Category Archives: Performance

You Only Hire “A” Players, Right?!

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You’ve heard it before – “Here at ACME, we only hire A players”.

Nice! Except you and I both know they’re not all “A” players. You might have thought they were when you hired them, but hiring managers miss. People change. Talent gets bored. Your company is dysfunctional. Which is why you have to measure your people, evaluate them and put them through the corporate equivalent of the NFL Combine at least once a year.

That’s right. You’re going to have to do a performance review on them. And that means they may hate you.

But wait – what if we told you there’s a way that you can measure the performance of your employees, push for more and be considered their personal agent while you do that? You can be the one they trust the most – but only if you develop a employee-centric approach to goal setting and the performance feedback loop that follows.

How do you do that? Join us for the next FOT webinar entitled, “Get My Agent On the Phone“, and we’ll break down our goal setting/performance management plan designed to make your direct reports believe you are on their side, including the following focus points:

 ·         Making sure the goals you set represent the Five Most Important Things (5MIT) for the employee in question. What are the most important things your employee has to focus on this year? If you can only talk to them about five things, what would those things be and why? Smart managers skip discussing the busy work and get to what’s going to change the game – for the company and the employee. We’ll give you the 411 on how to do that.

·         Offering up ways each of the Five Most Important Things might be measured in the months that follow. You want measurements – we get it. The key in offering up how you’re going to measure the 5MIT in question is not to limit yourself. The more you box yourself in, the less innovation you get. We’ll show you how to set the expectation your direct reports are going to be measured without actually taking performance off the table. PS – They’ll love you for this if you deliver it in the right way.

·         Having Thoughts on what “Good” and “Great” performance looks like in each area. That’s right – we’re going through a goal setting process not because HR told us we had to, but because it can set us up to be a great performance coach for the rest of the year. Nothing sets you up as a coach more than owning the difference between “good” and “great”. We’ll tell you how to reserve the “great” tag for employees who really innovate, drive change or add true value in the job they’re in.

·         Including a section that details “What’s In It for Me?” for each area of focus. Being an agent is about talking about how chasing great performance in the area in question could be great for the employee’s career. We’ll show you how to frame this as the agent/coach. It’s the most important thing you can do.

·         Putting it all in an easy to follow, informal format. If you go beyond one page, you’re making goal setting too complex. List everything we’ve described to this point in one page, and make the headers conversational in nature, and you win. We’ve got some format to share with you.

 You can be viewed as a career agent for your employees rather than a run of the mill corporate bureaucrat. Join us for “Get My Agent on the Phone” and we’ll show how the secret sauce to goal setting and follow-up conversations can dramatically change the positioning of what you do in performance management.

SIGN UP TODAY – It’s FREE (of course because it’s from FOT!) – May 21st (it’s a Tuesday – No, you don’t have anything else planned) – 1-2pm EST (Because our research department told HR Pros like this time best for free webinars)!

The Project Mail Bag

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One of the great by products of writing an HR blog is I get people contacting me who now believe I know what I’m talking about, when it comes to HR topics.  Before I started writing – I was an idiot in HR who didn’t know anything. After you write for a while I’ve become a ‘Subject Matter Expert’ – so people ask me stuff.  It’s funny how that works!  Its like going to work for a really cool company – everyone wants to hear you speak.  A year ago I was at ABC Dog Food Co. and now conference in America would accept me to speak.  Now I have a job at Google – and people are calling me begging me to speak and offering to pay me!  Same person, same knowledge – now with new branding!?

The questions coming from readers are cool – because I feel the pain from the HR and Talent Pros who pose them.  I’ve been there – I have a least one or two things they can try – many times we end up going back and forth and coming up with something neither one of us thought of!  I wanted to share some of those questions and interactions – because quite frankly most are better than anything I could write to begin with.

Question:

From Mary – HR Pro in Eastern Pennsylvania, at a mid-sized Manufacturing company –

“Dear Tim (starts off like a Casey Kasem long distance dedication doesn’t it!) –

I can’t stand the people I work with in HR.  We have a small team – 5 people – who have all been here for at least 3 years – and they don’t want to change anything.  I just graduated with my degree in HR and couldn’t wait to get started – and now I feel like I’ve made the wrong career choice. How can I get the HR team to try new things!?”

My response:

“Dear Mary (she started it!) –

Quit.  Send your resume to Google – I hear great things about their HR program, apparently, they do HR way different than everyone else.  Kidding – don’t quit!

People only change when they are forced to (which you don’t have authority) or they see ‘major’ benefit in it for themselves.  So you have to find one of these two ways to entice your team to want to try new things.  First way (assuming one road block is your actual leader in HR) – make friends outside of HR and find their pain points, things they need better or changed.  In most organizations – those outside of HR have more influence – getting them pushing for change, will force HR to react.  Since you’ll be shaping that from outside of HR – you can start to drive the change you want to see inside of HR.   Your HR peers will see you trying to talk with those outside your HR Departments locked doors – be vigilant – don’t let them stop you – make friends outside of HR!  Second way – come up with ideas that make your HR peers look really smart, helpful and at the same time they get to do less work.  This is harder!  But if you are willing to give credit to them, for your ideas, you might trick them into changing some stuff.  Be sneaky good.

You are not going to change the culture within your HR team.  Culture always wins.  You are new.  Within 6 months – you’ll think the exact same way they do, unless you do stuff really different – without embarrassing them, or pissing them off.  Manage up to your HR leader.  Stay positive and helpful.  Keep a constant pressure on moving your ideas forward in ways that doesn’t cost your team to do more work, or cost more resources.

If that fails – join Google.

T.”

 

Launch and Learn

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I love HR Pros! I really do.

There is one common trait that many of the best HR Pros have – we love to have things perfect before we launch or go public with them!  BTW – this is specific to HR – Operations, Sales, Marketing, etc. are all willing to ‘try’ stuff – to throw it out there and see what happens.  In HR this is taboo!

Why is that?

For me this idea is the one thing that truly holds HR back from being innovative.  Think about these words from Mark Suster at the Both Sides of the Table blog:

“I’m sure you’ve all heard saying derived from Voltaire, “don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good” which in a way is encapsulated in the lean startup movement and the ideology of shipping a “minimum viable product” (MVP) and then learning from your customer base.

I think about this topic of perfection being the enemy of the good often. Because I live in startup land where everybody is a perfectionist. I think this is particularly true because every startup entrepreneur is trying to catch lightning in a bottle.

I hear about it in every first product release. You can see it in the founders’ eyes. They want the perfect feature set, the PR company lined up to do the perfect press release, they want maximum coverage, rave reviews, viral adoption and they want to sit back and then wait for the signups to come roaring in.

Life doesn’t work like that. And gearing yourself up for a lighting-in-a-bottle moment leads to bad company decisions.”

If those types of decisions lead to ‘bad company decisions’, inevitably those same types of behaviors will lead to bad HR decisions.

I hear what’s going around in your head right now, HR Pros!  I’m an HR Pro myself – that voice is hard to quiet.  “How can making sure something is perfect – a project, a program, a new process – be bad for HR and our organization!?”  Making something perfect isn’t bad.  Failure to launch is bad.  Also, taking too long or using too many resources to ensure perfection can be a huge negative to how HR, and you, are viewed.  In HR we aren’t trying to save lives or solve the world economic crisis – we have some room to ‘test’ and do some ‘trial and error’ – as long as communicate that is what you’re doing.

I’ll give you a little secret I’ve used for years in HR.  Like most of us in HR I’ve designed my fair share of new programs and processes, and I’ve tried to make them perfect.  To ensure I didn’t have something blow up on me – I always have done ‘soft’ launches.  I’ll launch with a single department or I’ll communicate out that this is a ‘test’ and we need feedback.  99.9% of the time my ‘test’ goes off without any issues and the ‘test’ becomes the program.  That .01% of the time that something goes wrong or there are errors – we chalk it up to why we ‘doing the test first’!  Everyone wins.  Employees and hiring managers get to tell you where you messed up without feeling like they’re stepping on toes.  You get to correct your errors without feeling like an idiot. The company moves forward – faster.

 

How Do You Really Get A Job You LOVE?

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My single most read blog post ever is – How Do You Really Get An Entry Level Job?  It’s about a woman who reached out to me and asked me for advice – so I gave her 5 tips on how I would go about getting a job if I had her skill sets and resume.   One major difference between getting an ‘entry level’ job and getting a job you ‘love’ is that when you’re just trying to get your first job – my advice is to take anything!  I mean anything!  I’ll take out the trash, I’ll answer phones, I’ll wash your car – just let me get in the door – my talent will take over from there and eventually I’ll move up the chain.  Most folks don’t think of taking out the garbage when they think of getting a job they ‘LOVE’.

So, how do you get a job that you ‘Love’ – I mean one of those jobs that doesn’t seem like work because you ‘Love’ it so much?  One of those jobs where you would be willing to take less money to be able to do it.  That’s the key.  You see I get asked frequently what my ‘dream’ job would be – I have had the same answer for at least 20 years – Head Coach, Los Angles Lakers.  That’s my ‘dream’ job – for a couple of reasons – I love basketball, love the Lakers and that I would be getting huge BANK!   I don’t know if I would ‘Love’ the job – but I sure would give it a lot of hugs and kisses.  Now, if someone said, “Tim, we are going to offer you the head coaching position for the Lakers, but it only pays $75,000.”  I would decline – because I wouldn’t ‘Love’ that job for $75,000.  I would ‘Love’ that job for about $1M per season – which would be a bargain for my skill set – Mr. Buss!

That word ‘Love’ is real tricky.  Many people say the ‘Love’ their job – but you ask them to take a 10% pay cut and they don’t ‘Love’ it anymore.  Here’s how you get a job you Really Love:

1. Know what it is you ‘Love’ – Too many folks want a job they love – but they don’t even know what it is they love to do.   “Well, Tim, I love to sit on the couch and watch movies.”  That’s a very easy job to get! Congratulations – have fun with that – plus you might want to find someone willing to support you in your new chosen profession.  I don’t say that in jest – that really isn’t that hard!  I know quite of few ladies who have chosen to do Yoga each day and have lunch with the ladies – they ‘Love’ their jobs!  They’ve found ways to get supported in doing their jobs.  Guys – don’t be haters – I know guys who have found ‘sponsors’ that let them stay home and fish and golf – face it – they must be really good at something – or they’re better at finding suckers than you!

2. Understand that something you ‘Love’ at 20, might be different at 30, and 40, and... – I wanted to be a teacher from age 12 to about age 23 – even today I love interacting with children – I’ve done youth sports coaching for the past 20 years.  I got my undergrad degree in Elementary Education.  I was 100% positive -teaching was a job I would ‘Love’.  I found out that it wasn’t.  I fell out of ‘Love’ with teaching.  I see so many folks who ‘Love’ something, do it for a while, then realize they don’t really love it anymore – but they have this idea that you can’t stop loving something and move on to the next thing.  It’s alright to stop loving a job you once loved.   Want a job you ‘love’?  Sometimes that means leaving a job you once loved.

3. Realize, falling in ‘Love’ is sometimes the greatest part of finding a job you ‘Love’ – Too many people get set on finding a job they are instantly in love with.  Most times, loving a job doesn’t work like that.  Many times you fall in love with a job you initially didn’t like very much.  I’m fairly certain the first time I met my wife she wasn’t instantly in love with me!  But I wore her down.  Jobs can be like that!  They seem kind of average, then over time you begin to realize you really are in love with it.  Don’t get caught up in the notion you need to instantly be ‘in love’ with a job to eventually ‘love’ your job.

Do you love your job?

How New Leaders Categorize You

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It’s a pretty common phenomenon for new leaders to turnover most, if not all, of their team when they take over.  It happens all the time!  It’s a primary reason while you’ll see senior leadership take way too long to change out an ineffective leader – the fallout sucks.  Let’s take a look at how most leaders take a position.  It usually happens one of two ways: Promotion or Termination- old leader gets promoted up or gets canned – organization finds new leader (internally or externally) to come in and takeover.   Either way, the team has a new leader.  Now, 99.9% of the time, this next thing happens: Change!  New leader comes in and feels pressure to make a difference, to do better – so they make change.  Then, this happens – Crappy Communication!  Most leaders are not equipped or trained at how to communicate as a new leader, and don’t negotiate with their team on how the team likes communication – so they fail at this part.

Change + Crappy Communication = Employees leaving and having bad attitudes about the new leader.

Here’s how a new leader categorizes employees of a new group they take over:

The Converts – These are the people who are going to forget about the old leader as soon as the person leaves the parking lot and fall into the ‘new’ line of thinking.  What’s funny about these folks is many times their thought process switches 180 degrees depending on what the new leader likes, thinks, prefers, etc.  These folks will be the ones who stay around and thrive – they are corporate survivors in the truest form – some will see 10+ leaders come and go in their careers.

The Zombies – These are your victims.  They only support themselves and how bad their life is because bad things only happen to them.  They are just waiting around for the next bad thing to happen to them.  These will be the first people get to get terminated – which perpetuates their Eeyore belief that everything in life is against them.

The Militia –  Are the employees who are going to fight blindly to keep the vision of their old leader alive.  These folks are passionate, so the new leader will try and convert them over to the new vision, because if you can get them on your side – they make great soldiers. But some will leave and/or get fired because they just refuse to give up the rebel flag!

The Double Agents – DA employees fall in the middle between converts and the militia – they really don’t want to be on one side or the other – they want to find another job, but don’t want the new leader to know.  They want to watch the new leader fail, but at the same time need that person to think highly of them to ensure their next position and possible recommendation down the road.  These folks are the ones who surprise the new leaders – they think they’re on board, then get a two week notice dropped on their desk.

The Insider – This is the most dangerous employee to a new leader. The Insider is an employee who has connections and influence and will funnel information on how the new leader is doing to higher level folks in the organization.  Successful new leaders find this person quickly, and convert them quickly – it’s key to survival!

How does a new leader stop a mass turnover of their team?  I like to see new leaders do three things:

1. Communicate the new reality quickly.  I like to see new leaders do this within the first week of taking on the new position.

2. Team transition meeting.  Third party facilitated, this meeting allows employees to share their fears of a new leader, share the history of the collective group and allows the team and new leader to negotiate how they will communicate with each other.

3. Individual meetings. New leaders should set up a meeting schedule to meet with all of their direct reports weekly in the first 90 days.  Making sure everyone is on the same page is critical.

 

 

 

 

Little Becomes Big

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I think most things don’t change or get done in our organizations because people look at what needs to be done and thinks – “Holy crap! That’s a big job”.  That’s such a big job and I don’t have the resources or the time or the energy to tackle that right now.  In HR this happens to us all the time.  I would rather just stick with what we have because the amount of work it would take to make a change just isn’t something we can do, right now. “Can’t do right now”, by the way, means “never” in most organizations.

I’m not a all-at-once guy.  Many people are.  “If we are doing this, we’re doing it all!”  This is really an artificial roadblock many people put up to stop you.  They know you don’t want to do it all, ‘right now’, so they force the all-or-nothing compromise.  Which almost always goes to the ‘nothing’ decision.  I think HR can be much more effective by starting very small and moving slowly, but surely, in a direction of major change that you have planned out in the future.

Here’s how I like to do it – let’s use changing your interview process and beginning to get 100% compliance on using new competency driven interview guides.  Sounds like something your hiring managers will hate, right!?  Here’s how this normally works: Step 1 – Put together a 7 page questionnaire on competencies and send out to all 200 hiring managers in your organization with a time line of 4 weeks to return.  At 4 weeks, 12% have returned, after reminders 17% have returned. You’re dead in the water because you can get a majority of your hiring manager to even agree on which competencies are important in your organization.  Step 2– you give up.

Here’ how I do it:

Step 1: I meet with 4-5 top performing hiring managers who give a damn, individually, and gather their ‘opinion’ on what competencies really matter to them.

Step 2: I come up with a consensus of this small group and deliver them back an initial ‘draft’ interview guide, based on their recommendations, and ask for any additions or subtractions they would like to see.

Step 3:  I begin using these guides for all interviews with these managers as a ‘test’ case on how these might work with the rest of the organization.  This test might take 3-12 months based on how much hiring you do in your organization.  I change and tweak and better the guides constantly to make the more end-user friendly based on the hiring managers using them.

Step 4:  My 4-5 best hiring managers now have a habit of using competency based interview guides – 100%.  They are believers because they were the designers of them. They work, for them.  They will not want to change.

Step 5:  I present my ‘Competency based interview guide’ test results to leadership.

Step 6:  We roll out competency based interview guide process to the entire company – 100%.

Ok, I probably missed a couple steps in this quick example – but you get the idea.  Little steps become big steps.   How do you eat an Elephant?  One bite at a time.  The easiest way for an HR shop to get anything done in an organization is to find champions who are high performers to work with you and believe in what you’re doing – then just start doing it – ‘as a test’!  Most leadership love to see their employees trying things that is an attempt to make the organization better – especially when it’s their best and brightest!  Don’t get caught up in “Everybody has to do it”!  No they don’t – ‘Everybody’ will actually slow down what you’re trying to accomplish.

Little, becomes Big.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I Love Being Right!

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I’m coming up on my annual review.  Something that my boss does that I like is to require me to put together all the things I did for the last year, beyond my normal job.  The theory being, why should I pay you more, if you’re just doing the same job.  Tell me what you do beyond the norm.  Tell me why you’re more valuable to me this year, than you were last year. It’s not perfect, but I’ve yet to see an evaluation system that is!  What it does do is drive conversation about what is valued in my organization.  You are hired and paid well to do a job.  That is expected.  If you want more – show us why.  Doing you normal job isn’t more – it’s what you were hired to do.

The problem with this is my self-insight measure, is off the chart.  When I sit down to write this up – all I do is find things that are wrong with me!  Which might be the entire reason for the exercise to begin with! Figure out that you suck, then I don’t have to pay you.

Here’s what I found out about myself this year:

  • I love being right.

That was about it.

It’s not a good thing – it’s definitely an opportunity area.  When you love to be ‘right’ you tend not to be the best listener.  Being right means you have to keep showing people you’re right.  Which means preparing what to say next instead of listening then crafting a response to what you heard.  Being right means that someone is wrong.  That, also, is not a good thing.  We live in a world of gray.  Most things in business aren’t right or wrong – there is usually an answer in the middle of the two – some will call it compromise, some will call it synergy – it’s a better third option.  Something we both created.

Having a desire to be right is somewhat immature.  It harkens back to the day of playgrounds and rows of desks.  It’s when you wanted to show your parents how smart you were.  You did that by being right – and sometimes being right got you a slap on the backside or early bed with no dinner.  Most people learn at an early age, being right isn’t all that you thought it would be! Being right, can also be very negative.

So, over the next 12 months I vow to work on not being right.  I want to embrace being wrong.  It doesn’t feel comfortable, but I know it will make me better.  It’s alright to be wrong (I’ll need to keep saying this to myself over and over!). Being wrong means I will be able to tell someone else they are ‘right’.  That seems like a better leader to me.

My Dongle is Bigger Than Your Dongle

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In case you missed it last week, a couple people got fired for joking about the size of their dongles at a conference. Here’s the article from Tech Crunch — A Dongle Joke That Spiraled Way Out of Control.  Long story short — two guys make a sexually suggestive joke about a Dongle to no one in particular, but it’s at a conference and they’re in mixed company.  A lady overhears them and doesn’t like it. She takes a quick picture of them with her phone and tweets out the pic and the comment about how crude they are.  This gets the jokester fired, and, after the fallout, gets the lady who posted the picture fired!

To get reaction – I went to my buddy with the biggest dongle I know – Laurie Ruettimann!

(Tim) Laurie – you know the deal, you’ve been in HR, a couple of idiot guys saying inappropriate stuff – it’s HR 101 and an easy termination!  The backlash on the female who posted the original comment and pic, Adria Richards, I thought was a bit crazy.  It almost screams retaliation termination.  What is your take on this?  How would you have handled it as the HR leader?

(Laurie) If there is one thing like I like more than Human Resources, it’s dongles. I love them.

You know what I really hate? Public shaming. Adria Richards was well within her rights to be offended by a joke. I think using a #hashtag to talk about the joke, and gain the attention of the conference organizers, was okay. But when she took it upon herself to take a picture of the guys who made the dongle joke and publicly shame them, she went too far and exercised poor judgment.

Who wants to employ a person like that?

She was also fired because the hacker group Anonymous caught wind of her actions and went after her employer. Adria posed a risk to her organization. It was time for her to go.

There’s a lesson in this, Tim. Nothing good comes from industry conferences. Stop pretending like innovation and thought leadership happen at these stupid events. No matter what your industry, it’s mostly a bunch of nerdy dudes trying to hook up with hypersensitive chicks.  Get back to work.

(Tim)  LFR — Public Shaming?  You’re against Public Shaming!  Do you know Stephen Covey, Jack Welch and Mahatma Gandhi all call ‘Public Shaming’ one of the most underutilized management tools of the 21st century!  In fact, I think I taught a leadership development class on Public Shaming and Driving for Results back in the day.  

I’ll admit the Adria picture was a low blow — especially since in the photo it looks like there is one main dude she is pointing out, and that guy didn’t even do it.  Not only did she post the pic, she made it look like the wrong guy was the Neanderthal!  I’m still sitting here in shock you’re against public shaming, it’s the basis of every great HR Pro I know — and the entire liberal movement since the 1960’s!

(Laurie) My Dearest Timmy, I stand corrected. I am actually okay with public shaming when I do it, which is the hallmark of every great leader.

When I shame you, you deserve it. When someone shames me, they should get fired.

But the HR lady in me wonders why Adria didn’t have a crucial conversation with the guys who made the dongle joke. Right there. Adria wasn’t standing up for reproductive rights or fair wages. She wasn’t walking a picket line. Her safety and security weren’t being threatened. She heard a joke that bugged her. And if she can’t pony up the courage and tell two stupid dudes at an event to STFU, maybe she doesn’t deserve her job.

Leadership is all about small, subtle decisions. She made a big, dumb decision. So she’s out.

But you know my management motto: Do as I say, not as I do.

(Tim) I’m sure there’s some kind of poetic justice in all of this — but I’m an HR Pro and now have two positions to fill because people couldn’t act like adults.  Another day in HR!

So, what do you think? Would you have fired either, both or what? Hit us up in the comments.

The 4 People You Need In Your HR Network

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Fast Company published an article titled called “The 4 People You Need For An Awesome Network” and like most stuff they put out, it was great!  Here’s a taste:

“Start with the Socialite. “If you’re not actively filling the role of Happy Hour Coordinator Extraordinaire,” Augustine writes, “you should befriend whoever is–and quick.” This is the friendly neighborhood super-connector, the person who will intro you to all the people you need to know.

And within that crew, you’ll find an Older Sibling that’s yearning to be a mentor. She can help you find the supply closet, navigate office politics, and vouch for your side hustles.

Another expert you need is the IT Guru: You don’t want to be stuck hapless while waiting for the IT ticket to be resolved, Augustine observes, so you better have a tech-knowledgable colleague that you can lean on in times of buggy need.

But office friendships aren’t just take-take-take; that would be ungracious. Be on the lookout for the Helpless Newbie: If someone is more doe-eyed than you, they could probably use a kind word–which could launch a career.”

It’s a strong list and everyone should have these 4 types of folks in their ‘inner-circle’ for sure.  The article did make me think about who it is I have and would recommend to other HR pros to have in their network to make themselves a better HR Pro.  Here’s my list:

1. A Money Girl.  The one thing you’ll need to be effective in HR is a budget that allows you to do basic blocking and tackling of the job.  So often I see HR pros struggle because they can’t even fund the ‘basics’.  It’s usually because they’ve gone through years of budget reduction and throwing their department on the proverbial sword.  A great relationship with a peer in finance will help stop this trend and actually reverse it!

2. Nerd.  Like the Fast Company article – it’s really a non-negotiable in my network – I have to have a great IT Pro on my side.  Great HR takes Great IT solutions to be the most efficient and effective you can be.

3.  Used Car Salesman.  Most HR Pros don’t know how to make money.  You need someone in your network that will help you think like a business person. Someone who will show you how to communicate like a profit center, not a cost center.  It’s not that you have to actually make money, but you need to run your HR shop like you could if you had to.

4. Trusted Adviser.  My last network must have is a strong relationship with a senior level executive who is not in your functional area.  I love to have these people be from operations, but really any area will do.  Why not your own function?  You need to sometimes run ideas and things by someone at an executive who isn’t your boss – to get real feedback.  Set this relationship up as a mentor and tell them it’s for your development, have regular time set on their calendar and come prepared to seek out their advice.  You have no idea how this will help you down the road within your organization!

Who would you add to you must have network relationships?

 

 

Do You Offer Unique Employment Experiences?

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It is said that:

“Experiences are the new Luxury goods.”

Think about what people are paying for –

  • Navy Seal inspired Bootcamp
  • Tough Mudder
  • Marathons
  • Haunted House Vacations
  • Survival Vacations
  • The Death Race
  • To be challenged mentally and physically beyond anything they have ever experienced!

We are spending our free time and our hard earned money, not on relaxation, but on experiences that we will never have or find in our daily life.  Experiences that make us feel good about ourselves – doing things we thought we would never be able to do.

Why?

You could go out and buy yourself a new Rolex for $5,000 or you could backpack across the desert over two weeks in brutal conditions.  Which one would you remember most?  Which one would you talk about more? Which one would make you most proud of yourself?  Experiences are the new Luxury goods.

I’ve thought about this recently in terms to employee engagement and loyalty.   In my company we have had a Sales Retreat a number of times in our history.  We don’t have one each year, but we’ve had a number of them in our history.  It’s part education, part team building, part motivation, part party.  Everyone of them offers a great ’employment’ experience and they are talked about often, months and years later.  During these retreats – no sales happen, no recruiting happens, our normal daily work stops.  Yet, these are the experiences my team remembers most.  Same with the chili cook-offs, the football tailgates, the Friday after-work happy hours.  We laugh, we share, we learn more about each other than we knew before.

My recruiters also get to travel to client sites – some are close, within driving distance – some they have to fly to.  All of them love going to meet with clients at their locations, seeing their operations, meeting the people face-to-face.  Maybe not totally ‘unique’ – but different from their daily tasks for sure.  This doesn’t happen weekly, maybe not even monthly – but they all get to get out from time to time.

I’m wondering how often do you give your employees unique experiences?  It doesn’t have to trips or picnics.  It can be something that fits right into your daily operations and your employees development plans.  These experiences can all be tied right to the betterment of your business.  Think about that up and coming leader who just isn’t that well known.  How hard would it be to have that person co-present at your next department meeting or even at a board meeting!  While that might not ‘challenge’ you – it might challenge the heck out of them!  What about having your HR Director go on a sales call with your VP of Sales?  And not just sit there, but have one portion of the sales presentation they have to answer to!

Unique experiences challenge people.  They challenge people to sharpen their saw, to get out of their comfort zone and stay engaged with your business.  It’s something money or extra benefits can’t touch.  Unique experiences are priceless.  They don’t cost of anything, yet it’s one of the most valuable things we have to offer.  Great leaders and great HR Pros can make these experiences happen.  It doesn’t have to be a crazy position description or job design, it just has to be different from what the person normally does.  An average day for one of your operations leaders, could be a crazy day for one of your marketing associates, and vice verse.