Category Archives: Leadership

The Open Office Terrorists

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So, how’s that new open office plan treating you!?

A recent study out says that it takes a normal person roughly 37 seconds to figure out working in an open office environment is going to suck! I mean, those were probably the slow people in the study, it doesn’t take a mental genius to see that going from an office where you could actually get stuff done to a bunch of people looking at each other, probably isn’t the best concept for productivity!

Okay, so that wasn’t a ‘real’ study. It was me and the voices in my head discussing the open office concept, and we all agree. Call it what you will, I’ll call it a quorum.

An actual study done GetVoip was spammed to me last week titled: The Detrimental Pitfalls of Open-Plan Offices which had the following findings:

– 95% of employees said working privately is important to them

– 89% of employees are more productive when working alone

– 63% of employees name “loud” coworkers as their #1 distraction.

“But, Tim! Open offices look so cool, and they prosper collaboration and communication and ping pong.”

Great…

But how many of you actually need more collaboration and communication?  I mean really?  Let’s be honest.

If Billy comes over to talk about The Voice one more time I’m going to gut him right here in my 8 ft by 8 ft low wall cubicle space I spend most of my time in. I’ll then use Billy’s skin to make a roof over my cubicle and finally have a little piece and quiet to actually get something done.  It’s not that I don’t like Billy. He’s was super the first three thousand times he came into talk me.  Now I want to see him die. Slowly. Painfully.

Open office space sucks because you have coworkers that are terrorists of the open office.  They come in all shapes and sizes, and they disguise themselves as actual coworkers. Here are a few examples:

1. The CrossFit Terrorist: Mandy does CrossFit. You should do CrossFit. And, apparently, the next best thing to doing CrossFit is talking about CrossFit to people who don’t give a shit about CrossFit.

2. The Vegan Terrorist: Mark is Vegan. You should be Vegan. And, apparently, the next best thing to being Vegan, is talking about begin Vegan to people who are trying to enjoy a nice fried donut and a RedBull for breakfast.

3. The Why Guy: The Why Guy can also be a Gal. They want to know why! Why are we doing this? Why are you doing what you’re doing? Why is the boss nice today? Why is the sky blue? Why are you holding a knife to your wrist?

4. The Schemer: Molly is a schemer. Molly wants you to scheme with her.  Molly doesn’t like how Missy wears hair hair and wants to get her fired. Plus Missy’s teeth are too white. Molly spends 77% of her day scheming of ways to get Missy fired, and needs to tell you all about it.

You see?  Open office plans are the devil in disguise.  If you had an actual office with a door, you could shut it. Lock it. Put up a sign that says, “I hate you! Go Away!”, but that would just look silly hanging from your chair at that table in the middle of the room you share with a bunch of terrorists!

 

Delivering Benefits Bad News

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Hey, gang! I wrote a book! Well, to be fair it’s an eBook. I don’t think that actually counts when being considered for a Pulitzer but none the less it’s something I wrote!

The good folks at Alex help me get this done. Meaning, I did the writing and they did all the rest!  The concept is how do we as HR pros deliver bad news during open enrollments.  Most of us have been in this situation. As we begin to prepare for the next open enrollment, like many of us are doing right now, or very soon, we already know we have some challenges.

Costs will increase, we might have to get rid of a popular benefit, or reduce benefits, etc. These are things HR and Benefit pros face every year. It’s the rare individual that just keeps getting the opportunity to give more. Let’s face it, the majority of us don’t work at Google, or companies like Google flush with cash.

Real HR pros have to deliver messages that are tough.  That’s why I wrote this book.

You can download for free at: http://info.meetalex.com/Tim-Sackett_Benefits-Bad-News_LP_Benefits-Bad-News_A.html

It’s a quick read and because it’s written by me, there might just possibly a bit of snark! I hope you enjoy it, and that you can use some of the practical advice I give.

(I am not being paid for this promotion.  I think ALEX is a pretty cool piece of HR technology that many organizations could use to help them communicate their benefit message out to their employees.  We like to talk about great employee engagement, and culture, etc., but what is proven is that employees who actually understand their benefits are more likely to stay with your company. That’s real HR.) 

There’s Collateral Damage in Leadership

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You know what none of the great leadership speakers, gurus, TEDx speakers, etc., will tell you about leadership?  Sometimes in leadership, even the best, greatest, visionaries, have to do things they wouldn’t want anyone else to know about.

We got to see this in the past weeks with Tom Brady, the Super Bowl winning quarterback from the New England Patriots, with how he responded to the Deflategate scandal.  Tom had a chance to be the leader we all believe leaders to be. Instead, he was the leader that most leaders are.

You don’t want to hear this.

Brady did what leaders do.  He protected the brand.  Whether you like it or not, New England, The NFL and Tom Brady are the brand. He protected the shield.  You really think he’s going to throw the brand on the sword for some equipment guy that no one will know in 30 seconds?

Now, don’t get me wrong. Tom Brady is a liar.  He lied about not knowing anything about those balls being deflated.  He knew exactly why and how those balls were deflated, because he gave the order!

The NFL is a $100 Billion dollar business. The New England Patriots are the NFL. Tom Brady is the NFL. Just like the rest the teams and players are.  So, the NFL, the Patriots and Brady all have a vested interested in ‘handling’ this with as little collateral damage as possible.

Throwing a couple of equipment guys under the bus, throwing the blame on them, is collateral damage to protect the brand.

You know what happens when when a giant multi-national company does something horribly wrong and there is loss of life or major damage?  They find someone to shoulder the blame that is smaller than the brand.  People lose jobs. Sometimes they even go to prison. But the company, the brand live on.

You’ll never see the multi-national CEO come out and take the blame for catastrophic events.  They’ll have empathy, they’ll have compassion, but they will not take blame. This is real leadership.

You don’t want to believe that this is leadership, but it is.

Tom Brady did for the NFL what great leaders do.  He deflected a cheating scandal that could have cost billions of dollars to the brand, and placed it on the shoulders of some guy making $40,000 a year.  People can accept that story.  Some dumb equipment manager was a super fan and just trying to help out ‘his’ guy. It wasn’t Tom. Tom is a modern day God!

Welcome to the show kids.

The New HR Math

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It all started with a great premise: Let’s teach kids an easier way to understand math so they won’t end up hating it. We can all buy into that, right!?

What came out was a classic organizational nightmare of project-gone-wrong, in a way only HR can truly understand—the Common Core was born. Now, there you sit at the kitchen table trying to show your kid how to do basic multiplication, but you really have no clue on how to do it the “new-math” way.

In a similar way, it used to be HR and Talent Acquisition could just run some spreadsheets, make a three-color pie graph, drop it in the middle of the conference table and—BAM—our job was done.

But, not anymore! Now you’re expected to take your people analytics and make evidence-based decisions, and prove we actually know what we’re talking about, eliminating the art and “feel” of classic HR and Talent practices.

We feel your pain, and we can’t multiply the new way either. That’s why our May installment of the FOT webinar is entitled, The New HR Math: Dumbing Down HR Analytics for Everyday HR and Talent Pros. Join FOT’s Tim Sackett and Kris Dunn for this webinar (sponsored by HireVue, a company that gets predictive analytics at a whole other level), and we’ll share the following goodies with you:

– 5 HR and Talent Analytics you should stop measuring immediately! You know what looks really bad to your leadership? When HR is using the old math, and everyone else is using the new math!

– 5 HR and Talent Analytics you should start measuring immediately! Don’t be that parent fighting the good fight, ostracizing your kid from society by not allowing them to use the new math skills! We have the new cool measures you really need to be using in HR and recruiting today.

– 3 Best Practices every HR and Talent Acquisition shop can do right now with their analytics. You now know what the numbers are, but what the heck are you supposed to do with them? Fear not, Tim and Kris watched every YouTube video possible on the new math, they can show you the way!

– A primer on what’s next once you start using these Predictive Analytics. Since you specialize in people, you naturally understand the move to using analytics that helps you predict the future is only half the battle—you have to have a plan once the predictions are made. We’ll help you understand the natural applications for using your predictive analytical data as both a hammer and a hug—to get people who need to change moving, and to embrace those that truly want your help as a partner.

You’re a quality HR pro who knows how to get things done. Join us May 27th at 2pm EST for The New HR Math: Dumbing Down HR Analytics for Everyday HR and Talent Pros, and we’ll help you understand how to deploy the “new-math” principles in HR that allow you to use predictive analytics to position yourself as the expert you are.

On the Job Extra Credit

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Remember when you were in school and you had a hard test, and it kicked your butt?  The saving grace was always when the teacher would give you extra credit to help you make up for that bad test grade!

I loved extra credit!

You know what never happened?  I never got extra credit for just showing up to class.

Why is that?

You see, you don’t get extra credit for doing what you’re supposed to do.  You need to do ‘extra’!

We are currently caught in a vicious employment performance cycle where your employees want extra credit for showing up, and guess what?  You’re giving it to them!

Your employees are showing up and doing the job that you’re paying them to do, and they want you to give them extra credit for doing what they’re supposed to do.  Weak leaders and organizations do this all the time.

Why is this?

They don’t rightly define the difference between what is expected and what you get extra credit for.  Once you define this, giving out extra credit is fun! Not entitled.

Don’t get me wrong, I desperately want to give out extra credit to employees!  I truly don’t think many actually want extra credit, but for those who do, I want to make sure they know exactly how to get it, and what’s in it for them when they decide to give that extra effort.

You know what they call this in HR business?

Performance management.

You’ll Never Forget Your First Time

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I was twenty-six years old.  At the time, I was living in Michigan and working in my first job right out of college.  I had been doing pretty well for myself and began moving up in the company.

I had just got put into a position where I had a couple of people reporting to me, and I had to hire a new person to report to me as well.  I hired this smart, young person right out of college. Their passion and energy immediately attracted to them.

Oh, wait, you think I’m talking about…

Okay, let me start again.  This post isn’t about sex! This post is about my first termination!

Can you remember yours?

In my career, having to terminate individuals are some of my most memorable experiences.  I think if you have half a heart, you’re probably the same.  When I talk to upcoming HR graduates, I always try and forewarn them about this part of our job.

Terminating employees leads HR pros to heavy drinking or other forms of stress relief. That is a fact.

From time to time I hear HR pros talk boastful about firing someone, and it makes me sick to my stomach.  While I’ve had to terminate individuals that clearly deserved it, I never took pleasure in doing it.  It’s the one thing that really sucks about having a career in HR.  We get to see people at their weakest moments.

Most of us pray that no one ever has to see this side of ourselves.  Let alone, be in a position, where you frequently get to see this side of humanity.

When you terminate someone, there is a good chance you’re going to see this person’s biggest fears.  I have enough of my own fears. I don’t need to carry around the fears of others!

My first time?

I had to fire the young kid I hired with all the passion and energy, hoping they were going to change the world, fresh out of college.  This person just couldn’t come up to speed as a recruiter. It happens. I worked with this person, encouraged them, but eventually this person was ‘dead-employee’ walking.

Their body kept showing up for work, but their mind and heart had given up.  No matter how hard they physically worked, it wasn’t going to happen for them.  So, I pulled them into the conference room and told them it was time.

No real emotion to make this termination more memorable than any other. The person was upset, and you could see this was not something they had written on their bucket list.  They stood up, walked out, and my life went on.

Nine years later, I’m working at Applebee’s in HR.  I was responsible for seventy restaurants, and I happen to stroll into one of the locations and there is my first termination working behind the bar!  I saw him before he saw me, but once he saw me he froze.

I went over to say ‘hi’, and catch up.  It was awkward and clunky, but I’m an HR pro, I was trained to do this.  After me letting him go, he bounced around for a few years, and finally decided to go back to school, and had taken the bartender job at Applebee’s to make ends meet.

I saw this person a number of times after, and on one visit, he asked to talk.  He said that the day I walked into the Applebee’s, and he learned who I was, in my new position, he assumed I was going to fire him again.  I said, “For what?!” He said, “I don’t know, just because.”

It hit me hard.  This wasn’t about terminating a poor performer and moving on.  This person carried that termination around like a backpack for nine years, and as soon as they saw me, all that fear and feelings of failure flooded back to him.

Welcome to the show kids. Sometimes working in HR sucks.

New Money in HR

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My wife and I got to spend some time in the Cayman Islands this past week.  It was great! I highly recommend going if you have the means.

You know what I saw a lot of in Cayman? New money!

New money is people who aren’t from money.  They weren’t raised around money, so they don’t know how to act with money.  They tend to stick out around people who grew up with money.  I’m neither new or old money, but it was fascinating to watch how the two differ.

It started from the moment I was going through customs to get into Cayman.  New money complains about having to wait in line to get through customs with the common folk. Old money didn’t wait in line, as they have been here before and knew the way around line.

My wife and I went to swim with the dolphins. We ran into new money at the facility. One of the workers was helping a family with three daughters and showing them some wildlife at the center. A few of us walked up soon after he started, and he politely asked us to wait. The girls were taking turns holding parrots and such, and getting their picture.  This new money lady walked right up to the worker and said, “I want to hold the parrot and get my picture!”

The worker kindly obliged, and she quickly departed, on to push around the next person. Caymanians are used to new money.

New money buys a $150 polo shirt in the lobby store because walking across the street to a shop that has the same shirt for $75 would be an inconvenience.  New money makes you feel like it’s completely normal to pay $50 for a cheeseburger and fries.

New money seems annoyed that they aren’t treated better, because they have money. New money is loud, impatient and rude. Old money waits in the back, for the crowd to clear, understanding, because they have money, they’ll get what they want eventually, and treating people kindly will get them exactly what they want.

I heard someone last week say HR is the new IT. Referring to how power is shifting out of IT and moving into HR because of how difficult it is to get great talent.  Great technology is becoming easier to obtain and work with, great talent is becoming harder to obtain and work with.

This phenomenon is shifting some organizational power to HR.  In organizations power equals money.

HR pros will have a choice to make.  Do you want to be new money or old money?  You think it’s an easy choice, but it’s not. Money and power make people do stupid things.

Leveraging your new found power for good will be one of the hardest things you’ll ever do in your HR career.  Those who do it successfully are old money kind of folks. Those who use it to push around their organization in ways that satisfy only themselves are the kind of people who push over little girls to get their photo taken with a bird.

Cayman Islands and HR

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I just got back from the Cayman Islands where I was invited to speak to the Cayman Islands Society of Human Resource Professionals at their annual meeting.  As you might imagine, it was awesome!

This is only the second time in my life I’ve been out of the United States to speak (the first being to Toronto – which is kind of in my own backyard, so it’s hard to count!).  I definitely need to do this more, as I think I actually learn more than those I’m speaking to.

Here are some of the great things I took away from the Cayman Islands, HR and Hugging.

1. The HR and Talent Pros in Cayman are as passionate as any professionals that I’ve ever spoken to. They love HR and Talent Acquisition and they are hungry for knowledge and to get better.

2. HR in Cayman is as unique as you’ll find anywhere in the world. You have native Caymanians who are working to develop their talents and Expat-HR pros from all over the world thrown into the mix. You put all of this together and diversity of thought is incredible.

3. Caymanians love hugs! I got a bunch. Real hugs. Not those fake hugs we tend to give each other in the states.

4. Great HR conferences take a lot of work from a lot of people, but it also is a labor of love from one or two people, usually. Chris Bailey (@anythingoverice) is one of those people in Cayman.  He’ll be at SHRM national, make sure you connect with him, he’s one of the good guys in the world! Also, check out CISHRP’s, Inga Masjule, at SHRM National as she’ll be speaking on the topic of International HR – she’s good people as well, and smart as hell!

5. The majority of Caymanians are very religious (Pornography, sex toys, etc. are illegal in Cayman). They also celebrated Batabano when I was there. I struggled to put these two things together in my mind!  But, I will again go to Cayman for Batabano and dance in the parade!

6. Upon arriving to Cayman I would have thought they have absolutely no issue recruiting any kind of talent to the islands. I was shocked to find out this is a major problem at the professionals levels. Cayman is the fifth largest financial center in the world and they have a ton of highly paid jobs going unfilled. The largest recruiting dilemma to overcome? It’s too good to be true! People can’t believe what a great opportunity is, and believe there must be something you aren’t telling them!

7.  I got to see a speaker named Dr. Graeme Close (@close_nutrition) out of the UK who talked about wellness and nutrition. He is a former pro Rugby player and current strength and conditioning coach for England’s Rugby, Ski and Snowboard Olympic teams, as well as other pro athletes.  If you are responsible for wellness at your company, you must have this guy come and talk to your employees. He’s brilliant, motivating and funny.  He would be perfect to kick-off any wellness program.

8.  In 4 days I swam with Stingrays, Dolphins, Sea Turtles and countless fish, witnessed Batabano,  ate some of the best food I’ve ever tasted (most memorable was local fare from downtown Georgetown directly after Batabano – on one plate I had Lobster, shrimp, breadfruit, rum cake, potato salad, plantain, beans and rice – it was glorious!) and had the single best Gin and Tonic of my life at Catch.

9. Every group of HR/Talent Pros have things that no one wants to, or is willing to, talk about. Those taboo topics. Caymanian’s have theirs as well, and it was empowering watching them address these head on, it’s truly the only way we move the profession forward.

10. HR and Talent Acquisition conference planners! Pay Attention! CISHRP does conference food better than anyone else in the world, and second place isn’t even close! CISHRP had the best food I’ve ever had at a conference. I’m sure having it at the Ritz Carlton has something to do with it, but the leaders at CISHRP still had to pick the menu!

Thanks again, Chris and the CISHRP crew, for having me come down!

The Secret to Great HR

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The secret is extraordinarily simple, it’s all about a few close relationships. Depending on what type of organization you come from, it has to do with the relationship you have with those who are running operations.

First, every organization has some type of operation, meaning every organization produces something, product, service, etc. Even in church, the pastor runs operations, sharing the gospel with people, for example.

So, in your organization, to have great HR, the leadership in HR must have a great relationship with the leadership in Operations. I’m talking husband/wife great relationship, your best friend in the world type relationship, someone you could go on vacation for a week, and share a hotel room type relationship.  Not, I can ‘get along’ with them type relationships.

The blocking and tackling of HR isn’t difficult, but becomes incredibly difficult without support from your operation’s partner. People miss this and it’s very simple. Instead, in HR, we work to make new processes, new programs, better orientation, more specific recruiting plans, user-friendly HRIS, etc. Then, we get completely frustrated when we can’t get rank and file to follow some very simple steps to make it all run extremely smooth.

Why?

Because we mostly do all this HR stuff, without operations really buying into, or even wanting, our latest and greatest new thingy we just put together. Even though it’s for them, by the way!

If you have a strong relationship with Ops, they will tell you what they need, help you design it, roll it out for you, and make their own processes to ensure it’s followed. Wow! Doesn’t that sound nice? All because of a relationship.

The secret to Great HR has nothing to do with functional HR knowledge and expertise.  It has everything to do with your ability, from a position in HR, to build great two-way relationships across your organization, even with those functions you don’t like!

Sometimes You Just Love Someone At First Sight

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We aren’t supposed to be those people in HR.  We aren’t supposed to fall in love with a candidate the moment we see them. We tell ourselves we’re better than the rest, than our hiring managers.

The problem is, we do. We do fall in love. In fact, it happens all the time.

For the most part when you go to hire and you start interviewing, you either fall in love with a candidate or you don’t. There really isn’t any in between.  If you don’t fall in love, you never really feel comfortable making an offer, and if you do, you feel it’s probably going to eventually fail.

I’m not saying that those you fall in love with succeed all the time, because they don’t.  Without the love feeling, though, you never feel confident in the hire.

Here’s where I really start to think we might just be over-thinking this entire hiring thing.

If I fall in love with a candidate in the first 2 minutes, why do I need to go on with the interview process?  Do you ever fall out of love with a candidate, you fell in love with at first sight? I haven’t.  If I loved them in two minutes, I loved them after 2 hours of interviewing.  Sometimes you just know.

This doesn’t work for every position. Falling in love works best when you’re really hiring for organizational fit.  When you have a position that you could teach to almost anyone willing to learn, good work ethic, etc. If the primary goal to achieving a great hire is organizational fit, falling in love at first site usually works pretty good on the selection scale.

None of us in Talent Acquisition and HR ever want this to get out. It goes against our secret handshake to make hiring really difficult in our organizations. But, when you really go back and analyze your best hires, almost all of them will have the ‘love’ factor!

I believe in two things when it comes to hiring:

1. Do I really love this person as a hire?  If I can’t immediately answer that question, I need to keep looking.

2. Does this person scare the shit out of me?  Meaning, is this person so talented that eventually they’ll take my job! I hope so. I want to be scared, it makes me work harder. I want people who are better than me. Most people do the opposite. If the candidate is better than you, they pass, because they lack the confidence on how to handle that situation.

If I can answer ‘Yes’ to both of the above questions, I’m going to make some really strong hires.