Category Archives: Money Grab

Hi! I’m a Society of Human Resource Management Senior Certified Professional…

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I have some HR friends who are telling me that SHRM’s recent decision to develop their own certification is a non-issue to real trench HR pros around the world.

What do you think?  Is it a non-issue?

I think it is, but we won’t see the real effects of the change for a year or more down the road.  I recertified with HRCI this past year, so basically I’ve got three years before this becomes a real issue for me.  At that point, I have a decision to make.  Here’s my three decisions:

1. Recert with HRCI.  It’s easy, I know it, I get to keep my SPHR letters that I’ve become so comfortable with and that most people in the industry view as something that means I know at least something about HR.

2. Certify with SHRM’s new certification.  Get comfortable with a new set of letters – SHRM-SCP which seems overly long, but I think people in industry will recognize the SHRM letters and say, yeah he probably also knows something about HR.

3. Just skip it all together.  I’ve reached that 20 years of experience career mark.  Do I really need some letters to tell people I know my stuff?  Probably not.  Look, any job I’m going to have moving forward in my HR career, probably could care less if I have letters behind my name.

You might say, “wait, Tim! there are other choices!” Like, I could certify with both HRCI and SHRM! No, I don’t consider that a choice.  Why would I do that.  Let’s face it, neither organization really has put the best foot forward in this whole mess, and I don’t need a business card that says:

“Tim Sackett, SPHR, SHRM-SCP”

That’s just ridiculous, no one wants to see that, or have to explain that!

I’m wondering if SHRM believes we should just go with “Tim Sackett, SCP”, at which point someone will ask “What’s SCP?” and I’ll go “It’s Senior Certified Professional”, to which they’ll go, “of what?”, to which I’ll go, “of Human Resources”, to which they’ll go, “what is the S and the M stand for than?”  You see where this is going…

All this being said, I do have to agree with my HR friends.  In the large scheme of things this will be a non-issue.  SHRM has launched their new certification program.  Most people will go down that path.  A few will hold out and keep their HRCI certification.  I don’t know if it will be enough to save that company, I’m doubting it.

Like I said above, this is a non-issue for me for the next three years.  My reality is I’ll keep developing myself like I have for the last 20 years.  I’ll go to SHRM events. I’ll go to user events. I’ll attend webinars on topics that interest me.  Regardless of the letters, I believe in development.  That’s why in the long run this becomes a non-issue to trench HR folks.  You either believe in making yourself better, or you don’t really care much about that.  That’s what really separates professionals, not letters.

5 Retention Fixes – No Money Down

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I love SMB HR shops (SMB – small/medium sized businesses) for a number of reasons, but none more than for the simple fact, smaller sized HR shops are forced to be more creative because of less resources.

Creativity and SMB HR shops, remind me of my Grandma. Grandma grew up in the depression.  People who grew up in the depression have creativity skills to burn!  They had so little, but found ways to fill their life with so many things.  Lack of resources didn’t stop them, it unleashed their creativity!  Creativity is the most underrated HR skill out their for high performing HR shops.

Having worked in big HR shops the one thing that frustrated me most was sitting around in large meetings, trying to figure out how to “fix” retention – and listening to all the ways and how much money it was going to cost.  In the end I always came back to, if we just take all this money we are going to spend on the “fix” and just go out and hand to the employees, we probably won’t have a retention problem.  Large HR shop folks don’t like to hear that!  So, for you SMB HR shop folks out there, with little or no money to spend on increasing your retention, I came up with a few ideas you might want to try before you go spend all that budget money on programs with little return.

No Money Retention Fixes:

Fire the manager with the lowest retention.  You have the data, you know who is turning people over. Your organization needs to send a message that managers, not HR and not the CEO, are responsible for retaining talent.  This has to be the first step!  Your leaders have to have a clear understanding it is their job to retain their employees, and it’s your job to hold them accountable for it.

Measure it by Department, and post it publicly for all to see.  No, don’t just share it in meetings.  Post it up in the lobby, down the halls, everywhere!  Then just wait.  It will almost change overnight.  No one likes to be at the bottom of any list, and have everyone know it.

Fire your worst performers – then use that money to compensate your best employees more.  It’s a wash.  Your worst employees aren’t helping your productivity anyway, and your best will appreciate the increase, appreciate you noticing the bad people were taking away from the team, and they’ll give you more discretionary effort.  The result – same cost (actually less if you factor in benefits, taxes, etc.) more productivity, a little less headcount.

Have your senior leadership talk about retention publicly, constantly.   That which gets measured will get changed, that which gets measured and has the eye of senior leadership will get changed much quicker!

Institute a “Save Strategy” for employees who want to leave.  Save Strategy? If an employee puts in their notice, have them go meet with your CEO and explain to her why they are leaving. You’ll be amazed at the results and how many people will change their minds.  Some people just want to know you care, and sitting down for some one-on-one with the CEO, shows that a whole bunch. Plus, it’s much cheaper than finding their replacement!

 

Would You Pay A Candidate To Interview?

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Last week I got my ass handed to me for daring to consider that those who interview with a company, should pay for interview feedback.  Not just normal interview feedback, like thanks, but no thanks, but something really good and developmental.  Most people think that idea is bad.  Interview feedback should be free.  It’s not that I really want to charge people who interview a fee to get feedback, it’s just I think we could do so much better in terms of candidate experience, but we have to get out of our current mindset to shake things up a bit.

This all leads me to the next idea (hat tip to Orrin Konheim @okonhOwp) what if companies paid interviewees for their time?

Cool, right!?

We’ve built this entire industry on shared value.  Organizations have jobs, candidates want jobs, let’s all do this for free.  What happens when the equation isn’t equal?  What if candidates didn’t want your jobs?  Could you get more people to come out an interview if you paid them?  How much would it be worth?  It’s a really cool concept to play around with, if we can get out of our box for a bit.

Let’s say you’re having a really, really hard time getting Software Developer candidates to even consider your jobs and your organization.  It’s a super tough market, and you just don’t have a sexy brand.  You also don’t have the time to build a sexy brand, you need the talent now!  How much would it take to entice great candidates to give you an hour?  $100? $500? $1,000?  What if I told you I could have your CIO interviewing 5 top Software Developers tomorrow for 5 hours for $5,000?  Would you do it?

I hear the backlash of questions and concerns already forming in your head!

– People would just take the money, but not really want the job!

– How would you know these people were serious?

– Why would you pay to have someone interview when others will for free?

– Did you get hit on your head as a child?

– This might be the dumbest idea since your idea last week.

When we think about really having a great candidate experience, shouldn’t compensation be a apart of the conversation.  For most interviews you’re asking someone to take time off work, losing salary, time off, putting themselves at risk of their employer finding out, etc.  At the very least, you would think that we might offer up some kind of compensation for their time.  I’m not talking about interview expenses, but real cold hard cash, we appreciate your time and value it!

If you started paying candidates to interview, do you think you would get and have better or worse interviews?

When you put value to something, i.e., an interview, people tend to treat it as such.  Now that interview that they might go, might not go, becomes something they have to prepare for, because, well, someone is paying me to do this.  To interview.  I’m guessing if you paid your candidates to interview, you would get a higher level of candidate, and have a higher level of success in hiring.  It’s just a theory, wish I had the recruiting budget to test it out!

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!