Category Archives: Motivation

Chipotle’s HR Just Had a Major Screw Up!

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If you pay attention to the news at over the past few months you’ve heard about the E. coli outbreak at a number of Chipotle restaurants all over the U.S.:

“The FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) along with state and local officials are investigating two separate outbreaks of E. coli O26 infections that have been linked to food served at Chipotle Mexican Grill restaurants in several states.

As of January 27, 2016, the CDC reports a total of 55 people infected with the outbreak strain of STEC (Shiga toxin producing E. coli) O26 from a total of 11 states in the larger outbreak: California (3), Delaware (1), Illinois (1), Kentucky (1), Maryland (1), Minnesota (2), New York (1), Ohio (3), Oregon (13), Pennsylvania (2), and Washington (27). There have been 21 reported hospitalizations. The majority of these cases were reported from Oregon and Washington during October 2015.”

No restaurant wants this to happen, ever! It has an immediate and lasting impact to sales. I worked for Applebee’s, one of the largest restaurant chains in the world, food safety was our single biggest focus and a constant worry.  Chipotle’s entire company went into immediate crisis mode when all of this was going down.

So, much so, that they decided to do an unprecedented all store closing to ‘re-train’ all employees on current, new and additional food safety measures. From Fast Company:

The company is still not clear on which ingredient brought on the E. coli outbreak, though it again confirmed that the norovirus was spread through employees who came into work while sick.

“If you are feeling sick, or if you have vomited, either at work or at home, you need to tell your manager or field leader immediately,” co-CEO Monty Moran told workers. Managers are also expected to report if an employee gets sick at work, and if a worker or customer vomits in a restaurant, the location must be shut down immediately.

Most people won’t catch what just happened. E. coli is major! Both Chipotle and the CDC never found out where the E. Coli came from. Norovirus is completely different. Restaurants have norovirus outbreaks. It’s not frequent, but more frequent than you think. It’s usually caused by a worker with stomach flu coming to work and spreading it to cooking areas, thus giving it customers and other workers.

Two very different things!

But, since we can’t find out where the E. coli came from, which was more than likely a supplier of some fresh ingredient – since it showed up in so many states and so many locations, not connected any other way, let’s show our customers we solved something else!

The problem is, Chipotle doesn’t really have a Norovirus issue. Sure they might have had one or two restaurants with an outbreak, but that is solved with a good bleach cleaning and some retraining.  Chipotle’s executive team and HR went off the deep end and instituted the following things:

  • Sick employees who have vomited at work or at home, now get 5 paid days off before they can return to work. 
  • If an employee or customer vomit at a restaurant, that restaurant must be closed down immediately. 

This is unsustainable. HR should have advised the executive team that this isn’t sustainable.

Do you know who goes and works at a Chipotle? Mainly college aged kids who love to drink and eat giant burritos!  Can you imagine the number of Chipotle employees who will be calling in sick the Monday of Spring Break to tell their manager they just vomited!? Sorry, but I’ll take my five days of pay, and I’ll do my recovering someplace warm!  I can see Chipotle restaurant managers pulling their hair out already!

Also, dumb drunk people throw-up all the time at restaurants. They don’t have Norovirus. They have the brown bottle flu! You don’t close a restaurant over that.  You clean it up really, really well. Investigate the circumstances and make a decision on what you really need to do. Chipotle just made a black and white decision, that will hurt their company.

So, I’m so freaking smart, what would I have done?

1. Give individual restaurant General Managers and Area District Managers more control over how to handle these situations, like when to close, or force an employee to stay home, and make sure it doesn’t hurt them financially by making these decisions. Local managers don’t want to close a restaurant because it impacts their bonus, which is a huge part of their compensation.

2. Hire a PR firm to explain to America that what happened at Chipotle, what really happened with the E. coli outbreak, had nothing to do with local restaurant food safety procedures. Also, what they did to ensure a higher level of safety moving forward.

What they did was all smoke and mirrors, to make people feel like they have the problem handled. By the way, they probably could have done nothing and still be in the same position. Young people are notoriously forgiving on these types of cases because they believe it still won’t happen to them!

Okay, I’m off my soapbox. What do you think?

When Keeping It Real, Goes Wrong in HR

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You might have seen this recently in the news. Three HR employees at Wyman-Gordon Company decided it would be a good idea to ‘secretly’ videotape and employee they wanted to terminate. Three HR employees who all had Master degrees in HR, and each with five years of HR experience at this specific employer:

Three employees at Wyman-Gordon company in Grafton, Massachusetts, are facing felony wiretapping charges for setting up a hidden camera with audio to record their coworker inside their workplace, reports CBS Boston.

As the investigative team at CBS Boston first reported in November, the hidden camera allegedly captured former Wyman-Gordon employee Mark Ferguson sleeping on the job. The company fired Ferguson last April.

Prior to his termination, Ferguson discovered the hidden camera in his workspace. He took it home for a closer look.

A clip he provided to CBS Boston revealed the HR employees setting up the camera. They could also be heard discussing the camera placement.

Ferguson realized if they recorded audio without his consent, it could be a violation of Massachusetts wiretapping statute. He brought the camera to the Grafton Police Department. An investigation was launched.

When I first heard about this, I wasn’t all that surprised. I assumed, wrongly, that it was some little company, with HR Pros that had no background or experience with HR. That is common in the industry. There are a ton of unqualified people running HR shops in companies that have no business being in HR.

This wasn’t the case.  All three of these guys had a strong educational background in HR and extensive work experience in HR. I will say, none of their LinkedIn profiles say anything about HR professional certification.  I don’t know about you, but my SHRM certification testing addressed this very issue!

This isn’t a small issue. These are felony charges. You can’t just go, “Oops, we didn’t really understand videotaping a crappy employee sleeping on the job was against the law. Our bad!”

Now, it was against the law, but I understand. Having to go to jail because you suspected an employee sleeping on the job, set up a camera to catch this behavior, and then actually catching the behavior, seems like it should work in the favor of these HR guys. But, it won’t.

So, what should these three HR guys have done? Just fire the employee!

Just fire the employee!  Sure, my brilliance in hindsight is 20/20, but 99.9% of HR pros in the U.S. would have just fired this idiot!

So, why didn’t they just fire him?

This is purely speculation, but my guess is they had an ax to grind with this guy. This guy probably had something over these guys, and they wanted to embarrass him. Maybe he was in a position where management didn’t want him fired, and HR was going to give them a reason they couldn’t ignore. Maybe this employee had just made HR’s life a nightmare over the past however long time.

Who knows, but it seems clear that these guys wanted to do more than just let this employee go. They wanted to shove it down his throat.

That’s when keeping it real, goes wrong!

Would You Fire Your Top Performer for Punching Another Employee?

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The world of the NBA brings us the real live HR Game Show – What Would You Do?

I know most of you could care less about professional basketball, and I promise, this post isn’t about basketball. In case you didn’t hear last week, Los Angles Clippers Allstar, Blake Griffin, punched an equipment manager of the team, Matias Testi, after a game, while out at dinner.  In the face, more than once, and he broke his hand doing it. So, now he can’t play for the next six weeks.

Most people just chalk this up to stupid, overpaid, professional athlete does wrong. Not even page 1 news. Almost happens on a weekly basis.

For those HR Pros in the audience, you know, the Clippers have a major problem now!  One employee just did bodily harm to another employee. Not only that, your BEST employee just did bodily harm to an employee that can be replaced by a million people in a second.  Your best employee can’t be replaced, and if your competition gets him, it hurts your company. That’s pretty close to the truth.

So, tell me Mr. and Mrs. HR Pro – What Would You Do?

Let’s break down some options:

1. Fire both parties. It takes to get your butt beat. Both were engaged in a verbal spat that one party took further.

2. Fire Blake. He’s twice the size of the guy he hit, and he’s at a much higher level within the company, thus his responsibility is much higher on how he acts.

3. Don’t fire either. Which is probably what’s going to happen – but would never happen in the ‘real’ world. The two parties involved are friends. Something happened that shouldn’t. The lower employee has the job of his life, constantly surrounded by millionaire athletes, he doesn’t want anyone fired. He probably wants to apologize that his head wasn’t softer so he didn’t break Blake’s hand.

4. Fire Matias. He’s replaceable. You could easily cut a severance agreement for a small price and all this goes away. Being in the position he was, he should have known not to push Blake’s buttons and the value Blake has to the franchise.

5. Suspensions all around. Suspend Blake and Matias for their involvement in the industry. The problem with this is the Clips are trying to make the playoffs, probably will, and they’ll need Blake, which is about the same time he would be coming off this injury. Are you really going to suspend your best employee for the playoffs? Heck no. I don’t care about Matias, you can suspend him, no one will notice.

A real HR pro in this situation only has one option. Fire Blake.  He’s demonstrated that he’s willing to physically harm an employee of the company, put the organization in harm’s way by missing games, and even self-implode by not controlling himself in a scenario a normal person would.

This is where reality kicks real life HR Pros in the teeth.

The real call here is to get rid of Matias.  This decision on all fronts leaves the most positive outcomes for all involved.  The Clips get rid of a low-level employee for very little money. If he’s truly a friend of Blakes, he won’t cause problems, he knows where the real money is in this relationship. You can’t leave the possibility, even the remotest, of this, happening again. With Matias on the team, this could always happen again.

Real HR Pros gasp at this scenario because we all know where this would lead in real life. The courtroom. That’s where you miss one really smart play here, that you also can use, the severance agreement. Get them to sign the paper, hand them a check, move forward. The Clips would be smart to move forward, not without their best player, but without an equipment manager, they could easily replace.

Do I do anything with Blake? Yeah, something has to happen. I probably give him the biggest fine I can under the collect bargaining agreement, and maybe even go higher, just to prove a point, knowing it will get knocked down.

Agree or disagree? Hit me in the comments!

Hey, Kid! Know Your Place.

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Something really funny happened this past week in the NBA. Kobe Bryant who was sitting out of a game against Portland, in street clothes, came out to the bench after the game had already started. All the seats were taken on the bench. So, what did Kobe do?

He made a rookie give up his seat and sit on the court. A rookie who was actually dressed to play in the game – take a look:

This is brilliant!

I want to work in an organization where when a legend walks into a meeting room, some kid gives up his seat when there isn’t one available!

I know. I know. We’re all supposed to be Servant Leaders. Kobe should have sat on the court himself and let the kid keep his seat on the bench. Screw that. Kobe is one of the greatest players to ever play the game. If he wants a seat, someone better get up and give him a seat.

For real, though, there’s something to be said about knowing your place in an organization and respecting those who came before you. Respect is earned. Kobe clearly has earned that in his final retirement year.

I can’t stand seeing formal power used in organizations. “Oh, that’s the President, he demands to have the first parking spot.”  There is a little bit of this in the clip. But, if the kid truly didn’t want to give up his seat, he probably wouldn’t have.  He even mentioned as much on Twitter, later, saying Kobe has earned his respect to give up his seat.

I hear too often from people, especially HR and leadership thought leaders, who take the opposite stance. I think we’ve gone a bit too far on this one. As I am told I need to value these young bucks coming into the organization for what they bring, they, also, need to value the years of value I’ve already brought and continue to bring.

Yeah, I said it. These damn kids need to know their place in the organization! Now get off my lawn!

Sometimes, You Quit a Job for Love

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Every once in a while you an employee who decides to move out of state, or another city, or a country, to be with the love of their life. There’s very little you can do as an HR pro or leader to keep this person. You can’t beat love. This is a story about that, but way more.

When I was in middle school my Dad did something for me that I will never be able to truly thank him for. His company, Spartan Stores, started sponsoring the Michigan Special Olympics. My Dad was asked if he would volunteer to help cook food for all the participants. He brought me along, even though I really didn’t want to go.

It was one of the best things that ever happened to me. I got to see true joy. True empathy. I got to see something that changed my life. I continued to volunteer all the way through college, then got involved heavily in coaching youth athletics, and I haven’t been back. But, I will. I only say this because I have such a special place in my heart for people living with Downs and other genetic abnormalities. They have so much to show us and offer us.

To feel love this strongly over just one thing in your life, you would be lucky. To feel this love over more than one thing in life is a godsend. Take a view, it’s only 2 minutes:

New Mexico is definitely losing, but Denver is definitely gaining!

I think it’s important to point out, there are two kinds of love here. Job love, which is very strong here. Real love, which is even stronger! When you’re employees leave you for the love of another, it can be heart wrenching on them. Do them a favor, and don’t make it harder.

Just be happy for them. Support them in every way you can. You’ll find another employee. They may never find another love of their life.

Job Seekers You’re Only Judged on These Two Criteria

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If you’re out looking for a job it usually feels like you’re being judged on every little thing you do, have done or potentially will do in the future. Interestingly enough, a Harvard professor discovered you’re actually only judged on two things:

“People size you up in seconds, but what exactly are they evaluating?

Harvard Business School professor Amy Cuddy has been studying first impressions alongside fellow psychologists Susan Fiske and Peter Glick for more than 15 years, and has discovered patterns in these interactions.

In her new book, “Presence,” Cuddy says people quickly answer two questions when they first meet you:

 – Can I trust this person?

 – Can I respect this person?

Psychologists refer to these dimensions as warmth and competence respectively, and ideally you want to be perceived as having both.

Interestingly, Cuddy says that most people, especially in a professional context, believe that competence is the more important factor. After all, they want to prove that they are smart and talented enough to handle your business.”

Trust and Respect.

I’ll add this is probably the two things you’re being judged immediately following the judging that gets done on your overall appearance, which is almost instantaneous! Let’s face it, we like to hire pretty people.

Once you open your mouth, you’re being judged on how well can I trust what this person is telling me, and can I respect their background, work ethic, where they came from, etc.  Most of this is based on the person doing the judging, not you.  I know, that sucks.

How do you help yourself?

1. Try and mirror the energy of the person who is interviewing you. If you come in all calm and cool, and the person who is interviewing is really upbeat and high energy, they’ll immediately question you as a fit.

2. Do research on who you’ll be interviewing with and try and get some sense of their background and story. Try and make some connections as fast as possible in the interview. This will help build trust and respect with this person. In today’s world, it’s not that hard to find out stuff on an individual. If HR sets up your interview, just politely ask who you will be interviewing with (the name).

3. Be interesting. Have a good story to tell, one that most people will find funny or interesting. Not too long. A good icebreaker to set off the interview on a great tone.

I tell people all the time. An interview isn’t a test, it’s just a conversation with some people you don’t know. We have these all the time. Sometimes you end up liking the people, sometimes you don’t. If you don’t like the people you’re interviewing with, there’s a good chance you won’t like the job!

Hero Ball: Coming to an office near you!

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If you played ‘ball’ sports, you know the concept of Hero Ball. It’s exactly what it sounds like.  One guy or gal trying to be the hero of the team and doing too much, or not playing within the team concept. They want to be the hero! The hero doesn’t pass. The hero takes the big shot. The hero tries to win the game all by themselves.

Hero Ball is permeating almost every part of our worlds.  You just can’t be friends with a group anymore, because one friend is trying to be ‘hero friend’. You can’t be a normal member of your church because someone is trying to be ‘hero practitioner’. And, yes, we are all seeing this at our workplaces!

Don’t blame the millennials. Heroes come in all ages, shapes, sizes and creeds!

I’m going to blame our celebrity culture in America.

You can no longer just be a good standing member of society.  You know have to be a rock star! It’s not good enough to have your kids participate in sports, they have to participate on the best team.  You can’t just run for your health, you to run marathons! You can’t just show up every day and give a solid 9 to 5 to your company, you have to be willing to give up your life for your company. Or, you just don’t really care, do you?

How do you know you’re in a Hero Ball death spiral?

First, take a look at how you define success. If you define success as everyone needs to meet the same as your top performers, you’re going down a hero ball path. The definition of success isn’t defined by who does it best. Those are your top performers. You need to define what is successful, by what is expected of someone to be above average. You’re facing an uphill battle, and a ton of turnover, if you’re defining success by how your top performers do!

Second, are you rewarding individual outcomes more than you’re rewarding organizational outcomes, in the long run? I’m all for rewarding individual effort, in fact, it’s one of my favorites. Ultimately, though, you have to know that those individual efforts combined, are leading you to a greater organizational outcome. Otherwise, you risk the individual effort, working counterintuitive to the greater good.

Lastly,  to your employees seemed overly concerned about their personal outcomes and position, even in the face of organizational success?  We hear so much about how great top performers are for your organization. Which is mostly true. Top performers do a lot. But, they don’t do everything. As the saying goes, the world needs ditch digger too! In organizations, we need employees who aren’t all top players, that are willing to fill a much-needed role, which is usually not a Hero!

Hero ball is really fun…for one person.  Unfortunately, we are living in a society that seems to love the idea of hero ball.  No one wants to be part of the team, they want to be ‘the’ team.  No one wants to set up another employee for success, they want the success themselves. The organizations that will prosper in the next decade will not be those with the top performers. It will be the organizations that figure out how to have top performing teams.

Oddly Enough, People Like It When You Want Them!

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If I hear one more person tell me that candidates don’t like phone calls, I’m going to shove a phone up your…

I’m not the smartest cat, but I know a couple of things.  Here are a few things I know:

1. You can’t taste the difference of well Gin and high-end Gin after 4 Gin and Tonics.

2. French Fries, Onion rings and Tator Tots taste great fried and taste awful baked.

3. Great tasting chocolate is the reason women can be single. (okay, I stole that one from my wife!)

4. Candidates with car trouble are lying.

5. People like to be told that you want them for the a job! It’s flattering. It makes them feel important. It makes them feel valued. They love to listen to what you have to say, regardless of how satisfied they are in their job.

If I called you right now with a job that was something you have always wanted, guess what would happen?  You would call me back. You would call me back almost instantly. You would run out to your car, telling the receptionist on the way out you have an urgent personal call, to hear what I have to say.

Those people. Those thought leaders. Those idiots, who are telling you candidates don’t like phone calls are LIARS!

Why are they lying to you? Here is why I think they are probably lying to you:

1. They are lazy and hope the internet will solve all of their problems.

2. They are hoping to talk the world into believing you never have to make a phone call to get a job.

3. They are scared.

I did a survey where I asked 100 people, mostly millennials, (all potential candidates, since all people are potential candidates) if I called you with your “Dream Job”, would you either pick up my call or call me back?  Would you like to know the results?

100 out of 100 said they would pick up my call or call me back! 100%!

Recruiters who say candidates don’t like phone calls are not recruiters, they’re administrative professionals. Pay them accordingly.

Cutting the Cord of a High Performer

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There is nothing worse in HR than having to terminate a high performer.  If you’re in the game long enough you will eventually end up facing this situation. A high performer does something incredibly stupid, and even though everyone in the organization wants to keep him or her, you all know they have to go.

Nothing sucks more.

I’ve seen executives in very large companies almost lose their own jobs because they tried to save a high performer from getting fired.  We like to think only idiots and low performers get fired, but something really good performers will get fired because of bad circumstances.  Take the case of Cincinnati Bengals Linebacker Vontaze Burfict and his illegal hit on Pittsburg Steelers Wide Receiver Antonio Brown in last week’s NFL playoff game:

Let’s be clear, I’m not a fan of either team, just an observer. He could have killed Antonio Brown!

Okay, one bad hit. One bad choice. You don’t fire a person over that! Especially, a person of Vontaze’s talent. He might be the single biggest reason Cincinnati actually made the playoffs this year.

Herein lies the problem. For how great of a performer Vontaze is, he has one major issue that the Bengals and the NFL can’t ignore, he seems like he truly wants to injure other players! Vontaze now has a ‘history’ of trying to hurt opposing players with questionable and illegal hits. He was fined this year by the NFL to the tune of $169,000 in the 2015-2016 alone. His hit on Antonio Brown alone will cost upwards of million dollars in fines and lost game wages!

So, what do you do?

It’s something the Cincinnati Bengals are going to have to determine.  They can’t keep him and have him continue to do this. It’s not good for the franchise brand. Although, some will argue it actually might help their brand. In the NFL, you need white hats and black hats! Not everyone can be the good guys.

Here’s the problem you face if you’re the Bengals leadership.  You allow Vontaze to continue to play. Vontaze will do what Vontaze does, which is play dirty. He’s proven that with his actions. His past performance has shown you what his future performance will be!

This won’t come back on Vontaze. It will come back on other players on the Bengals team, more than likely a highly skilled offensive player like a quarterback or wide receiver. Vontaze will go out and hurt his next victim, and the other team will eventually retaliate. The Bengals risk this if they keep Vontaze around.

Great performer. One major career derailer.

It sucks to have to let a great performer go, but many times it’s the best thing to do for the over health and wellbeing of the organization. It never ceases to amaze me, though, at what some in the organization will do to keep that risk around.

 

T3 – Modern Survey

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This week on T3 I review employee engagement and talent analytics technology Modern Survey. I’ve been aware of Modern Survey for the past five years or so, as a great employee engagement survey technology. I’m glad I took a recent look because they’ve grown up over the past few years into a really advanced human capital measurement technology.

They still do employee engagement really well, but they also do performance, onboarding, exit interviewing, 360s and a really powerful analytics dashboard that will fully integrate with your enterprise level ATS, HRIS and CRM HR systems. It’s a content agnostic system as well, which basically means if you have a survey tool you currently use, they can integrate that into their platform.

Modern Survey’s platform has seven different modules that you can mix and match with: their business intelligence tool “Heat”, mThrive for employee engagement, m360, mPerformance, mExit, mSpark for onboarding and mReasearch which manages all of the content on the platform.

5 Things I really like about Modern Survey: 

1. Modern Survey has taken continuous measurement of your employees to the next level with employee engagement pulse surveys, onboarding and exit surveys all integrated into your existing HRM systems.

2. mSpark their onboarding tool is a game changer. Not only does HR find out about potential trouble early on, the predictive analytics basically tell you who is going to turn before they even know themselves!

3. Modern Survey is a true business intelligence tool for HR.  Some vendors are beginning to sell this out in the industry, but none have it figured out on the HR side of the business like Modern has currently. Their HIPO and High Performance 9 box analytics is something you need to see. Perfect to use for workforce and succession planning.

4. Modern Survey goes beyond just giving you your own data and has integrated great benchmark analytics into their platform to give your HR team the decision-making tools it needs.

5. Modern Survey goes one step past most technology vendors and gives you the knowledge you need to go with the tools. They just don’t provide software, but they also provide the consulting you need to kick off a major project like implementing new employee engagement surveying!

Modern Survey’s President is Don MacPherson.  He’s one of the good guys, Minnesota born and bred.  Rides a white horse type of guy. Sure he needs to make money, but I truly think he would rather put out a great product then make money! Because of this, you won’t find a better vendor to work for.

Modern Survey is blowing up right now and has taken on a number of large enterprise clients, but they started in the mid-market space.  Their sweet spot is going to be 1,000 employees and above.  They work across all industries: retail, healthcare, manufacturing, entertainment, etc.  Well worth your time to check them and demo!

T3 – Talent Tech Tuesday – is a weekly series here at The Project to educate and inform everyone who stops by on a daily/weekly basis on some great recruiting and sourcing technologies that are on the market.  None of the companies who I highlight are paying me for this promotion.  There are so many really cool things going on in the tech space and I wanted to educate myself and share what I find.  If you want to be on T3 – send me a note.