Category Archives: Holidays

Happy Thanksgiving, HR and TA Friends!

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I’m super thankful for 2016. I have to say in 2016 I honestly believe I’ve met more HR and TA leaders and pros in this year than any other single year in my professional career!

I’m constantly told, by well-meaning folks, when I go to a new place something like, “Well, Tim, the people here are great, but from an HR (or TA) perspective, we’re probably 3-5 years behind!” Almost every single place I go! Big city, tiny country town, foreign countries, big company, small company, startups. Everyone says the same thing!

What I find is really two things:

  1. You think you’re way more behind than you actually are.
  2. Those who are actually behind, really don’t care or have given up on their profession and/or their organizations.

Those who really care about HR and TA are rarely ever behind. They might not have the same resources as other companies, but their thought processes on what is great HR and TA is spot on. Also, I rarely find HR or TA professionals or leaders who truly feel they’re on the cutting edge of innovative HR and TA practices.

The fact is, those who are on the cutting edge of HR and TA are less than 1%. If you go to HR and TA conferences you probably get to hear from these folks, and that makes you feel behind, but 99.9% of those sitting with you in the audience are right where you are! Also, just because someone is from a big, popular company, don’t think they know about HR or TA than you do!

Most of the truly great HR and TA leaders I meet aren’t from giant brands. They’re from medium to smaller organizations and they’ve had to hustle to get their shops in order, they’ve had to be innovative to compete, and they’re much more willing to push the envelope of technology to move their organizations forward.

So, today I’m giving thanks. I thankful for all the new friendships I’ve created over this past year. I’m thankful for all the old friends who call me out on my bullshit. I’m thankful for having this community of people who care so damn much about their organizations and their people. It’s uplifting to work in this world every day.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Ultimate Gift Guide for Boss’s Day! #MakeBossesGreatAgain

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Does anyone really celebrate National Boss’s Day?  It seems like something made up by some drunk employees one night and then the next day they realized it went too far!

What’s next National “White Man’s” Day? Oh wait, my black friends, women friends, Native American friends, Hillary, etc. say that’s every day! Or was that last week for Columbus Day? I get confused, they keep changing what we can and can’t celebrate.

I have to say I’ve been a ‘boss’ for (well, let’s face it I was born a ‘boss’!) twenty-some years and the only Boss’s Day gift I’ve ever gotten was being taken out to lunch back in the 90’s! Ever since then I was told it was a bad thing to be a boss. I needed to be a leader and leaders don’t get gifts, we give gifts!

I can’t enjoy being white. I can’t enjoy being male. I can’t enjoy being a boss. The struggle is real!

So, since I can’t enjoy Boss’s Day I decided to develop a list of gifts I would like to receive on Boss’s Day is we lived in let’s say Trump’s America! I’m sure part of his political platform is to Make Bosses Great Again!

The Ultimate Boss Gift Guide for Bosses Day:

– Free Back Massage Coupons! Can you imagine anything more magical than giving your well-respected boss a nice good old fashioned in office back rub! Yeah, I thought so!

– Liquor! Hey, this boss in-office bar doesn’t stock itself! Top shelf don’t try and drop off anything you’d find on the rail, no boss wants second tier liquor!

– A nice tie! Just kidding, you should be fired if you give your boss a tie on Boss’s Day! Unless that tie comes with an invitation to tie you up! Now we’re talking boss language!

– Signed copy of “Mean Business” by Chainsaw Al Dunlap!  You kids might have to look up the career of Chainsaw Al, it’s brilliant and inspiring for real bosses. Every boss loves a good bookshelf filled with books they haven’t read but one that scares the hell out of any employee who sees the titles!

– Your Employee of the Month parking spot! Just kidding, again! Ha! Suckers, I park in covered parking or the driver drops me off up front. Keep your Row 1 parking spot, your 2007 Honda Civic looks really nice there.

Boss’s Day! It seems like it only comes around once a year. I’m not quite sure how that happened, you would think bosses would have made it monthly!?

So, remember today isn’t about you, it’s about your Boss! Make them feel special. Treat them with respect. Kiss the ring.

The Most Average Place on Earth

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I was on Spring Break last week and I took my wife and two youngest sons to California. First, let me say, SoCal was pretty great! 70’s and Sunny, like 8 days in a row. I don’t think I’ve seen 70s and sunny for eight straight days in Michigan, ever! We stayed in Hermosa Beach. It was awesome. Perfect California vibe.

We also did a day at Disneyland and California Adventure.

I would say I’m a casual fan of Disney. I’m not a crazy Disney person, you know who you are. My sons are 19, 17 and 12. We haven’t been to Disney in about ten years. The last time we went was to Orlando and Disney World. We had a great experience.

This experience was fine.  Do you think Disney would like as a review? “Yeah, it was fine. It cost about $1000 for one day for a family of four and it seemed pretty fine…”

Fine.

The weather was great. Disney didn’t provide that. That was California and Delta Airlines.

It started off with me entering the Disney parking garage and paying $10. $10 to park? I’m about to pay $169 per person for one-day hopper passes and Disney feels like I should also pay $10. I would have rather paid $179 for each ticket ($40 towards parking), and not have paid anything for parking!  It’s the principle of it. You’re killing me to enter the park, at least, let me park for free.

The reason we go to Disney is because it’s supposed to Magical! That magic includes how you are treated, the cleanliness of the parks, how helpful the workers are, etc. You leave going, “Holy crap! Now that is customer service!” I left saying, “It was fine.”

The cost of stuff at Disney isn’t an issue for me. If you go to Disney you have to know you’re giving up a year of college for your kids. It’s a trade off so many families make on an annual basis. It just is what it is. For that huge cost, I do expect to the ‘classic’ Disney customer service.

I’ll give you some examples of things I was part of that showed me Disney has dropped off considerably:

  1. When you go on a ride at Disney those workers who are manning the ride are really into it, or at least, they should be. The workers at Disneyland were similar to the workers of any theme park I’ve been to in the last ten years. For that matter, they were similar to any fast-food workers I’ve come into contact with. I’m here. I’m getting paid to do this job. Next.
  2. Part of going to Disney is waiting in line. You have a lot of time to watch what’s going on. The details are what used to make Disney great. We were going on the Buzz Lightyear ride and the line was going out into the walkway. Disney likes to keep people in the line maze, so the guy in charge of Buzz Lightyear stopped to passing Disney workers from another ride to ask for help in extending his line. Both looked at him like, how dare you ask us! The one even said, “this isn’t my ride, I don’t know how to do that.” He was good, knowing he had guests watching, he said, “if you just watch my post for ten seconds I’ll take care of it.” She agreed and he ran and took care of it. She then complained to her coworker the entire thirty seconds he went to take care of this problem. This is not the Disney I expected.
  3. At one point I needed to use the restroom. I stopped a Disney worker and asked where I could find a restroom. He gave me directions. Go down that road, take a right, etc. Okay. My Disney expectation was this worker would have shown me where to go, at least, part way. “Let me show you.” Instead of, “Take the third right at the next intersection.”

For those who haven’t ever been to Disney, this might seem silly. I would say Disney expects more. Thus, I expect more when I go. My $1000 expects more ($10 for parking, $700 for tickets, $200 for food and drinks and $100 for souvenirs).

After spending 14 hours at the two parks on one day, I left feeling like Disney is no longer the most magical place on Earth. It was more like the most average place on Earth. My wife and kids felt the same way.

So, why does any of this matter? If you position yourself as “great”, as “the best”, as “magical”, people expect you’ll actually be that thing. Universal Studios doesn’t have this issue, but the experience is almost exactly the same. Under promise, over deliver. Disney is in an over promise, under deliver problem.

The one bad thing about marketing yourself as ‘magical’ is that people expect the experience to be, magical.

How is your office celebrating St. Patrick’s Day?

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First, do you even know what the hell St. Patrick’s Day is?  I’m guessing if you’re not Irish Catholic, you have no freaking idea! Here’s some knowledge:

“The revelry, of course, is all in the name of Saint Patrick, who was born in Britain but sold into slavery in Ireland as a child. He eventually escaped but after becoming deeply religious he decided to return to Ireland to spread the word of Christ. Legend has it Saint Patrick was responsible for making the shamrock synonymous with Ireland after using the three-leaf clover to demonstrate the Holy Trinity. He’s also been attributed with driving snakes out of Ireland.”

Okay, so now you can put into context why you wear green, pinch butts and drink green beer…

Originally, St. Patrick’s Day in Ireland was a religious holiday and people would go to church, and pubs would be closed. As the Irish came to America they used St. Patrick’s Day as a holiday to celebrate their heritage. Now, 34 million Americans claiming to have Irish roots celebrate each St. Patrick’s Day. Also, the 4.7 Million actual residents of Ireland celebrate as well.

It’s so American that we took a great holiday like St. Patrick’s Day and turned it into a fake holiday and an opportunity to sell crap! Kiss Me, I’m Irish!

How’s your office celebrating St. Patrick’s Day?

Since the holiday as turned into mainly a drinking holiday, my guess is most organizations struggle with how to really celebrate. I mean who doesn’t want a green beer when walking into the office at 8am, but it makes for a really long day, plus NCAA games begin at noon. Yep, that’s right, the first day of Basketball Christmas and St. Patrick’s Day begin on the same day in 2016. Ugh, I’m going to have a green tongue for a week!

My guess is most offices will be pretty cleared out by noon, today.  Basketball games, plus beer = half day PTO requests!

But, for the those folks who are staying around to keep business moving, enjoy the green Kool-Aid and green cookies in the breakroom that HR ordered. But, only two cookies please, last year we ran out.

3 Ways to make your office more productive during March Madness!

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For those that know me, I’m a huge basketball fan.  Pro, college, AAU, high school, hell, if you really dig into my past you would probably find me hanging out at some playground breaking down the defense effort of a pickup game between grade school kids.  So, when March Madness time comes around each year I’m like many of your employees.  I’m trying to find the best ways to work and watch basketball, or at the very least stay up on my brackets and see who is getting upset!

With all the hype over the past few years about lost productivity, due to March Madness, in the workplace.  I felt it was my duty to provide HR Pros with some helpful tips and tricks to get your staff to highly productive during this time of year.  Here are my ideas:

1. Put up TVs throughout the office.  Let’s face it, you really only have one or two hoops junkies in the office, and those folks usually spend vacation time to ensure they don’t miss a minute.  Everyone else just wants to see scores and highlights.  They’re a casual fan.  They’re willing to work a perfectly normal day, and will probably be just a productive, if not more, with the TVs streaming all the games in the background.  Plus, if you get a close game or big upset, you’ll get some team excitement in the air.  This also stops most of your staff trying to stream the games on their desktops for the entire afternoon.

2. Call off work those afternoons.  Let’s face it, March Madness is pretty close to a national holiday as we will ever get.  Doesn’t matter if you’re female or male, young or old, what religion you are, we all love the drama and excitement of March Madness.  Just close the office.  Make a deal with your staff to reach certain goals and if they’re met, take them to the local watering hole yourself and have some fun with it.  Employees like to rally around a fun idea.  You don’t have to make everything fun, all the time, but once in a while, it helps to lift productivity.

3. Shut off all access.  Yep, you read that correctly. Have IT shut down all access to anything related to March Madness.  Threaten to fire any employee caught checking scores on their smartphone, or calling a friend to see how it’s going.  Fear!  Fear is a great short-term lifter of productivity.  Whether we like to admit it, or not, it’s true.  If you went out right now into your office and told the entire staff at the end of the day you’re firing the least productive person, you would see productivity shoot through the roof!  You would also see about half your staff, the half you want to keep, put in their notice over the next 4-6 weeks.

The reality is, most people will do business as usual.  While the CNNs of the world love to point to the millions of dollars American corporations lose during March Madness, it’s no different than so many things that can consume our thoughts in any given day.  I do think HR and leadership, each year, lose out on a great way to have fun and raise engagement during March Madness.  It’s something most of your staff has some interest in, and depending on your city and the schools your employees went to, it can get heightened pretty significantly.

For the record, I’m not picking Michigan State.  I want to with all my might, but I’m nervous that my bracket mojo would work the opposite, so I’ll pick someone else, and feel awesome when Sparty wins and I lose my bracket! Okay, well maybe I’ll pick them in a couple of my brackets!

Sackett’s Guide to Visiting Sydney – Part 2

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Continued from yesterday’s Part 1 post. From my recent travels to Sydney, Australia, here are my ‘take aways’ from my trip. Sydney is great! Make sure to check out my first post as well, otherwise you’ll lose the context of this one! Enjoy.

–Sydney is a walking city. It’s like a mini-New York City, but it’s clean and doesn’t smell like a toilet! Everything seems like it’s a half to a mile away. Not quite far enough to get a cab or Uber, but far enough you’re lazy American ass will get tired.  You don’t see many fat people in Sydney! They are in shape and good looking. 

–If and when I return to Sydney, I’ll find out how to spend more time at Manly Beach! It was $7.50, thirty minute ferry ride to the most beautiful little beach town. Plus, the fairy ride gives you million dollar views of the Opera house and the Harbor Bridge. Great surfing at Manly Beach! It’s such a easy trip over, it’s hard to believe it’s that close to downtown Sydney.

–The Harbor Bridge climb. You can climb to the top of the Harbor Bridge. It will cost you about $250 per person. If you’re afraid of heights this isn’t from you. You get amazing views! I was glad I did it. I wouldn’t pay to do it again. Once you do it, you probably never have to do it again. In hindsight, I would probably spend that $250 on more surf lessons at Manly Beach, or a helicopter ride to see the city and great views of the cliffs along the ocean.

–Shopping. If you like shopping, you will like Sydney. You could spend a month in Sydney and never get to all the shops. Yes, many are tourist traps. Uggs are everywhere. Most are knockoffs of what you get in the states and not as good quality. The good quality ones cost about the same of what you’ll pay in the states. “Uggs” is a generic term in Australia, not a brand name. Uggs in Australia refers to sheep skin shoes and boots.  Most American brands being sold in Sydney are 40-50% more than you can buy in the states. Don’t come to Sydney looking for deals. Sydney is an expensive city for shopping, food, drinking, living, etc.

–It’s awesome to have such a big city like Sydney, with a great costal ocean views so close! We did the Bondi to Coogee costal walk and it was great. About 3 mile walk with amazing views and places to stop along the way. It’s up and down, so be prepared. The 3 miles will feel like 5 miles! Well worth it, about a $20 Uber ride from the city. Both Bondi and Coogee have good places to eat and drink, so you can start the walk from either end. The best pictures happen closer to Bondi.

–Darling Harbor is a cool up and coming entertainment district. Ton of shops and restaurants. Plus, there is also the Sydney aquarium and indoor Zoo. So, you can see all the major Australian wild and sea life without leaving the city. $60 bucks to see both. For another $20 you can get your picture with a Kola Bear. You don’t get to hold it, but you’ll be inches from it. Plus, the zoo keeper let us stay in the area and gave us some awesome insight and let us take more pics with our phones. It was well worth the $20!  You can run through both of these in like three hours.

–The Rocks is another great area down by the Opera House. It’s the original landing spot for the Europeans that came to Australia. Cruise ships come here as well. So, a ton of little unique shops and restaurants. It’s all an easy walk from downtown Sydney, and you can easily waste a half day or more here.

–The Hay Market/Paddy Market is a complete waste of time. It’s basically a giant Chinese knockoff market in what is considered China Town in Sydney. If you’re looking for loads of poorly made, cheap crap, this is your place.  If you love Asian food, this is also a place you might want to visit. Although, you will see great Asian restaurants all over Sydney.

–Toast! First, Australians know how to do bread!  We had the best bread everywhere in Sydney. One funny thing, though, were the number of places that sold “toast”. Yes, it’s what you think. Just a piece of toasted bread. But, unlike in America, it’s not some piece of crappy Wonder bread, it’s a big Texas slice of home-made bread, grilled on a flat top. Usually running about $3.50-5 per slice (I told you this place is expensive!), it was well worth it! I had the Banana Bread at least four times at different places and it was always amazing!  I never did, though, get over seeing ‘toast’ on the menu as a main item in so many places.

Did I mention the 14-hour flight from the states is a bitch! Hit me in the comments with what I missed about Sydney!

Sackett’s Guide to Visiting Sydney – Part 1

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First, let me say, I’m VERY American. This means I like all my American comforts and stuff.  This will help put this post into perspective when you read it.  I recently got a chance to visit Sydney, AUS to speak at HR Tech Fest 2015.  It’s a great HR Tech conference based in Sydney, with great HR and Talent Pros from Australia and New Zealand.

My wife and I stayed for a week after the conference, because if you’re going to make that 14-hour flight from the states, you really need to stay a while. A week wasn’t long enough, but The Sackett’s kill vacations, so we get a lot done in a week.

I read a bunch about visiting Sydney before we went, but it never seems to tell you the really important stuff. Stuff that will cause an American to be uncomfortable, or slightly put off our normal routine while leaving our great country! So, I wanted to share some real tips for anyone traveling to Sydney from America.

Tim’s Tips to visiting Sydney:

–Soda or Pop (Coke, Pepsi, etc.) seems to be hated by Australians.  Soda is super expensive in Sydney. Like $3-5 for a 12 oz can. Plus, you get very limited options. Most places only had Coke, Diet Coke, Coke Zero or Pepsi Max. That’s it! If you searched you could find Diet Dr. Pepper and Mt. Dew, and a few local sodas, but it’s clear that soda drinking is not something Australians are really into.  Also, no free refills at restaurants! So, you pay $4 for a small glass of Coke, which won’t come close to quenching your thirst or getting you to the finish of your meal! As you can imagine this was a major problem for me! In some bars we went to (during happy hour) the beer was the same price as pop!

–Bar and grill type restaurants are everywhere in Sydney, and most have the same exact type of menu: Burgers, which they use as a ‘title’, chicken sandwiches are also called ‘burgers’. Pizza, thin crust, fresh mozzarella, almost no place had pepperoni. Steaks, which were wonderful everywhere we went (great beef in Australia). Some kind of seafood, also very good and fresh in Sydney!  Almost no Mexican food is available, it’s rare. Asian restaurants are everywhere and in all kinds (Chinese, Japanese, Malaysian, Korean, etc.).

–Food is extremely expensive in Sydney. Restaurants, stores, etc. doesn’t matter. Plan on spending a ton to feed yourself. Also, portions are much smaller in Australia then in America. The one thing that was similar in portion size and value was the Fish and Chips, which you can get everywhere, and always good!

–Customer service. People in Australia are extremely friendly, but they have a different attitude towards customer service. Which is basically, help yourself! There is very little tipping in Australia, and wait staff gets paid like $18-20/hr. Not having to rely on tips to get paid makes them indifferent to really waiting on you! Most bar and grill restaurants you have to go up to the bar and order your own food. If you come in and sit at a table, you will sit there forever and no one will come ask if you want something!

–Take Away (takeout) – you will get asked at every eating place if you want to ‘take away’, which means you just want to take your food and leave, not eat at the restaurant. I think this is done because they don’t really want to wait on you! Most locals seemed to take away. The foreigners were the only ones you really wanted full service!

–Television is Australia is weird. First, there news broadcasts are very global. Also, there news hosts actually give their opinion! Sometimes very strong opinion. In the states we just hire models with no opinion to give us our news. Australians love American TV, but it’s not on the networks you think it should be. An NBC show in the states might be shown on ABC or Fox in Sydney, but still have the NBC logo! Also, they will bundle a bunch of reality shows on different networks in the states on one network in Sydney. Plus, they’ll show ‘new’ shows that probably played a few years ago in the states, but also mix in new shows as well.

–There are almost no African or African-American people in Sydney! Like strangely absent! In a week I literally saw 4 ‘black’ people in a city of millions! It was a bit unsettling. This is also weird since it seemed like Australians were really into HipHop culture.  You heard the music and fashion everywhere, just no black faces. I never did figure this out. But plan on not seeing black people, but seeing Asians and Indians who have Australian accents, not their own countries. This will throw you as well. 

Part 2 tomorrow…

5 Things HR Pros Do At Work The Day After Thanksgiving!

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The Friday after the Thanksgiving holiday has to be the most useless day of work ever.  I know many folks who still don’t get this off as a holiday, and either have to burn vacation or burn PTO to get this day off paid – obviously not including all of those folks who work in the service areas and have to actually work to deal with all those crazy black Friday shoppers!

I’ve been there – both working on the service side of the world on the day after, and on the side when you work for some lame company who makes you come in on the day after, when clearly none of your customers will be working – so you just try and find stuff to do, before sneaking out at 3 pm to meet the family at the mall.

Don’t fret, I’m here to help.  Here are my Top 5 things to do when you’re stuck at work the Day after Thanksgiving:

1a. Recruiting Calls! Hey, Guess what!? Candidates are sitting at home! You won’t find a better time to make recruiting calls than the day after Thanksgiving! But, you probably won’t make these calls, because that would mean picking up the phone and calling a candidate. So, here’s the real 5 for HR pros…

1. Clean out your files – I know this doesn’t sound fun but it needs to be done and it makes you look really busy with your desk all filled with files and stuff! Really cleaning of any type works really well on this day and burns a solid 2-3 hours.

2. Research – What does that mean!?  No one knows, that’s why it’s so great! You can be on LinkedIn, Facebook, reading blogs, it doesn’t matter – it’s Research!

3. Policy Revisions – Again, what does this really mean!?  You bring up some electronic versions of some policies and you have them in the background as you search the internet for the best Black Friday Deals!  When someone walks into your cube – you click on the Word file and say “hey, just working on these policy revisions, what are you doing?”  They say, “I was just doing some research, what do you want to do for lunch?”

4. Rewriting Job Descriptions – see #3 Policy revisions.  The good thing, really, about any of these is you can also have Pandora playing in the background and just become a complete vegetable for about 8 hours.

5. Updating Performance Plans – you can also call this reviewing performance reviews, etc. Basically, you’re going around talking to employees about what they had for Thanksgiving dinner and talking about how awful it is watching the Lions and Cowboys play every Thanksgiving.  Just make sure to mention something about their annual goals and Bam, mission accomplished.

I will say that this is a great day to send notes to executives as well.  Let’s face it, they’re not in the office – they’ve got more vacation than you and know it’s worthless to come in on the day after Thanksgiving.  But you sending a note and “actually” working makes you look like a champ!

The best part is you don’t even have to be working – I just pre-write my emails and then schedule them in Outlook to be sent to executives at 7:23 am on Black Friday, then a follow up on how I solved the issue at 6:12pm on the same day!  That’s a Pro Tip, use it wisely!