Mailbag Question: Should Our Receptionist Hug Clients?

Posted on October 27, 2017 by Tim Sackett

So, yes, I’m the “World’s Foremost Expert on Workplace Hugging” so it seems appropriate that this week I would get the following question from a reader:

Dear World’s Foremost Expert on Workplace Hugging,

My boss asked me to do something this week and before I did it I wanted to ask an expert, like yourself, and get some other opinions. The situation is our CEO has asked me to ‘tell’ our front desk receptionist that she will now be required to hug each client that comes into our office. Our CEO feels this will create a more welcoming and friendly environment for our clients. What are your thoughts on doing this?

Thinking this doesn’t right in Middle America!

Yes, this was an actual exchange that I had this week! I made up the name, but everything else is as accurate as I can make and still protect the innocent!

So, in 2017, a CEO of an actual, successful company, wants “Mary” the Receptionist to start hugging every client that comes to the office. Wow. Right? Just, Wow!

Here’s my response:

Middle America,

First, being a hugger, I actually understand where your CEO is coming from. When I go into a business and I’m met with a friendly (natural, unforced) hug. I feel very welcome! When I’m down south, I seem to get more hugs than if I’m on either coast or in a big city. So, part of me actually understands the psychology behind this request.

That being said, I have one question for your CEO (and I encourage to ask this question): “If Mary leaves as your receptionist, and you hire “Mark” to replace her, will your CEO still want “Mark” to go and hug every client?” I’ll take make a ‘big’ assumption here and say, no, probably not!

This is a very quick and simple way to point out how harassing this action would be viewed by normal people. If you decide to go down this path of making hugging an actual work requirement, you will end up in a lawsuit at some point!

Okay, I’m a hugger, so let me tell you how you get most of what you want, without the lawsuit! Go hire a natural hugger to man your front desk and never discourage this behavior! You’ll get most of what you want, especially if your CEO and others mirror this hugging behavior to every client they meet in front of this person.

Good Luck,

Tim The World’s Foremost Expert in Workplace Hugging!

I love HR because of this very real, innocent question. You never actually know what the heck you’ll walk into each day, and there is no way of planning for the insane things that happen!

Have a great Friday HR Pros! You deserve it!

You almost never go wrong when hiring pretty people!

Posted on October 23, 2017 by Tim Sackett

What do you think of, in regards to smarts, when I say: “Sexy Blond model type”?

What about: “Strong Athletic Jock?”

What about: “Scrawny nerdy band geek?”

My guess is most people would answer: Dumb, Dumb, Smart – or something to that context.

In HR we call this profiling and make no mistake, profiling is done by almost all of our hiring managers. The problem is everything we might have thought is probably wrong in regards to our expectations of looks and brains. So, why are ugly people smarter?

They’re Not!

Slate published an article that contradicts all of our ugly people are more smart myths and actually shows evidence to the contrary. From the article:

Now there were two findings: First, scientists knew that it was possible to gauge someone’s intelligence just by sizing him up; second, they knew that people tend to assume that beauty and brains go together. So they asked the next question: Could it be that good-looking people really are more intelligent?

Here the data were less clear, but several reviews of the literature have concluded that there is indeed a small, positive relationship between beauty and brains. Most recently, the evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa pulled huge datasets from two sources—the National Child Development Study in the United Kingdom (including 17,000 people born in 1958), and the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health in the United States (including 21,000 people born around 1980)—both of which included ratings of physical attractiveness and scores on standard intelligence tests.

When Kanazawa analyzed the numbers, he found the two were related: In the U.K., for example, attractive children have an additional 12.4 points of IQ, on average. The relationship held even when he controlled for family background, race, and body size.

That’s right HR Pros, pretty people are smarter. I can hear hiring managers and creepy executives that only want “cute” secretaries laughing all over the world!

The premise is solid though! If you go back in our history and culture you see how this type of things evolves:

1. Very smart guy gets a great job or starts great company and makes a ton of money

2. Because of success, “smart guy” now has many choices of very pretty females to pursue as a bride.

3. “Smart guy” and “Pretty bride” start a family which results in Pretty-Smart Children. Did you pay attention to basic genetics in biology class?

4. Pretty-Smart Children grow up with all the opportunities that come to smart beautiful families.

5. The cycle repeats.

Now, first, this is a historical thing thus my example of using a male as our “Smart guy” and not “Smart girl”. I’m sure in today’s world this premise has evolved yet again. But we are talking about how we got to this point, not where are we now. Additionally, we are looking at how your organization can hire better.

So, how do you want to hire better employees? That’s easy! Just hire more pretty people!

Does Your Annual Review Process Include Terminations?

Posted on October 18, 2017 by Tim Sackett

By now most of you probably have had the chance to read the Telsla article where they terminated 400 employees directly after their annual review process. If not, check out the link. Also, my buddy Kris Dunn did a great write up on Tesla’s ‘unique’ culture as well over at the HR Capitalist.(Go Check it Out!)

My take is a bit different from Kris’s. Sure Tesla is a unique culture that has been ultra successful, but I’m wondering from an employee performance point of view, is firing employees during your annual process something that drives a sustainable culture?

Tesla is ultra cool, everyone wants “Tesla” on their resume or in their client list. Does that continue to be the case if you treat employees like this? I’m all for firing bad, underperforming employees, we all need to do this more and quicker. I think we all agree on that.

The question is, do you fire employees during your annual review process?

I’m wondering what the day or week before annual review time looks like at Tesla? Probably a lot of going away lunches and after hour drinks, but for everyone since no one really knows who will get ‘cut’ this time. Can you imagine those lunches!?

“Hey, team, everyone is invited to lunch next Thursday, just because, well, you know, it’s annual review time and we just want to say ‘thanks’ (“Thanks” now meaning “Goodbye” in Tesla speak) for all of your hard work, and, well, again, you just never know when one of us might want to do something else, and, oh gosh, we just never spend enough time together, so let’s break some bread!”

I’m also guessing the Friday after Tesla Annual Performance Review week is one big giant after-party!

Let’s face it, firing anyone during performance evaluation time is an awful way to run that process. You wait around for once a year to do most of your terminations, you’re not doing employee performance well at all!

If you have performance issues, high-performance companies address those issues immediately, work to correct, and if that doesn’t happen, they move to terminate as soon as it’s clear performance will not improve. Or you can wait around for f’ing ‘Death Day’ once a year and add a million times more stress to the process than is ever needed.

But what do I know, I mean it’s Tesla and Tesla knows all. Can’t wait to meet the ‘unicorn’ HR leader from Tesla at next conference I go to explain how brilliant they are for coming up with this nightmare.

HR on my friends.

Everyone Has An Organizational Expiration Date

Posted on October 16, 2017 by Tim Sackett

I was out at the HR Technology Conference last week and I was reminded of a post I ran a few years back. I ran into a ton of friends and colleagues, many that I’ve known for about ten years. These are good, smart people who are successful in the HR and TA industry.

Regardless, many of these folks are working at new companies, or even looking for work. I’m confident all will find what they are looking for, but it also points out a phenomenon that happens all the time which is many of us have organizational expiration dates.

There are a number of other reason 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 a 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 salesperson a decade ago, either get the trophy back or go 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. We need to just 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!

But, what I’ve learned over the past couple of decades is that there are also some positive reasons of why people have organizational expiration dates:

New CEO is running the show. One day you’re minding your own business, the next day the new CEO fast-forwards your expiration date so she can bring in her own you.
We All Need Some New Magic. Many of us have a limited number of magic tricks. It might be amazing magic, but eventually, even our biggest fans get tired of our magic. But, the great thing is a new organization will love our magic! (Editors note: you can replace ‘magic’ with ‘bullshit’ and this works just the same)
You Stopped Growing. I’ve met some folks who took their organization to some great places, but eventually they reached a point where they stopped growing. Going to a new organization is really the only hope.

Probably the best thing we can hope for professionally is that we will know when our organizational expiration date is up before others know. How do we do that? Work hard on having the best self-insight you can. It might just extend your expiration date.

GenX Rant: You’re not lonely, you’re just an idiot…

Posted on October 5, 2017 by Tim Sackett

So, the Washington Post ran an article this week where the former Surgeon General states that the U.S. has a “loneliness epidemic” it’s currently facing. A what?!

From the article:

“Vivek H. Murthy, who became the U.S. surgeon general in late 2014 after a lengthy confirmation battle over his remarks about guns being a health-care issue, added emotional well-being and loneliness to his list of big public health worries.

Now he’s writing about the impact the workplace has on those issues, taking his concerns to employers and speaking out about how the “loneliness epidemic” plays out on the job. In a new cover story in the Harvard Business Review, Murthy treats loneliness like a public health crisis, and the workplace as one of the primary places where it can get better — or worse. “Our social connections are in fact largely influenced by the institutions and settings where we spend the majority of our time,” Murthy said in an interview with The Washington Post. “That includes the workplace.”

Have we lost our f#*king minds!?

So, Timmy doesn’t make friends at work, goes home and spends eight straight hours on social media, or binge watches 8 episodes of Breaking Bad and feels like no one is his friend. That not an epidemic. Tim is an idiot!

I wasn’t a lonely kid, and I didn’t grow up being a lonely adult. Why? My parents would physically lock me out of the house from like after school to whenever the street lights came on. I was no ‘allowed’ in the house. They forced me to got out and make friends. It’s a learned skill, making friends. They said only one thing, “Go make friends.”

No instructions. No scheduled playgroups. Get your lazy ass outside and make friends. It’s not hard, just don’t be an idiot to the other kids who are were also forced outside. A ‘friend’ is not a social connection. It’s someone you physically talk to, touch, you know what each other’s likes and hates. You know their dreams and fears.

So, here we are in 2017, we can’t find enough talent, we’re struggling to help our leaders manage the performance of our workforce, and now we have to teach adults how to make friends? You have to be freaking kidding me!

A decade ago Gallup found out the ‘trick’ too happy employees is they have a ‘best friend’ at work. Little did we know, then, but apparently we do today, HR would become best friend matchmaker for friendship illiterate millennials who couldn’t look up from their phones for fifteen seconds to say an actual “hello” to Timmy as he walked by.

I give up. We’re all morons. Society is lost. China, please come takeover already…

Should the NFL Players Stick to Playing Football?

Posted on September 25, 2017 by Tim Sackett

I didn’t watch much NFL football this weekend, but I certainly heard about every single one of those players who made the decision to stand or kneel during the national anthem!

One thing I’ve heard from a lot of people is that football players (and celebrities in general) should stick to playing football, and stay out of politics. This is usually told to me by someone who is not a politician, but giving me all of their political commentaries!

Freedom of speech is one of the fundamental pillars of our nation.

You may or may not support a Football player not standing for the national anthem. It doesn’t really matter. They have a stage and they’re going to use it in a way they see fit. If you don’t like it, stop watching football. It’s silly we pay millions of dollars to men to play a game, to begin with, and idolize them for playing kid’s game (see what I did there with my commentary!).

We’re the idiots, not them. They’re just using the stage we’ve given them.

What I don’t like is this concept that people should stick to doing what they know. We were all idiots at most stuff at some point in our lives. Someone we gained knowledge of something, and within that thing, we felt like we were no longer idiots.

We added to those things, and soon we had a number of things we could speak on and not be sound like an idiot.

If an NFL player wants to talk politics, or social injustice, or whatever, good. That’s what America is truly all about, deciding what you no longer want to be an idiot about, and changing it. I was an idiot when it came to technology. I studied. I asked for help. I got involved. I now feel like I’m way less an idiot when it comes to technology.

That NFL player who wants to get involved is no different. Some might just be starting. Good for them! Some might be further along. Some might never have any interest in any of this. Also, good for them.

I believe America is the greatest country on the planet. I love it here. Some might not, and want to make it even better. I totally understand that. I love America, but it’s not perfect, and we have some big room for improvement.

Should NFL players demonstrate their political and social views on the field? Should your employees at your place of work? We are all having to grapple with these issues, and one thing is clear, this will not be going away anytime soon, or will it go away easily and quietly.

For me, I don’t take my political or social views from celebrities. I take my political and social views from people who have put the time into truly understanding what these issues are from all sides. That actually might be a football player, it might be a politician, it might a teacher, it might be my postal carrier. That’s my America.

Leaders are just Interpreters of BullSh*t! #HRTechConf

Posted on September 22, 2017 by Tim Sackett

I was on the phone yesterday with George Larocque who is an HR advisor to HR technology companies worldwide. George also does some consulting with companies on selecting HR technology, research, etc. He’s one of the few people in the industry that I listen to, primarily because I know he knows his stuff and isn’t trying to sell me something! Check him out!

George described what he did as being an interpreter between HR and Talent leaders, and HR Technology vendors. The vendors tend to talk about stuff that practitioners could care less about. “We’re mobile first!” Really!? We don’t care, just show me how it works on mobile. George can speak HR and Talent, and he can speak HR technology, so he’s perfect to ‘interpret’!

He got me thinking about that concept. I loved how he described his role, and I feel like many times when I speaking at a conference and talking HR tech, I’m doing the same thing. I taking in all these buzzwords and concepts, and then just breaking them down in a way that real, in the trenches HR leaders and TA leaders can then easily understand what the heck all of it means.

I think Leaders, in general, do a lot of interpreting as well!

They mostly have to interpret the bullsh*t our c-suite is selling, into real actionable stuff for all of us in the trenches doing the work each day! The best leaders I ever worked for could take all of this crap and repackage it in a way that made sense to me and my peers, so we knew what direction we were actually going, and what needed to be done.

Let’s face it, the best CEOs in the world are really good at this as well, but far too often you don’t work for one of the best! You work for someone peddling bullsh*t. The problem with the bullsh*t language is it’s really hard to understand because there are no straightforward meanings for the bullsh*t words and phrases.

Leaders who are great bullsh*t interpreters have the ability to hear the bullsh*t words, know the bullsh*tters motivations, and piece together what is actually being said. Then, they will take this interpretation back to the people and rephrase it in a way where we don’t try and kill the bullsh*tter!

I like it. I like believing that I can interpret most bullsh*t as a leader. Thanks, George! If you’re going to be out at the HR Technology Conference, you can find both George and I filtering through mountains of bullsh*t! Come find us!

It’s Better to Make a Wrong Decision Fast

Posted on September 15, 2017 by Tim Sackett

For those that don’t know I played and coached volleyball for a great deal of my life. Being from Michigan I can tell you that is rare (being a male) and I got called “gay” more than once while fundraising to make money to pay for traveling nationally for major tournaments (I think the actual phrases were more like “don’t girls only play volleyball”, etc. Welcome to the rust belt).

Anyway, one piece of my coaching stuck with me (we used with our middle blockers) that I also have used into my adult life and I use it still today:

It’s better to make a wrong decision fast, then make the right decision to slow.

Why? In volleyball, when you go to block you have to make split second decisions. You have 3 options: block middle, block right side hitter, or block left side hitter. You rely on your instincts, you rely on communication from your teammates and you survey the situation (where is the pass coming from, where is the setter, how far off the net is the setter, etc.), then you make a decision.

The problem most middle blockers have at a young age is they want to be up on every block. They want to make the right decision every time, but by doing this, they rarely make it to block any position because they are frozen with indecision. I taught my middles to decide quickly and then do it. Do it 110%! Go to which ever spot you decided to block and block and even if the ball went to another position!

Why? Some positive things happen by you making the wrong decision quickly. For starters it allows your teammates to make adjustments they need to make to try and get the best possible outcome. Believe me your back row players know you made the wrong decision because they’re staring down the hitter with only one blocker! BUT, it also allows them to know how to try and defend that.

If you’re late, and you have a hole in the middle of the block and now they have to guess where to go. Fill the hole, cover the line, take the cross, etc. It becomes a guessing game. One which you rarely win. What happens if you make the right decision to slow? About 99% of the time, what was going to happen, already happened. You didn’t make the decision, it was made for you. I like being in control, so this isn’t an option I like.

So what? What the heck does this have anything to do with you becoming a better leader?

Fast Company has a wonderful article on this concept called: Why Keeping Your Options Open is Really, Really Bad Idea – from the article:

Why does keeping our options open make us less happy? Because once we make a final, no-turning-back decision, the psychological immune system kicks in. This is how psychologists like Gilbert refer to the mind’s uncanny ability to make us feel good about our decisions. Once we’ve committed to a course of action, we stop thinking about alternatives. Or, if we do bother to think about them, we think about how lousy they are compared to our clearly superior and awesome choice.

Most of us have had to make a choice between two colleges, or job offers, or apartments. You may have had to choose which candidate to hire for a job, or which vendor your company would engage for a project. When you were making your decision, it was probably a tough one–every option had significant pros and cons. But after you made that decision, did you ever wonder how you could have even considered the now obviously inferior alternative?…

When you keep your options open, however, you can’t stop thinking about the downside–because you’re still trying to figure out if you made the right choice. The psychological immune system doesn’t kick in, and you’re left feeling less happy about whatever choice you end up making.

This brings us to the other problem with reversible decisions–new research shows that they don’t just rob you of happiness, they also lead to poorer performance.

I tend to run into this with younger workers who want to make the right choice, fearing “death” or some other less desirable outcome if they make the wrong choice. They tend to defer decision making to their boss or a peer instead of making it themselves, thus giving away the chance for superior performance.

When in reality, all I want is for them to make any choice, and we’ll live with the outcome. I hire great people, so I’m sure they’ll make very wise, research driven decisions, and even then, sometimes they’ll fail. I’m willing to live with that. If it’s fast! Because that allows us to adjust and find a way to make it right.

Two things at play in this concept: 1. Fast action; 2. Failure is an option, that we can live with. Give me those two things, and I’ll show you an organization that is on the move and that can block pretty well!

The 5 Hiring Managers You Never Want to Work With

Posted on September 13, 2017 by Tim Sackett

I tend to read a lot about the type of manager you want to work for and with. It got me thinking, what about the 5 Hiring Managers You Don’t Want!? Not only for performance reviews but for interviews, development planning, discipline, etc. In HR we are constantly dealing with every type of hiring manager you can imagine but I came up with the top 5 I hate dealing with:

1. The Up-And-Out: You know this person, usually happens in larger organizations, at some point they were given a manager/director/VP title because they were the last one standing. As the talent took off in the organization to better positions with your competition, they kept moving up based mostly on the fact they had been around longer. But in the end, they lack talent, lack motivation, aren’t respected, and usually way over their head. They’ve been promoted past their ability and are now just waiting to be fired or retire.

2. The Nana-Nana-Boo-Boo I’m Better Than You: This the person who became a manager because they were probably the best at what ever function they were in, but lack leadership skills, so their leadership philosophy is to continue to show their staff that they are still better than their team by showing them up constantly and publicly. A huge piece of this stems from lack of self confidence and they feel they have to continue to show their bosses why they put them in charge, to begin with because they “get” this stuff and no one else does.

3. The Classic Politician: This is Captain Ass-Kisser (which was my first title for this hiring manager but I didn’t want to offend anyone) and Captain Fence Sitter. This is the hiring manager that will never take a stand, never be controversial and never put themselves in a position where they will protect their team. Basically, these are 85% of hiring managers at the Fortune 500 (hey don’t get mad at me I didn’t come up with the stat! Okay, I did but it seems about right, right?).

4. The Super Model: Have you ever noticed that most leaders are “pretty” people? Not only that, but they’re Tall. Abnormally tall and pretty on average, like there’s some conspiracy against short, ugly people. Look around at your leadership team and you’ll see 3 things: the average heigth is above the national average, they don’t have adult acne, and they have good hair. There actually have been academic studies done on this concept. People want their leaders like they want their celebrities, good looking and tall. Now this doesn’t make them less qualified, but it doesn’t make them more qualified either. And yes, I’m short with red hair and only my youngest son thinks I’m good looking and that’s only because he still fears I’ll shut off his iPhone.

5. The Tony Robbins-Stephen Covey-Wayne Dyer-Dr. Seuss: This one drives me completely insane! It’s the manager who reads leadership books constantly and only speaks in leadership-quotes-I’ve-read-in-books speak. You know, it’s gotta be a win-win, sharpen your saw, focus on our hedgehog, get that fly wheel going kinda day! These are the people that don’t have an original thought in their head but think their mashup of all the latest leadership crap somehow is an original master piece of their own.

So, hit me in the comments, which leader persona do you hate!?

When You Want It More Than They Want It

Posted on September 6, 2017 by Tim Sackett

You know what? Being an HR Pro isn’t tough, being a Dad/parent is tough! But, sometimes they seem to be very similar jobs.

I was reminded this weekend that many times in life, you want more for your kids/employees than they might want for themselves. We run into that frequently as HR Pros – you sit through 100’s if not 1000’s, performance management reviews, and in many of those, the conversation is centered around asking the employee,”Well, what do you want out of your career?”

The smart ones usually tell you what you want to here, the not-so-smart ones will tell you something totally off the wall, but either way, you end up feeling like you’re doing the parenting!

Recently, I was taught a lesson that I’ve taught many people in my career. The usual scenario is me sitting with an executive or hiring manager, explaining to them there is nothing we can do to change this employee if they are not willing to change this for themselves first. Seems simple, right!?

We can offer the best tools, the best teachers and mentors, send them away to great conferences and nothing happens, it’s the same old employee that we had before. We (HR, leadership, etc.) keep trying to change the individual, but the individual hasn’t decided, yet, that they are willing to change. In a nut shell, this is Performance Management, and there is a ton of performance management in Parenting!

For me, this is about wanting to turn one of my sons into something they are not, or are not yet ready to become. I can yell and push and plead and do everything my Dad probably did to me but if he hasn’t made up his mind to change, it’s just not going to happen.

It’s funny how we all teach and train things that we haven’t really experienced or understand. It’s in our DNA to want more for those we care about most. If you are a great leader/HR Pro and you care about your employees, you innately want them to reach their highest potential, it’s a natural feeling. The hardest part is getting to the point where you understand that no matter how much you want your employee to change for the better they have to want to change, first before any step forward will take place. The hardest thing to do as a leader/parent is to wait for this to happen.

So, don’t stop giving them the opportunity because you don’t know when the light will come on when the desire to change will take over. It could happen at any time. We set the table, we invite them to eat, then they either come and eat or they don’t. The next day, we set the table again and again and again.

One of my favorite quotes of all time comes from Leo Buscaglia (who is a wonderful writer and teacher), Leo says: “We don’t love to be loved in return, we love to love.” As HR Pros/Leaders/Parents I think Leo has it right. We don’t try and make those we care about better, for something we are going to get in return, we try and make them better (and continue to try) for the simple reason, it’s the right thing to do.

The hard part is we know, we see the potential usually because, we didn’t reach that potential ourselves, and through that experience, we want to make sure others don’t miss their opportunity. So, we will head back to the gym, a little smarter, a little wiser and, yeah, I’ll probably still yell a little too much…

The Tim Sackett Project

TA & HR Expert, Dad, Backup Point Guard on my over 40 men's team

Category Archives: Life Lessons