Category Archives: Leadership

1 Sign That Shows Google Now Controls HR

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It was just a matter of time. The company that vows to do know evil, would eventually take over the function that is the most hated in the world.  Don’t get me wrong, Google didn’t come into your organization and start giving your employees performance reviews, yet.  What Google does is much more stealth.

Remember back in April of this year (2015)? Laszlo Bock, the head of HR for Google, released his book “Work Rules!” He then went on a national book tour and was famously interviewed, everywhere, telling anyone who would listen that you don’t need a college degree to work at Google. In fact, Google has found that your college GPA and transcripts to be ‘worthless’ in terms of making a quality hire.

We all kind of chuckled.  Well, there goes Google, being Google again.

Let’s fast forward to today. Jobvite recently released their 2015 Recruiter Nation Survey.  It’s always an interesting read, with great data and metrics, but one metric stood out, to me, above all others:

“57% of Organizations now report that GPAs are unimportant.”

Do you see what just happened?

If Jobvite would have asked organizations and recruiters in January of this year, this same question, prior to Laszlo’s announcement, how do you think this number would be different?  I’m telling you the number would have been around 5% or less!

GPA are unimportant. Really?

Here’s what Google, I mean Laszlo, forgot to tell everyone about why Google can hire people who have never gone to college.  THEY HIRE FREAKING GENIUSES THAT HAVE BEEN CODING IN THEIR PARENTS BASEMENTS SINCE THEY WERE 12! These kids don’t need college. College would bore them. They know more than the professors teaching them. Google gets to hire the top 1% of people, not just college grads.

You won’t get these geniuses, who don’t need to go to college.  You get half-baked nitwits who need college, a good spanking, a few years to grow up and probably deep therapy.  You are not Google.

Yet, here we are, and you are answering Jobvite’s survey questions and acting like your Google.  Thank you Google.  Thank you for setting HR back a decade.  For not telling the full story, just swaying opinion by making bold statements.  We now get a generation of workers who think they can just jump off their Xbox and into a job paying six figures.  That’s really helpful.  You’re brilliant Laszlo.

Check out Jobvite’s 2015 Recruiter Nation Survey, it’s good stuff, even the stuff that Google brainwashed you to answer.

What is your Organizational Expiration Date?

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We got home from vacation recently and like most families we were foraging through the cupboards and refrigerator to make dinner our first night back home.  I poured some milk for my son, and he asked me “is that milk alright?” Like somehow I hadn’t considered its feelings, but he mostly meant was it still good.

Sure the expiration date had passed a day, or so, prior, but I did the Dad smell test, and that milk was more than alright!  He wasn’t in agreement, so our “alright” milk took a trip to never-gonna-get-drank-land down the sink.  Expiration dates on food are great. They help us understand when something goes bad, protects us from ourselves and what we think is good and bad, which can be subjective.

All this makes me think that we should have expiration dates on our employees!

It was recently rumored that Detroit Tigers Manager, Brad Ausmus, is probably going to get fired after this season.  He was a popular hire two years ago and led the Tigers to the playoff.  This year, though, the Tigers have not met expectations, with a team filled with high price talent.

So, why has his expiration date come up?  It’s all about expectations.  Once you gain success, it’s not good enough to maintain that success or, G*d forbid go backwards, you have to keep getting more successful.  The only way Ausmus get’s more successful is to win the World Series, which is tough to do.

There are a number of other reasons people should have expiration dates with organizations; these include:

  • Chronic Average:   This is for the people who just never really do anything- they just exist in your organization.  After a while, they need to just go exist at another organization.
  • Convicted Idiot: This is the person who makes certain bad decision, so bad, that their expiration with your organization must come up. Think, hitting on the bosses wife at the holiday party, or worse!  Probably can’t legally terminate them, but they need to go someplace else.
  • 1997 Top Salesman/woman:   This happens way to much – yeah, you were top sales person a decade ago, either get the trophy back or give another organization your attitude!  We tend to keep them around because we are hoping they’ll regain their top form – but they don’t – let them expire.
  • My Boss Is Dummer than Me: An organization can take only so many of these, for only so long – Ok, you win, go be smarter than us someplace else.
  • No Admins Left To Sleep With: I’m hoping the title of this one explains it as well – otherwise you might have reached your HR expiration date at your organization!

The Undercover Job Start

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I’ve had quite a few friends start new positions in this past year.  It’s exciting to see so many people get great opportunities after living through the recession!

One common thing happens to all of these folks. It goes something like this:

1.  Social announcement that they got a new position!  Yay! Congrats! When do you start?! We all know the drill.

2. Actual announcement on the first day they start the job.  This happens in a number of forms, social, press release, etc. This is Day 1 on the job, they don’t even know which bathroom they should be using based on their position, and Bam!, you’ve been announced to the world you’re open for business in your new role.

3. Everyone in the world is contacting you on your first day for a variety of reasons. Some will want to just congratulate you. Some will want to pimp your for business. Some will want dirt on why you left the last place. All will want time you don’t have because YOU JUST STARTED A NEW JOB AND YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW WHERE THE BATHROOM IS!!!

4. You spend the first week trying to find the bathroom.

5. By week #2, you found the bathroom, your email works on your smartphone, and your new company is already beginning to discount your ideas and opinions. Welcome to the show kid, it moves pretty fast!

That’s why I think you should do away with the current job announcement practices, and do something else.  Here’s my new Sackett Job Announcement Plan for Success (like a Trump policy, but it works):

1. Day 1, will now be called Day A.

2. Day A – E, will be your first days of employment, but no one will actually be told that you started.

3. Day 1 (which is really day 6) will happen on the first day of week #2.  Now, you’re actually ready to announce your new position, and take on the coming storm of emails, phone calls, tweets, etc.

Better, right?

We can call it the Undercover Job Start.  You’ve started, but let’s keep it on the down-low until I find the bathroom and stuff.  It’s like the same job start, but without all the stress.

They do this in the restaurant industry when they open a new restaurant. They ‘soft’ open a week before the actual Grand Opening.  People trickle in. It gives the staff a chance to work out the kinks and fix stuff without having a full restaurant to deal with.  That’s how you want to start your job!

How to Gently Crush Your Employee’s Dreams!

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I get the feeling that many of your employees feel that HR Pros are Dream Crushers!  It’s the main reason almost everyone hates HR, right?

I don’t actually buy into this theory, but there are some valid things we do in HR that don’t help our reputation.  Here’s how we crush dreams on a daily basis:

  1. We don’t allow our employees to develop.  Let’s first start with the concept of development vs. training.  You giving job training is not development. While it might help the employee get better at the job they have, it’s not exactly personal or professional development. Development is very individualized.
  2. We don’t listen or act on your employees ideas.  I get to go in and work with companies a lot and almost always the employees already know what needs to be done, but leadership isn’t listening to them.  So, I’m not really brought in to tell them something they don’t know, I’m brought in to them their employees are smart and you should start listening to them!
  3. We don’t allow our employees to dream about the future. This is really difficult for most organizations.  We won’t promise an employee where they’ll be in 1 or 2 or 3 years, because we believe if we can’t deliver it, it worse than not giving them anything to begin with.  Actually, that’s a false premise.  Allowing your employees to dream about the future and giving them something to shoot for, will give them hope. Hopeful employees stay around and work hard.
  4. We micromanage the work, not the result.  I don’t care how you get there, just get me there.  We have been taught for way too long to ‘manage’ people. This means we tell them how to do the job exactly, instead of letting do the job in a way that works best for them, and holding them accountable to the result, not the path. This not only crushes your employees dreams, it crushes their soul.

I think it would be funny to see someone has that as a title in HR: Dream Crusher, VP of Crushing Dreams, Chief Dream Crusher!  Sad, but funny.

What are you doing with your employees today?

Sometimes a Job Isn’t Worth It

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Linds Redding, a New Zealand-based art director who worked at BBDO and Saatchi & Saatchi, died last month at 52 from an inoperable esophageal cancer. Turns out Linds didn’t really like his old job and mad hours he spent creating a successful career. Here is what Linds wrote before he died:

“I think you’re all f—— mad. Deranged. So disengaged from reality it’s not even funny. It’s a f—— TV commercial. Nobody gives a s—.

This has come as quite a shock I can tell you. I think, I’ve come to the conclusion that the whole thing was a bit of a con. A scam. An elaborate hoax.

Countless late nights and weekends, holidays, birthdays, school recitals and anniversary dinners were willingly sacrificed at the altar of some intangible but infinitely worthy higher cause. It would all be worth it in the long run…

This was the con. Convincing myself that there was nowhere I’d rather be was just a coping mechanism. I can see that now. It wasn’t really important. Or of any consequence at all really. How could it be. We were just shifting product. Our product, and the clients. Just meeting the quota. Feeding the beast as I called it on my more cynical days.

So was it worth it?

Well of course not. It turns out it was just advertising. There was no higher calling.”

When faced with death, I wonder how many of us will look back on all the time and effort we put into our career and will feel the same?

That all being said, sometimes I think a job might be worth it as well.  Here’s the other side of the coin.  I frequently see articles and blog posts, recently, written by people who have given up their careers to travel the world.  It  all seems so glamorous and adventurous. Until you realize you had a career and job to pay for all those glamorous adventures! From Adweek, “The Couple Who Quit Their Ad Jobs to Travel the World Ended Up Poor and Scrubbing Toilets The uglier side of a year-long creative journey”:

 “You remember Chanel Cartell and Stevo Dirnberger, the South African couple who quit their agency jobs this year to travel the world and document the experience. It sounded like a dream, and the lovely Instagram photos have made it look like one.

But halfway through their year-long odyssey (they’re currently in Athens, having traveled 25,000 kilometers so far), they’ve posted a reality check on their blog—a post titled “Why We Quit Our Jobs In Advertising To Scrub Toilets”—in which they share “the uglier side of our trip.” It turns out that following one’s dream—while working odd jobs in exchange for room and board—involves a lot of dirty work, and more than a few tears.

“The budget is really tight, and we are definitely forced to use creativity (and small pep talks) to solve most of our problems (and the mild crying fits),” Cartell writes. “Don’t let the bank of gorgeous photography fool you. Nuh uh. So far, I think we’ve tallied 135 toilets scrubbed, 250 kilos of cow dung spread, 2 tons of rocks shoveled, 60 meters of pathway laid, 57 beds made, and I cannot even remember how many wine glasses we’ve polished.

“You see, to come from the luxuries we left behind in Johannesburg … we are now on the opposite end of the scale. We’re toilet cleaners, dog poop scoopers, grocery store merchandisers and rock shovelers.”

We work for a reason. Your reasons might be vastly different than my reasons, but we all have reasons. I hope if I look death in the face I won’t regret my choices to work and create a successful career. I’ve missed my fair share of school events and sporting events that my kids have participated in. I’ve missed many of their most joyful and sad moments. Those I already regret. What I won’t regret is that I work to allow my family to have so many of these moments.

I lived poor.  I lived with a single mother who wasn’t quite sure how she was going to pay for dinner that night. I work because I never wanted my family to feel this anxiety.  Sometimes a job is worth it, sometimes it isn’t.  It’s all up to you to decide, though.

Today, Go Fill Someone’s Bucket!

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A few years ago my son got to lead a small part of an assembly at his school.  He was really excited about his part, he got to get up in front of everyone at the end and kind of lead a cheer — you know kids love being loud at school!

I asked him what the assembly was about, and he said, “fillin’ buckets”.  “What?”, was my reply.  He said, “you know, you can say some things that will fill someone’s bucket, or you can say some things that will empty their bucket.”  My reply, “Oh, you mean like making deposits into someone’s emotional bank account.” His reply back,  “No, filling buckets, it has nothing to do with banks.”

Fillin’ Buckets. Simple, yet hard.

Today, I want to make it easy for you to do two things: 1. Fill your own bucket; 2. Fill some buckets.

Here’s a list of things that will help:

1. Surround yourself with positive people. Even if it’s only one person.  Even if it’s only yourself.

2. Connect at a deeper level.  Anyone can talk about the weather or what TV show they watched last night.  Strive to go deeper.

3. Hug someone who doesn’t expect it.

4. Spend a little money on someone else.

5. Take 5 minutes to appreciate all that you have.

6. Eat lunch or dinner outside.

7. Tell one person, you don’t normally talk to, one positive, genuine thing about why you like what they do.

8. Unplug and listen.

One last tip.  Leaders, as many of you are that read this, tend to be bucket fillers, because it’s part of the ‘job’.  Great leaders are genuine in this, but it’s harder than it looks, because many times our employees feel like we might just be doing this because it’s part of our role.  Catch 22.  How do you combat this?  Fill the buckets of those above you.  Leaders rarely get their buckets filled.

Try it, you’ll be amazed at how it makes you feel.  There’s something remarkable that happens when you start filling buckets, you realize it doesn’t matter who it is that you’re filling, it feels good!

What am I doing today?  I’m fillin’ buckets!

 

How You Should Communicate with Your Younger Boss

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This isn’t necessarily a unique phenomenon in our society, but as the Baby Boomers continue to age and many taking on non-leader roles within our organizations, these older employees are now finding themselves reporting to bosses much younger than themselves.  Many times these younger bosses have a lot less experience doing the job, make common new leader mistakes and flat out don’t know how to communicate with subordinates that are as old as their parents and/or grandparents!

So, what can an older employee do to help out this situation?

There was a great example of this recently with the payment startup company Clinkle who was founded by 22 year old Lucas Dulpan.  Dulpan needed an experienced COO and found it in former Netflix CFO and much older, Barry McCarty.  The fact of the matter is, Barry has much more knowledge and experience running this type of company than Lucas.  So, how do you deal with is obvious situation? From Jason Del Ray at Business Insider, here’s how McCarty describes it:

Jason Del Rey: What does your role entail?

Barry McCarthy: Well, Lucas is the CEO. I work for him. I want to be unambiguously clear about that. He’ll continue to focus on product and engineering. My primary focus will be everything else.

Jason Del Rey: Do you believe Lucas can be the long-term CEO of a giant payments company?

Barry McCarthy: Absolutely. And if he’s not, then I will feel like I have not served him as well as I could have.

BAM! That my friends is called Servant Leadership.  You support the leader, in this case Lucas, by serving that person with all the positive intent and direction that you can humanly provide.  What McCarty understands, because of his vast experience, is that it’s not about him getting noticed. Those who know the industry will know that he did his job exceptionally, and that is what really matters.

What to know how to best get along with your younger boss?  Stop trying to do their job, and start helping them do their job.  Lift them up, make them the star and everyone will see what you did to make that happen.  You win. Your boss wins.  The organization wins.  Isn’t that really the goal?

Watch Me LIVE Right Now! #CBEmpower15

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That’s right, someone made the brilliant decision to put me on TV LIVE. Lights, camera, action!  Today, I’ll be bringing you all the cool stuff happening at Empower 15 in Chicago!

The Live Stream will start at 8am CST today and go all day until 5pm CST (that’s 9am for you East Coasters – and way too early for those on the left coast!).

My friend Laurie Ruettimann will be joining me to kick it off in this morning, then I’ll be bringing you many other great HR and Talent Pros/Celebs throughout the day.

If you want to ask a question on the Live Stream – hit me on the Twitters at #CBEmpower15 or @TimSackett and I’ll try to make you famous!

Click below to get to Live Stream feed:

Empower 15 Live Stream

Remember! This is LIVE, who knows what might happen…

 

The 1 Miracle That Can Make Your Corporate Recruiters Better Almost Instantly

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I’ve had 3 opportunities in my career to step into traditional corporate recruiting departments and make changes that would ‘turn’ these departments around so that the organization would see them as a positive producing department, where previously that had not been viewed as this.  As you can imagine there are numerous changes that can be made to do this.  You could go out and hire more talented recruiters.  You could redesign and launch a new employment brand.  You can redesign your processes.  You can launch a new career website.  Add in recruiter specific training.  Get hiring managers and leadership involved in ‘owning’ their talent in their individual departments.  All great stuff.  All things that I eventually did – all which take considerable time and resources!

When you are stepping into a new organization and taking over, those who hired you expect instant miracles.  Why?  Because that’s what you told them you could do when you interviewed.  One problem.  You told them this without truly knowing what you were going to find when you started opening up closet doors in the department and skeletons began falling out all over the place.  You didn’t realize your staff of recruiters were really just HR admins in disguise.  That your ATS was an advance spreadsheet, and nothing more.  Your hiring managers believed the only way to get talent was to wait for you to deliver it to them on a silver platter, just so they could say “I don’t like that kind – bring me another platter!”  You didn’t know your major vendor was the CEO’s cousin who had no clue and no sense of urgency – but was entitled all the same.

Doesn’t matter now – deliver the miracle!

There is really only one thing I know that works in recruiting.  Doesn’t matter if you’re an agency or corporate.  Doesn’t matter the industry.  Doesn’t matter the recruiting experience level you have on your staff.  It’s been the one miracle that in good times and bad has always sets recruiters apart – at all levels.  Activity.  Outgoing phone calls, number of candidates interviewed, number of resumes sent to hiring managers, etc.  Higher activity level = higher recruiting department satisfaction and results, 100% of the time.  It’s a simple miracle.

So – how do you do this tomorrow?

Step 1:  Instantly track the number of ‘outgoing’ phone calls made per recruiter.  If you don’t have technology to track this – develop a simple call sheet that tracks candidate name, phone number, position called for and result.  Track calls for 2 weeks. (outgoing calls only – keep it simple, establish a habit – great recruiters call candidates)

Step 2: On week 3 – set daily outgoing call goal 25% higher than the two week daily average.  (don’t let on you will do this on week 3 or you’ll have low numbers your first two weeks)

Step 3:  Hold those recruiters accountable who aren’t reaching their call goal.

You’ll hear every single excuse in the world – you have to stay strong.  “I have too many meetings” – tell them you are giving them permission to no longer attend those meetings.  “I have to much paperwork” – stop doing paperwork – that’s for after 5pm and on weekends (recruiting isn’t a 40 hr per week job). Only concentrate on calls.  Calls. Calls. Calls.

Miracle, delivered, almost instantly.

Want to hear some more?  Call me – I’ve got more miracles. Sackett.tim@hru-tech.com; 517-908-3156 or @TimSackett  – my company delivers staffing miracles every freaking day!

CareerBuilder Empower 15 Live Stream Wednesday Sept. 10th!

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Next week Wednesday, September 10th, CareerBuilder has asked me to Host their Live Stream of Empower 15!

That’s right, someone made the brilliant decision to put me on LIVE. Lights, camera, action!  To bring to you all the cool stuff happening at Empower!

The Live Stream will start at 8am CST and go all day until 5pm CST (that’s 9am for you East Coasters – and way too early for those on the left coast!).  My friend Laurie Ruettimann will be joining me to kick it off in the morning, then I’ll be bringing you many other great HR and Talent Pros/Celebs throughout the day. Click on the link above for Wednesday’s lineup of great presenters!

Click below to get to Live Stream feed:

Empower 15 Live Stream

What is Empower?

DISCOVER. ELEVATE. INSPIRE.

The act of connecting employers and job seekers to make meaningful matches has changed dramatically over the past 20 years. And new economic, digital, and social trends have introduced an entirely new set of challenges. We’re giving you a front row seat to share the journey as we look back and, more importantly, ahead to the next 20. Join CareerBuilder and 1000+ other leaders for the talent acquisition event of the year where we’ll identify opportunities to continue to move the industry forward and work together to make recruitment easier and more effective.

Empower is Talent Acquisition’s version of all those cool HR conferences your HR peers get to go to, but they aren’t really designed for true Talent Acquisition leaders!