3 Reasons You’ll Never Be Fully Staffed

Posted on May 31, 2013 by Tim Sackett

For any HR/Talent Pro who lives with the concept of staffing levels – becoming ‘fully staffed’ is the nebulous goal that always seems to be just out of arms reach. I’ve lived staffing levels in retail, restaurants, hospitals, etc. I know your pain – to be chasing that magic number of ’37 Nurses’ and almost always seeming like you’re at 35 or 36, the day that #37 starts, one more drops off…

There are 3 main reasons you can’t get fully staffed:

1. Your numbers are built on a perfect world, which you don’t live in.

2. Your hiring managers refuse to over-hire.

3. Your organization actually likes to be under staffed.

Ok, let me explain.

The concept of being fully staffed is this perfect-case scenario – a theory really – in business that there is a ‘perfect’ amount of manpower you should have for the perfect amount of business that you have at any given moment. That’s a lot of perfects to happen all at once! Usually your finance team comes up with the numbers based on budgeting metrics. These numbers are drawn down to monthly, weekly, daily and hourly measures to try and give you precise number of ‘bodies’ needed at any given time. You already know all of this. What you don’t know is why this type of forecasting is so broken when it comes to staffing.

These models are predictive of having a fully functioning staff to meet the perfect number needed. Fully trained, fully productive, etc. If the model says you need 25 Nurses to run a floor, in reality you probably need many more than that. Finance doesn’t like to hear this because they don’t want to pay 28 Nurses when the budget is for 25 Nurses. You’re in HR, you know the reality – staffing 25 Nursing openings (or servers, or assembly workers, or software developers, etc.) takes more than 25 Nurses. You have Nurses who are great and experienced and you have ones who are as green as grass -you have ones retiring in a few months, some taking leave, some leaving for other jobs, etc. Because of this you have a budget for overtime – why? – because you need coverage. This why you need more than 25. And the staffing levels argument goes around in circles with finance.

I’ve worked with some great finance partners that get the entire scenario above – and would let me hire as many people as I felt I needed – and it still didn’t work!? Hiring managers struggle with one very real issue – what if. What if, Tim, we do get all 28 hired and now I only have needs for 25? What will we do?! Even when you explain the reality, they will subconsciously drag their feet not to hire just in case this might actually come true. I’ve met with HR/Talent Pros from every industry and all of them share very similar stories. They can’t get fully staffed because of what little stupid ‘perfect’ concept – “what if we actually get staffed!” That’s it.

You can’t get staffed because you actually might get staffed! If you’re fully staffed hiring managers are now held accountable to being leaders. If you’re fully staffed, plus some extra, hiring managers have to manage performance and let weak performers go. If you’re fully staffed – being a hiring manager actually becomes harder. When you’re under staffed everyone realizes why you keep a low performer, why you allow your people to work overtime they now count on as part of their compensation and can’t live without. When you’re under staffed everyone has an excuse.

You’ll never become fully staffed because deep down in places you don’t talk about at staffing meetings you like to be under staffed, you need to be under staffed.

HR – An Autopsy

Posted on February 22, 2013 by Tim Sackett

HR is Dead. I got called yesterday to come down and ID the body.

They ran an Autopsy to discover the cause of death and to know one’s surprise they found a number of issues, including:

–Deficient creativity – apparently HR bored itself to death. So caught up in ‘creating’ process, it forgot what ‘creating’ actually meant.

–Lack of Soul – Organizations need that immortal essence that is given by it’s people.

–Formality Glutinous – To be stuffed so much with formality that you explode from the inside that people can’t stand being around you.

–Analysis Paralysis – Stuck in indecision unable to move forward surrounded by so many metrics.

–Feline Rabies – Yep, in the end, having 4+ cats on average, did in HR.

HR wont’ be missed by many. The fact is not many really knew HR. For years locked behind a department door that had not only a keycode to gain entry, but a palm and retinal scanner as well – security of your employee files being of the utmost importance to the organization. Where we once knew them from the annual company picnic, alas, it has been years since HR was willing to plan that employee event. Even our annual open enrollment meetings were cancelled for online, interaction-less, enrollment – efficiency over relationship. Survey Monkey engagement surveys, email follow-up, phone screen interviews – some have questioned was HR really ever a person at all. One time, through the sliding window, I once spoke to someone, “Here” I said, as I handed in an exchange of address form, “Thanks” she said. HR seemed friendly enough.

I don’t mean this to be an anthem to a dead profession, but let’s face it – HR as we have known it, thankfully, is almost there. I’m asked frequently – “What’s the future of HR?” and I say, “HR will change organizations more than any other single functional area in business. We have ways to hire a more talented workforce. We have ways to increase engagement of our workforce. We can increase performance and productivity that has a direct bottom-line impact. We can make the workers we have better, faster, stronger. The future of HR – won’t be like ‘HR’ at all.” But let’s forget the future. Let’s focus on the present. Let’s make HR not HR. Let’s make HR everything we want it to be.

Let HR be technology leaders. Let HR be financial leaders. Let HR be Performance leaders. Let HR be operational leaders. Let’s plan the picnic and at the same time drive the highest productivity our organizations have ever seen. Let’s flawlessly administer benefits and simultaneously attract complete freaking studs and studettes to our organizations. Let HR not be HR. Let HR be a driver of every part of our business – not a functional area – but an integration into what we do best.

And if we don’t, then yes, HR, as we know it, will be completely dead.

To Be Honest, We Hate Analytics

Posted on February 6, 2013 by Tim Sackett

Don’t kid yourself – you hate analytics. It wouldn’t be politically correct to say that you hate analytics, so you won’t. That’s why I’m here.

You hate analytics because using them in your organization increases accountability.

Increased accountability = Increased stress.

Increased stress = Increased job dissatisfaction.

Increased job dissatisfaction = Increased Turnover.

You see the cycle, right?

So, who likes Analytics? Bosses. Why? Because they like having increased accountability on you. It makes them feel all strategic and shit. When analytics are used against you like a weapon – they suck. Too many organizations are analytics as a weapon to judge your performance. Leadership justifies this because ultimately they are held accountable to the ultimate analytic – the bottom line. So, they feel you should be held accountable to. We would like analytics better if they weren’t used to bash us over the head. If they were used to help make us better, to help us improve, to help us understand.

Harvard Business Review had a great post on this subject: The Real Reason Organizations Resist Analytics by Michael Schrage

The evolving marriage of big data to analytics increasingly leads to a phenomenon I’d describe as “accountability creep” — the technocratic counterpart to military “mission creep.” The more data organizations gather from more sources and algorithmically analyze, the more individuals, managers and executives become accountable for any unpleasant surprises and/or inefficiencies that emerge.

For example, an Asia-based supply chain manager can discover that the remarkably inexpensive subassembly he’s successfully procured typically leads to the most complex, time-consuming and expensive in-field repairs. Of course, engineering design and test should be held accountable, but more sophisticated data-driven analytics makes the cost-driven, compliance-oriented supply chain employee culpable, as well.

This helps explain why, when working with organizations implementing big data initiatives and/or analytics, I’ve observed the most serious obstacles tend to have less to do with real quantitative or technical competence than perceived professional vulnerability. The more managements learn about what analytics might mean, the more they fear that the business benefits may be overshadowed by the risk of weakness, dysfunction and incompetence exposed.

I recall a very technical business acronym I was taught in my Master’s program called: CYA. Be very careful with your big data initiatives because many turn into CYA projects. If I can show these analytics – it will show why this major issue doesn’t have anything to do with my department, but everything to do with another department. Days To Fill reports are filled with CYA. “It’s the hiring managers not getting back to us in a timely matter to set up interviews – this is why are Days to Fill is so high.”

Accountability sucks – when it is happening to you. It’s great when you’re holding someone to it. Big Data might be the biggest weapon you have in your tool box – be very careful who you point it at.

How Does HR Think?

Posted on February 4, 2013 by Tim Sackett

I’m not sure how HR thinks. I know how I think, and from what people tell me, I don’t think like a ‘normal’ HR person. One thing I really like, though, is to see how other pros think. I learn a lot from how maybe an engineer addresses an issue versus say how a Designer would address the same issue. I like to take aspects of how other professionals think and incorporate those thought processes into how I think about HR. I think this helps me solve HR issues in ways that the business can grasp onto better.

I found a cool article recently on how Designers think. Here are some of the ways Designers think:

– “Design is not about solving problems. It’s about making people happy. And there are always so many personalities and ideas to consider. So you’re trying to simplify it to its fundamental structure.”

– “You have to understand when the timing is right for dialogue, and when its time to move the limits. Designers arrive at a company to move its limits.”

– “Try to pare things down. Very few moves do a lot.”

– “Unoriginal, ugly and cheap. Revolutionary, gorgeous and luxurious. These do not have to be contradictions.”

– “The idea of innovation as a structured process has been taken to the extreme, where it is no longer a really useful or robust concept. You’ve got to go about letting people take sensible risks.”

– “…Pain is temporary. Suck is forever.”

In HR, I tend to believe that most HR pros don’t believe they work in a creative function. In reality what you create in HR speaks volumes about the culture you’re shaping in your work environment. If HR lacks creativity – your work environment is going to lack creativity. The rule setters need to show the organization that from time to time, we need to break the rules to get us to the next level. Sensibly, but rule breaking nonetheless. Breaking the rules is like ‘kryptonite’ to HR Pros. It goes against our very being. Most HR Pros pride themselves on being ‘the one’ part of the organization that actually follows the rules. “If we don’t do it, Tim, who will?”

I don’t know. What I know is I like how designers think. It seems like a thought process that opens my mind and gets me thinking about how I can make things better. It’s a thought process that challenges me to rethink what I’m doing and why. That seems like a good thing. I don’t want to suck. I hear suck is forever.

When is Gutting Payroll the Right Thing?

Posted on November 15, 2012 by Tim Sackett

HR-Sports Post Alert!

Many of you probably cared less about the recent trade between Major League Baseball’s Miami Marlins and Toronto Blue Jays (check out the details here) – suffice to say the Marlins were able to decrease their annual payroll from $188M to around $35M in one giant trade! Classic rebuilding type of move, right? People/fans are saying the Marlins shouldn’t do this to their fans and they gave up on some great talent. Let’s take a look back at recent Florida/Miami Marlins history:

1997 – Won the World Series (payroll at $47.8M)

By 1999 – they gutted their roster of high priced talent for younger up and coming talent (payroll at $15.2M)

2003 – Won the World Series (Payroll at $76.9M)

By 2006 – they gutted their roster again (payroll at $15M)

The difference the Marlins and large market teams like the Yankees and Red Sox is that the Marlins can’t make giant financial talent mistakes without something major happening in the next year or two. They took some gambles over the past couple of years trying to assemble a world series capable team (they’ve done this before – twice!) and it didn’t work out. So, change needed to happen – rebuilding needed to begin. Any fan of the Marlins could have predicted this.

So – what does this have to do with HR – or my company?

There is some huge wisdom in how the Marlins manage their talent finances that we can all learn from. Let’s make no mistake about this – this is not Moneyball, in fact he might be the opposite of what Billy Beane had envisioned. But, many would argue that the Marlins version, had worked out better, certainly from a results standpoint. My question is – could this type of talent financing work in a corporate setting, or in your company?

Think about it that for a minute.

How could you make this happen? I tend to think about it in terms of your high priced – A talent – not necessarily your executives. What if your company was looking to drive and increase in market share in your industry. Your main competitor currently had 50% of the market, while you only had 25%, with the other 25% spread amongst competitors 3-10. Your goal was to grow your market share to 35% in 3 years – a large task for most companies in most industries. Conventional corporate wisdom would work this way – Step 1 – we hire away one of competitor 1’s executives to tell how they did it; Step 2 – The new executive brings over as many people as he can get, usually starting with a solid player from competitor 1’s marketing department; Step 3 – you re-brand and spend a crap ton of money; Step 4 – 3 years later you’re at 28% market share with less margins. Ouch.

If the Marlins management ran your company here is what they would do:

Step 1 – Go hire the top sales person from your main competitors – all of your competitors and pay them double what they are making.

Step 2 – Go directly after every single account the competitors have with the inside knowledge you just gained in your sales staff.

Step 3 – Build their market share to 40% within 24 months

Step 4 – Systematically let go of all of their high priced sales people – losing about 5% of their market share.

Step 5 – At 3 year mark be at their 35% market share with roughly the same payroll as they had 3 years prior.

I mean it could happen that way!

We/HR/Management tend to believe we have to keep our people on forever – even after they stop being rock stars, but are still getting paid like rock stars. The Marlins have said, ‘look this is a dual benefit play – we get our championships and the players gets a giant check, then we both move on’. It’s not “traditional” so everyone tends to think its wrong. I don’t know if it’s right, but I’m sure their are some Chicago Cub fans that would take 2 World Series championships in the last 15 years!

Talent is a Zero Sum Game

Posted on October 22, 2012 by Tim Sackett

There is a mathematical concept called Zero-Sum, what is says is basically where one person, organization, etc. will gain, there is an equal loss by another person, organization, etc. of that exact same amount. An example might be market share of a corporation – if GM has 17% market share of U.S. car buyers, and it gains 1%, to 18% total market share – the 1% came at the expense of their competition. GM didn’t miraculously grow/build/birth 1% of new car buyers out of thin air. It’s a Zero-Sum game, their competition loses the exact same number of car buyers that GM gained – you rob Peter to pay Paul.

Hiring Managers never get this!

Talent and HR Pros feel this all the time. Hard to fill requisition, limited talent pool and the hiring managers makes you feel like you should be able to go down to the vending machine and just select C-3 and another Software Developer will fall down into your hands, ready to work! (by the way C-3 in my office is Peanut Butter M&M’s which seem to make everything better at almost any time of the day!) But it’s not that easy, right?! Talent is a Zero-Sum game. Now, I know my OD and Training friends will be all – “No it’s not! We can grow and build new Talent!” Not really – not in the time I need it – which is NOW – or – YESTERDAY! That’s my timing – it’s not 3 months or a year down the road.

That’s are main problem in Talent in 99.9% of organizations, are lack of organizational understanding of the simple concept of Zero-Sum. If organizations really got this concept they would have robust, funded, succession planning programs that would be attempting to build future talent, to expand their internal talent pools, but we don’t. Less than 1% of organizations in the world really fund succession the way it needs to be funded if you want to be self sufficient in terms of talent. Organizationally, you’re paying either way – you either pay the money up front in terms of talent attraction, or you can pay it on the backside with retention and training – so why does almost every company choose the front side of this equation? I think most choose the talent attraction spend because we (HR/Talent/OD) have done a horrible job of working with our finance teams to come up with a plan that shows our organization there’s a better way to spend our money. We haven’t given our leadership a better option – so we/they continue to choose to do more of the same.

Some could argue that we are currently in a less than Zero-Sum game with our employee demographics. We have more of our population reaching retirement age, than we have potential workforce reaching the age/education/experience to replace our leaving workforce. But, even at zero – you still see the problem we are in, it’s never ending, it’s just how do you choose to play the game. I like thinking about our HR/Talent problems in terms of mathematics, because it gives me the feeling there are actually solutions and it’s just a matter of building the solution/process. I think most will argue that the solution is to do all of it in combination – some attraction, some succession, some training – which I agree with, but I think the percentages of your current combination need to change if you truly want to get off the treadmill.

The Value of a Really Crappy Job

Posted on August 29, 2012 by Tim Sackett

As some of you may have realized from recent posts (Wanted: People Who Aren’t Stupid), I’ve been interviewing candidates recently for the position of Technical Recruiter working for my company HRU. I love interviewing because each time I interview I think I’ve discovered a better way to do it, or something new I should be looking for, and this most recent round of interviews is no different. Like most HR/Talent Pros I’m always interested in quality work/co-op/internship experience – let’s face it, it’s been drilled into us – past performance/actions will predict future performance/actions. So, we tend to get excited over seeing a candidate that has experience from a great company or competitor – we’re intrigued to know how the other side lives and our inquisitive nature begs us to dig in.

What I’ve found over the past 20 years of interviewing is that while I love talking to people that worked at really great companies – I hire more people that have worked at really bad companies. You see, while you learn some really good stuff working for great companies – I think people actually learn more working for really crappy companies! Working at a really great companies gives you an opportunity to work in “Utopia” – you get to see how things are suppose to work, how people are suppose to work together, how it a perfect world it all fits together. The reality is – we don’t work Utopia (at least the majority of us) we work in organizations that are less than perfect, and some of us actually work in down right horrible companies. Those who work in horrible companies and survive – tend to better hires – they have battle scars and street smarts.

So, why everyone wants to get out of really bad companies (and I don’t blame them) there is actually a few things you learn from those experiences:

1. Leadership isn’t a necessity to run a profitable company. I’ve seen some very profitable companies that had really bad leadership – people always think they’ll leave those companies and they’ll fail – they don’t. Conversely, I’ve worked for some companies that had great people leaders and failed.

2. Great people sometimes work a really crappy companies. Don’t equate crappy company with crappy talent. Sometimes you can find some real gems in the dump.

3. Hard work is relative. I find people who work at really bad companies, tend to appreciate hard work better than those who work a really great companies with great balance. If all you’ve every known is long hours and management that doesn’t care you have a family – seeing the other side gives you an appreciation that is immeasurable.

4. Not having the resources to do the job, doesn’t mean you can’t do the job. Working for a crappy company in a crappy job tends to make you more creative – because you probably won’t have what you need to do the job properly, so you find ways.

5. Long lasting peer relationships come through adversity. You can make life-long work friends at a crappy job – who you’ll keep in contact and be able to leverage as you move on in your careers. And here’s what each of you will think about the other: “That person can work in the shit!” “That person is tough and get’s things done” “That person is someone I want on my team, when I get to build a team”

We all know the bad companies in our industries and markets. Don’t discount candidates who have spent time with those companies – we were all at some point needing a job – a first experience, a shot at a promotion or more money, etc. and took a shot at a company we thought we could change or make a difference. I love people who worked for bad companies, in bad jobs with bad management – because they wear it like a badge of honor!

Recruiting’s 2032 Nightmare

Posted on July 30, 2012 by Tim Sackett

According to a recent USA Today article the U.S. birthrate is in sharp decline and is at it’s lowest levels in the past 25 years. Here’s probably a few facts you don’t know:

– Projected 2013 birthrate in the U.S. is estimated to be 1.86

– Birthrate needed to maintain a population over a 20 year period is 2.1

Why should this concern you?

There are a number of reason – one might be that you need as many young people as old for the simple fact of having enough young people to take care of your older population. If you turn that equation upside down (Taiwan 1.1 or Portugal 1.3) you have a society full of older people and not enough young people to fill the jobs needed to keep running your society. The U.S. already has 3 Million jobs left unfilled because of lack of skilled employees – today. Imagine if you now have millions of less workers to even choose from – and by the way – skilled workers aren’t coming from other countries because their societies are growing and need them. That is what our country’s employment picture will look like in 2032. I know for many people right now this sounds very good – because of our high unemployment – but this will be a HR/Recruiting nightmare for those young HR/Talent Pros starting out their careers in the next 20 years.

Being the Futurist that I am -I’ve already provided a solution to this problem back in 2011 over at Fistful of Talent- Should You Encourage Your Employees To Have Babies – check it out. Basically my advice remains the same – as U.S. employers we need to create a positive, encouraging environment for our employees, with family-friendly policies that make our employees feel like starting a family is a good thing, and that if they do start a family their job and ability to get a promotion won’t be compromised. This is not the case as many U.S. employers right now – for both men and women in the workforce.

As HR Pros and organizations we tend to think this isn’t our issue. It will take care of itself – but as we look at countries with low birthrates, the issue doesn’t take care of itself and those countries have a worker crisis going on right now. We need to change our ways right now – we need to be family friendly employers – we need to, as HR Pros, be concerned and find solutions for our employees around daycare, flexible schedules and other practices that will help our employees with families. I know it sounds a bit the-sky-is-fallingish, but the numbers don’t lie we are headed for some of the hardest hiring this country has ever seen.

One solution I’ve thought of, that I didn’t bring up in 2011, is baby sign-on bonuses! We do it for college students – I think we start doing for babies of our best employees. I mean if parents can arrange their kids marriage, what stops us from arranging their first job? Nothing! That’s what. Imagine how happy your employees would be to cash a $20,000 check to help with baby expenses for the simple task of forcing their kid to come to work with your company upon college graduation. It seems so simple – I’m not quite sure why no one has started this yet!

Make HR Suck Less

Posted on March 28, 2012 by Tim Sackett

Are you working in a HR department that sucks? You know if you are, it’s alright, you can admit it – it’s the first step of changing it.

I bet I talk to over a hundred HR Pros a year that begin the conversation with – “our HR department sucks!” or “my company doesn’t get it when it comes to HR” or “Our HR department is terrible”. It’s not the outlier, it’s the norm. So, many HR Pros working in HR functions where the organization has the feeling that “HR” sucks in our company. If you’re not in one now – great – but chances are you have either been in one before, or eventually you’ll make a “grass is greener” decision and put yourself into this situation.

You know what? We have the power to make HR Suck Less. Yes, you do. Stop it, you do. No really, you do. Alright that’s enough, just play along with me at least!

Here are the 3 steps to making HR Suck Less:

1. Stop doing stuff that Sucks. But Tim! We have to do this stuff. No you don’t – if your HR shop blew up tomorrow – your organization would still go on. Over time you’ve “negotiated” to do all this sucky stuff – thinking it would “help” the organization, or give you “influence”, etc. Stop that. Give it away, push it out to other departments – start doing stuff that doesn’t suck, more than doing stuff that does suck. It’s not easy, but it can be done, little by little.

2. Get rid of people in HR who Suck. Some people get real comfortable with sucking. They wear their suckiness around like a badge of honor. You need to cut the suck out of your department – like cancer!

3. Stop saying that you Suck. We brand ourselves internally with everything we do – and if you say that you suck at something – the organizational will believe you suck at something. If you say we are the best in the industry at recruiting our competitions talent away from them – you’ll be forced to live up to that – and little by little you will live up to that and the organization will begin to believe it as well. Signs and Symbols!

Every single HR Shop who feels they suck – doesn’t have to suck. If you feel you don’t suck, but everyone else tells you that you suck – you suck. You’re just delusional and you keep telling yourself things like “we have to do this stuff”, “it’s the law”, “we don’t have a choice”, etc. This is the first sign you’re comfortable with sucking – you aren’t listening to your organization. No one has to suck – you can decide to do things in a complete different way. Perception is reality in terms of sucking. You need to change perceptions, not reality. You can still accomplish the exact same things, just do it in a way that people think you rock. Start saying “Yes” to everything – not “No”. “No” sucks.

Sucking less is a decision – not a skill. You all have the skills – you just need to make the decision – to stand up and believe – Today we will no longer Suck!

It’s Back! FOT’s Top 25 HR/Recruiting Blogs!

Posted on March 22, 2012 by Tim Sackett

Fistful of Talent – which I’m proud to be a member of – is releasing it’s Top 25 HR and Recruiting Blogs. What’s really cool about this list – unlike some other lists I have poetically mentioned in prior posts – is this isn’t made up by some random analysis, of random metrics – this thing is totally un-apologetically 100% subjective! That’s right, we (the FOT Tribe) sent in our own Top 25 HR and Recruiting Blogs that we love to read -the blogs we are fans of – and we ranked them 1 to 25. Simple – yet very effective!

I’m not saying that it’s easy to pick the Top 25 – for starters no FOTer blog can be a part of our list – which right there eliminates probably the 10 greatest blogs on the planet! So, I might have to recommend to Kris that next year we call the list – The Top 11-35 HR and Recruiting Blogs! That being said we looked at hundreds of blogs – many of us have our personal favorites – many of us really like and read blogs that our out of the HR world – as our personal favorites. What I can tell you – is the Top 25 – are solid! If you are looking for a list of HR and Recruiting blogs to follow – you won’t go wrong with any of these!

FOT’s own Steve Boese will be doing his thing tonight at the HR Happy Hour – unveiling the winners and talking HR with some of the top HR bloggers in the business – go check him out –

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/steve-boese/2012/03/23/hr-happy-hour-141–the-hr-blog-power-rankings

HR Happy Hour Episode 141 – ‘The HR Blog Power Rankings’

The Tim Sackett Project

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

Category Archives: Metrics

HR – An Autopsy

To Be Honest, We Hate Analytics