Category Archives: Life Lessons

You’re Business Can Change In A Blink!

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So, there’s this lady, Mary Meeker,  who does this annual Internet trends report.  It’s super cool! Packed with odds and ends. I’m a data geek, so I love it!  Go read it, I could do a hundred posts on it! One of the things that caught me right away, actually blew me away, was this slide:

Global Smartphones

 

What does this all mean?  Basically, Google’s Android operating system and Apple’s operating system now run 97% of all smartphones.  8 years ago, it was 5%.

What happened?!

Remember your cool flip phone, the one your Dad still has?  Yeah, that was a Nokia.  What about that fat Blackberry IT made you have because it was safe for email?  Yeah, almost dead!

Think your business is really strong right now? Market leader?  Don’t blink!  It can all go away that freaking fast!

This isn’t a public service announcement, this is just a wake up call.  Know your customer. Take care of them better than anyone else ever  thought of taking care of them.  Listen to them. Hear them. They’ll tell you what they want to buy next.

Be your customers next buy.

Because I’m Happy!

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I was fortunate enough to see Shawn Achor recently speak on Happiness at HireVue’s Digital Disruption. His TEDx talk is one of the most watched ever, and is completely fascinating to me as a HR Pro, check it out. What strikes me from his research is how so many of us have sold ourselves a false dream and promise. Traditional thought leadership has told us for decades, work hard, do well, reach your goals, then, you’ll be happy.

Shawn’s research blows up most traditional thoughts on this. Happiness isn’t created via you reaching some goal or end. You are either a happy person or you’re not, this completion of a dream isn’t going to make you happy. We see this constantly in employment. “Once I become VP I’ll be happy!” The promotion comes and the person finds out that happiness didn’t come with the title and pay increase.

As HR Pros we do this same thing with engagement. We need to increase engagement, so we need to find ways to get our employees to be more engaged. It could easily be argued, from Achor’s research on happiness, that you are either an engaged type of personality, or you’re not. Meaning, nothing you do as a HR Pro or leadership team is going to have much effect on overall engagement of your employees. This goes back to selecting people who have a predisposition to be engaged to begin with. It’s the chicken and egg scenario of what comes first.

The cool thing is, though, if you’re unhappy, or unengaged, you can actually make yourself.  And if you’re an HR Pro charged with increasing this, you can help your folks out in becoming happier as well.  You can’t make them happier, but you can show them a path to help themselves become more happy. Achor recommends the following 5 things:

  • Jot down three things they were grateful for. (make sure it’s 3 different ones each day!)
  •  Write a positive message to someone in their social support network. (keep it to two minutes to draft this out and send)
  •  Meditate at their desk for two minutes.
  •  Exercise for 10 minutes. (Cardio -get that heart pumping! )
  •  Take two minutes to describe in a journal the most meaningful experience of the past 24 hours. (actually write it down)

Shawn recommends dedicating yourself to doing these five things for 21 days straight (habit forming time frame).  It takes about 15 minutes and the level of happiness increases people get from doing this is off the charts in Shawn’s research at Harvard.

One of the key takeaways from Achors research at Harvard is that Happiness has a positive effect on every single measurable business outcome (higher revenue, higher profit, higher margin, higher retention, etc.).  Every. Single. One.  As HR Pros we focus so much on ‘engagement’ and I wonder if we might be better off just focusing on happiness!

You Can’t Fake Passion

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Just flying back from HireVue’s Digital Disruption conference this week.  This won’t be a post about HireVue’s products.  It’s pretty clear they are the industry leader in video digital interviewing technology (I think it’s funny we can’t call it video any longer, it’s now digital interviewing). This is about their 29 year old, Founder and CEO Mark Newman.

The cool thing about Digital Disruption is that it was a pretty intimate event.  HireVue’s executive team, hell most of their entire company, seemingly was at this event and interacting with everyone.  The event also allowed for a lot of up close and personal time with Mark.  Twice during the conference he got up to speak to the group of customers, prospects, analyst, etc.  Twice he showed why HireVue has been a fast growing success.

You know those times when you’re so proud, so upset, so frustrated, so happy, when you’re on the brink of showing some ‘real’ emotion? Parents I know will know these moments, when your kid does something so incredible you get choked up even telling others about it.  Twice, Mark did this while talking about his company and team.  About his vision for his company, about his vision for his team.  He is a proud parent of HireVue.

For the past three years or so when talking about HireVue with my HR Pro friends, we’ve all wondered aloud what HireVue’s play was going to be.  Do they build out a full platform ATS, HCM, etc.? Do they get bought up by one of the big enterprise plays (Oracle, SAP, etc.)? In my mind it was just a matter of time.  A ‘video’ interviewing company was not going to just make it on it’s own.

I was wrong.  It doesn’t mean that one day HireVue won’t go down one of these paths, but after spending some time with them it is very apparent that Mark and his team (Chip Luman, Kevin Marasco, Ben Martinez, Loren Larsen and Jared Wilks) have much bigger plans in growing and sustaining HireVue as a player by themselves in the Talent Acquisition space.

I’ve got to spend time with a bunch of different CEOs and leadership teams in our HR space, and across a number of industries in my career.  It’s pretty rare that I’ve been around a leader as passionate about his business as Mark, and as engaged in the development of the product moving forward.  It was refreshing, it was cool, it was motivating.  It made me feel less of a leader in for my own company!  And the bastard is only 29! It’s not fair!  What I found out about HireVue at Digital Disruption is that this is a company that is far from being done in ‘disrupting’ our industry.

This is something that is very unique in the HR Tech space, where most companies are just trying to build something fast and sell.  I found a company and leadership team in HireVue that is trying to build something not for today, but for generations.  It’s big goals and big aspirations, and I think they can do it.

6480 Lunches

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Each day I get up.  Take a shower.  Go downstairs and say ‘good morning’ to my youngest son (he’s up first in the house – he’s like his Dad). Let the dog out.  Then I make lunches for 3 boys.   180 days per year.  My wife would make the lunches if I really wanted her to, but like most couples we have our ‘jobs’.  I make lunches, she puts together water bottles, snacks, makes sure they actually have what they need for everything else.  I run the lunch assembly line.

2 lunch boxes with those blue ice things to keeps things cold, 1 brown paper lunch bag (Keat’s too cool to carry a lunch box)

3 Turkey Sandwiches with cheese, 2 kinds of bread, 2 kinds of cheese.  One on pita or ciabatta (Cameron prefers none normal bread), one on whole wheat, one half on whole wheat.

3 Granola and/or protein bars

3 bags of baked chips (this is as healthy as we get in the Sackett household!)

3 of something sweet (we don’t live in Russia!)

1 Fruit Roll-up (Coop loves these)

1 Large bag of fruit snacks (Keat loves these)

1 bag of Chex mix or other cracker (Keat again)

1 package of peanut butter crackers (Keat again)

2 waters, 1 V8 Fusion

I’ve attempted a few times to figure out our per lunch cost, because it seems like we probably pay more for our kids taking their lunches, then if they just bought school lunch.  My wife and kids tell me I’m crazy, but it seems like an insane amount of food each day for three lunches!

5 times per week, 180 days per year, 12 years, 3 kids.  6480 lunches.

I know my kids have no real conception of what this means.  I know so many families that have their own kids, make their own lunches.  I really don’t mind.  I know that one day, very soon, I won’t be making lunches.  I work a lot, my wife is home mostly, she gets the after school conversations, etc. Most things my sons go to my wife because she is the one that’s there and takes care of most things.

I take care of lunches.  I go to work.  By the time I get home usually one or two or three have already eaten dinner.  It’s not a huge contribution, and I’m sure I could force them to make their own lunch, but it’s one small way I get to show them I’m involved.

6480 lunches seems like a lot, until there all done, then it seems like not so much.

The Tim Sackett Commencement Speech

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It’s that time of year when universities and high schools go through graduation ceremonies and we celebrate educational achievements.  It’s also that time of year when you get bombarded with every great commencement speech ever given.  There is clearly a recipe for giving a great commencement speech.  Here are the ingredients:

1. Make the graduates feel like they are about to accomplish something really great, and not just become part of the machine.

2. Make graduates believe like somehow they will be difference makers.

3. Make graduates think they have endless possibilities and opportunities.

4. Make graduates think the world really wants and needs them and can’t wait to work with them.

5. Wear sunscreen.

I think that about sums up every great commencement speech ever given.  Let’s face it, the key to any great speech is not telling people what they need to hear, but telling them what they want to hear!

I would like to give a commencement speech.  I think it would be fun.  I like to inspire people.  Here’s the main topics I would hit if I were to give a commencement speech:

1.  Work sucks, but being poor sucks more. Don’t ever think work should make you happy.  Find happiness in yourself, not what you do.

2.  You owe a lot of people, a lot of stuff.  Shut your mouth and give back to them. Stop looking for the world to keep giving you stuff.

3.  No one cares about you. Well, maybe your Mom, if you had a good Mom.  They care about what you can do for them.  Basically, you can’t do much, you’re a new grad.

4.  Don’t think you’re going to be special. 99.9% of people are just normal people, so will you.  The sooner you come to grips with this, the sooner you’ll be happy.

5.  Don’t listen to your bitter parents.  Almost always, the person who works the hardest has better outcomes in anything in life.  Once in a while, a person who doesn’t work hard, but has supremely better talent or connections than you, will kick your ass.  That’s life. Buy a helmet.

6.  Don’t listen to advice from famous people.  Their view of the world is warped through their grandiose belief some how they made it through hard work and effort. It’s usually just good timing.

7. Find out who you care about in life, and make them a priority.  In this world you have very few people you truly care about, and who care about you in return.  Don’t fuck that up.

8.  Make your mistakes when you’re young.  Failure is difficult, it’s profoundly more difficult when you have a mortgage and 2 kids to take care of.

9.  It’s alright that sometimes you have to kiss ass.  It doesn’t make you less of a person.

10.  Wear sunscreen.  Cancer sucks.

So, do you feel inspired now!?  Any high schools or colleges feel free to email me, I’m completely wide open on my commencement speech calendar and willing to give this speech on a moments notice!

 

The Best Sports Related Job Ever!

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Do you know what the ingredients are to the best sports related job ever?

1. Basketball

2. The 5th Richest person in the world

3. Beautiful weather, water and beaches

4. A Gigantic Yacht with a basketball court on it.

Mix all that together and you get one of the best jobs ever invented!   Pulled directly from the critically, award winning, Wall Street Journal:

The Oracle chief has had basketball courts on at least two of his yachts, said Tom Ehman, who handles America’s Cup matters for Mr. Ellison. He said Mr. Ellison liked to relax by shooting hoops, and has had someone in a powerboat following the yacht to retrieve balls that go overboard.

Mr. Ellison, is Larry Ellison, co-founder of Oracle, and 5th richest person in the world, worth about $48 Billion.  Larry likes basketball, a lot.  Likes to shoot hoops on his yachts.  For those who have ever shot hoops, the ball tends to bounce off the rim and backboard when you miss.  For those who yacht.  Those tend to be on Oceans, or big bodies of water.  So, when you mix those two together, you would suspect you’re going to have some basketballs go ‘into the pond’ every once in a while.

Now, with $48 Billion, Larry could probably just forget about any basketballs that went over board and just keep using new balls.  The problem is, having a couple dozen basketballs go overboard every time you play, might bring some unwanted attention on your from those who are environmentally conscience.  But, don’t fret, there is an easy solution.  Pay some dude to follow you’re yacht in a smaller boat and pick up those wayward balls!

That my friends is the best Sports Related Job ever!  On a boat all day, warm sun, cool drinks, picking up a few basketballs every once in a while.  I don’t think I could ever create a better summer job, ever!

You know the boat you’re picking up basketballs with is top notch.  You don’t have a piece of crap follow around a $200M yacht.  You’re probably outfitted in some cool uniform.  Paid lunches, delivered out on the water.  Great tan.  Good music.  Absolutely, no stress.  You’re getting paid well.  The guy has $48B and is asking you to retrieve basketballs for G*d’s sake! Where do I sign up?  I would do that job in a second, and would be the best ever at it!  No one would ever be better than me picking up basketballs in the ocean.  I really think I could retire from that job.

Just mark this down as crap you’ll never understand because you’ll never have $48B.

(Hat tip to Daniel Savich for passing the article on to me, and having the great boss who ever lived!)

SHRM Releases Their New Certification Designations!

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So, currently you have a PHR (Professional of Human Resources), or a SPHR (Senior Professional of Human Resources), or a GPHR (Global Professional of Human Resources) from HRCI.  SHRM announced it was launching it’s competency based program of certified HR professionals, and the one thing everyone wants to know is what are my new letters going to be!?!?

Hello, My Name is Tim Sackett, SPHR.  But not for much longer, soon I’ll acquiesce to the new SHRM certification because that’s what we do as HR Pros, we give in and take it.

I like having letters after my name.  It makes me feel important, even though only HR people have any idea what they mean.  I’ve always known the letters were a little bit of a fraud.  I got my SPHR without every working in HR.  I can say that now because the statue of limitations has run out on SHRM legally taking away my SPHR, plus my SPHR is now worthless in the eyes of SHRM so they could care less about it!  In 2001 I accepted my first corporate HR gig, after working at a recruiting agency for eight years. I sat for and received my SPHR, without technically ever working in HR.  I did have eight years of recruiting experience, which mostly consisted of sales.

Either way, I felt proud to have letters behind my name.  This is why I’m super excited when SHRM chose my little old blog to make such a super big announcement of their new designations!  Here are the new SHRM Certification Designation letters (if they allowed me to choose them):

HRN – Human Resource Ninja – The HRN designation is for HR Pros who actually get something done, and you never have to hear about it.  That shit just happened and nobody knows how it happened. That’s because it was done by an HR Ninja!

SHRN – Sr. HR Ninja – Like the HRN, the SHRN gets stuff done without needing acknowledgement, but also without notice gets rid of horrible performing employees and leaders, never to be heard from or seen again.  Cold HR killers.  You need to get rid of an under-performing employee? Call a SHRN!

CHRR – Corporate HR Recruiter – The CHRR is a designation for those folks who work in corporate recruiting but don’t actually recruit, but they do a lot of stuff that sounds like recruiting, but isn’t really recruiting, because they don’t really want to recruit, they want to be in HR.  Is that clear?

SCHRR – Sr. Corporate HR Recruiter – The SCHRR is savvy enough to not only not doing any real recruiting, they’ve made a career out of coming up with analytics to prove how good of a non-recruiter recruiter they really are.  The SCHRR is also tech savvy enough to find programs that will endlessly post and pray, so now they can find ways to use Pinterest to not recruit great talent.

NHRBP – Not HR Business Partner – The NHRBP is someone who is so strategic, so business savvy, they aren’t actually considered to be in HR any longer.  A NHRBP can actually run your company. They know everything: Operations, Finance, Marketing, Sales, etc.  Just don’t ever ask them to plan a picnic, organize your annual United Way drive or send flowers to a grieving employee, because they don’t do that!

SNHRBP – Sr. Not HR Business Partner – Or as we like to call it- The CEO.  Moving forward SHRM will now push that every single CEO in the world get their CNHRBP certification.

HRGP – HR Global Professional – The HRGP is like the current GPHR but we moved the letters around. This is for those people who fell into HR and traveled overseas in either high school or college and decided they would rather live outside of America.  We don’t understand them either, but American companies like to feel like the people they send overseas to offend other countries have some insights, so here you go.  No SHRGP will be offered because why.

PhDP – The Doctor of People – I had to do this one for my professor friends who teach HR – hello Matt Stollak and Marcus Stewart! The only way you can get this designation is by spending most of your life at university and actually getting a PhD, and teaching HR classes every Tuesday and Thursday from 9am to 10:30am.  I might actually go back to school because having a PhDP would be the coolest designation ever!

I can’t wait to use my SHRN designation! Thanks Hank!

 

 

SHRM’s New Certification Is A Money Grab!

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Okay, let’s get real HR geeky for a few minutes.  Last week SHRM announced it was for all intensive purposes taking it’s toys and going home, leaving HRCI out of a viable business model.  The leadership at SHRM woke up and said, “hey, wait a minute, why don’t we just run our own certification program and make all that cash that HRCI is making off all of our members!”  So, that’s what they did.

I don’t think anyone should be mad at SHRM.  In HR we’ve pushed to make ourselves better business pros for the past 10 years, plus.  Now, SHRM decides to make a business decision that’s better for their organization and membership, I can’t blame them for doing that.  This isn’t Show Friends, this is Show Business!

Let’s not confuse the issue, either though.  This isn’t about SHRM thinking they can deliver a better certification program than HRCI.  HRCI has been doing this for years.  SHRM has been doing this for days.  This is about money.  You’re making good money off us, we want that money.  Welcome to America.  I. Love. This. Country!

Here’s where SHRM could potentially have this backfire:

1. People have worked for years to get and maintain their HRCI certifications.  They’ve spent money and time.  If SHRM tries and goes for a money grab on these folks, instead of just grandfathering them in, they’ll have this blow up on them.  I have my SPHR for 13 years, I just re-certified for 3 years.  If SHRM CEO Henry Jackson tells me I know have to pay him more money to get the SHRM certification, him and I will have words! Just give me the letters Henry, and then collect my check when I go to recert the next time.  That’s good faith, plain and simple.

2. HR knows better than anyone that people don’t like change.  SHRM and HRCI have spent years getting the world to believe in PHR, SPHR and GPHR are really, really important to have.  Now, SHRM wants us to believe that PHR, SPHR and GPHR are worthless, but their new certification SHRP (Senior HR Professional) is somehow better (BTW – I have no idea is SHRM will use those letters, I’m just guessing!).  Don’t treat us like idiots.

3. HR pros and the HR vendor community finally figured out how to register events for re-certification credits, and the system was working really well.  It’s all another game to get money, but it was working just fine.  If SHRM screws this up, they’ll have a backlash from a number of sides, including HR vendors who pay millions to sponsor their events.  This wouldn’t be good.  I have a feeling Hank and his team haven’t really thought about this.  HRCI screwed this up for years before getting it right.  My guess is SHRM will do the same.

4. It looks decades for SHRM and the HR profession to get employers to believe that the HRCI certifications were important and meaningful.  Now they have to get industry to believe the HRCI certifications we told you were so great, are now crap, but the new SHRM certification is where it’s at.  No, really, believe us, it’s not like we’ll change the certification, this is the gold standard ‘forever’…

The SHRM National Conference this year will be great because it’s going to be like the old Soviet Union trying to make people believe all of a sudden this is where it’s really at!  All the propaganda, HRCI trying to sell that they are still relevant, when they aren’t, and HR Pros taking sides. Welcome to the Cold HR War!

 

 

I Had To Work

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“I had to work!” – 84 year old Barbara Walters on NPR, talking about her retirement this week from TV.

For those who don’t know, I run the company my 67 year old Mother started, with help from my 84 year old Grandmother, over 30 years ago.   I was raised and influenced by two women who had this same philosophy — “I have to work”.  My Mom was a single mother, raising two kids.  My Grandmother was married, but was raising 5 girls and she needed to help my Grandfather supplement prom dresses, makeup, hair salon appointments, etc.

The only time you hear this phrase, it’s usually coming from a woman. I don’t say that with negative connotation.  It’s just one of those statements, in our culture, you usually hear from an older female who ‘had’ to work because they didn’t have a man paying the bills, for whatever reason (divorce, never married, death of a spouse, etc.).  It’s very common for single mothers, of which, Barbara Walters was, thus her comment.

She had a child to raise, and she was the first woman to make it in major network news.  She had a male partner who hated working with her, she cried almost daily, privately, in her dressing room, because of how this person treated her. But, she had to work.  She was working in a time when women were not welcome in her chosen field.  She broke down barriers for all those talented women we see today in network news.

There’s a big difference between “I had to work” to “I want to work”.  It’s wider than the Grand Canyon.   “I had to work” speaks to desperation and being uncomfortable.  I think it also speaks to the great successes we see from females who have to work versus those wanting to work.  If they were given the choice of working or not, they never would have went through the tough times, pushed themselves further than they ever thought possible.  Quite frankly, most would have given up, if they had other means of living and not having to work — that’s just life. But they didn’t, they had to work.

I think the concept of “having to work” speaks to how many people become successful.   Given only one choice — to work — people find ways to be successful because it’s the only option.  We always think people want options.  So, we try and give people as many options as possible.  But this probably hurts their ability to be successful, because having options gives them outs when they fail, or even begin to fail.  If you only have one option, work this job, or basically become homeless, you probably work the crap out of that job!  You make sure you don’t fail.  Your ability to become successful rises exponentially when you have fewer choices, not more.

In today’s society, unfortunately, single Moms have become the norm.  Thirty and forty years ago that wasn’t the case. These women had to fight to survive at a different level.  This isn’t to take away from single Moms today, that’s still a mighty struggle to make it.  I just know those women who came before them had the equal pressure of not being welcomed in most fields which would allow them to make a salary to raise a family!

I wonder if we will ever get to a point, culturally, where men will be heard saying the statement “well, I had to work” in the connotation that its considered normal for them to stay home and be caregivers, homemakers, etc., while their spouse takes off to the office.  I can’t even imagine.

 

Would You Be Willing To Pay For Interview Feedback? (Take 2)

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“I believe you have to be willing to be misunderstood if you’re going to innovate.”

– Howard Marks

Recently I wrote an article over at Fistful of Talent, and subsequently posted on LinkedIn, that caused some people to lose their minds.  I asked what I thought was a simple question: Would you be willing to pay for interview feedback?  Not just normal, thanks, but no thanks, interview feedback, but really in depth career development type of feedback from the organization that interviewed you.  You can read the comments here – they range from threats to outright hilarity! Needless to say, there is a lot of passion on this topic.

Here’s what I know:

– Most companies do a terrible job at delivery any type of feedback after interviews. Terrible.

– Most candidates only want two things from an interview.

1.  To Be Hired

2. If not hired, to know a little about why they didn’t get hired

Simple, right?  But, this still almost never happens!  Most large companies, now, automate the entire process with email form letters.  Even those lucky enough to get a live call, still get a watered-down, vanilla version of anything close to something that we would consider helpful.

When I asked if someone was willing to pay for interview feedback, it wasn’t for the normal lame crap that 99% of companies give.  It was for something new. Something better. Something of value.  It would also be something completely voluntary.  You could not pay and still get little to no feedback that you get now — Dear John, Thanks, but no thanks. The majority of the commentators felt like receiving feedback after an interview was a ‘right’ – legal and/or G*d given.  The reality is, it’s neither.

The paid interview feedback would be more in-depth, have more substance and would focus on you and how to help you get better at interviewing.  It would also get into why you didn’t get the job.  The LinkedIn commentators said this was rife with legal issues.  Organizations would not be allowed to do this by their legal staff because they would get sued by interviewees over the reasons.  This is a typical HR response.  If you say ‘legal’ people stop talking about an idea.  They teach that in HR school so we don’t have to change or be challenged by new ideas!

The reality is, as an HR Pro, I’m never going give someone ammunition to sue my organization.  If I didn’t hire someone for an illegal reason, let’s say because they were a woman, no person in their right mind would come out and say that.  Okay, first, I would never do that. Second, if I did, I would focus the feedback on other opportunity areas the candidate had that would help them in their next interview or career. No one would ever come out and say to an interviewee, “Yeah, you didn’t get the job because you’re a chick!”

This is not a legal or risk issue.  It’s about finally finding a way to deliver great interview feedback to candidates.  It’s about delivering a truly great candidate experience.  So many HR Pros and organizations espouse this desire to deliver a great candidate experience, but still don’t do the one thing that candidates really want.  Just give me feedback!

So, do you think I’m still crazy for wanting to charge interviewees for feedback?