Category Archives: Leadership

SHRM CEO says All Employers Should “Require” HR Certification!

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Did you see this last week by new SHRM CEO Johnny Taylor?

“Require certification,” Taylor said. “SHRM certification is a validation that the professional doing the job has the competency to do it. Treat HR like a profession. Don’t just prefer—require!”  

So, there will be a reaction from the HR community on this for sure! My guess is it will be mostly negative by those who aren’t certified, and mostly positive by the small percentage, overall, of HR professionals who do have a certification.

Here’s my take – I 100% agree with Johnny!

In fact, I love Johnny even more as the selection of SHRM CEO!

We (HR) want to be put on the same level as our peers in accounting, legal, etc. They are required to complete an examination to reach their CPA or pass the bar exam. Why should HR be any different?

I think it would be awesome to begin seeing HR positions at all levels have “HR Certification Required to Apply to this Position!” on job descriptions and job postings. I think it’s a sign that organizations are saying we want to ensure that our HR professionals meet some basic understanding and competency of the profession, at a minimum.

I think the one pushback would be there is a cost of obtaining the certification. That’s a real barrier and being a professional that embraces and espouses to inclusion, we want to eliminate barriers. Thankfully, SHRM also was prepared for this and announced last week:

“We’ve adapted our recertification process to provide additional flexibility to match your learning needs.

Going forward, SHRM will no longer have a maximum limit on self-paced activities, in the ‘Advance Your Education’ category.”

What this means is an HR professional can go out and take all 60 recertification credits for free through various webcasts or other self-paced free HR learning opportunities.

There still the cost to recertifying ($100 for members, $150 for non-members) and a cost to take the initial exam ($300 or $400, respectively). The reality is we all have investments we need to make to maintain and grow ourselves in our profession. This is a rather small amount for such a great profession.

I’ve been a long time vocal critic of SHRM in many ways but I love this push from Johnny to the profession. Sure it’s a bit self-serving since SHRM is the one selling the SHRM-CP and SCP certification (along with HRCI who sells the PHR, SPHR, and GPHR separately), but I don’t care. It’s the right thing to do.

I’ve been an HR professional who has held a certification since 2001. Gaining that certification took work, study, and practice. It wasn’t easy. After completing the examination and passing it was a big deal. 17 years of pursuing continuing education puts me in a really great position as a professional that I know a great deal about HR in a number of facets.

Does this make me a ‘better’ HR professional than someone who does not have a certification? That’s the big question, right? I believe it does, on average. Sure someone can know more than me, who does not have an HR certification, but normally, I would say that is not the case.

So, kudos, to Johnny, who got beat up recently in social media for shaking President Trump’s hand and taking a pic at an event. I believe requiring HR certifications for HR positions is the right stance to take for SHRM and for the profession.

Michigan Recruiter’s Conference – November 1st – Detroit, MI! Registration is Now Open!

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The 4th Annual Michigan Recruiter’s Conference will take place on November 1st, 2018 onsite at the GM Headquarters RenCen in downtown Detroit, MI. Registration is now open for this event. There is limited seating because of space constraints. Only 250 registrations will be accepted! This event will SELL OUT, don’t wait!

Okay – all that nonsense is out of the way! Why should you and your corporate recruiting team come? Yes, I specifically said “corporate” recruiting team. No staffing, RPO, or vendors will be allowed to register. Hate me if you want, but it actually works really well. Corporate TA leaders and pros can learn without being pimped constantly!

When Jim and I started this conference 4 years ago we did so that our teams would have world-class recruiting development in our own backyard. National conferences are great, but they are expensive! We couldn’t afford to send our teams, but if we had one local, we could bring our entire team!

Jim and I knew most of the great Talent Acquisition speakers personally, or we knew someone who knew them personally, and we felt pretty confident we could talk them into coming to beautiful Michigan! Okay, they all owe us favors and we just happen to be in Michigan! Either way, the Michigan Recruiter’s Conference has worked out wonderfully!

The 2018 Michigan Recruiter’s Conference lineup is Awesome!

– Torin Ellis – Diversity Strategist speaking on “Conversation to Commitment”

– Angie Verros – Sourcing/TA Expert speaking on getting more candidate replies

– Michael Arena, Ph.D. – Chief Talent Officer at GM speaking on TA Transformation

– Dawn Burke – HR and Talent Expert speaking on getting more out of your hiring managers

– Holly Fawcett – Sourcing Ninja at Social Talent sharing the latest and greatest Sourcing magic!

– Plus, additional sessions on DIversity Recruiting and Recruitment Marketing!

I want to thank this year’s sponsors: General Motors (just exceptional automobiles), Greenhouse (just an exceptional ATS) and Smashfly (just an exceptional Recruitment Marketing platform). They allow us to keep the cost of the entire conference down to just $89 per person, that includes, coffee, breakfast, drinks, lunch, snacks, oh yeah, and all that great freaking TA development and thought leadership!

Register Today! (over 100 tickets have already been sold in the 1st week!)

7 Things Startups Teach Us That We All Need to Learn!

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My buddy John Hill works for Techstars as the VP of Network, go connect with him, he’s completely an awesome guy who will sit down and have a beer with you and talk about how to change the world for hours!  Last week he got to meet the latest crop of Techstar startups and came away motivated with some great learnings.

Here are John’s takeaways from the newest Techstar startups:

1. Nothing beats hustle. Nothing.

2. The world is full of good ideas, but only a few will execute on them.

3. Relational capital is vital.

4. Networks matter. Surround yourself with those who can help you.

5. There are some wicked smart people in the world.

6. To build a great company you need help with funding, talent, and connections to business/industry to scale and the understanding of how to navigate each.

7. Suspend disbelief!

I’m drawn to each of the seven for different reasons but #2 jumps out because I witness this on a daily basis. There are two kinds of people in the world: those who execute and those who talk about executing. Hire those who execute. Understand that they are rare and you should overpay for this ‘skill’.

Do you notice nowhere on his list does he talk about failure. John is a motherfucking doer! He gets shit done. Techstars will only take a chance on startups led by people who will execute. John talks about ways to succeed not about just throwing caution to the wind and failing. The reality is most will fail, setting yourself up for success is key.

I love that he ends his list with “Suspend disbelief”. The world is a critic. Those who make it big have that special combination of John’s list. Great idea, ability to execute, the right network to make it happen, super smart, etc. What they also have is true belief! At the end of the day, you have to believe 1000% your idea is going to work. No part of you even questions that it won’t.

If it didn’t work you would be destroyed because your belief was so strong that you never saw it coming when it fails. That’s how most great ideas actually make it. You find a combination of all of these things and you put money and resources behind it.

These 7 learnings aren’t about how to make a startup successful. These are how you make anything successful that you’re working on.

Why do we hang on to bad hires for so long?

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I’ve been very public about my philosophy on hiring. I do not hire to fire. In no way do I hire someone thinking “I can’t wait until the day I fire them!”, I don’t think any of us really think that!

I hire someone believing that with the right training, development, and support, they will be wildly successful! I own at least half of that equation, the person I hire owns the other half. Many times it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

The problem with my philosophy is “Sunk Cost”.

Sunk cost is an accounting philosophy that means a cost that has already been incurred and cannot be recovered. So, you’ve already sourced, recruited, and trained an employee. You’ve gone beyond training working to develop them. All those costs are now spent.

BUT – because you’ve ‘invested’ those costs into an employee, you are less likely to let them go believing you are more likely to get a return on those costs. In reality, there is absolutely zero evidence that shows you’ll get any return for future investment into that employee, but we really struggle to give up on them based on what we’ve already spent.

This is super common in the management of people resources!

Well, I’ve already dropped $50K into Tim, I guess another $10K isn’t that bad. When in reality that $10K is actually way better spent on another employee, and you fire Timmy!

I’ve known about Sunk Cost for a long time, but now there is actually scientific evidence to back up the fact we should be firing failing employees sooner:

“Sunk costs are irrecoverable investments that should not influence decisions, because decisions should be made on the basis of expected future consequences. Both human and nonhuman animals can show sensitivity to sunk costs, but reports from across species are inconsistent. In a temporal context, a sensitivity to sunk costs arises when an individual resists ending an activity, even if it seems unproductive, because of the time already invested. In two parallel foraging tasks that we designed, we found that mice, rats, and humans show similar sensitivities to sunk costs in their decision-making. Unexpectedly, sensitivity to time invested accrued only after an initial decision had been made. These findings suggest that sensitivity to temporal sunk costs lies in a vulnerability distinct from deliberation processes and that this distinction is present across species.”

This scientific study showed both humans and rats basically do the exact same thing. If we feel we have already invested a ton of resources to a task, we are more likely to continue pursuing this task even when all the evidence to that point has only shown failure!

This is Poor Performing Employee Management 101!

-You hire an employee.

-The employee gets trained and should have the skills to perform the job.

-The employee doesn’t perform the job, so you give more resources to help get them up to speed.

-The employee still doesn’t perform.

-The manager decides not to terminate the employee, but to continue to give more resources and chances.

Why do we do this?

You hired 3 employees before the failing employee and all three completed training and did the job successfully. We know the process works. So why do we not fire the employee?

Sensitivity to Sunk Cost. We are as dumb as rats when it comes to investing our own resources into failing employees. We act the exact same way!

It has nothing to do with the employee and our desire to give everyone a fair shot (I don’t hire to fire). It has everything to do with our own internal drive of not wanting to lose, what we fell we’ve already invested, even when all the data tells us future investment is akin to burning a pile of cash.

So, don’t hire to fire, but also don’t be as a dumb as a rat and not fire someone who shows you they can’t and won’t do the job you hired them to do!

 

 

@SocialTalent’s Talent Talks with Tim Sackett and Johnny Campbell

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Hey gang!

When I was over in London a few weeks ago speaking at the Sourcing Summit UK, Social Talent’s CEO Johnny Campbell and I sat down to talk shop on how can organizations fix their recruiting.

We probably shot 45 minutes to an hour of footage, the team then broke it down to a really great 20 minutes!

For those who don’t know Johnny or SocialTalent you should really check them out. I’m a huge fan of their platform, so much so, my own team has been using it for 2 years!

Here’s the promo video for it – click the link below to watch the full 20 minutes!

Watch the full video! (just click the link)

The 4 Things Great Recruiters Do Every Day!

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I’ve hired over one hundred recruiters in my career.  Not a ton, but a pretty good sample size.  I’ve had some of those hires go on to become great Talent Acquisition pros, as well as some who have completely bombed in the profession.  It’s not an easy profession to be successful at, but I’ve seen some basic things that the most successful recruiters, I know, do every single thing day:

  1. Daily motivation. Great recruiters are self-motivated by nature, but the best ones still find ways to give themselves that extra little kick every day. It might be one client or job order they decide they will close on that day. It might be an activity number they challenge themselves with for the day.  It might just be re-centering on a larger overall goal they are chasing and what they’re doing in that day will mean to reach that goal.
  1. Critical of their own work. The best recruiters I’ve worked with own the positions they’re trying to fill, their candidates, and their interviews. There is no blame to pass around when something goes wrong. They own it.  An interview is a no-show, they own it.  They can look inward and go, next time I won’t have this happen because I’m going to do that one more thing to ensure it’s successful.
  1. They step up. Hey, guys we have a really critical position that just came open from a hiring manager, who wants it? The best recruiters always step up and want to work those high profile openings.  They want the challenge, and they are comfortable with the pressure.  They also step up with their ideas on how the organization can get better, and share freely.
  1. Daily focus. Successful recruiters can focus in and finish, every day. It’s so easy in recruiting to get pulled in a hundred different directions.  The most successful people stay focused on the job at hand and don’t allow the ‘noise’ to take them off their plan.  They find ways to lock themselves in and keep going until they reach their outcome.

HR and Recruiting both have the same main daily issue we face, we turn ourselves into firefighters.  We run from made up emergency to made up emergency.  It feeds our need to feel like we accomplished something today and became a savior.

The most successful recruiters are no different.  They get the opportunity to be firefighters, just like we all do, but they make a conscious decision not to allow themselves to slide down the pole and jump on the fire truck.

How can you make yourself more successful today?

Your Weekly Dose of HR Tech: Kashable – Low Cost Loans for Employees (@GetKashable)

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Today on The Weekly Dose I take a look at the HR Tech, voluntary employee benefit and financing solution for your employees called Kashable. Kashable is basically a simple way for your employees to borrow money, where you as a company are not involved, but can still ensure they get the assistance they need!

Here’s the scenario – Timmy walks into your office. He’s got a problem. His car broke down over the weekend. He needs new brakes. He has no savings and no way to get the money. Without his car, Timmy stops coming to work.

You’ve had this conversation before, haven’t you? In fact, you probably will have it this week!

Here’s the problem. Your company and you in HR don’t want to become a bank. Loaning out money to employees, through your company, always becomes a nightmare. This is why I was so intrigued with a technology like Kashable.

Kashable gives your employees access to low-cost loans based on a percentage of their take-home pay. You as the employer, only facilitate the repayment through payroll deduction, but ultimately you are not responsible for repayment.

Having this option for employees is important! 

Here’s what way too many of our employees do in a cash crisis situation. They choose bad money options! 401K loans, high-interest credit cards, cash advance shops, or they go without something that is critical, like health insurance or a medication, etc. All of which puts them in a worse situation long term than where they started. The problem is, most of our employers have a bad or low credit and don’t have access to cheaper capital alternatives.

What I like about Kashable: 

– Gets the employer out of the loan business and puts it back where it belongs, in the hands of a financial institution that I have validated will do right by employees.

– Kashable reports directly to the credit bureaus, allowing your employees to build positive credit on these smaller amount loans that are paid back through payroll deduction.

– Kashable doesn’t allow employees to take a loan that can’t afford, so they are also teaching them responsible financing. The average amount of a weekly repayment is 5-10% of their takehome, so they don’t put themselves in a worse situation. They also only allow an employee to have one loan at a time.

– Many of your employees have a bad credit and could never get a low-cost loan, but with Kashable because they are employed by you, they will have access to this financing mechanism.

– Gives a credit option to your employees have no credit as well (high school grads, college grads, H1B workers, etc.).

Kashable has data to show that 35-40% of employees who use the service use it to pay down higher interest debt they have. So, already you’re helping to teach them to get away from the nightmare too many of our employee get caught in with high-interest credit.

I’m in love with any kind of technology that helps my employees and helps me and my organization. I’ve been in the bad situation of having to loan my employees money and how that usually ends up bad. I’ve begged my banking partners to give me an option like this, but they never would because they had to follow traditional banking rules. Kashable takes on the loan risk, and they do it because they know your employees are an actual fairly low risk.

Go check them out and do a demo – www.kashable.com

The Weekly Dose – is a weekly series here at The Project to educate and inform everyone who stops by on a daily/weekly basis on some great recruiting and sourcing technologies that are on the market.  None of the companies who I highlight are paying me for this promotion.  There are so many really cool things going on in the tech space and I wanted to educate myself and share what I find.  If you want to be on The Weekly Dose – just send me a note – timsackett@comcast.net

Want help with your HR & TA Tech company – send me a message about my HR Tech Advisory Board experience.

DisruptHR Detroit Speaker Applications Now Being Accepted!!! But, you probably can’t handle it! #8Mile

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Look, I just like being honest. This isn’t DisruptHR Brentwood or DisruptHR Nantucket! This is Detroit! We do real HR in the D!

Come on, just be real with yourself for a moment, you can’t handle Detroit. It’s okay, you’ll do fine at DisruptHR Sun City. Just slow down and do some tour stops before you come to Detroit!

You see, we actually make stuff that sells for money in Detroit. We have employees who get their hands dirty. We have to live in snow and cold for six months out of the year, which tends to leave us a little less likely to be willing to consume your weak B.S. When you come to DisruptHR Detroit, you better bring it!

Alright, I hear you feeling yourself. You just might be ready to hit 8 Mile and the rap battle that is HR in Detroit. DisruptHR Detroit will take place on September 20th onsite at Quicken Loans awesome event space in the heart of downtown Detroit.

Want to speak at DisruptHR Detroit? (what you need to know) 

– It’s 5 Minutes, 20 slides, the slides automatically move every 15 seconds (this is not something you can change!)

– If you’re a vendor you try selling your product in the 5 minutes, we’ll Gong Show your ass right off the stage!

– DisruptHR is about emotion – make us laugh, make us cry, make us angry, make us motivated. Just make us feel something!

– There will be over 250 HR and Talent Pros in the audience cheering you on. (FYI – many in the audience will be drinking!)

– You will get a video recorded, professionally produced copy of your presentation!

Apply to Speak at DisruptHR Detroit! 

Career Confessions of Gen-Z: Diversity of Experience Is Truly Valuable

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Growing up, I was not exposed to the most diverse community. I love my little Michigan town, but it’s pretty white. My parents tried to help me experience diversity growing up; they let me go to Japan for an exchange program in 8th grade and let me go off to college in New York. It wasn’t until these experiences that I was truly exposed to communities that were vastly different than my own.

Recently, I got the chance to attend a Diversity and Inclusion Event at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History in Detroit through my internship at Quicken Loans. While there, I watched 2 different panels of QL employees speaking on the importance of diversity and inclusion within QL and the workplace.

One thing that really stuck with me from this event was when one of the panelists said: “We don’t hire people to check off boxes”. All of the panelists discussed how the diversity of experience was essential for diversity and inclusion to thrive. This really caused a shift in mindset for me.

Growing up, I thought that being diverse was simply the inclusion of people from all different backgrounds and communities. While that is a huge part of diversity, being of a diverse background is only one part of having diverse experiences.

I get that I’m not a minority. I’m a white male that is from a middle-class family in the MidWest. We’re a dime a dozen out here. But this helped me see that just because I’m not of a minority ethnicity or gender or some other quality doesn’t mean that I’m not diverse. Creating a background of diverse experiences is how someone like me can become more inclusive.

I believe that it is essential that we instill these values and this knowledge of diversity in Gen-Z. We are in a world that is more diverse than ever before. We need to create an environment where going out and having diverse experiences is celebrated and isn’t feared. It is vital that our educators and leaders are instilling a celebration and appreciation of diversity in their students and employees.

I’ve always known that diversity is important. But now I understand why. Bringing people together of different backgrounds and with different experiences is where you get s*** done and you get it done well. And that’s pretty freaking cool.

 

This post was written by Cameron Sackett (not Tim) – you can probably tell because it lacks grammatical errors!

HR and TA Pros – have a question you would like to ask directly to a Gen Z? Ask us in the comments and I’ll respond in an upcoming blog post right here on the project. Have some feedback for me? Again, please share in the comments and/or connect with me on LinkedIn.

Rehabbing Your Career In One Easy-ish Step! #8ManRotation

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It’s been a while since I written about HR and sports! It’s one of my favorite things to do. There are so many great sports stories in our lives that give us great insight into possible solutions we can actually use in real life.

This most recent example comes to us from the land of the NBA (National Basketball Association). Right now in the NBA, it’s the offseason where all the big trade deals and free-agent signings happen. You might have heard of a little-known player, Lebron James, going to the Los Angeles Lakers! This post is not about LBJ!

This post is about a player coming off a bad injury, DeMarcus “Boogie” Cousins, who played for the New Orleans Pelicans last year, and, before the injury, was arguably a top 25 player in the NBA. His numbers last year were 25 points per game, 12.9 rebounds per game, and 5.4 assists per game! Those are giant numbers.

He tears is Achilles tendon and he is becoming a free agent this season. So, he’s got a problem.

No team wants to really give him a long-term contract, because that is a bad injury and they aren’t sure how he’ll come back, plus he won’t really be ready until January, so he’ll miss part of the season. He’s only 27 years old, so he is fairly young, but big guys don’t have a great track record of coming back from this injury.

So, what should he do?

He signs a one-year, veteran mid-level exemption contract for $5.4 million. Which sounds like a lot, but in reality, he’s probably worth $20 million+ per year for 4 or 5 years if he’s not injured.  He signs this contract with the NBA Champion Golden State Warriors, who already have the best roster on the planet!

Why?

This is about rehabbing his career and rehabbing his image.

Boogie hasn’t been known as the best player you want to play with or coach. Golden State is known to be the best “team” in the NBA, in that they have mega-stars who take on roles and play within the system, and they win, and they have fun doing it. Boogie needs a place that will let him come back slowly, and not have huge pressure on him to carry a team. He also needs some of that Golden State shine on his personality to show other teams he can play with other stars and be coached.

Most people would not have done what Boogie is doing!

Boogie could have gotten more money and probably multiple years, at a discount, from some teams that are struggling and willing to take a risk on a potential superstar if he comes back strong.

Most people would have taken the longer contract and more money, but that’s not how you rehab your career!

If your career is at a bad spot there is really only one great way to rehab yourself. You got to work for the best brand/organization that you can, at whatever position they’ll hire you in for, even if that means you take a huge pay cut to do it! In a great organization, you’ll be able to move up quickly, or move to another organization and continue your path back up.

Boogie going to Golden State isn’t about winning a championship or signing a long-term deal with them. They don’t have the room for the level of deal he’ll sign. It’s about a short-term stop to rehab his body and his image, so he can sign a mega-deal next season. Be willing to put yourself into the best organization for less money, and long-term it will pay off for your exponentially!