Category Archives: Motivation

Why Don’t We Make HR Simple? (hint: we might possibly have deep psychological issues!)

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Have you ever wondered why HR Departments continue to make complex processes?  In reality, all of us want things simple.  But, when you look at our organizations they are filled with complexity.  It seems like the more we try to make things simple, the more complex they get.  You know what?  It’s you – it’s not everyone else.  You are making things complex, and you’re doing this because it makes you feel good.

From Harvard Business Review:

“There are several deep psychological reasons why stopping activities are so hard to do in organizations. First, while people complain about being too busy, they also take a certain amount of satisfaction and pride in being needed at all hours of the day and night. In other words, being busy is a status symbol. In fact, a few years ago we asked senior managers in a research organization — all of whom were complaining about being too busy — to voluntarily give up one or two of their committee assignments. Nobody took the bait because being on numerous committees was a source of prestige.

Managers also hesitate to stop things because they don’t want to admit that they are doing low-value or unnecessary work. Particularly at a time of layoffs, high unemployment, and a focus on cost reduction, managers want to believe (and convince others) that what they are doing is absolutely critical and can’t possibly be stopped. So while it’s somewhat easier to identify unnecessary activities that others are doing, it’s risky to volunteer that my own activities aren’t adding value. After all, if I stop doing them, then what would I do?”

That’s the bad news.  You have deep psychological issues.  Your spouse already knew that about you.

The good news is, you can stop it!  How?  Reward people for eliminating worthless work.  Right now we reward people who are working 70 hours per week and always busy and we tell people “Wow! Look at Tim he’s a rock star – always here, always working!”  Then someone in your group goes, “Yeah, but Tim is an idiot, I could do his job in 20 hours per week, if…”  We don’t reward the 20-hour guy, we reward the guy working 70 hours, even if he doesn’t have to.

Somewhere in our society – the ‘working smarter’ analogy got lost or turned into ‘work smarter and longer’.  The reality is most people don’t have the ability to work smarter, so they just work longer and make everything they do look ‘Really’ important!   You just thought of someone in your organization, when you read that, didn’t you!?  We all have them – you can now officially call them ‘psychos’ – since they do actually have “deep psychological” reasons for doing what they’re doing – Harvard said so!

I love simple.  I love simple HR.  I love simple recruiting.  I hate HR and Talent Pros that make things complex, because I know they have ‘deep psychological’ issues!  Please go make things simple today!

Tomorrow I’m Talking for 9 Minutes! Check it Out! #InnovateWork #FindGreatness

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My buddy, Chris Bailey, from the Cayman Islands called me and said, “Hey, I’m helping out with this HR thing called InnovateWork. Will you come on the event and do a talk?” I ask, “How long?” He says, “9 minutes.” I say, “9 minutes! I can definitely talk for 9 minutes!”

The event is Tuesday, November 10th at 1 pm ET. You can register here, the entire event takes like an hour or so – besides my 9-minute talk, you can also see Chris, our friend William Tincup, Simmone L. Bowe from the Bahamas, and Dr. Cassida Jones Johnson from Jamaica

Also, hosting the event are some more friends, Julie Turney, Bill Banham, Rob Catalano (Bill and Rob co-Founded InnovateWork).

What will I be talking about for 9 minutes? 

Great question, but I have a way that I think we can discover who is great in your organization! Yep, in 9 minutes I’m going to teach every single person on the webcast how they can discover who is great in your organization No technology needed. I’m not selling anything. Well, I’m selling you a great idea and an exercise that your leadership teams will love!

In 9 minutes I’m going to actually walk you through the exercise that you can then take back to your own organization and use! It’s simple but powerful, I’ve literally done this in organizations and had people crying!

Come check it out! It’s an hour or so out of your week, and I guarantee you it will be worth it!

REGISTER HERE! 

If You Pay Women More They’ll Work Harder Than Men! (It’s Science!)

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A new study out from Harvard (so you know it’s legit and sh*t!) on what is the real payoff on paying employees more. It the age-old question, right? We can’t find great talent, so we say, “well, if we paid more we could find more talent”. Not quite “great talent” but more talent.

But, that really isn’t even the question this is answering. This is about what about our own employees and if we paid them more, would they work harder?

So, will employees work harder for more money? 

The study looked at mass retail and warehouse workers and found that a $1 increase in pay would on average, overall employees, give back the company $1,10 in extra productivity. Not great, but in very big organizations, an extra $.10 per hour in productivity could be significant, but there were other findings I found more fascinating:

1. Women, on average, will actually work harder for more pay than men! 

2. It’s super hard to pre-select those employees, or candidates, who will actually be more productive with the additional pay.

In fact, “women’s productivity responds more and their turnover responds less to wage changes than men’s, which can lead to occupational pay gaps”. Meaning, less pay doesn’t have the same impact on women as it does men. Men are more likely to turnover when they feel they aren’t being compensated fairly.

The other side of this study that is fascinating from a compensation perspective is something we all kind of know, but never like to admit to – we actually kind of suck at selection and determining who will be a great performer from a poor performer. Interviews, especially in no-skill, low-skill jobs, are basically worthless.

You might have a better chance of being a pay leader and only hiring women. At least you’ll give yourself a better chance the ladies will work harder for that money!

I think what this really speaks to is class pay for performance. Our need to make sure we are paying those employees, who perform the best, more than those employees who do not perform the best. We struggle with this. “Well, Tim, they are all classified “Warehouse Associates 1″ if we paid them differently there would be chaos!”

I get it. It’s not easy, but being great is never easy. Do you really think what you are doing now is really working great?

I think we have the ability in retail, dining, warehouse, manufacturing, do compensation testing where we try some of these philosophies and ideas. What would happen if we developed great productivity measures, and then we really compensated our best performers more. Not twenty-five cents more, but significantly more than their peers who are average or below average on those same metrics?

Might you have some turnover of weaker players? Yep. Is that a bad thing? Maybe, most likely not, if you’re prepared with a funnel of potential new hires. Becoming great at HR is about challenging what we are doing now, so we can become better than we are for the future.

Now, go take care of those ladies who are working harder than your dudes!

Does Your Average Employee Tenure Matter? (New Data!)

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I keep getting told by folks who tend to know way more than me that employees ‘today’ don’t care about staying at a company long term. “Tim you just don’t get it, the younger workforce just wants to spend one to three years at a job than leave for something new and different.” You’re right! I don’t get it.

BLS recently released survey data showing that the average employee tenure is sitting around 4.1 years.  Which speaks to my smart friends who love to keep replacing talent. I still don’t buy this fact as meaning people don’t want long term employment with one organization.

Here’s what I know about high tenured individuals:

1. People who stay long term with a company tend to make more money over their careers.

2. People who stay long term with a company tend to reach the highest level of promotion.

3. People who tend to stay long term with a company tend to have higher career satisfaction.

I don’t have a survey on this. I have twenty years of working in the trenches of HR and witnessing this firsthand. The new CEO hire from outside the company gets all the press, but it actually rarely happens. Most companies promote from within because they have trust in the performance of a long-term, dedicated employee, over an unknown from the outside. Most organizations pick the known over the unknown.

I still believe tenure matters a great deal to the leadership of most organizations.  I believe that a younger workforce still wants to find a great company where they can build a career, but we keep telling them that is unrealistic in today’s world.

Career ADHD is something we’ve made up to help us explain to our executives why we can no longer retain our employees.  Retention is hard work. It has a real, lasting impact on the health and well-being of a company. There are real academic studies that show the organizations with the highest tenure, outperform those organizations with lower tenure.  (here, here, and here)

Employee tenure is important and it matters a great deal to the success of your organization. If you’re telling yourself and your leadership that it doesn’t, that it’s just ‘kids’ today, we can’t do anything about it, you’re doing your organization a disservice. You can do something about it. Employee retention, at all levels, should be the number 1, 2, and 3 top priorities of your HR shop.

OMG! Did you guys hear what Kris did!?! #Yikes!

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Gawd! We love gossip!

I’m personally on five text groups, a few Messenger groups, a couple of IG groups, and a number of email chains that all act like some strange modern version of a watercooler in the breakroom at work. Or the back smoke break patio at the office. Pick your pleasure.

“Cultural anthropology sees gossip as an informal way of enforcing group norms. It is effective in small groups. But gossip is not the search for truth. It is a search for approval by attacking the perceived flaws of others…As a social enforcement mechanism, gossip does not scale. Large societies need other enforcement mechanisms: government, religion, written codes.”

Think about how gossip can help organizations perform better.

If I’m new to a department, gossip quickly lets me know the group norms that are expected and tolerated. If I want to be viewed as a good performer I will follow the group norms and gossip is the vehicle for letting me know what those norms will be.

If I’m a “good” gossip, I skilled at finding and sharing information amongst my team they find valuable, I’ll quickly increase my status within the department. I have to be careful as lies and false gossip can quickly bring me down in status.

The problem with gossip, historically, is in didn’t scale well. I might have some juicy gossip but how am I going to effectively share that across an entire organization? But, now with social media, the internet, smartphones, email, Teams/Slack, Zoom, etc., we can easily spread gossip, both good and bad.

So, why am I talking about gossip? 

I will tell you leaders and HR spend more time trying to stop gossip within the organization than almost anything. I’m wondering if we are actually doing ourselves a disservice. What if we used gossip to drive great engagement? What would that look like?

The key to great gossip is “we” all want to be in on a secret. 

We want gossip that we believe almost no one else has. To use gossip to enforce organizational norms (gossip at scale) we can’t just go out and start launching secrets into the world. There has to be a plan!

The problem with trying to lead with gossip is it can lead to chaos. If we believe the social/group norm is to communicate via gossip, that is a very fine line to try and navigate successfully, knowing it’s hard to know what gossip to believe or not believe.

I think we can use the psychology behind our desire for gossip, though, to drive some great outcomes within our organizations.

What happens if you’re in a small meeting, let’s say, five people. The CEO is one of those people and she has something amazing to tell everyone, BUT, the four of us will have to keep this secret. We can’t tell anyone!

We all leave the meeting. I’ve got my #1 right-hand person on my team. I’ve got to pull them in, this is too important, this has too big of an impact on our department not to let my #1 know! So, I trust them (like the CEO trusted me) to not tell anyone else. What happens?

  1. They are over the moon that I trusted them enough to bring them in on the secret. (High Engagement – High Loyalty)
  2. I put myself in a really bad position if the CEO finds out.
  3. I start working with the CEO to let us work on a comms plan to let others know that need to know. (basically to cover my ass for already letting the secret out into the wild!)

Welcome to Organizational Behavior 101, kids!

Every leader has “gossip”. Stuff they know that their team doesn’t know. Some of that is secret. Some of that is just stuff they found about before everyone else, for an undetermined amount of time.

I find that leaders who can use the positive “safe” gossip for informing their team tend to have extremely high team engagement. “Hey, team, we need to pull it in close for a five-minute huddle, I’ve got something really important I need to share with you. But, first, you have to understand, this is NOT public information! We can’t allow this to be shared.”

I just wrote that, and I’m sitting here wanting to know what comes next! Gossip is a powerful tool, that can just as easily make your career as break your career!

As leaders, it’s our job to ensure the group norms we allow are ones where the good gossip, the sharing of information that helps us all increase our knowledge and power are encouraged, while the bad gossip is shut down immediately. All gossip is not bad, but it’s all-powerful in terms of possible outcomes.

 

Should You Tell An Employee You Consider Them High-Potential? #HiPo

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The Wall Street Journal had an article saying that only 28% of companies tell their employees what they are ranked in terms of future potential (i.e., High Potential, Low, etc.).  From the article:

According to a report released Monday by consulting firm Towers Watson, just 68% of companies formally identify high-potential employees, and only 28% actually tell the employees they’ve been labeled as such. The survey was based on a study of 316 companies across North America.

“This is really a missed opportunity,” says Laurie Bienstock, co-author of the report. “You need to wonder how [organizations] are fostering the development of these high-potentials if they’re not informing them.”

Don’t you just wonder!?

Let me tell you a little HR secret Laurie, employers don’t need to tell Hi-Po’s they are Hi-Po’s because Hi-Po’s already know they are Hi-Po’s, that’s one reason they are Hi-Po’s they have great self-awareness.   What employers need to do with Hi-Po’s is the following:

1. Pay them.  Above the market, above average and low potentials within the same workgroups and make sure they know it.

2. Challenge them.  Lead positions on projects, putting them in positions to communicate to senior leadership and shine, getting them into the organizational “circle of trust”.

3. Treat them differently.  Yep, that’s right HR Pros – treat your Hi-Po’s differently than you treat your Low-Po’s – they expect, they want it, they’ll appreciate it.  It will tick off your Low-Po’s, and that’s a good thing – you need your Low-Po’s to be uncomfortable – you’re in charge of making your organization’s talent better, not running a charity event.

The other fact from the article that only 68% formally identify employee potential is surprising to me – and not that it’s low – that number seems high to me.  Hi-Po, No-Po, Low-Po, etc. is a big HR shop game that is a luxury for most organizations.  Is it critical for successful succession planning? Yes.  It is also something that takes a ton of organizational resources to accomplish and maintain.  Once you get that data, you then have to do something with it and keep doing it.  That usually means the development of an entire group within HR, depending on how big your organization is.  So, 68% seems like an inflated number – I’m guessing the survey was given to only large corporations.

Should you tell an employee what they are ranked?  I have and I would – but it really depends on the culture and engagement of your organization.  The one thing I will tell you is, if you have no plan on what you are going to do with this data, don’t start – it will be a waste of time.  I see so many HR Pros run down this path of determining who their Hi-Po’s are without any idea of what they are going to do next.  It’s like “Hey! We found out Joe and Lynn are our Hi-Po’s! Isn’t that great?!”  No, not really – so, what?  The real work comes after the identification in developing your Hi-Po’s into their next level position and building succession, the real work is not in the identifying.

 

How many fans do you have?

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You’ve probably heard of the idea of 1,000 True Fans. Seth Godin gets a lot of credit for the idea, but he’s quick to point out he got it from Kevin Kelly over a decade ago.

True Fans are those people who really believe in you and your work. They make it a point to consume your content. If you’re close to them they’ll make a point of coming to see you. Most people don’t have any fans. Think about your normal employee working their average job. They do good, solid work, but no one is going out of their way to hear what they have to say.

Kelly’s idea about 1,000 True Fans is this:

“A true fan is defined as a fan that will buy anything you produce. These diehard fans will drive 200 miles to see you sing; they will buy the hardback and paperback and audible versions of your book; they will purchase your next figurine sight unseen; they will pay for the “best-of” DVD version of your free youtube channel; they will come to your chef’s table once a month. If you have roughly a thousand of true fans like this (also known as super fans), you can make a living — if you are content to make a living but not a fortune.

Here’s how the math works. You need to meet two criteria. First, you have to create enough each year that you can earn, on average, $100 profit from each true fan. That is easier to do in some arts and businesses than others, but it is a good creative challenge in every area because it is always easier and better to give your existing customers more, than it is to find new fans.

Second, you must have a direct relationship with your fans. That is, they must pay you directly. You get to keep all of their support, unlike the small percent of their fees you might get from a music label, publisher, studio, retailer, or other intermediate. If you keep the full $100 of each true fan, then you need only 1,000 of them to earn $100,000 per year. That’s a living for most folks.”

That’s a very good living for 99.9% of the world’s population. I could live comfortably in the U.S. on $100,000. Maybe not NYC, or San Francisco, but most places $100K gives me a wonderful life.

I wrote a book, The Talent Fix. I’ve written every day on this blog for over eight years. I’ve been blogging in the HR and Talent space for a decade. I know I have some True Fans. I don’t think I have 1,000, although I’ve sold way over 1,000 books. I think I would be comfortable saying I’ve got 100 True Fans.

Some might read that and think, well that’s not very much, but I would disagree! Think about your own life. Who are your “True Fans”. If you said tomorrow you’ll be on stage in your hometown talking about whatever and it costs $25 to see you, how many people are showing up? Now take that number and take away your parents, your spouse, your kids, etc. Now, how many are showing up?

100 is a good number. I’m working to get to 200, then 300, and maybe one day I’ll have 1,000 True Fans of my work. That would be very awesome!

My best True Fan story is that my wife jokingly calls me a “Micro-celebrity” saying there’s really only a couple dozen HR and Talent Pros in the world who know who you are. One day we were going on a trip and we were walking through Detroit Metro Airport. The new terminal is giant, a mile long.

So, we are standing in the middle of the terminal as people are rushing by to catch flights. We are discussing where we should grab a bite to eat before we get on a long flight and a guy walks by me. He stops and turns and says, “Hey, you’re Tim Sackett!” I said, I am, and started up the conversation around how he would know me, etc.

Turns out, he’s a ‘fan’ (his words, not mine), he reads my blog every day. Just happen to be making a connection in Detroit, he was a Talent Pro from the east coast. What a small world! As he walked away I could feel my wife staring at me, knowing she wouldn’t be able to fit my head into the plane! I mean, when your wife calls you a micro-celebrity and then you get noticed in an airport, well…

That how it all starts, one true fan who will notice you in an airport and show your wife you’re completely a micro-celebrity!

So, what does this have to do with anything? 

You don’t need to boil the ocean. You don’t need to recruit every candidate. You don’t need to have everyone see your employment brand. You need to start with one, then two, then three. That’s doable, you can do that, I can do that! Trying to do that with everyone, that seems impossible!

Here’s how to fall in love with your job!

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Do you know what it felt like the last time you fell in love?

I mean real love?

The kind of love where you talk 42 times per day, in between text and Facebook messages, and feel physical pain from being apart? Ok, maybe for some it’s been a while and you didn’t have the texts or Facebook!  But, you remember those times when you really didn’t think about anything else or even imagine not seeing the other person the next day, hell, the next hour. Falling “in” love is one of the best parts of love, it doesn’t last that long and you never get it back.

I hear people all the time say “I love my job” and I never use to pay much attention, in fact, I’ve said it myself.  The reality is, I don’t love my job. I mean I like it a whole lot, but I love my wife, I love my kids, I love Diet Mt. Dew at 7 am on a Monday morning. The important things in life!  But my job?  I’m not sure about that one.  As an HR Pro, I’m supposed to work to get my employees to “love” their jobs.  Love.

Let me go all Dr. Phil on you for a second. Do you know why most relationships fail? No, it’s not cheating. No, it’s not the drugs and/or alcohol. No, it’s not money. No, it’s not that he stops caring. No, it’s not your parents. Ok, stop it. I’ll just tell you!

Relationships fail because expectations aren’t met.  Which seems logical knowing what we know about how people fall in love, and lose their minds.  Once that calms down – the real work begins.  So, if you expect love to be the love of the first 4-6 months of a relationship you’re going to be disappointed a whole bunch over and over.

Jobs aren’t much different.

You get a new job and it’s usually really good!  People listen to your opinion. You seem smarter. Hell, you seem better looking (primarily because people are sick of looking at their older co-workers). Everything seems better in a new job.  Then you have your 1 year anniversary and you come to find out you’re just like the other idiots you’re working with.

This is when falling in love with your job really begins. When you know about all the stuff the company hid in the closet. The past employees they think are better and smarter than you, the good old days when they made more money, etc.  Now, is when you have to put some work into making it work.

I see people all the time moving around to different employers and never seeming to be satisfied.  They’re searching. Not for a better job, or a better company. They’re searching for that feeling that will last.  But it never will, not without them working for it.

The best love has to be worked for. Passion is easy and fleeting. Love is hard to sustain and has to be worked, but can last forever.

That 20 Minute Phone Screen is a Candidate’s Most Important Moment of the Week!

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A lot of folks are currently out of job and looking for work. Not many jobs open. Too many candidates lead to a lot of rejections, black holes, no feedback, and very few “interviews”.

You and I (TA Leaders and Pros) don’t consider a twenty-minute phone screen to be an interview. Candidates definitely believe it’s an interview. They prepare for your phone screen at the same level they prepare for an in-person interview with the hiring manager. First impressions and all.

Here’s the problem, that twenty-minute phone screen, one of many you will have during the week, isn’t even in your top 25 most important things you’ll be doing this week. So, how do we address this variance in importance with how the candidate will ultimately view your employment brand, you, your hiring manager, and the job?

That’s a tricky question.

I think the first thing we need to do in talent acquisition is simply to recognize this reality. We are going to be talking with scheduled candidates about who we are, who they are, and what we have, and this is extremely important to them, especially for those out of job. To have some empathy and understanding of the situation. To provide something of value, even as we look to gain some value of information ourselves.

It’s a powerful thing to know you’ll be talking with a number of people in a week, all of whom this could be their most important conversation of the week, month, year. That we (all recruiters) have a major impact on this event in their lives. We can create an amazing experience, or we can do something less than amazing.

I have this naive belief that all of us humans actually want to do things that make other people happy and satisfied. Isn’t that a great little fuzzy, cute world I live in!?! If we knew we had the power to make someone’s life just a little better, we would use that power for good. That if given the choice to make someone’s day brighter, we would always make the right choice.

Well, we do.

Do Good. Be Kind. As Chris Kurtz would say.

This week, as you go out into the world and phone screen your brands out. Try and make someone’s week. You are worth it. They are worth it.

Pressure is a Privilege

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“Pressure is a Privilege” – Billy Jean King

I’ve been watching the US Open this week and women’s finalist, Naomi Osaka was interviewed and said as she walks out onto the US Open court she pulls inspiration from the quote and sign that hangs just outside the court where the players enter.

In today’s world, we are all feeling a lot of pressure.

Parents struggling to work, teach, care for themselves. People fearful of the virus. People fearful of social and political unrest. People fearful of how they’ll pay their bills. It seems like every day the pressure just keeps increasing around us.

You are feeling pressure because something is expected of you. That expectation might be put on you by the outside world, or by yourself, but either way, here we are. You have expectations and that is a privilege. It causes us to be uncomfortable and being uncomfortable causes us to change and adapt.

Here is how King explains her own quote:

“I have this saying: Pressure is a privilege. Usually, if you have tremendous pressure, it’s because an opportunity comes along. I remember thinking about this, actually, when I was at Centre Court at Wimbledon. And I said, “All right. You’ve been dreaming about this moment. Is it a lot of pressure? Yeah. But guess what? It’s a privilege to be standing here.” Most of the time, in work or play or anything, if you really think about it, usually it’s a privilege. That I-want-the-ball feeling. Not “please double-fault.” Give me the ball. Give me the problem to solve. Let’s figure this out. Let’s go.” 

Let’s Go!