Category Archives: Performance

How Do You Turn Around a Crappy Employment Brand?

Posted on by
5

I get two questions more than any others since I started blogging in HR and Talent over six years ago:

1. What ATS do you use?

2. How can we turn around our bad employment brand? (You can also replace “brand” with “culture” – I get that a lot as well!)

For question #1 on the ATS selection is for another post. Check back Wednesday and I’ll tell you.

Question #2 isn’t necessarily difficult, but it does take work!

There’s a reason you have a crappy employment brand. You need to find out what that reason(s) is and solve it. Sometimes the reason is difficult to solve, sometimes it’s very simple.  If you have a bad employment brand because you have a history of treating employees like garbage, that is going to take some time to turn around. If you have a bad employment brand because you recently had one bad issue in the news, you can recover pretty quickly.

The first step to turning around a bad employment brand is knowing what the problem is.

Sometimes you just know, sometimes you need to do the employee surveys. I love doing employee alumni surveys for this as well, and only sending to those you voluntarily left on their own. Those folks usually give you better, more productive, feedback, than those you laid off and fired.

The second step to turning around a bad employment brand is you need to get your entire leadership team to agree on why you have this problem.

It doesn’t matter what you do in HR, if your leadership is not in agreement, you will never fix this problem. And, it can’t be just the CEO who agrees with the problem. Any leader with influence needs to buy in completely and drink the Kool aid. Once you have this buyin from leadership, it becomes fairly easy to fix.

The third step to turning around your employment brand is your current employees have to begin believing that real change is happening.

They need to hear it, constantly, and they need to see it.  It starts from within. If your current employees believe it’s changing they’ll begin to refer people to be apart of the change. One step I suggest, that almost no organization ever does is to find your true believer employees. Those who you are 100% sure are on board for the change, and do a special referral bonus for only them. You want your true believers referring people, you don’t want your cancer employees referring people.

The fourth step to turning around your employment brand is to change the perception externally.

Most organizations flip-flop steps three and four, and it’s the main reason they fail. They try and change external perception with commercials and marketing, news releases, etc. This creates buzz on the outside, but your internal folks kill it as soon as that first person interviews or is hired.  Do steps 1-3 first, and step four really is just fairly easy employment branding marketing strategy and plan.

The first three steps will take 90% of your time to fix. You’ll be shocked at how hard step two will be, and how long it will take to come to agreement on the ‘real’ problem. That’s because most bad employment brands start with bad leadership.  Bad leaders don’t easily take responsibility for this, and want to blame everyone and everything, besides themselves.

There’s no silver bullet for a bad employment brand. Unfortunately, marketing firms are going to sell you step four as a silver bullet, which is much like putting lipstick on a pig. The pig might look a little better, but it’s still a pig.

HR’s Work Uniform

Posted on by
21

I got put on to an article recently about a female Art Director who decided to where the exact same outfit to work everyday.  She’s been doing it for the last three years:

“I have no clue how the idea of a work uniform came to me, but soon, the solution to my woes came in the form of 15 silk white shirts and a few black trousers. For a little personal detail, I remembered my mother loved to put bows in my hair as kid, so I chose to add a custom-made black leather rosette around my neck. Done. During the colder months, I also top my look off with a black blazer. I shopped all the pieces in one day. It burned a hole in my wallet to say the least, but in the long run, it has saved me—and will continue to save me—more money than I could imagine.

To state the obvious, a work uniform is not an original idea. There’s a group of people that have embraced this way of dressing for years—they call it a suit. For men, it’s a very common approach, even mandatory in most professions. Nevertheless, I received a lot of mixed reactions for usurping this idea for myself. Immediately, people started asking for a motive behind my new look: “Why do you do this? Is it a bet?” When I get those questions I can’t help but retort, “Have you ever set up a bill for online auto-pay? Did it feel good to have one less thing to deal with every month?”

I love the idea.

I recently went on a diet. I’m not a big dieter type.  But I’m completely comfortable with eating the same thing, every day, every meal. Give me a plan, and I’ll follow it.  For breakfast I have a banana and two eggs, mid-morning snack is a protein bar, salad with grilled chicken and fruit for lunch, Greek yogurt in the afternoon and a piece of fruit, for dinner it’s fish/chicken/steak, brown rice, veggie combo of some kind. I’m down about 15 pounds. I’ve been doing it for about six weeks or so. It’s easy.  I don’t have to think about what I’m going to eat, and I like what I’m eating.

I could so easily wear the same thing to work every single day. I basically do anyway for the most part, dark dress slacks and button down shirt. It would be even easier to just keep it all the same.

I wonder what a good HR uniform would be?  Here’s my suggestion:

For the Men of HR: 

– Dress khakis (not the cotton type, the poly blend type. Cotton wrinkles to easily, and the cotton ones that don’t are Dockers and no one wants to see those.)

– White button down or predominantly white patterned button down (In HR you want to wear white, it symbolizes you’re on the right side of things. Pressed. Crisp.)

– Sweater vest  (Sweater vest screams secure, conservative decision making and trust. HR in a nutshell.)

– Wingtips (Brown, not black. Brown is soft and comfortable. Black is cold and hard.)

– Socks (Fun colors and patterns. This speaks to the culture you want, but aren’t willing to go all out for.)

For the Ladies of HR: 

– Dress slacks (Black or Navy, no Khaki for the ladies. Get some pants with some structure to them, no pseudo yoga pants, no one wants to see the HR lady’s cookie – shout out to my girl Mer! – and make sure they’re long enough.)

– White open collar shirt, sligh v-neck (You want classy, not sexy. Long sleeve or 3/4 sleeve. Spend some money so it’s not see through, or get white camis to go under.)

– Lightweight cardigan sweater (Color to match the season, plain, no patterns or picture of cats. This adds softness and approachability.)

– High heels to match the pants (Not hooker high, appropriately high.)

I would totally trust these two HR Pros above!

What do you think? What would you like for your daily uniform if you were going to wear the exact same thing to work every single day?

8 Hacks Benefit Managers Can Do to Raise Employee Engagement

Posted on by
2

Tomorrow (Tuesday April 21st) at 2pm I’m hosting a free SHRM webinar (Link to register below) on how you can use your normal, boring employee benefits communications to drive better employee engagement. Well, let me take that back, it won’t be your normal, boring communications, it will be newer, better employee communications!

This won’t be your normal SHRM webinar, because it’s me and the company sponsoring the webinar is called Jellyvision (and their benefit communication technology called ALEX)! This will be fun!

The days of the low-strategy, low-impact benefits communication plan are over. Today’s HR professionals can no longer approach benefits communication as a chore that must get done as quickly as possible.

Smart HR pros know that strong benefits communication strategies drive employee engagement levels through the roof. In this lively program, you’ll learn that it’s not company picnics and spiffy logo polo shirts that make people love their jobs but smart, strategic benefits communication.

What do you know? The benefits team just got elevated to strategic employee engagement driver number one!

What can you expect to hear? 

1. What and how can Leaders in your organization do to aid your benefit communications? Simple tips to get them involved without them lifting a finger!

2. Research shows that 3/4 of your employees don’t understand their benefits, BUT 3/4 also don’t want more Benefit Communications! So, what are you supposed to do!?!

3. Research also shows that the higher percentage of employees to actually understand their benefits, the higher the organizations overall employee engagement is.  I’m going to walk you through some easy to do hacks that can help you, and show you some technology that is transforming how great companies are turning employee benefit communication upside-down!

Click Here to Register! 

What is ‘Meaningful Work’, really?

Posted on by
8

I had a couple of communications recently that lit a fire under my ass over the concept of ‘meaningful work’.  You see, there is this widely held belief by a great number of HR pros that to have true employee engagement your employees must feel like they have meaningful work.

I don’t necessarily disagree with that thought process.

The problem is, well meaning, HR pros have taken this concept and started to cram social platforms down the throats of their employees misinterpreting ‘meaningful work’ as meaning as an employer we must have support social causes so our employees see we are giving back.

The best example I can think of is everyone’s darling employer Tom’s.  With complete transparency there is probably ten pairs of Tom’s shoes in my house, none of which are mine.  Each pair of Tom’s costs around $45.  The material and labor to make a pair of Tom’s probably runs around $5. Let’s be honest, these shoes are crap. It’s a piece of canvas, rubber and some thread.

“But, Tim!, they give one of these crappy pairs of shoes to a poor kid!” Great, they just cut into their margin by $5, oh how will they survive on only a gross of $35 per pair?!

So, I’m to believe that because they give a shoe for every shoe they sell, people find this as meaningful work?

What about those companies that put big money and volunteerism towards things like Habitat for Humanity?  Great cause, right?  I worked for a company that did this. It was nice. But I grew up volunteering for Special Olympics and supporting this organization. The company I was working for wouldn’t support my cause, because they already did so much for Habitat.

What about my ‘meaningful work’?

Meaningful work isn’t about supporting causes.  Meaningful work is do your people feel that what they do on a daily basis is important to the success of your organization.  This doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with supporting causes.  It definitely does for some organizations, but not most.

Employees need to know that when they show up in the morning the effort they give helps the organization reach its goals.  Not that the organization they work supports one cause or another.

The failure in believing meaningful work is tied to causes is that everyone has their own personal causes they want to support. If you believe helping the homeless is your organization’s cause, that’s wonderful! But, now you have to go out and look for talent that also believes this is their cause as well, to make work meaningful for everyone in your organization.

In HR we try and make this concept of meaningful work too difficult.  We need to help our leaders be better communicators to their staffs on how what each one does individually has impact to the greater good of our organizations.  How they, individually and collectively, make an impact to their function and to the business.

Meaningful work isn’t saving puppies. Meaningful work is using your talents to help your organization be successful.

Surprise! You’re an HR Manager! Now what?

Posted on by
3

It’s graduation season and soon many new HR brothers and sisters will be entering into their first real HR gigs. Many will be titled, “HR Manager”, even without one day of experience.  That’s because in many organizations, HR Manager is the only HR position they have, and they’ll gladly take a young, fresh new HR grad.

The tendency for new managers, especially HR Managers thrust into a generalist role, is to get buried with tasks.  We all know the drill, you get started at the new company, and by day 3 you already have so many projects, improvements, process changes, etc. that need to be made you determine you probably have about 18 months worth of work.

Whether you’re a new manager, or seasoned HR Pro, we tend to forget the above concepts from time-to-time and get bogged down in the everyday details within HR Departments.  So, for the new HR Managers (and maybe some seasoned vets) I wanted to give you 3 tasks that should be accomplished everyday as a HR Manager who wants to be strategic and add value to your organization:

1. Keep Track of the Score,

2. Find Better Talent,

3. Be a Relationship Bridge.

Keeping track of the score, means you must create and track metrics, for your people practices, that have bottom-line impact to your organization. Communicate these constantly and educate your organization on how they can impact these results.

Finding better talent for your organization is really the only reason the HR Department exists.  If you did only this all day, every day, your company would be better for it.  No, having a better dress code policy isn’t going to make you world class. In the end, talent wins.

The single largest factor to inefficiency isn’t bad processes, it’s bad, or non-existent, relationships. It is your job to develop your leaders, and part of that is helping them understand the value of each part of the organization and getting them to dance with each other.  Being a bridge, and bringing leaders together, with understanding will have the greatest impact on efficiency.

Leaders understanding, and actually knowing, each others pain will solve most organizational problems. Why? Because you hire great talent, and great talent with good relationships will move mountains and get you to world class.

Never underestimate the power of relationships (good and bad).

Show me a leader who claims they can “work around” someone (meaning they don’t get along with that person), and I’ll show you a below average leader who needs to leave your organization.  New, and seasoned, HR Managers underestimate the leverage they have at helping organizational efficiency through better relationships.

Good Luck new HR Managers!

5 Ways To Make Learning Matter In Your Company

Posted on by
Reply

It’s true. You know the true power of learning and development, known to the laypeople in your company by the pedestrian term “Training.”   A revamp of your approach to learning and development has been on your project list for no less than two years—but day-to-day HR and workforce management duties has kept it in the “someday” bucket.

We feel your pain. That’s why Fistful of Talent is focusing our April Webinar on L&D. Join us on Thursday, April 23rd at 2pm EDT for Bootstrap Your Training Function: 5 Ways To Make Learning Matter In Your Company (sponsored by the L&D experts at Meridian).  We’re going to give you a roadmap to build your training function from scratch, including the following goodies:

—What the modern Learning & Development function looks like across core job skill training, leadership development and more. You don’t have to focus on everything to have an effective L&D function.  We’ll walk you through how leaders in the space prioritize tough choices in this space.

—How smart HR and Talent leaders are building their approach to L&D with a mix of company provided training, outsourced training and self-paced activities tied to competencies of the most critical positions in their company.  It’s 2015.  The classroom matters, but there’s this thing called Google…

—Why you need an LMS/technology solution to bootstrap and make learning matter. There’s only one of you, right?  Then you’re going to need to use technology to make your L&D initiatives look bigger than they really are and deliver the way the end user wants—just in time, on the device your employee is using.  You don’t have to break the bank… we’ll show you what to look for.

—5 ways to effectively market your L&D/training function to look fabulous as a Talent Leader. You could build the best L&D machine in the world and there’s a good chance nobody would notice.  We’ll show you the 5 biggest lessons you can learn from marketing and how to put them into play as you build your training function.

—A roadmap for how to effectively optimize your training strategy to positively influence turnover and retention in your workforce. This just in: Some people aren’t going to leave—ever. That means you’ve got choices to make related to how you spend the limited L&D budget you have.  We’ll show you how to do that.

You know ramping up your Learning & Development function has been on your “to-do” list for too long.  Join us on Thursday, April 23rd at 2pm EDT for Bootstrap Your Training Function: 5 Ways To Make Learning Matter In Your Company, and we’ll jump start your planning process and help you get things done in 2015!

HR Worst Enemy

Posted on by
2

I’ve been speaking a few local SHRM events and some corporate events and I’m always amazed to hear about all of the Enemies that HR has!  You have employees, and hiring managers, and the EEOC, and employment attorneys, and staffing firms, and insurance firms, and HR software providers – I mean, if I hadn’t been in HR, I would think that everyone is against HR!

It feels like that some days, doesn’t it?

HR’s real worst enemy, though, doesn’t get that without your organizations service or product being successful – no one is successful.

HR’s worst enemy doesn’t get that more hurdles to jump through, means less time for operations to focus on the real business at hand.

HR’s worst enemy doesn’t get that treating everyone the same way, doesn’t create a high performance culture.

HR’s worst enemy doesn’t get that having employees fill out open enrollment paperwork just so you have a document to prove what they filled out, spends more resources then it saves.

HR’s worst enemy doesn’t get that adding 5 additional steps to a process doesn’t make it simpler, it makes it more complex.

HR’s worst enemy doesn’t get that not leaving your department to go out an build relationships in other departments isn’t a good thing.

HR’s worst enemy doesn’t that eliminating all risk isn’t something that is possible – nor should it be a goal.

HR’s worst enemy…is itself.

How To Tell Someone They Suck

Posted on by
6

Got a question recently from a newbie HR/Talent Pro about how do you tell someone they just aren’t good enough for the position you have, without hurting their feelings?  Great question, and one that we all run into frequently.  Here’s the story:

“Mr. Jones (I’ve changed the name to protect the guilty) won’t stop bugging me, he emails his resume to me ‘every’ day!”  We know Mr. Jones, because Mr. Jones use to work for us, and it didn’t turn out so well.  Mr. Jones was “laid off” back in the recession when we got rid of our dead wood. Now, Mr. Jones wants to come back for another position we have.  The problem with Mr. Jones isn’t skill related, it’s personality related, he’s annoying.  He was annoying to everyone who ever came into contact with, but his manager never coached him on this.”

So, the BIG question. How do you get Mr. Jones to stop bugging you?  This happens to every single HR/Talent pro I know eventually.

Here are the steps I use:

1. Tell Them!

That’s it, no more steps.

Here’s our problem as HR/Talent Pros, we never want to burn a bridge.  “Well, Tim, you don’t know where he might go, who might hire him, I don’t want to ruin my reputation”  Bullshit.  You’re being conflict avoidant, and if you look at your last performance review, I bet under “opportunities” is probably says something about avoiding conflict or not confronting issues head on.

I had a very good HR mentor once tell me, “it’s best to deliver them that gift, then to allow them to walk around not knowing”.  Once you start being straightforward you’ll be amazed at how many people will say, “No one has ever told me that!”  That’s the problem, no one ever tells them the truth, thus they keep doing the wrong thing, instead of trying to fix what is wrong.

How do you get an annoying candidate to stop bugging you?  You tell them exactly, very specifically, very calmly, with no ill intent, “I want to give you a gift.  You might not see it as a gift right now, but I hope in time you’ll understand it to be a very valuable gift.  I (don’t use “we” or “us” or “the company – you’re avoiding again by using those), I think you have a very bad personality flaw that comes across annoying to me, and from the feedback I have received, to those you work with.  If this does not change, you will probably struggle to find a job and keep a job.”

OUCH! That hurt right?  But, read it again, was there anything mean or untrue in the statement? If this person actually listens to the statement and acts on it, will they be better for it?  You can change the reason for whatever issue the person might have, maybe it’s hygiene, maybe it’s a crazy laugh, who knows, but the basic message stays the same.  You need to change, or I never want to speak to you again.

It’s hard for new HR/Talent pros to understand this, because 99% have been taught to be nice, thoughtful people and not to be rude.  This sounds a bit rude.  In reality, I think it’s rude to string a person along and not care enough about them to actually tell them what is wrong and to help them.  Stop telling candidates your blow off lines and start telling candidates the truth.  At the very least, you’ll have more time on your hands to talk to the candidates you really want to speak to!

You Wouldn’t Even Hire Your Own Mom

Posted on by
9

I had a conversation recently with a friend about how hard it is to work and be a Mom.  Just to be a clear, I’m not a Mom.  I hire Moms. In fact I love hiring Moms, they work their asses off.

I know this because I was raised by a single mother.

I remember my Mom having to pick where we would go buy our groceries based on how long it had been since she bounced a check at that store. I remember her handing me items off the belt to return because they wouldn’t take her check and we only had enough cash for a few items. I remember pouring water into my bowl of generic Fruit Loops because we didn’t have enough money to buy milk that week.

My Mom started her own business, paid her own mortgage and raised two kids. It wasn’t perfect, but we made it. Those experiences shape a kid for life. It makes you appreciate what you have, when you know you can live with much less.  My Mom got hugely successful after I got out of college and my kids only know her as the grandma that has so much.  I can’t even describe to them the struggle, they have no concept.

I have zero tolerance for hiring managers who don’t want to hire moms because they might have to stay home with a sick kid, or they might want to take an early lunch to catch fifteen minutes of fourth grade play at school during the day.  Both men and women, hiring managers, have told me they don’t like to hire moms.  This doesn’t sit well with me.

The Moms I hire are some of the strongest employees I have.  They come to work, which for many is a refuge of quiet and clean, and do work that is usually less hard than the other jobs they still have to perform that day and night.  They rarely complain, and usually are much better to put issues into perspective and not freak out.

When I look at my own ‘tough’ days I try and remember that most of my day is done, while theres won’t be until their head hits the pillow. Old people and Moms are the most disrespected of the working class.  They are the most underutilized workers of our generation.  A woman takes a few years off to raise a kid and somehow she’s now worthless and has no skills.

I don’t even want to write this post because I feel like I’m giving away a recipe to a secret sauce.  All these national recruiting companies are hiring the youngest, prettiest college grads they can find to work for them, and they mostly fail in the recruiting industry. Moms find this industry rather easy as comparable to what they are use to doing.

The recruiting secret sauce, main ingredient = moms.

Watered Downed Feedback is Killing America

Posted on by
11

I said this before, but you don’t want to hear it.  No one cares about what you have to say, unless it’s telling them how good they are.

People can’t handle critical feedback, unless it’s set up in a mechanism where they expect it and desire it.  That’s the crux, hardly anyone has that mechanism and while most people tell you they want critical feedback they don’t have the makeup to handle it.

Here are the types of “critical” feedback people can handle:

“You’re doing a good job, would love it if you could get that big project off the ground. That would really help us out!”

Here’s what you really want to say, critically, but can’t:

“You do good at things I tell you to do, and all basic day to day duties of the job. I need more from this position and from you, and I’m willing to help get you there. I need someone who can take a project from scratch and kill it, without me having to babysit the entire thing. You’re not doing that, and that’s what I really need you to do. Are you willing do that?” 

Same message, right?  You do some stuff good, but one critical aspect of the job is not getting done. The problem is, the first level feedback is given 99.9% of the time, because managers and leaders know if you deliver the second level, that person will be destroyed!

They’ll think you think they suck, and they’ll start looking for a job.  When in reality, you were just trying to give them legitimate feedback. Real feedback. Something that would actually help them reach expectations.

So, how do you get to a point to be able to deliver ‘real’ feedback?

It’s starts with your hiring process. In the interview process you need to set people up to understand that your organization delivers real feedback, and they must be able to accept critical feedback and not crumble.  This is a team, it’s about getting better, not hurt egos.  Half will crumble in the interview, which is a good thing, you don’t want them anyway.

For those that you think have the self-insight enough to handle it, you need to do it before hire. Give them the real feedback from their interview, and see how they reply, how they interact.  This will show you what you can expect from them when they get this level of feedback as an employee.

For the employees already working, you need to start by showing them and giving them examples of what true feedback looks like. You need to coach and train your leaders on how to deliver this, on an ongoing basis.  You then need to have coaches and mentors sit in with all leaders when they begin to deliver this feedback.

Part of your leader training is to show them how to accept feedback from their teams as well. If you want to dish it out, you have to accept it as well. Training and coaching employees on how to ‘manage up’ is key to making this successful. This isn’t about blowing people up. It’s about delivering true feedback to help them get better, and person accepting and receiving this information under that assumption. We want you to be the best you, you can be.

All this takes work and time. The organizations that can do this win the culture war, because all the people working for you will know they won’t get this anywhere else!