Category Archives: Life Lessons

Are you Great at Faking it?

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In our zest to have high employee engagement, HR has once again outsmarted itself.  Follow the logic:

1. High Employee Engagement is a desired measure.

2. HR creates programs to drive Employee Engagement upwards.

3. Employee Engagement thresholds are reached with said programs.

4. HR needs more.

5. If we ensure every new hire comes in ‘loving’ their job/company/industry – we will ‘pre-buy’ some of the engagement measure.

6. Only hire people who ‘love’ our job/company/industry.

7. Candidates have brains.  “Oh, you only hire people who ‘love’ your job/company/industry”

8. Candidates now become really good at ‘faking’ their ‘love’ for your job/company/industry.

9.  Employees are smart to – “Oh, you mean if our ‘engagement’ score comes back higher, you’ll stop making us do these stupid team building exercises?”

10. Employees become really good at ‘faking’ it.

Being male, I was never good at faking it.  I’m Popeye – “I am, what I am, and that’s all I am”.   Fast Company had a solid post on why “Faking Enthusiasm” has become the latest job requirement. From the post:

“Timothy Noah wrote in The New Republic about how Pret A Manger requires its employees to master “Pret behaviors,” such as “has presence,” “creates a sense of fun,” and “is happy to be themself.” Yes–in order to sell you a bacon sandwich, employees must be fully self-actualized. And the amount that they touch fellow-employees is considered to be a positive indicator of sales, not a red flag for sexual-harassment lawsuits.”

It’s such a slippery slope.  Every action we take in leadership has consequences – some of which we know, some we don’t know until they happen.  The best leaders thoroughly try to anticipate these consequences their actions will create.   Requiring employees/candidates have high levels of enthusiasm might seem like a really great idea – but you better have authentic ways of measuring, or you’re just setting yourself up to fooled by those who ‘get’ the game.

Ultimately time and pressure always win out.  Given enough time and/or enough pressure an individuals true colors will show.  This is why it’s important to job requirements that are actually needed.  Authentic enthusiasm is not needed for high performers in most jobs.  Trying to hire for it can create some negative hiring scenarios when time and pressure take their tolls.  Is it great to have enthusiastic employees? Yep – it sure is.  I love being around those employees.  Do I set out to hire that ‘skill’ as a requirement – no – I have great even keel employees as well.  While I might not stop and interact with them as often – they are just as good as the enthusiastic ones.

Here’s what I know. If you’re hiring for a skill that can be faked – candidates will attempt to fake it, if they really want to work for your company.  How do you combat this – eliminate as much subjective stuff as you can from your selection process.  One other thing, if you do decide you need that high-energy personality, understand that personality just doesn’t come when you want it – it’s a person’s core – you get it all the time – there’s no light switch when you decide you’ve had enough.  I see hiring managers all the time that want a ‘certain personality’ – so we find it for them – only to have that same hiring manager come back 6 months later complaining it’s too much!

HR Never Wins the Dress Code Game

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You probably saw this last week when the internet got all hot and bothered over a 17 year old girl who worked at JC Penny got sent home for a dress code violation. She tweeted out a picture of herself dressed in JC Penny bought ‘career’ apparel that she was wearing at the time (see pic above). The only place where I see this being dressed appropriate for work is probably Hooters, but you know me, I’m super ultra conservative right winged nut job, so what the hell do I know…

Many wanted were angry over what they saw as a double standard, although I’m not sure what that double standard is. I would have been more upset over a 17 year old boy wearing this outfit to work than the girl!  I would have sent both home, so there goes your double standard.

The real issue here is that JC Penny labeled this outfit ‘career apparel” to the customers, but didn’t find it career appropriate for their own associate. If JC Penny is labeling this outfit on their shelves appropriate work wear, why is it inappropriate work wear for their own employees?

Well, I have some reasons:

1. It’s tight and revealing for the average customer of JC Penny.  The average age of a JC Penny shopper is 103 years of age.  The last thing an old person wants to see is a fourth of July wannabe stripper.  That’s knowing your customer base.  I’m sure if she was working at Hot Topic, she wouldn’t have been sent home.

2. There a difference between marketing and operations.  Just because marketing is calling something ‘career appropriate’, doesn’t mean your HR and Operations folks will feel the same way.  Welcome to the reality of working in a corporation. People aren’t always on the same page, and that is a bad thing.

3. 17 year olds have no ability to understand the broader picture of the corporate politics at play here.  It’s too bad someone couldn’t have better coached this young lady on how to handle this situation to have a better impact for herself and fellow employees. Going nuclear wasn’t the best option for her.

4. HR never wins when it comes to dress code, because of these kinds of issues.

HR should give up the dress code policy whenever it’s an option and let your operations team own it. They know their customer base. They know their work environment. They know their employees.  Let them build a dress code that works for them, and trust they’ll do what’s right for the organization.  I’ve done this three times in my career, and all three times it worked out wonderfully, and I didn’t ever have to deal with dress code ever again!

Ask Sackett: Mid Career Change

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One of the coolest things that happened when I started writing blog posts eight years ago, is people reach out to you and ask you questions.  Random people you don’t know off the internet asking me for my ‘expert’ advice.  It’s scary, comical and flattering all at the same time!

This week a question came in about how would I go about making a mid-career change from one profession to another.  In this case, the person was wanting to move out of a teaching profession and into an information technology profession.  This individual is about ten years into their teaching career. Went back to school, while working, and got another bachelor’s degree in IT.

How do I get a position in IT? That was the actual question, but as you can imagine, that question is fraught with complexity!

Here is the biggest problem most people face when making a mid-career job change, they can’t stop working at their current job to get experience working in their new field.

So many people fall into this trap!  You want to change careers, but you’re working and making a decent living, paying the bills, living life.  You go back to school in the evening, taking on more debt to get the education. Still busting your butt during the week in the job you no longer love, waiting to start your new career.

That’s when you first begin hearing things like, “well, you’ll need some experience to work here”, or “we don’t have entry level positions for someone at ‘your level'”.  “At my level?” What does that mean?  It means, organizations aren’t comfortable hiring a 32 year old for a position they usually hire 21 year olds in. Plus, you aren’t comfortable making an entry level wage at this point in your life.

This is why people stay in miserable jobs.  Once you get far enough down a career path, you are really left with few choices.

So, what was my advice?

– Find a ‘free’ internship. Work your regular full time job, then find some hours in your week to work for free in your new field. You have to get some kind of experience in your new field, especially if you’re a mid-career professional.

– Start adjusting your lifestyle to be an entry level professional.  Remember when you were first starting out in that apartment and crappy car? Not going out and drinking cheap beer?  Welcome back. More than likely you will have to make this adjustment. It’s worth it, if you’ll be happy. Embrace it. Less is more.

– Use your current professional connections to begin connecting with hiring managers in the career you want, not the career you have.  You have to start networking like you’re an entry level graduating from college, looking for you first job. But, you have the network that can help you, that no new college grad has!

– Lastly, give your current employer, if possible, a shot at moving you into the position you want.  Many times employers will work with you to gradually move you into the role you want, by giving you some experiences working in the position you want, and gradually transition you out of your current position and into the new one.

5 Great Excuses To Miss a Co-workers Wedding

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I had one of my Recruiters ask for some advice this week. It wasn’t work advice, it was a little more personal.  She had told a person she would attend a wedding of a family member with them, but was having second thoughts. It was one of those Holy Crap moments! I don’t really like this person that much, and I don’t want to go to a family wedding with him and send the wrong message.

So, what was my advice?  It started out pretty straight. Tell them the truth!  “Look dude, I’m just not that into you, and the last place on earth I want to be on Saturday evening is sitting at a table with your parents and Aunt Betty with them thinking “ours” is next!”

As you can imagine, that wasn’t going to do.  Not that she didn’t want to tell him the truth, but she also didn’t want to hurt him. She was looking for a softer way to cut him loose.  You know! A how-do-I-get-him-to-not-want-me-to-go excuse – like he can’t stand my breathe or I have hammer toes, or something!?

Now, she was truly diving into my end of the pool!  You want a “Fake Reason” why you can’t go!  YES! I’m in HR. I’m in Recruiting. I’m the king of fake excuses of why people don’t get the job!  I’m on it!

So, here’s the first 3 I gave her:

  1. You haveVD! (Ok, I know this is strong right out of the gate – but let’s face the facts – most dudes will run from this!  Funny Fact: She is a millennial and had no idea what “VD” was! I’m old! Using WWII references like it was cool 2015 slang!)
  2. Your Dog has Cancer!(Sketchy I know, but girls and their pets…this one might work.  Funny Fact: Her dog actually did have Eye Cancer, but was cured, so not technically lying…)
  3. You have to Babysit for a Co-worker!(Now this one is fraught with problem – guys have gotten this one before and they might pull a. “Oh, I’ll come and help!” then you’re stuck and have to find some brat to babysit for the night. Funny Fact: She was like “Oh, hell No! I have a Real Job, why would I babysit!”)

All of this brainstorming got me thinking of how I’ve personally gotten out of going to Co-workers Weddings that I didn’t want to go to.  Here are my Top 5 Excuses to  Miss a Co-worker’s Wedding:

  1. I’ll be on Vacation! This is good because you usually find out about the wedding of a co-worker way ahead of time. All you have to do is actually plan for this and take your vacation during the weekend of the wedding. Far, far away from the actual wedding.
  2. My kid has a sports tournament out of town that weekend.  A little sketchy, but it is really hard for them to verify you really didn’t have a sports tournament, and let’s face it, I’m going to my kids sports game (the 127th of this year) vs. your once in a lifetime moment.
  3. I came down with the “Flu”!This one nobody believes, but it’s the go-to excuse because everyone uses it and it has been internationally certified as an acceptable lie to get out of anything.
  4. My Mom/Dad/Grandma/Grandpa/Great Aunt Betty/etc. fell and are at the hospital. I needed to go see them. They needed my help. It was serious.  Let’s face old people fall. In fact, it might be the only thing they have left to do. You hear about old people falling everyday. Very usable excuse in a pinch because it’s somewhat believable and old people don’t remember later on when someone asks “How are you doing after your fall?”, and they’ll go “better” and then complain about their aches and pains.
  5. I’ve got another Wedding that same day! Again, believable, but what you’re really saying to the person is “I’ve ranked you lower than someone else in my life. I hope you understand, but I didn’t buy you a place setting off your registry!”

What is your top excuse for not going to a co-worker’s wedding?

Checking Work Email, Isn’t Working!

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For most of their careers, my parents could never check their work email at home.  It did mean that they probably stopped working when they got home, unlike most professional employees today.  My parents also rarely made it home at 5pm, and worked in the office many Saturdays and Sundays when the work needed to get done.

When did we start defining work as sitting in the bathroom at home and replying to email in five minutes as work?

Let’s face it, most people aren’t really working when they are home.  They like to believe that what they’re doing is real work, but if can also wait to be done the next morning when you arrive at the office, you’re not doing real work, you’re just narcissistic.  Oh, I better immediately get back to John and tell him I can definitely do that interview at 8am, next week Friday…

We act like checking work email at home is like we’re donating a kidney, or something.

CareerBuilder released a new survey today that shows that 59% of males and 42% of females respond to emails when out of the office.  Those numbers actually sound low to me. The survey also shows that younger workers are more likely to think about work when going to bed and when waking. Just wait! Pretty soon thinking about work will be the same as work!

Are we losing our minds!?

Seriously! I want to know.  Having the ability to check and respond to emails outside of the office increase your work-life flexibility, but we talk about it like it’s an anchor.  That iPhone is only an anchor if you make it an anchor!  Tomorrow I’m taking a half day to go watch my son play baseball.  In between innings I always check my email and respond if necessary.

Making the decision to take a half a day to watch my son play baseball is easy, because I know I can balance both jobs I have, running a company and being a Dad.  Does my son care that I’m checking email while he’s warming up in between innings?  No. He doesn’t even notice.  It’s not like I’m behind the backstop giving a performance review over the phone while he’s up to bat! I’m just checking and following up on some emails.

If you decide you want to stay connected to your job and organization while you are out of the office, that is a personal decision. Don’t act like you’re going above and beyond by keeping up on your emails.

If keeping up on your emails is the real work you’re doing, you’re way overpaid!

You Can’t Copy Culture

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I want our company to be just like Zappos!

No you don’t.

First, Zappos has a very strong culture, of which, most people couldn’t handle or wouldn’t like.  They hire very specific talent based on this cultural fit and desire to be in their certain culture, it’s not for everyone.  Now drink. Yep, that’s the new game sweeping the nation at HR and Recruiting conferences.  If a speaker says “Zappos” or “Google” you need to take a drink.  We might be HR nerds, but we party.

Second, you couldn’t replicate their culture even if you hired every single one of their employees and moved them into your offices.  You can’t copy culture. You can’t grow it again.  Culture is very specific to an organization, the leadership, the employee mix and time.

It’s not something you can just cut and paste into another organization. Believe me. It’s been tried about a million times and failed a million and one.

Remember when it was cool to hire folks from Disney because you wanted some of that Disney customer service culture in your organization? Yeah, how did that work out? You’re also not Disney. Or Southwest. Or some fun tech startup that plays ping pong and wears expensive hoodies.

You are you.  Stop trying to copy some other organizations culture and just do you.

Your culture is fine.  The people who are cancer to your culture are not. Get rid of them.  Communicate. Have an idea about where you’ve been and where you’re going and tell your employees.  Get them involved. Find out what tweaks their curiosity. Hire people who want to work for you.  No, not people who want a job. People who, specifically, want to work for your company.

I had a brilliant man once mentor me during a big merger between our companies.  I was young in my HR career and the company I worked for didn’t have a positive culture.  I wanted to change that. He told me that was useless.  He said we could change every single employee one by one, and would still be the same a year from now.

He said, “Culture always wins.” Good or bad, positive or negative. The culture you have will win. It will beat you.

Don’t fight the culture you have. Work with it, make it work for you.  Culture evolves, it doesn’t change quickly.  That’s your biggest problem. Too many leaders think they have the power to change culture overnight, but they don’t.

Leaders are like salt to culture. Salt exaggerates the taste of the food it is added to.  Leaders can add to the culture you have. They can make good culture even better, and they can bad culture even worse. What they can’t do is make bad culture, good.  Or, good culture, bad. An organization with a strong positive culture will beat a bad leader trying to betray it.

Don’t be discouraged.

You can keep fighting the good fight, just don’t get too down on yourself when you don’t see results right away, and don’t copy another culture!

The Most Important Question You’ll Ever Ask a Hiring Manager

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How are those hiring manager “intake” meetings going?

You know, those meetings you have with a hiring manager every single time they have an opening.  You sit down with your hiring manager, face to face, and ask them a page full of questions.  Why is this position open? What would make a candidate most successful in this role?  What color of skin would you like this candidate to have? Boobs or no boobs? Whoops! Scratch those last ones, we would never ask those…

The reality is Talent Pros really only have one question they need to ask hiring managers. That question is this:

“Do you trust that I can find the talent you need?”

Ultimately, this is all that really matters for your success.  If they trust you, they’ll give you all the information you need to be successful.  If they don’t trust you can find the talent they need, they tend to hold stuff back.

Yes, I know that doesn’t make sense, but that’s real world talent acquisition stuff! Welcome to corporate America, a lot of stuff doesn’t make sense!

Most hiring manager have no faith you’ll find them great talent.  They have this belief because so many bad Talent Pros before you failed them.  So many before you didn’t really go out and find the best talent, they just delivered whatever warm body came into the ATS.

I just come out and ask the question.  The first answer you’ll get from 99% of hiring manager is a weird, “Well, sure, I do.” If you really dig into this answer, you’ll get the true answer which 90% of the time is, “Hell no! Why would I?  Your department has really never gotten this right!”

Thank you! That’s what I really needed.  I needed to get that out in the open, so now we can really build trust, and make great things happen.  They’re mostly right. Talent Acquisition fails many of our hiring managers for a number of reasons. Right now, your hiring manager doesn’t need to hear those reasons, they need to hear why this time will be different.

Then, you have to live up to ‘different’! You have to be better.  You have to get it right. Getting it right earns trust.

Once they trust you, great things will happen. Earn that trust.

The Power of Written Notes

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My oldest son graduated from high school this spring and we had one of those big old traditional open houses with a tent and tables and a slushy machine.  It was a nice gathering of 200+ family, friends, neighbors, teachers, coaches, people I don’t recall ever meeting, kids looking for a free desert, bums looking for a free drink, etc.

The whole idea of an open house is so your kid can get cash to start off their life in the ‘real’ world.  Invite as many people as you can. Update and clean your house for a year.  Decide on a menu that won’t break your bank account, but will impress all the other moms in attendance who are also throwing open houses.  Put up a lot of pictures and awards.

Side note: My wife won the 2015 Open House competition.  It wasn’t an unanimous vote, but she pretty much ran away with it. Also, she is a front runner for 2016 and my middle son’s graduation open house. We’re Sackett’s, we only get bigger and better!  I’m already having the back-2-back Open House Champs shirts printed up! #Confidence

We got lucky.  His real world consists of a college scholarship to play baseball.  The big expenses like tuition and books will be paid for, he has to pick up some living expenses, but his hard work paid off.  He now feels what it’s like to have more than a few hundred dollars in his bank account.  Which basically means he eats out almost every meal. He’s ghetto rich.

One really cool thing happened from having the open house.  Our son had to write thank you notes to all those who came, and all those who sent cards and cash.  He was lucky to have to write a ton of thank yous!

I voted on just getting the preprinted Thank You notes.  I bet half of the thank you notes we received of were this variety. Thanks for coming. I’m so grateful! Here’s a post card that was preprinted and my mom addressed the envelope. I probably would have went with a 10% off your next appetizer at Applebee’s or something to make it more special, but again, Sackett’s go big!

My wife is a traditionalist, he was going to be hand writing his notes.

It took some time to get them done, but to his credit, he really put in some time and thought into writing these notes.  I’ve heard from so many people congratulating me on his thank you notes!  Most commented on how much detail he added, and how he made it personal to them specifically.  That definitely makes us proud parents!

The entire experience just reminds me of how important it is to sometimes take the time to write a note out by hand.  In our world of messaging and emails, it just gets so easy to tune out so many of these communications.  Rarely, does a handwritten note get tuned out.  Remember that kids when you go looking for a job.  Your resume might get eaten up by an ATS, but most handwritten notes and cards get passed on directly to decision makers without being opened by a gatekeeper!

It’s Always Someone’s First Time

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Sometimes I forget that many other HR and Talent pros aren’t as geeky about the profession as I am.  I like to break down the profession of HR on the following scale:

1. The 1%ers.  These are the people who really get HR and Talent. They are the ones who actually decide what the future of the profession will look like, because they are smarter than all of us.  I am not one of these folks. I love to hang out with these folks, and I’m happy to call some of them friends, but I’m sure I annoy them with my questions and trivial insights.

2. The First Ten. The top ten percent of our profession.  Most of these are folks are the people you see running big HR shops, HR thought leaders, pundits in the space.  Smart folks to be sure, but also folks are involved beyond just doing the job of HR. They are the foot soldiers of the one percenters. They carry the message. I like to think I’m here most days.

3. The Masses.  These are the good men and mostly women who do the work of HR and Talent Acquisition on a daily basis. These are SHRM members, who might go to a national conference, state conference and definitely attend local meetings every once in a while. They are in the trenches every day, fighting the good fight, trying to make organizations better through great people practices. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

4. The Why We Hate HR pros. These the bottom ten percent folks.  These are the HR and Talent pros that make the organization hate HR. They use their power in HR for bad, not good.  They take out their crappy, meaningless lives on unsuspecting employees.  These folks should be hung publicly. They work to bring down the entire function of HR as a whole, but think they actually do good HR work.

I try to remember this scale when I talk to HR and Talent pros around the world.  Most just want to do better, and most are seeing problems and issues for the first time.  It’s not that they “don’t get it”, they have never seen it.  It’s there first time.

Someone might be very experienced in HR and Talent, but seeing something for the first time, or have made the decision to try something they have never tried.  As a first ten it’s my role, I believe, in the industry to help those folks in any way I can to get better.  That helps the entire profession to get better.

So, what does this all mean?

I want to encourage HR and Talent pros to reach out.  If I can’t help you, I’ve got great friends who can.  The community will help you get better, if you really want to move your organization forward.  We love success stories!

At one point in time we were all first timers doing this HR and Talent thing.  We either learned through trial and error, or through someone helping us that had already experienced what we were trying to do.  The cool part about the community I hang out with, is we all remember our first time, and want to help you with yours.

No One is Going to Remember How Much Money You Saved!

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When I first started my career in HR on the corporate side of the fence I was always very concerned about my budget.  I spent a long time making sure I developed a good budget and I worked even harder to stay on or under budget.  Ultimately, it was the biggest waste of time I ever spent as an HR professional.

What I learned over the years was that budgets are important, but succeeding at your functional area is more important!

No one cared if I came in 7% under budget, but I had critical positions open for way too long, and projects were behind or failed as a result. No one cared that I came in under salary budget if our turnover increased.  No one cared that didn’t use all of my HR technology budget if they continued to be frustrated with processes that caused them more work.

I didn’t learn this until I spent so much money I thought I was going to be fired, and ended up getting praised!

I was working on a project to open up 40 pharmacies in a year. That meant we had to find a lot of pharmacists.  For those in that game, you know finding 80 or so Pharmacists isn’t something you just go post on CareerBuilder.  We had to market. We had to go to a ton of schools. We had to ‘buy’ some folks. Sign on bonuses. Relocation bonuses. Tuition guarantees. Whatever it took!

I was so far over my budget I took on this thought process, “well, I might as well fill them all, I’ll be fired next year at budget time!”  So, I did. I got a sourcing company to help me. I got my team on the road. We threw parties on campuses for new pharmacy grads. We killed it!

In my year end budget meeting, the VP of Pharmacy congratulated me and my team.  We were over our budget by almost a half a million dollars. The one factor I didn’t know, which I should have, was each pharmacy that we didn’t open cost the company about three million.  My overage, wasn’t peanuts!

There are times to save money in HR.  Anything you can give back at the end of the year will always be appreciated.  I learned, though, that being over for the right reasons is looked upon almost more strategic than the times I gave money back.

I faced more questions giving money back, then spending more than I had. Executives wanted to know why I didn’t spend all the money I had in my technology budget.  Were we going to fall behind? What my plans were in the future? Etc.  Not spending my money to get better, was looked at as a sign of I didn’t know what I was doing.

I learned that no one is going to remember how much I saved if I’m not making my function better. Staying status quo isn’t a good answer.  They gave me money for a reason, and it was up to me to use that money to make us better.  Giving it back just showed them I wasn’t strategic enough to find great ways to use those resources.