.  Neither one of those things is wrong, or right – it’s just two different ways of thinking.

Crystal was fired for: “contradicted the very policies she was charged with creating, promoting, and enforcing, and cannot be excused as merely a statement of her own views as a private citizen.”  The Diversity and Inclusion policy she was in charge of creating I assume meant she had to think the exact same way as everyone else in her organization. Is that what “Inclusion” means to you?

Want something better than InMail?

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Facebook announced it’s testing a new product last week.  What’s the product?  A version of paid messages within Facebook.  Think LinkedIn’s Inmail, but for Facebook and an additional 800,000,000 users and potential candidates! From the article:

“Today we’re starting a small experiment to test the usefulness of economic signals to determine relevance. This test will give a small number of people the option to pay to have a message routed to the Inbox rather than the Other folder of a recipient that they are not connected with.

Several commentators and researchers have noted that imposing a financial cost on the sender may be the most effective way to discourage unwanted messages and facilitate delivery of messages that are relevant and useful.

This test is designed to address situations where neither social nor algorithmic signals are sufficient. For example, if you want to send a message to someone you heard speak at an event but are not friends with, or if you want to message someone about a job opportunity, you can use this feature to reach their Inbox. For the receiver, this test allows them to hear from people who have an important message to send them.”

Oh, please, if there is a Facebook God, please pick me for this test!!!  You see, I’m a believer.  I fully believe Facebook is going to change the way we recruit talent in the future.  The way we network to find referrals, etc.  I’m also a believer that companies will pay Billion$ of dollars to have this ability.  I also, fully, believe that the majority of recruiting professionals out there will understand how to use this function appropriately.  Plus, having a financial consequence will ensure this won’t become spam central.

Let me give you an example.  I have a client right now looking for 2 Human Factors Engineers.  They are hard to find because individuals in these roles have fully employed and get multiple contacts per week with offers.  We’ve had success finding good ones – but eventually even the best networks start to dry up.  Facebook has an additional 500+, self identified HF engineers that I can find through friend search – but that I’m not connected to.  I can try to connect through a request, but they’ll say they don’t me – and Facebook will slap my hands and warn they are going to kick me off the network.  If Facebook said to me – Hey, Tim, for $1 per message, we’ll allow you to send a message to all 500 HF Engineers – I would sign that check right now – twice!   And these are just the ‘self-identified’ folks – Facebook has thousands more who have identified but not made it public.  I’ll pay for those as well! So will most companies.

Think this isn’t going to happen, eventually?  You’re wrong – this is a multi-billion dollar opportunity – every year.  You know what else?  It won’t have any impact to your Facebook experience.  While it sounds like a Spam nightmare – it won’t be.  First, these are directed ads for specific people, not everyone. So, Charlie working the friers at McDonald’s, calm down, I’m not sending you any messages.  Second, they cost money – so companies aren’t going to be sending millions of these messages – they can’t afford. This isn’t a shotgun strategy, this is a sniper rifle strategy.

Facebook – call me. We need to talk!

The Secret to Happy Work

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We’ve all been sold a really harmful lie, by a lot of people.  That lie is:  To be truly happy at work, you must do what you love (or some variation of the same theme). It’s complete garbage that is usually told to you by – an ultra-rich people who can do anything they want, someone who really doesn’t have to earn a living because they have a spouse earning a living for them or someone who just flat out got lucky, right place-right time and does something they actually love.  I know, I know – “Tim, you create your own luck!” – said by the same idiot who’s wife is a brain surgeon and allows her deadbeat husband to be a “writer” at home.

Still most of us define our happiness like this:

Step 1 – Work really super hard.

Step 2 – Really super hard work will make you successful.

Step 3 – Being successful will make me happy.

I hate to break this to you – being successful will not make you happy.  It will allow you to buy a lot of stuff, you’ll probably have less money arguments and you might even feel good about your success, but if you’re not happy before all of that, there is a really good chance you won’t be happy after to gain success.

Let’s start with this concept:

Work Success ≠ Happiness

Have you ever met someone working a dead-end job, a just-not-going-anywhere type of job, but they are completely joyous?  I have.  I envy those people.  They do not define their happiness in life by the level of success they’ve obtained in their career. Their happiness is defined by a number of other things: are their basic needs met, do they enjoy the people they surround themselves with, do they have a positive outlook on life, etc.  These individuals do not allow the external world to impact their happiness.  Their happiness is derived from within.

In HR I’ve been forced to learn this, because I’ve had people try and sell me on that Engagement =’s Happiness – which is also a lie.  I’ve had incredibly engaged workers who are very unhappy people and very happy people who were not engaged.  I’ve found over time, I can do almost nothing to “make” someone be happier.  I’m an external factor to their life.  Don’t get me wrong – as a leader I can give praise and recognition, I can give merit and bonuses, etc. While that might have a short-term impact to ones happiness, it’s not truly lasting happiness that comes from within.

So, how can you help someone find their happiness?  I think we have to start realizing that you don’t have to ‘work’ at something you love, to have happiness at work.  Putting work into perspective of life is key. I like what I do a whole bunch – hell, I blog about it! But if I really thought about it, I don’t ‘love’ it.  I love my family.  I love floating on a lake on a warm summer day.  I love listening to my sons laugh in pure joy.  I find my happiness in many ways – only part of which I gain through my career. My secret to happy work is finding happiness in a number of aspects in my life.  That way if I’m having a bad day at work, or a bad day at home, I still have pockets of happiness I can adjust my focus to.

What is your secret to being happy at work?

Right-To-Work or Wrong-To-Work

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I have to say it’s been fun to have a front row seat in the Right-To-Work debate that raged on in Michigan this past week!  Even President Obama made an appearance in Michigan and was probably the only one to put this debate into it’s proper context – he said Right-To-Work legislation is not about economics, it’s about politics – and for once in his life he was right.  Unfortunately, he then spewed a bunch of union propaganda numbers and made it even more political – but hey, he’s a politician.  I have a bunch of thoughts on this that don’t really make one coherent post, so I’m just going to share those thoughts and we can take it from there:

– Unions are dying a slow death. 17% of Michigan’s workforce, 7% of the national workforce.  What does this say? It says companies get it more today than ever.  You have to treat your employees well and you have to compete for talent.  If you don’t get this – you won’t be a competitive company for long, because the best and brightest won’t work for you.

– Unions in Right-To-Work states, and really nationally, need to get back to getting their membership to understand their ‘true’ value.  In HR we have to do this constantly in our organizations.  Unions have forgotten this for decades!  They just kept collecting their monthly dues and assumed their membership got it!  They don’t.

– Somebody explain to me how it’s a bad thing for an employee to have the choice of not paying union dues, if they don’t think their union is giving them value.  I pay a stock broker to give me stock tips – I find value in his opinion, I pay for it.  If I found value in the service a union was giving me, I’d pay for it.  I spoke to 3 long term teachers who are members of the MEA this week – all 3 said they would not pay dues if given the option. All 3 said, and I quote: “My union does nothing for me.”

– Unions believe ‘branding’ = scaring their membership into believing they can’t live without them.

– Michigan citizens voted for a Republican governor, a Republican Senate and Republican House.  Those 3 functions voted exactly the way they were suppose to, by the citizens who voted them in.  There is nothing shocking about his at all.  If Michigan’s citizens didn’t want Right-To-Work legislation, and similar types of legislation, they would have voted differently. But they didn’t.  If you lived in Michigan during the recession you would probably understand why – it sucks to lead the nation in unemployment.

I’m an HR Pro, so in my career I’ve been on the opposite side of the table from unions -I’m management.  I don’t have a positive view of unions because I believe they don’t make my workforce better they make it weaker.  Everyone in a union is treated the same, which just pushes everyone to the middle. High performers have no reason to be high performers when they are treated the same as the weakest performer.  I’ve seen this and have dealt with it professionally.  Unions telling me I have to treat these two groups the same.  This does not create high performance, it creates worse performance. This is what I know.

Everyone needs a wake up call.  I think Michigan enacting Right-To-Work legislation is a wake up call to Unions to reinvent themselves.  To start to really think, “how do we show our membership we are adding value to their lives.”  It can’t just be about ‘protecting’ jobs.  They’ve protected jobs right out of this state. It has to be about creating opportunities for their membership – that is a 180 degree difference in philosophy from where they are at.  They need to find a way that employers are begging for their membership to come and work in their companies, because their membership is so highly performing and skilled.  Right now employers are running away from unions because the value equation of skills and dollars don’t match up.

How Not To Hire A D1 Football Coach in the BigTen

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For those College Football fans, last week was a bit crazy on the college football coaching carousel!  The one that really caught my eye was Bret Bielema, the University of Wisconsin coach, leaving to go to the University of Arkansas in the SEC.  First off, I hate the University of Wisconsin. Second off, I hate Bret Bielema.  Being a Michigan State University fan/donor – the University of Wisconsin has been a rather large pain in our backside the past few years!  So, it’s with respect (and hatred) that I bid the rather large jackass, Bret Bielema, adieu.   Here’s what is really great about this whole thing, though – the head coaching job at the University of Wisconsin (like most state colleges) is a state job – and with most ‘government’ jobs they have processes they need to follow when hiring. No. Matter. What.

Here’s the posting – from the University of Wisconsin career site! It’s awesomely bad HR!

Want the job?  Here’s what UW is looking for in their next coach:

– Bachelor’s degree required (I mean this isn’t Arkansas!)

– Minimum of 5 years of successful collegiate football coaching experience, preferred. (way to shoot for the moon!)

– Other qualifications include the ability to work cooperatively with diverse groups and administrators, faculty, staff and students. The successful applicant must be able develop and implement innovative approaches and solutions; work well independently and in teams; and be flexible in accepting new responsibilities. (Um, what!?)

– Anticipated start date: December 24, 2012 (Merry F’ing Christmas we need recruits – start calling!)

I really would love to sit down with the President and Athletic Director of the University of Wisconsin and find out if they ‘truly’ feel this is the job requirements for their Head Football Coach at UW! And, oh brother this is a BIG and, is this current ‘recruiting’ process meeting their needs!!!  I can only assume I already know this answer.

Want to apply:

Unless another application procedure has been specified above, please send resume and cover letter referring to Position Vacancy Listing #75429 to:

Holly Weber
1440 Monroe St.
Kellner Hall
Madison, WI

I’m sure Holly is a solid Talent Acquisition Pro and will do a proper job screening you before you meet with the Athletic Director.

Is it just me, or do you feel they might end up using a head hunting firm on this hire?!  To me, this is the exact reason HR/Recruiting get zero respect.  This job should not be posted on the career site next to the janitor opening. This hire will have millions of dollar impact to the funding of this school – stop treating it like it’s like every other hire – it’s not – and it makes you look like you have no idea what you’re doing.

It’s hard, but it’s fair

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I heard this quote recently, it was used by an old football coach to his players:

“It’s hard, but it’s fair.”

He wasn’t the first to use this and probably won’t be the last – but the line stuck with me because of how I don’t think many people in today’s age really think this way.  Many want to talk about what’s fair, few want to discuss the ‘hard’ part.  The football coach’s son described the meaning of what he feels the phrase means:

“It’s about sacrifice,” Toler Jr. said of the quote. “It means that that if you work hard that when it’s all said and done at the end of the day, it will be fair based on your body of work. It’s about putting in the time, making sure that you’re ready for the opportunity.”

I think we all think our parents are hard on us growing up.  I recall stories I tell to my own sons of my Dad waking me up on a Saturday morning at 7am, after I was out to late the night before, and ‘making’ me help him with something, like chopping wood or cleaning the garage out.  He didn’t really need my help, he was trying to teach me a lesson about choices.  If I chose to stay out late at night, it was going to suck getting up early to go to school.  He shared with me stories of his father doing the same thing – one night my Dad had gotten home late, so late, he didn’t even go to bed, just started a pot of coffee and waited for my grandfather to get up, figuring that was easier than getting a couple of hours of sleep and then hearing it from my grandfather the rest of the day.

As a HR Pro, we see this every day in our workforce.  There are some who work their tails off, not outwardly expecting anything additional, they’re just hard workers.  Others will put in the minimum, then expect a cookie. It’s a tough life lesson for those folks.  Most usually end up leaving your organization, believing they were treated unfairly, so they’ll go bounce around a few more times.  Eventually they’ll learn to put in the work, put in the time and more times than not, things work out pretty well.  Sometimes it won’t – so you go back to work even harder.  It’s been very rare in my 20 year HR career that I’ve truly seen a really hard worker get screwed over – very rare!  Do some idiots who don’t deserve a promotion or raise sometimes get it – yep, they sure do – but that doesn’t happen as much as you think.  The hard workers tend to get the better end of the deal almost always.

I hope I can teach my sons this lesson:  Life is going to be hard, but if you keep at it and put in the work, it’s going to be fair.  I think that is all we can really hope for.

How Much Money Do You Budget To Protect Your CEO?

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Did you know that the Secret Service of the United States budgeted $113,000,000 in 2012 to protect the two Presidential candidates during the election?  From Slate:

“The Secret Service is authorized by law to protect major party presidential candidates beginning 120 days before the general election, but the statute doesn’t say when that protection should cease. It appears that the service makes this decision on case-by-case basis. Historically, agents have stuck with a defeated challenger for about a week after the election, not waiting for the Electoral College vote or inauguration. If the incumbent loses, he is entitled to protection for 10 years as a former president. (Presidents who served before 1997 are guarded for life.)

The Secret Service is limited in its mandate in part because the protection it provides is so expensive. By some estimates, it costs the government around $40,000 per day to ensure the safety of a presidential candidate, and the Secret Service budgeted $113 million to protect candidates in 2012. The expense became an issue earlier this year when Newt Gingrich continued to travel with a Secret Service detail long after he stopped actively campaigning. Candidates are entitled to decline protection. Deficit hawk Ron Paul has refused a Secret Service detail.”

I love the fact that Mitt Romney was so important we would spend $113M to protect him, until he loses, then he get’s dropped after a week!  2nd Place is clearly the first loser!   Can see Mitt now zigzagging through the parking lot at Starbucks so no one gets off a clean shot, and people looking at him like he’s lost his mind!?  Oh, poor Mitt, losing the election made him crazy…

 

I’ve seen a ton of Corporate HR budgets in my day, but I’ve yet to work for a company that budgeted money for CEO or Executive team protection.  I’ve seen budget money for personal air travel, country club memberships, spa memberships, clothes shopping allowances, you name it – but never personal protection – body guard type stuff.  I’m sure there are many CEO’s and Executives that do have this budget money set aside for them, I just haven’t seen it – and you don’t see it publicized very often – I assume because employees and share holders would lose their minds if they saw the cost!

 

The security I love most, when it comes to securing our executives, is the locked executive offices and private bathrooms!  When I worked for Applebee’s you couldn’t just walk up to the President’s office and say “Hi” – he was behind locked doors – probably keeping the secrets to serving beer and burgers safe.  And god knows we don’t want any of our employees knowing that our executives use the toilet!  I mean, please, if I found out my executive team actually went to the bathroom, I would lose all respect for them!

 

I’m just noodling here but don’t you think the political parties of each candidate should cover this cost – not the U.S. tax payers?  I definitely like Ron Paul much more now – can we re-vote?!  That’s what I want to see in 2016 – a Presidential election with no secret service!  I’m sure there would probably be less lying going on.

 

So – do you have money in your HR budget to protect your CEO?

 

 

Um, I didn’t take this job to do work…

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I took this job because you guys have a rocking careers website…

I took this job because of your awesome culture…

I took this job because you your employees wear whatever they want…

I took this job because you serve unlimited gourmet coffee, all day…

I took this job because you give unlimited time off…

I took this job because you offered me more than anyone else…

I took this job because you have the coolest office with a ping pong table…

I took this job because you take your staff to Vegas each year…

I took this job because I don’t have to pay anything for my benefits…

I took this job because you buy beer and pizza on Thursday’s after work…

I took this job because you allow me to bring my dog with me…

I took this job because there are no start or end times…

I took this job because of the free dry cleaning service…

I took this job because everyone is on the same level…

I took this job because, oh wait, you have to do work here…

When is Gutting Payroll the Right Thing?

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HR-Sports Post Alert!

Many of you probably cared less about the recent trade between Major League Baseball’s Miami Marlins and Toronto Blue Jays (check out the details here) – suffice to say the Marlins were able to decrease their annual payroll from $188M to around $35M in one giant trade!  Classic rebuilding type of move, right?  People/fans are saying the Marlins shouldn’t do this to their fans and they gave up on some great talent.  Let’s take a look back at recent Florida/Miami Marlins history:

1997 – Won the World Series (payroll at $47.8M)

By 1999 – they gutted their roster of high priced talent for younger up and coming talent (payroll at $15.2M)

2003 – Won the World Series (Payroll at $76.9M)

By 2006 – they gutted their roster again (payroll at $15M)

The difference the Marlins and large market teams like the Yankees and Red Sox is that the Marlins can’t make giant financial talent mistakes without something major happening in the next year or two.  They took some gambles over the past couple of years trying to assemble a world series capable team (they’ve done this before – twice!) and it didn’t work out.  So, change needed to happen – rebuilding needed to begin.  Any fan of the Marlins could have predicted this.

So – what does this have to do with HR – or my company?

There is some huge wisdom in how the Marlins manage their talent finances that we can all learn from.  Let’s make no mistake about this – this is not Moneyball, in fact he might be the opposite of what Billy Beane had envisioned.  But, many would argue that the Marlins version, had worked out better, certainly from a results standpoint.  My question is – could this type of talent financing work in a corporate setting, or in your company?

Think about it that for a minute.

How could you make this happen?  I tend to think about it in terms of your high priced – A talent – not necessarily your executives.  What if your company was looking to drive and increase in market share in your industry.  Your main competitor currently had 50% of the market, while you only had 25%, with the other 25% spread amongst competitors 3-10.  Your goal was to grow your market share to 35% in 3 years – a large task for most companies in most industries.  Conventional corporate wisdom would work this way – Step 1 – we hire away one of competitor 1’s executives to tell how they did it; Step 2 – The new executive brings over as many people as he can get, usually starting with a solid player from competitor 1’s marketing department; Step 3 – you re-brand and spend a crap ton of money; Step 4 – 3 years later you’re at 28% market share with less margins. Ouch.

If the Marlins management ran your company here is what they would do:

Step 1 – Go hire the top sales person from your main competitors – all of your competitors and pay them double what they are making.

Step 2 – Go directly after every single account the competitors have with the inside knowledge you just gained in your sales staff.

Step 3 – Build their market share to 40% within 24 months

Step 4 – Systematically let go of all of their high priced sales people – losing about 5% of their market share.

Step 5 – At 3 year mark be at their 35% market share with roughly the same payroll as they had 3 years prior.

I mean it could happen that way!

We/HR/Management tend to believe we have to keep our people on forever – even after they stop being rock stars, but are still getting paid like rock stars.  The Marlins have said, ‘look this is a dual benefit play – we get our championships and the players gets a giant check, then we both move on’.  It’s not “traditional” so everyone tends to think its wrong.  I don’t know if it’s right, but I’m sure their are some Chicago Cub fans that would take 2 World Series championships in the last 15 years!

Give Your Employees Permission

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It’s pretty widely accepted that referral hires are the best hires that most companies make.  Pretty easy math equation on why :

Good Employee + wanting to stay a good employee + employee’s reputation = usually good people they recommend to HR/Recruiting to go after and hire

I’m like Einstein when it comes to HR math!

But, there is one piece to the equation that most all companies struggle with.  We don’t get enough of these referrals!

So, we look at our referral process. Then we go out and look at our collateral material associated with our referral program. Then we look at using technology to automate our referral program. Then we look at the numbers again – and again – we still don’t have enough of these hires…

There is still one thing we keep forgetting to do – it’s simple – which is probably why we “assume” we don’t need to do it.  We/You need to give your employees permission to do share this with their personal and professional networks – each and every time you want a referral for a certain position.

You know what we do really well in HR?  Roll-outs! We do!  We can roll-out the shit of just about any program you can think of.  We love roll-outs. We live for roll-outs! You know what we do really bad in HR?  Continuing programs after we roll them out!  The truth sucks because it’s true.

How can you get more referrals?

1.  Have a program (don’t laugh, too many still don’t)

2. When you want a referral – ask for it – each and every time.  (We tend to roll out the referral program and assume each time we post a position our employees will just naturally share it with potential referrals – they don’t)

3.  When asking for a referral specifically “Give Permission” to your employees to share this with their Facebook friends, their LinkedIn Professional network and their Tweeps. (Specifically)

BEST PRACTICE ALERT: Create email groups by department, when you get an opening for that department send an email to the group with your standard referral “permission” language – plus one other item – an easy cut and paste hyperlink that they can post or send to their networks with specific instructions on where to paste/send it to.

Giving someone “permission” to do something strikes a trigger in their mind to actually do it – it has something to do with psychology or something, I don’t know I’m an HR pro, but suffice to say it works!  Think about it, like you were a 5 year old.  Your parents tell you, you can’t ride your Green Machine in the street.  Then, one day, Mom is out getting her nails done and your Dad sees you doing circles in the driveway on that Green Machine and he goes “Hey, why don’t you take that into the street?!”  What do you do?  You immediately take that bad boy for a ride in the street! Dad “gave you permission” and you ran with it!

Referrals might be a “little” different but I’ve actually had conversation with employees who’ve said “Oh! It’s OK if I send this to my friends and family?”  Like our posting was sort of corporate secret or something!  We shouldn’t assume.  You’ll be surprised.

Now – go give your employees permission to get you some referrals!