Category Archives: HR Parties

HR Emoji Etiquette

Posted on by
4

I never was a huge fan of emojis.  I’m probably just too old, and out of touch to really understand.  My emojis consist of basically two: smiley face 🙂 and winky face ;).  Really, I’ve been able to get through my life with these two emojis.  I’ve never truly felt compelled to go beyond these.  I either liked what you wrote = smiley face, or I wanted you to know I wasn’t seriously going to fire you = winky face.

One of my favorite comedy writers is Jenny Johnson and she recently had an article in GQ Jenny Johnson’s Guide to Emoji Etiquette.  It’s brilliantly funny and it gave me the idea that HR should have its own emoji etiquette, so I decided to give it a run.  Here’s what I came up with:

I’m going to fire Fred in Accounting with the creepy mustache:

 (you’ll notice I like my HR ladies to wear a crown!)

We are a no smoking facility:

(also can be used to land planes)

We offer same sex benefits:

Dear hiring manager, I’m going to look the other way at what you just did:

Diversity and Inclusion meeting will take place today and there will be cookies:

A failed random drug test will get you fired:

We love you, you’re our top choice and we want to make you an offer, but you only have so much time to accept:

Happy hour Friday! Yay! But, be cautious, too much drinking with coworkers can lead to romance, and unwanted pregnancies:

Mary in Payroll is acting like she’s sick so she can go get her hair and nails done. HR doesn’t like this!

 Hit me up with your favorite emojis in the comments!

 

 

Come Have Breakfast with Me at SHRM!

Posted on by
Reply

Okay, it’s not really breakfast, but it sure is breakfast time!

I’m speaking at SHRM National at 7am on Monday June 23rd in Orlando.  The title of my session is “What Your CEO Wishes HR Would Do!“.  It’s a fun session, will kick off your day at SHRM with a lot of energy and some laughs.  Plus, I’ll also give you 6 things you can start doing the next day to increase your influence in your organization, and get your CEO to fall in love with you – not marriage love, work love!

I promised SHRM I wouldn’t swear, so I’m going to try and make this a PG 13 version of what I would normally do.  They gave me a Mega-Session, which means I’ll have a big giant room, and a 7am time slot, which means I’ll have 50 people show up.  It’s a nice way to keep my Ego in check.  “Hey, you’re really popular, we’re going to give you a big giant room, but just to screw with you, we put you on during a time when normal people will be sleeping!”

Please, please, if you come out at that way too early time to see someone give a business presentation, stop by afterwards and introduce yourself.  To me, that is the real reason I love speaking at events, I get to meet other great HR Pros from around the country!  I’ll even give out hugs, even if you don’t want one! Because I’ll be all hyped up on Mt. Dew!

I promise I’ll be on my 3rd Diet Dew by the time 7am rolls around on Monday, which means I’ll be talking fast, probably saying things I shouldn’t and having fun!

See you all in Orlando!  At 7 freaking AM!  Ugh, it hurts me to even think about it!

Sackett’s 2014 Guide To Whom To See At SHRM!

Posted on by
5

The big annual SHRM National Conference happens in a week or so in Orlando.  I’ll be there.  SHRM is letting me speak again this year, which is cool, I’m as subversive as SHRM gets which makes it fun for me.  I always get a lot of SHRM dignitaries that show up to make sure I don’t say anything inappropriate, which makes me get very creative with my words, and if you read my blog you know that list of words is roughly around 350.

To combat the possibility I might slip up they put me at times they hope no one will show up.  This year I’m on at 7am on Monday!  Yeah, 7 freaking am!   Good thing for me I’m a morning person and I drink giant amounts of Diet Mt. Dew – I will have one on stage with me! If you bring me one, I’ll line them up and try to knock them all down in my hour and fifteen minutes!

Bobbi Wilson from Huntsville, AL SHRM (she’s good people, connect with her!) asked me who I would like to see speak at SHRM, besides myself, and I thought it would make a good post, so here’s my Top 10 don’t miss presentations at SHRM!  First we have to lay down some rules of why and who I will choose:

A. I’ll always choose entertaining speakers over non-entertaining speakers.  It’s an HR conference, we’ll have our share of boring ones!

B. I like practitioners, but don’t get too caught up in that.  Most of the best speakers used to be practitioners who found out they’re pretty damn good speakers, so they went the consultant route and doing very well.  Many practitioners are knowledgeable but can’t speak a lick!

C. Titles mean a lot.  If you can’t come up with a creative title, my guess is you can’t come up with a creative presentation.

So, here’s who I will see if I have time in between networking with all the great HR Pros who come to SHRM (I usually get more out of the networking than the presentations!):

1. Tim Sackett, SPHR – Monday 7am – “What Your CEO Wishes HR Would Do!”  – I hear he gives out hugs after his presentation! Plus, he’ll be all jacked up on Mt. Dew!

2. Jonah Berger – Tuesday 2:15pm – “Crafting Contagious Ideas“ – this might be the only session I will actually attend. This dude is brilliant and a great speaker. He’s my #2 behind Malcolm Gladwell.  You should not miss this.  #Fanboy

3. Jennifer McClure – Wednesday 10am – (friend alert! At some point Jen and I will share a Sprinkles Cupcake during SHRM – you’re not invited!) – “The Business Case for Building Effective Business Leaders“ This is actually the worst title in the history of SHRM that doesn’t include “FMLA” or “EEOC”, but Jen is a pro’s, pro who understands how to get a session accepted at SHRM.  The title has to be vanilla!  Don’t hold that against her.  She’s really good and has a cult following of HR ladies who love her!

4. Gregg Tate, GPHR – Tuesday 10:45am – “Adidas: How They Created Their nWow (New Way of Working) Company Culture” – I’ve seen the Adidas guys speak before and they’re usually good with a good story.  Insider tip – see how they pronounce “Adidas” – many insiders from Germany do it differently than we say in the states – you can’t get it out of your head!

5.  Mike Reardon – Monday 10:45am – “Sustaining the Disney Culture Through Selection, Training, and Engagement”

6. Brad Karsh – Monday 2:00pm – “Once Upon a Time…Four steps to Using Storytelling to Deliver Unforgettable Presentations” – This is the most underutilized skill in HR, period. You’ll be a better HR Pro if you have this skill. Not just for presentations but increasing your influence throughout your organization.

7. Chester Elton – Monday 4:00pm – “All In: How Great Leaders Develop a Culture of Belief and Deliver Big Results” – Chester is a good speaker. Doesn’t matter what he’s presenting, he’s probably better than most at that time slot. He’s polished and will deliver a good show.

8.  Cy Wakeman – Tuesday 7am – (Cy has the session of death – no one wants to get up after partying Monday night for a 7am session!) “Reality-Based Rules of the Workplace: New HR Foundation to Boost Employee Value and Drive Results” – Cy knows her stuff!  I like going to presentations where I’m going to hear from someone who actually knows what they’re talking about, and she does!

9.  Michelle Smith – Tuesday 4pm – “Next Practices Leadership: Driving Growth & Innovation in a People-Led Economy” Michelle is from O.C. Tanner and they’ve got some great research on engagement, what works, what doesn’t – well worth the time to see her speak to get that data!

10. Vendor Show – Every day, all day – Pick out three kinds of technology you might bring into your HR shop in the next 3 years (digital interviewing, automated reference checking, assessments, recruiting tools, metrics, etc.) and good spend some real time demoing those products.  It will be some of the most valuable time you spend at SHRM!  Part of our job in HR is to know what we’ll be using in the future, this is where you’ll find that stuff!  Scout out the small booths in the back aisles.  There will be companies there that you haven’t heard about, that in three years everyone will be using – that’s really, really cool!

Connect with me.  One of my favorite things to do at SHRM National is to meet HR pros around the world who read my blog.  I get in Sunday, leave Wednesday.  Tweet me, email me, call my cell, stalk my session – but let’s connect in a real way (okay I mean hugging!).

3 Ways To Make Your Office Productive During March Madness

Posted on by
4

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, do to March Madness, in the workplace.  I felt it was my duty to provide HR Pros with some helpful tips and tricks to get the your staff to highly productive during this time of year.  Here’s 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 steaming 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 smart phone, 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!

 

It’s My Birthday, Biatch!

Posted on by
6

Yeah, it’s my birthday, if we were really close friends you would have already known that and sent me something cool like Diet Mt. Dew or a Sprinkles Cupcake.  But you didn’t, so I wrote this stupid blog post as a birthday present to myself.  That’s what happens when you turn 33, you give yourself a present, like an adult.  Actually, I’m 44.  I don’t get why people get all upset to talk about their age.  I look at it as I’m one year closer to moving in with my kids and making their life miserable, paybacks are bitch boys!

Actually, I’m fairly certain that with the massive amounts of Diet Dew I drink I’m headed on a path to Alzheimer’s, and I don’t say that to make fun, it’s just a fact. You can’t put that many chemicals in your body and not think something will happen.  I’m very self aware. I think it’s probably a blessing in disguise to my kids. They can put me in a home, and I won’t know the difference either way.  All I ask, remember it’s my birthday, is you put me in a home that has a lake or a pond.  I like sitting by the water, even it I won’t know why.

Anyway, my wife asked me what I want.  Which is a little like asking ‘what do you want me to allow you to buy yourself’, which I appreciate, because she gets me.  If I’m going to have to get something for my birthday, I might as well like it!  At 44 there isn’t really anything material I need, so here’s the list of things I would want for my birthday in no particular order:

1. To be left alone in the house with a gin and tonic and an NBA game on.  So I can fall asleep without interruption.

2. For someone in my family to take my kids, so my wife and I can have a solid 24 hours together without having to make a meal, do a load of laundry or pick up shoes, coats, backpacks, empty food wrappers, socks, empty cups, etc.

3. For you to listen to this white kid do the rap from TLC’s Waterfalls –

Now you know what a 17 year old Tim Sackett was like.

Happy Birthday to me kiddos!

Leadership and Chili Recipes

Posted on by
1

For those who might not have caught it on the news wire, I won the HRU annual Chili cook-off!  You see I’ve figured out the secret code to winning.  I’m the boss, if they don’t vote for me, I don’t let them out early before the holiday weekends!

But seriously, I do make some good chili!

It’s funny when you have a Chili Cook-off, everyone really believes their recipe is the best.  It’s a lot like leadership.  Have you ever met two people who thought that ‘great’ leadership was the same thing?!  I’m doubtful.  You see leadership is like chili, everyone believes they have the best recipe for success!

Here’s how I won.  I was going against all guys.  Guys like their chili spicy!   Half my workforce is female, they don’t like their chili as spicy as the guys (I literally had guys sweating and looking in pain while eating their chili!).  All I had to do to win was to be the least spicy option!  I had to bland leadership to win.  Don’t go right ditch, or left ditch, just keep that puppy in the middle of the road, and I win.  Easy.

Leadership isn’t that easy.  As soon as you think you have the winning formula, someone young sexy new hire brings in her white bean chicken chili and changes up the entire game!  You’re not suppose to have chicken in chili!  How dare you come in and mess up the status quo! That’s what happens right?  Your great leader of a year or two, becomes yesterdays news.  No one cares about who won last years Chili Cook-off, they only care about who won this year.

By the way, I made the same chili, exactly, now for three years.  My Chili leadership style is consistency.  Sure I love trying the new hot and sexy recipes.  I love white bean chicken chili.  But when push comes to shove, a giant pot of traditional chili tends to satisfy the masses.  Puts them into a food coma.

I wonder what your chili recipe says about your leadership. Are you constantly changing it up, looking for new recipes?  Are you all vegetables and no meat? (I don’t even know what that means, but it made me laugh!) Are you one of those weirdos from Cincinnati who puts spaghetti in their chili?  Are you right about now wondering how I just correlated making chili with how you make yourself a leader?

We decided come January/February when the heart of winter is kicking us in the teeth here in Michigan our next Cook-off will be soups.  I’ve got that one in the bag as well – Mrs. Sackett has some great soup recipes!

The Office Halloween Party Rules

Posted on by
Reply

Is your office dressing up for Halloween?

Mine isn’t.  It’s not that I wouldn’t.  Okay, I wouldn’t.  But if others wanted to, I wouldn’t say “no”.  I mean everyone has that one person in their office that’s a little way too excited over Halloween.  I get it.  I have kids.  They lose their minds at the thought of free candy and dressing up.  But you’re an adult, let’s try and keep it together here at the office.

That is why I think it’s important to Rules for your Office Halloween Party.  Here’s mine:

1. Racism theme costumes never go over like you thought they would when you were drunk and came up with the concept. “No, really, we’re going as the black KKK!” Just don’t do it.

2. Anything with ‘naughty’ in the title isn’t work appropriate. Naughty Teacher, Naughty Nurse, Naughty Witch — you get the idea.  The only time this would work is when taking the opposite stance — Naughty Human Resource Manager is totally appropriate.  This costume consists of a cat sweater, hair in bun, long skirt (pants or skort), old lady panty hose and 6 inch pumps. Sexy!

3. Don’t be the ‘guy’ offering “tricks” all day. That’s just creepy.  Also, don’t be the ‘gal’ offering “tricks” all day. That’s just slutty.

4. Anything that interferes with your ability to do your actual job, shouldn’t be a costume selection.  “Well, I didn’t think about how me being a Rubic’s Cube for the day would get in the way to me being a nurse.”

5. Dressing up like the boss is always in good taste, but only if your boss doesn’t hate you.

6. If you have to put a sign on to explain what you are, go back to the drawing board.  ” Wait, you see I’m ‘Hard to Get Along With'” Yeah, we got it…

7. If less than half your staff will be dressing up, you need to cancel dressing up.  At that point it’s just sad.

In HR we love our dress code rules and for Halloween parties why should we be different!  What your favorite Halloween party rules at the office?